Shadow 001 - The Living Shadow

CHAPTER XVII BINGHAM SEES A SHADOW

EZEKIEL BINGHAM sat in his upstairs study. The room was on the second floor of the lawyer’s compact home at Holmwood, Long Island. It was after midnight, but the old man did not seem weary.

In fact, Ezekiel Bingham slept very little. He was one of those unusual persons who required very little rest. He had trained himself from youth to be content with four or five hours of repose.

He never went to bed until dawn. He slept during the morning, arising before noon, and only visited his office in New York after mid-day. This was his constant procedure except when he was to appear in court; then he altered his routine in order to meet the occasion.

Hence Ezekiel Bingham worked while others slept. He secretly attributed much of his capability to that fact. The hours of the night were silent ones. They were hours for concentrated action.

Bingham was a widower - his wife had died many years before. His companion in the house was a male attendant named Jenks, who had been with him for years.

Jenks slept on the same floor as did Bingham. He was a powerful fellow, faithful, reliable, and of reasonably good intelligence. A native intelligence, for Jenks’s education had been neglected; he could scarcely read or write.

Jenks was always up before Ezekiel Bingham retired. He was on duty all day and in the early evening. He went to bed when the lawyer came in for the night. Hence some one was always awake and about in the Bingham house.

The night after his secret meeting with the man who called himself Elbert Joyce, the old lawyer had taken his usual evening ride down to Holmwood, leaving the faithful Jenks in the house. Upon his return at half past ten, Bingham had dismissed Jenks. The man was now sound asleep in another room.

But the mere pressure of a button upon the lawyer’s desk would summon the attendant instantly. The buzzer was beside the sleeper’s bed.

The doors and windows were locked downstairs. Moreover, they were arranged with a burglar alarm that would arouse Jenks the moment that any one attempted to enter the house. The alarm system had not been installed in the three rooms on the second floor, but there the windows were barred. The upper part of Ezekiel Bingham’s home looked like a prison; it had had this appearance for so many years that it no longer caused comment among the citizens of Holmwood.

There was a door in the corner of the lawyer’s study. It was sheeted with metal and had a lock of peculiar construction. Behind it was Ezekiel Bingham’s safe - concealed from view at that moment, since the door was closed.

The old lawyer prided himself on a safe of the latest pattern, and well he might, for many of the papers he possessed were of high importance. But it was also a known fact that most of the data that pertained to his legal cases was kept at his office in New York.

It was strange, in a way, that the old lawyer should maintain such a stronghold for he was not known to be a man who had enemies. On the contrary, he was highly esteemed by the criminal world, for he had successfully defended many crooks. The barriers that protected his house were more of a precaution than anything else; for they meant that the lawyer was prepared to resist any attempt at forcible entry, and hence granted his home a definite immunity.

That night old Bingham was going over a pile of papers that he had taken from his safe. He sat half-facing the window, which was slightly open from the top. He was wearing his reading glasses, deeply occupied in his work. Yet, no matter how attentive the elderly man might be, he was susceptible to the slightest noise. That was why he chose to work at night, in the silence of suburban Long Island.

The minutes ticked by and the elderly man went on with his work without disturbance. It was after one o’clock when he had reached the bottom of the pile. Then he lifted a long envelope, cut it open with a paper-knife, and drew out a flat sheet of paper.

His perusal of this paper had become a nightly ritual. It was always to be found at the bottom of the pile. Yet, keen though his brain might be, the paper might as well have been blank for all it told him. It was the code message, a copy of which he had given to Elbert Joyce.

That particular night, Bingham studied the paper intently. He had tried to decipher it several times before. He had finally called upon the services of Joyce in desperation. For some reason, known only to himself, the lawyer had been reluctant to let an outsider see the mysterious message.

Now that the expert was at work, the lawyer had definitely admitted his own inability to decipher the legend on the paper. Yet he was curious, impatiently so.

Ezekiel Bingham found the paper fascinating. His forehead wrinkled as he went over the mystic numbers that appeared on the sheet before him.

There was a light rustle at the window. Bingham looked up quickly. Just a breath of wind - that was all. His eyes went back to the sheet of paper. As soon as the lawyer’s gaze was fixed, the lower sash of the window slid upward, less than an inch.

The movement was noiseless. Bingham continued to stare at the paper before him. The window moved upward a trifle farther until it was open a full two inches.

The elderly lawyer was drumming upon the desk with the fingers of his right hand, while his left held the paper. The sash moved more perceptibly now; it came upward until there was a considerable opening at the bottom.

Bingham’s right hand stopped drumming. It pulled open the desk drawer and brought out a long, thick envelope. The paper went into the envelope, and the lawyer sealed the message therein.

That was not all. He produced a piece of sealing wax and lighted it, letting burning drops fall upon the back of the envelope. He clenched his left fist and pressed the hot wax with a signet ring that he wore on his third finger. He studied the seal that he had made, and a satisfied smile appeared upon his face.

A shadow fell on the floor beside his desk. It was a peculiar shadow, long and narrow. It was almost like the shadow of a human being. Had there been a sound, Bingham’s eyes might have wandered to the floor. But shadows are noiseless. The old man’s ears heard nothing.

The shadow was noiseless on the floor, and Bingham did not observe it when he turned his chair and swung away from the desk, still clutching the sealed envelope.

He did not glance toward the window as he walked by, so he did not see that the lower sash was raised. He went to the wall where the steel door stood and, drawing a key from his pocket, unlocked the barrier.

The door swung open toward the window, going back against a blank stretch of wall. The front of the safe was visible, and the old lawyer crouched before it as he worked the dial.

Although his body partly obscured the front of the safe, there were slight clicks that might have been heard. For the old man was deliberate in his movements.

As the door of the safe opened - in the opposite direction from the steel door - something happened behind Ezekiel Bingham - something which he did not see, and which even his keen ears did not hear.

An arm appeared through the window. It was a long arm, and it reached out toward the edge of the steel door. Long, supple fingers touched the key that was still in the lock, and drew it free. The arm disappeared through the wide bars of the window.

The lawyer was placing the sealed envelope in a compartment of the safe.

The arm appeared again. The hand held the key, and it again sought the steel door. The fingers sought to slip the key back in its place; they did not succeed at first, for the task was difficult. Finally, they made a delicate motion, and the peculiar piece of metal found its proper resting place. The steel door moved slightly inward as the key entered the lock.

The slight sound it made was lost as the lawyer closed the door of the safe and spun the dial.

The hand began to draw away, empty. It moved quite slowly. Then it stopped.

Ezekiel Bingham had turned, and was staring at a spot on the floor. A shadowy blotch appeared there. The lawyer was studying it. He rose, and his own shadow moved, the blot on the floor appeared to fade. The hand was gone, and Bingham had not seen it in the flesh.

The old lawyer gazed suddenly at the window. It was now closed at the bottom; he did not know that it had been opened.

Yet he seemed perplexed. He turned and crouched before the safe; then arose and watched his shadow. No, it was not the same. He repeated the experiment. Still he was not satisfied. He went quickly to the window and opened the lower sash. He peered through the bars toward the lawn.

There were shadows there; shadows that seemed to move as the night breeze rustled the trees and bushes. A long shadow flitted over the lawn and vanished. But the keen, piercing eyes of the lawyer could detect nothing else. He had removed his reading glasses and was staring with his far-sighted eyes.

He closed the window and laughed. He turned back and shut the steel door with a clang. He removed the key and placed it in his pocket.

“Shadows,” he murmured. “When people worry about shadows, their minds begin to wander. Croaker talked of shadows. What was it he screamed the night he died? ‘The Shadow!’ That was it! Perhaps The Shadow is a living being. But if he is - what of it?”

The old man laughed again.

He went back to his desk and began to write.

But now his mind was alert as his ears had always been. At moments he gazed quickly toward the window, which he had closed and locked.

The hours went by and the first streaks of dawn appeared. Ezekiel Bingham finished his writing, laid the papers in the desk drawer, and yawned.

There was a knock at his door.

“Come in.”

Jenks entered. The man was dressed in working clothes, and stood there, his stolid face impassive.

“I am on duty, sir.”

“All right, Jenks.”

The old lawyer went into the front room and made ready for bed. As he pulled down the shades to obscure the increasing rays of daylight, he smiled and spoke aloud.

“The Shadow!” were his words. “Some people have wild imaginations!”

A faint laugh seemed to mock the lawyer’s words - a laugh that issued feebly from the walls of his room.

It was a chill of mirth that might have crept in from outer spaces, where crimson tints had flushed the new day’s sky. A laugh that was a left-over from darkness, bespeaking the departure of some creature that dwelt in night.

Old Bingham chewed his lips; then smiled sourly. The touch of day against the window shade quelled his momentary alarm. Darkness had passed; there was no need to fear the presence of an imaginary being called The Shadow.

“Bah!” snorted Bingham. “Just the scurrying feet of rats.”

Satisfied that his plans were secrets known only to himself, Ezekiel Bingham fell asleep untroubled. Not for one moment did he suspect that the night just past had brought him an unseen visitor.

Only The Shadow knew that fact. Silently The Shadow had arrived; his mission accomplished, the weird intruder had faded with the end of night.