Murder Trail

CHAPTER X WORD FROM ABROAD

A TALL man entered the lobby of the Dexter Hotel, carrying a suitcase. A bell boy relieved him of his burden, and the man approached the desk. He signed the name Henry Arnaud to the register.

While the clerk was reading the signature, this new guest spoke in a quiet, even voice:

“I would like a room on the eleventh floor; one that opens on the west side of the courtyard.”

The clerk looked up in surprise. This was an unusual request. He fancied that the guest had been here before, and had been satisfied with a room in that portion of the hotel.

“Very well, Mr. Arnaud,” he said. “I shall give you Room 1108.”

A man standing near the desk watched Henry Arnaud go to the elevator. This observer then strolled across the lobby and approached a man who was seated at a writing desk.

“Say, Jerry,” he said, “I just spotted a guy that we’d better watch.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“He picked a room on the eleventh floor. Inside room. Maybe he wants to keep an eye on Venturi.”

The other man nodded. The pair were gangsters, in the employ of Bumps Jaffrey. Their faces gave an inkling of the trade which they followed, but at the Dexter Hotel, which had reached a decadent stage, the management was not particular about the social characteristics of the guests.

A few minutes later, the two gangsters went up in the elevator. They found the location of Room 1108, and watched the door for a short while. When they went away, it was because they were convinced that Henry Arnaud had retired. From now on, the new guest would be under surveillance of Bumps Jaffrey’s men.

WITHIN his darkened room, Henry Arnaud was smoking a cigar beside the open window. He had closed the transom above the door, but had left a small crack open. This had deceived the gangsters. They had fancied that they could not be heard in the outside hall; but they were wrong. Arnaud’s keen ears had heard them arrive; Arnaud also heard the mobsmen leave.

The new guest laughed softly as he opened his suitcase, which lay upon the bed. In the darkened room, he began a transformation. Within a few minutes, the room seemed devoid of any person, yet a living presence still remained. Henry Arnaud had become The Shadow!

A figure slowly thrust itself through the open window. Head and shoulders; then body and legs; finally a black-cloaked shape was clinging to the sill.

A squidgy sound occurred as suction cups pressed against the brick wall of the deep courtyard. Hanging like a mammoth bat, The Shadow poised himself above the paving that shone white nearly a dozen stories below.

With regular motion, the strange figure moved along the wall until it reached a corner of the building. It turned, proceeded, and stopped close beside a window where light showed through a drawn shade. This window indicated the inner room of the suite occupied by Victor Venturi, who had registered as a resident of Naples, Italy.

A blackened hand appeared at the window. The sash moved softly upward. The hand dropped; the figure crouched and became invisible against the darkness of the wall. But through the tiny crevice at the bottom of the shade, two sparkling eyes peered into Venturi’s room.

Two men were in view. It was easy to tell which was Victor Venturi. A short man of light build, with hollow, sallow-skinned face, Venturi’s dress alone denoted him as a man of culture.

He was seated in a chair, nervously smoking a cigarette, and his quick, dark eyes were scanning his companion, another Italian of heavier build, but less intelligent physiognomy.

“Angelo,” declared Venturi, speaking in Italian, “I am nervous tonight.”

“You are always nervous, signor,” responded the other man, in a matter-of-fact tone.

Venturi laughed glumly.

“You are an excellent attendant, Angelo,” he remarked, “but at times you are too frank. However, you are correct. I am always nervous, and I shall be until these affairs are finished.”

All this conversation was in Italian. It was evidently understood by the figure listening outside the window. For The Shadow still clung, invisible, to the brick wall.

“Why should you be nervous, signor?” questioned Angelo, in a soothing tone. “To worry is to be foolish.”

“Right again, Angelo,” responded Venturi. “Yet I cannot help but worry. Angelo, I have trusted you. You know my purpose here in America. You know that we may encounter danger. You can understand the suspense that grips me.”

Angelo nodded.

“When I came here,” continued Venturi, “I expected to receive orders that would enable me to visit certain persons on special business. Since my arrival, I have received new word from Monsieur Ponjeau. He has appointed an unknown agent in my place.

“Only one man, Angelo, should have the list of persons who must be visited. Those persons do not know each other. The one man has been appointed. He is visiting the persons now. I am the second fiddle.”

“You have a duty, signor.”

“Yes. I am to be given the names of those persons, one by one — after the time scheduled for the particular visit. One man has been seen. The work is accomplished. I await word that will tell me who he is. Then I shall visit him to make sure that all went well. Paugh, Angelo! That is no great duty!

“And while I wait, I must show caution. If there is danger, people will be watching me. Again, I am playing the second fiddle. Suppose there are enemies at work. What do they do? They watch Victor Venturi. They find out nothing. Even if they capture me, it means nothing. I am visiting stables from which the horses have been taken.”

“You have visited none as yet, signor.”

Venturi thumped his hand upon a huge stack of newspapers that lay on a table. His dark eyes flashed angrily.

“That is true, Angelo,” he declared. “That is very true. It is why I worry. I await news from abroad. While I wait, I sit here and read newspapers that are printed in English. Paugh! But it is for a good cause, Angelo.”

THERE was a knocking at the outside door. Venturi looked nervously at his servant; then made a gesture with his hand. Angelo left the room; then returned, carrying an envelope.

“A cablegram, signor,” said the servant.

Victor Venturi seized the envelope and opened it. A coded cablegram came into his hands. He read the words eagerly.

“Here it is, Angelo!” he exclaimed. “The first man whom I am to see — to make sure that all was well when the secret envoy called. He does not live in New York, this man. He lives in the city of Hartford, Angelo — yes, he lives in Hartford. His name is Winston Collister — Winston Collister.”

The cablegram fluttered from Venturi’s hands. With a wild cry of alarm, the Italian seized the stack of newspapers upon the table, and began to run through them while Angelo looked on in astonishment. A minute later, Venturi was waving a journal before the eyes of his servant.

“Look, Angelo! Look! There is his picture — this man Winston Collister. A man who had millions of dollars. Slain in his home, only two nights ago!”

Throwing the paper aside, Victor Venturi paced up and down the room, sweeping his hands and tugging at his long hair with savage gesticulations. Angelo watched him with a perturbed expression and listened to his master’s mutterings.

“Terrible! Terrible!” were Venturi’s words. “This man is dead! The secret agent has failed, Angelo! Some rogue has gained what belonged to Monsieur Ponjeau! Terrible! I cannot go to Hartford now!”

Swinging, Venturi became suddenly stern. His troubled look turned to one of grim determination.

“That one is lost,” he said solemnly. “Some terrible error has been made. But there are others besides that one. My duty now is to save our cause. Some evil man is at work. He will call upon the second of our friends as he called upon the first.”

Venturi counted the fingers on his left hand and nodded thoughtfully.

“It may be to-morrow night,” he asserted. “The evil man will be there. He will try to steal again — perhaps to kill. Monsieur Ponjeau must know. I must inform him. Let us hope that he can send me word in time, so that I may find the next man on the list before it is too late!”

Seizing a sheet of paper, Victor Venturi wrote a coded cablegram. He folded the paper and gave it to Angelo.

“Send it right away,” he ordered. “Be prompt, Angelo. To Monsieur Ponjeau — Aristide Ponjeau — Lausanne. It may enable him to inform me in time.”

Victor Venturi continued to pace after Angelo had gone. The Italian emissary did not sense for an instant that eyes were watching him from the window. He was still walking back and forth when the servant returned.

“The cablegram is sent, signor,” informed Angelo.

Venturi nodded. He slumped into a chair; and sat staring helplessly at the wall. Angelo, taciturn and motionless, stood at the side of the room.

THERE was a motion outside the window. The figure of The Shadow thrust a hand upward, and softly lowered the sash. The black shape moved back along the wall and stopped outside the window of Room 1108. After a brief interval of waiting, a hand came over the sill, and a figure slipped within the room.

A few minutes later, the cloak and other articles were back in the suitcase. A light glimmered by the writing desk. Henry Arnaud sat there, calm and unperturbed. Outside the room were whisperings in the hall. Henry Arnaud smiled.

As Henry Arnaud, he had come to the Dexter Hotel. He had deliberately incurred the suspicion of Bumps Jaffrey’s men, so that he could have them under surveillance when he required. They would think of him as Henry Arnaud.

But, as The Shadow, he had done other work. He had visited Victor Venturi’s room. He had learned the Italian’s secret. He had connected Venturi with the murder at Hartford. He had linked the name of Crix, the supercrook, with the killing of Winston Collister.

Venturi now knew that crime was under way. The Italian would try to thwart the scheme of the man called Crix. To-morrow night, perhaps. All depended upon the arrival of a reply to Venturi’s cablegram; and the Italian expected it surely.

The Shadow was ready to play a waiting game. As Henry Arnaud, guest of the Dexter Hotel, he could watch Venturi’s room; and as The Shadow, he could visit that place when the time came. The conflict with Crix was now impending. Venturi would be the lead to the desired struggle.

Henry Arnaud went softly to the door of his room and silently closed the transom. Back to the desk, Arnaud lifted the receiver of the telephone and quietly called a number. A voice responded:

“Burbank speaking.”

A whispered voice came from Henry Arnaud’s lips. The Shadow was issuing instructions for the campaign that was due to come — a campaign which would have its inception in gangland’s underworld.