Murder Every Hour

CHAPTER VII THE EVIDENCE LINKS

“THERE’S Markham. Slow up.”

Cardona passed this word to Barth’s chauffeur. The driver of the commissioner’s car swung to the right curb of Eighty-eighth Street. Cardona alighted from the front seat; Barth and The Shadow stepped from the rear.

Markham moved out from the doorway of a house. He pointed cater-cornered across the street, indicating a dilapidated building with a crumbling brownstone front.

“That’s the house,” declared the detective sergeant. “Powlden’s in there, commissioner. I’ve got Logan out on the back street to see that he don’t do a sneak.”

“Come,” decided Barth. “We shall knock for admittance. You remain outside, Markham. Ready at our call.”

The commissioner led the way to Powlden’s house. Ascending the brownstone steps, he rang the bell. Cardona quickly clutched the commissioner’s arm and pointed to the doorsill.

“Look!” whispered the ace detective. “A cheroot! Powlden must have dropped it here, while he was unlocking the door.”

“An excellent beginning, Cardona,” decided Barth. “This cheroot resembles the others closely—”

“Except for the ashes,” remarked The Shadow, quietly. “Notice them, commissioner. They sprinkled about when the cheroot struck the stone.”

“Ashes again!” snorted Barth. “What have ashes to do with it, Cranston?”

Before The Shadow could reply, Cardona whispered for silence. Someone was unbolting the heavy door from inside. The barrier opened. A long face appeared; suspicious eyes viewed the visitors.

Cardona hit the door with his shoulder, sending the man backward. With his companions following, the detective entered a hallway, growling in response to the protests of the house-owner.

“Your name Donald Powlden?” demanded Cardona.

“Yes,” replied the long-faced man. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

Cardona eyed the inventor. Powlden was tall and stoop-shouldered. He was wearing old clothes: slippers, baggy trousers and frayed smoking jacket.

“I’m Detective Cardona, from headquarters,” announced Joe, stolidly. “This is Commissioner Barth, and his friend, Mr. Cranston. We want to have a chat with you, Powlden.”

The inventor blinked. His face looked pale in the daylight from a hall window. His lips, like his features, were pallid. But the man showed inquisitiveness more than fear. The grayish color of his face might well have been his natural complexion.

Turning about, Powlden led the way to a living room that seemed quite spacious for a house of narrow dimensions. He waved his visitors to chairs; then fumbled in his pocket and brought out a white cardboard box and a cigar lighter.

“THIS visit rather startles me,” explained the inventor, his tone carrying what seemed to be a natural quaver. “I have just returned home from my cabin in New Jersey. An isolated shack where I stay for continued periods when I am conducting chemical experiments.”

“You were alone out there?” inquired Cardona.

“Yes,” nodded Powlden. “I prefer seclusion, and some of my experiments are dangerous. So I become a hermit every now and then.”

The inventor was opening the box while he spoke. From it he extracted a black cheroot and placed the rough-surfaced roll between his lips. Cardona watched him light it with the cigar lighter; then the detective looked about the room.

“You didn’t clean up before you went away,” remarked Cardona. “That your usual system, Mr. Powlden?” The inventor laughed slightly. He saw Cardona looking at ash trays — three of them — that contained the stumps of smoked cheroots.

“I’m very untidy,” admitted Powlden. “I let the place get worse and worse, maybe for a month or more. Then I call in help and have it thoroughly cleaned. After that, I begin again. But tell me, gentlemen” — Powlden looked about — “just what is the purpose of this visit? Why should the law be interested in my affairs?”

“I’ll tell you why,” returned Cardona, bluntly. Barth was leaving the quiz to the acting inspector. “We’re here on account of Jeremy Lentz.”

“Indeed!” Powlden’s lips formed a scornful sneer. “Well, I should have suspected it. Jeremy Lentz was due to get into trouble, with all his shady tactics. What charge is there against him?”

“None against Lentz,” retorted Cardona. “All we’re doing is looking for the man who murdered him.”

“What! Lentz has been murdered?”

“Don’t you read the newspapers?”

“Seldom. When did the crime occur?”

“Yesterday afternoon at five o’clock.” Cardona spoke slowly as he watched Powlden’s expression. “Lentz died at five o’clock. Morath was slain at six; Frieth at seven—”

“What! Howard Morath? Newell Frieth?”

“Yeah. Don’t you read the morning newspapers, Mr. Powlden?”

“Seldom,” replied the inventor, in a rather dazed tone. “I did not read them this morning. You see, I was late arriving in town; and besides, I had forgotten my reading glasses. I had another pair here, of course, so when I reached the house—”

“Just a moment,” interposed Cardona. “When did you send this letter to Lentz?”

POWLDEN stared at the letter which Cardona suddenly produced. Reaching into a pocket, the inventor brought out a pair of tortoise-shell glasses and donned them. He removed his cheroot from between his lips and used his right hand to set it carefully on an ash tray. Then he reached for the letter. Cardona gave it to him.

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed Powlden, when he had finished reading the letter. “I never sent this message to Lentz. It does not bear my signature.”

“No,” admitted Cardona, “but it was tapped off on a mighty bum typewriter. One with the letter ‘H’ hitting below the line. Here, give me the letter. I want to try something.”

Cardona had spotted an old typewriter in the corner. A stack of white paper lay beside the machine. Taking the letter, Cardona went to the typewriter, inserted a blank sheet and hit off a few lines.

“Take a look, commissioner,” suggested the ace detective, returning. “Matches up, doesn’t it?”

Barth’s eyes gleamed. His head nodded in approval. A hunted expression showed in Powlden’s eyes. The Shadow watched the inventor closely. He saw Powlden pick up his cheroot and begin a nervous puffing. Cardona came over.

“Powlden,” declared the detective, coldly, “I’m going to arrest you for the murder of Jeremy Lentz.”

Powlden’s lips twitched. The inventor shifted toward the door. Cardona brought out a pair of handcuffs. The glitter of the bracelets brought a wild scream from Powlden.

“No, no! You can’t arrest me!” Powlden struggled away from Cardona’s grasp. His cheroot hit the carpet and sprayed ashes from its tip. “I’ve done nothing! I’m innocent!”

Barth intervened as Cardona lost his grip. For reward, the commissioner received a swift punch from Powlden’s left fist; one that sent Barth backward to the floor. The commissioner’s pince-nez spectacles broke as they clicked against a chair.

Cardona leaped upon Powlden. The Shadow stood by, watching, as detective and inventor staggered about the room.

“Do something, Cranston!” blurted Barth. “Aid Cardona! At once! I order you to do so!”

The commissioner was pawing about for his pince-nez. Finding the glasses broken, he sat helpless, blinking as he watched the fray, indignant because of The Shadow’s indifference.

The Shadow was watching Powlden’s left hand, the one that had delivered the chance punch to fell the commissioner. With steady gaze, he was waiting to see what kind of a move the inventor would make should he wrest himself fully free.

The moment arrived. With a twist, Powlden hurled Cardona away. The inventor swung about to a table where a small but bulky clock was standing. He had plenty of opportunity to seize the object! The Shadow watched him grip it with his right hand.

Cardona was up on his feet. Powlden wheeled; with all the force of his right arm, he started to drive the clock for the detective’s skull.

As Barth cried alarm, The Shadow acted. Springing toward Powlden, The Shadow shot his own right with the precision of a trip hammer.

His fist caught the inventor’s upraised wrist and stopped its downward swing. The clock catapulted from Powlden’s grasp, skimmed above Cardona’s head and crashed against the wall beyond.

Powlden turned to fight his new antagonist. The Shadow’s forearm twisted with a prompt jujutsu motion. Powlden sprawled flat on the floor.

Cardona, charging in like a bull, landed on the inventor and handcuffed him. Hoisting the panting man upward, he thrust him in a chair. There, Powlden subsided. His fury gone, his gaze was pitiful.

“RESISTING arrest, eh?” quizzed Cardona. “Well, that settles this business. How about it, commissioner? All right for me to look around?”

“Proceed,” ordered Barth.

Cardona went to the door of a closet and yanked it open. It was a lucky guess for a start. Noticing some boxes piled on a shelf, the detective pushed them aside and spied the tips of a pair of shoes. He brought the objects down; then chuckled.

“Look at these heels, commissioner,” said Joe. “Rubber ones. Apex brand. Look like the right size, too. I’ll bet they’ll fit when we compare them with the marks we’ve got.”

“Those are old shoes that I meant to give away,” blurted Powlden from his chair. “What have they to do with this matter?”

“Plenty,” vouchsafed Cardona. He returned to the closet and rummaged about on the shelf. “Well, there’s nothing else here. Let’s look some other place.”

Cardona turned to an old-fashioned secretary desk. It was closed; a single drawer showed beneath it. Cardona tried the drawer and found it locked.

“Where’s the key?” barked the detective.

“In the desk,” replied Powlden, sullenly. “On a key ring, with my duplicate house key.”

Cardona opened the secretary but found no key ring. He looked sharply at Powlden; then fished about in little pigeon holes. Joe glanced at a paper that he discovered. He passed it to Barth.

“Bill from those optometrists,” announced Joe, laconically. “Dunbar and Dobbs. Their names were on the case that Al Sycher found in the elevator at the Belgaria.”

While Barth was examining the bill, Cardona made another discovery. He brought out a set of picks from the back of a pigeon hole and passed this new evidence to the commissioner.

“Are these yours?” quizzed Barth, glaring at Powlden.

“The bill was sent to me,” admitted the inventor. “But I never saw those instruments before.”

“No keys here,” asserted Cardona. “Bluffing us, are you, Powlden? Don’t want us to open this drawer? Well, here it goes.”

With a yank, the detective ripped the drawer open.

An instant later, Cardona delivered a triumphant exclamation. He pointed; Barth and The Shadow stepped forward. In the drawer they saw an antiquated, large-barreled pistol.

The weapon was of the muzzle-loading type. With it lay a blackened ramrod, a box of small percussion caps, five leaden bullets and scraps of tissue paper that could have served as wadding.

“How about this gun?” demanded Cardona. “I suppose you never saw it either, Powlden?”

“The old pistol is mine,” replied the inventor. “It is an antique that I have had for years.”

“A permit for it — do you have one?”

“No. I owned that gun long before permits were necessary. I regarded it as a curio; not as a weapon.”

“So you kept caps, powder, bullets — everything needed to use it.”

“Only the gun and the ramrod. No bullets—”

“They’re here, though.”

Powlden made no comment. He looked a trifle bewildered. Cardona began to list the evidence. That task completed, he turned to Barth.

“We can quiz Powlden further at headquarters, commissioner,” declared Cardona. “We’ve got the goods on him. Cheroots, heels, spectacle case, gun, slugs—”

“The fingerprints?” inquired Barth.

“We’ll check them at headquarters,” returned Joe. “They’ll match up, just like that typewriting did. How about the news hounds. Can I give them the story now? They’ll be around.”

“That will be all right,” agreed Barth. “After you have checked on the fingerprints. Cardona, you have my congratulations on your efficient work. Just one other detail; there in the closet.”

“What’s that, commissioner?”

“The gray overcoat.”

“That’s right!” Cardona produced a dark gray overcoat from the closet. He laid it on a chair beside the secretary. Barth turned and nodded to The Shadow.

“Let us return to the club, Cranston,” suggested the commissioner. “We can send Detective Markham in when we go out. The case is in your hands, Cardona.”

FIFTEEN minutes later, the commissioner’s car stopped in front of the Cobalt Club. The Shadow had remembered an appointment. As he stepped to the curb, he spoke to the doorman, who beckoned to a waiting limousine — Lamont Cranston’s car. The limousine pulled up.

“Well, Cranston,” stated Barth, in parting, “those black ashes did not mean so much, after all. Perhaps you have some new item that you deem worthy of our consideration.”

“The gray overcoat might be one,” remarked The Shadow. “It was rather dark, commissioner.”

Barth stroked his chin. He recalled that Shaw, the Gilderoy clerk, had described the overcoat as light. Then the commissioner shook his head.

“I must admit that you have scored a point,” declared Barth, imperiously. “But it is a minor detail, Cranston. After all, shades are not distinguishable in varied lights.

“Lentz’s stenographer might not have noticed a dark gray in the gloom outside his office.”

“Perhaps not. Yet she saw the man open Lentz’s door. The light from the anteroom would have answered.”

“There you go again, Cranston. In the face of real evidence, you chatter about something trivial.

“Incidentally, why did you not spring to Cardona’s aid while he struggled with Powlden? You stood there like a buffoon and did not intervene until the last possible moment. That was bad business, Cranston.”

“Just a slight whim, commissioner. I wanted to see Powlden pick up the clock.”

“So he could have an opportunity to strike Cardona with it? Preposterous, Cranston!”

“Powlden failed when he swung the clock,” reminded The Shadow, in a calm tone. “It happened, however, that it gave him his first real opportunity to prepare for a deliberate stroke. That was what I wanted to see; the manner in which he acted.”

“What do you mean by the manner?”

“Whether he chose to use his right hand or his left. He chose his right, commissioner.”

Barth rubbed the bridge of his nose, fidgeting for his pince-nez. Realizing again that his spectacles had been broken, he blinked his eyes and spoke in an irritable tone.

“We have the man we sought,” affirmed Barth. “The man who was at Lentz’s office; at Morath’s apartment; in Frieth’s suite. That much is settled, Cranston.”

“And yet” — The Shadow’s calm tone was dry — “Powlden raised the clock with his right hand. Too bad, commissioner, that he did not use his left. If he had, I might be inclined to share your opinions.”

With that, The Shadow turned and stepped into the limousine, leaving Barth blinking on the curb. Cranston’s chiseled countenance was hazy to the commissioner, who was staring without his glasses. But Barth saw the door close and watched the limousine drive away.

Then, to the commissioner’s ears came the faint ripple of a whispered mirth. It was curious, that quickly fading tone of mockery. Barth shrugged his shoulders and attributed the sound to his imagination.

“Bah!” commented the commissioner, speaking aloud as he turned to enter the Cobalt Club. “Cranston seeks to spoof me with his folderol. What does it matter whether Powlden is right handed or left handed? Balderdash!”