Six Men of Evil

CHAPTER IX THE SHADOW FINDS

WITHIN his sanctum, The Shadow was at work. The girasol glimmered beneath the strange blue light. White hands were moving across the polished table.

Beneath the supple fingers were report sheets from The Shadow’s agents. Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke had reached their destinations. From Tilson and Barmouth, these two capable men had sent their findings.

The written reports were negative. They had served only to substantiate opinions that existed in the towns where Vincent and Burke had gone.

In Tilson, Illinois, no one held any doubt regarding the high reputation of Earl Northrup. The man had been vindicated by his alibi. Carl Walton was to be prosecuted for the murder of Mosier, the servant, and he was also charged with theft of bonds belonging to his employer, Anthony Hanscom.

The same situation existed in Barmouth, Maryland. There, the status of Harold Thurber, chairman of the Civic Relief Committee, was higher than ever. His friends had laughed at the ridiculous charge that he was responsible for the disappearance of the relief funds.

All were positive that Sherman Brooks was the real culprit. The cashier had been caught in flight. He had made a wild accusation that had only served to prove his guilt. His case was being scheduled for court, and there could be no doubt as to the outcome. Sherman Brooks was unanimously classed as guilty.

An identity between the reports of The Shadow’s agents was apparent. Since the Tilson and Barmouth crimes, both Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber had led serene, unruffled lives. They had gone about their usual affairs with no thought of the past. Neither one had moved from his own town. They were free from suspicion.

There was nothing to show that either Northrup or Thurber could have had contact with each other. In fact, all evidence pointed the other way. These men seemed content to remain within the sphere of their own localities.

One coincidence was manifest, however. Vincent’s report of Northrup, when compared with Burke’s account of Thurber, showed that each man had come to his respective town on approximately the same date, nearly one year ago.

IN preparing their reports, both Vincent and Burke had encountered a certain difficulty. When Vincent had sought for a photograph of Northrup, he had been unable to locate one. In the same way, Burke, looking for a picture of Thurber, had had no luck.

Both agents had persisted. Vincent had visited a local photographer, and had, through artifice, gained access to a batch of photographs taken in different parts of the town of Tilson. Among these was the picture of a group gathered in front of Anthony Hanscom’s home. One of the men in the group was Earl Northrup.

Burke, visiting the local newspaper in Barmouth, had presented himself as a New York newspaperman interested in the Civic Relief Committee and its work. The newspaper had no photograph of the committee; but they referred Burke to a printer who had prepared a pamphlet, outlining the purpose of the relief fund.

Obtaining a copy of the little pamphlet, Burke had discovered that it contained a picture of the Relief Committee in a group, with Harold Thurber as the central figure.

On The Shadow’s table rested the two pictures. Vincent had indicated Northrup; Burke had marked an arrow pointing to Thurber. A pair of tiny scissors gleamed as The Shadow cut out the separate photographs and placed the pictures of Northrup and Thurber side by side upon a sheet of white paper.

Now the hands of The Shadow held a magnifying glass. Beneath its powerful lens, the photographs were enlarged so that eyes from the dark could compare them. A short laugh came from the gloom beyond the blue light.

The features of Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber were identical! From flat nose to sloping chin, cheeks and forehead, each was a counterpart of the other! It was remarkable that two such men should look exactly alike; it was more remarkable that each should be a man who could boast a perfect alibi!

Here was an answer to crime. Was it possible that Earl Northrup and Harold Thurber had worked together, each one serving as an alibi-maker for the other?

A skilled sleuth, with this evidence before him, would have leaped easily to such a conclusion. Yet The Shadow paused.

His keen mind was considering the time element. Between the bond robbery and the bank theft, there had been sufficient time for two such men to have traveled from Illinois to Maryland. Yet there was a reason why such action could not have been taken.

That reason lay in the report from Harry Vincent. It stated clearly that Earl Northrup had made no move from Tilson since Hanscom’s bonds had been stolen and Mosier slain.

It was true that Vincent had not arrived in Tilson until after crime had struck in Barmouth; yet Vincent’s inquiry had been a careful one, and he would surely have learned if Northrup had taken a sudden trip immediately after the affair at Hanscom’s.

It was obvious that Northrup had stayed close to base — a sure protection for his alibi. So far as these two men were involved, the only point against them was their identity of appearance. That could not suffice as conclusive evidence of collusion between them.

The Shadow’s hands pushed the photographs aside. They remained motionless, as though the brain that controlled them was perplexed. Then the hands produced a large envelope, opened it, and dropped out a bundle of clippings. These were new items from Rutledge Mann.

With keen fingers, The Shadow went through the clippings. There was a certain conviction about The Shadow’s touch, as though he expected his probing fingers to find a slip that he required.

At last, the hands became motionless. A piece of newspaper dropped upon the table. The eyes of The Shadow were reading.

Crime had come to the peaceful town of Daltona, Georgia. There, the newspaper report stated, Perry Davenport, disinherited son of Cuthbert Davenport, had slain his father, his sister, and a servant. The surviving member of the Davenport family was Tom Rodan, son-in-law of Cuthbert Davenport.

News of the murders had been brought to Rodan at the home of Sheriff George Seaton. He had gone to the Davenport home, there to be falsely accused of crime by Perry Davenport.

The report added that Perry Davenport had been under the influence of liquor, and that his useless accusation had been immediately disproven by reliable witnesses who testified that Rodan had been in their company.

The laugh of The Shadow sounded low amid the gloom of the silent sanctum. In this single report, chosen with keen decision, The Shadow had found a clew that he desired. His hand was active now. It was inscribing names upon a sheet of paper. These names formed a column:

The hand of The Shadow paused. Beneath the list, it added an interrogation point. Its significance was plain. The symbol indicated that the trail did not end here; that others might well be involved in this strange course of repeated crime.

Now the hand was drawing lines, one from each name, and one from the interrogation point beneath the list. These lines converged to the right of the list. They formed a circle, and in the sphere The Shadow inscribed another interrogation mark.

WITH keen intuition, The Shadow had traced the probable procedure that had aided the operations of the men involved in crime. Earl Northrup, Harold Thurber, and Thomas Rodan were fixtures — each a man established in a small community. The question mark beneath their names indicated that there might be more than these three.

But with such men as fixtures, how could the crimes be staged? The question mark at the right was the answer. It indicated the possibility of another criminal — a wandering fiend engaged in a round robin of pillage and murder!

Northrup and Thurber looked alike. What of Rodan?

That was something to be learned. If The Shadow’s suspicions were correct, Thomas Rodan, of Daltona, Georgia, would be the third in a list of identical men!

The writing had disappeared from the sheet of paper. Only blankness challenged The Shadow now. Long silence followed while the hands were resting. Then came a laugh as the hands withdrew into darkness. Out clicked the light.

The solemn, echoing mirth of The Shadow swept through the sanctum, presaging his departure. The silence of empty blackness followed. The Shadow was gone.

Later that night, a monoplane took off from an airport in New Jersey. Thrumming its way southward, the huge, man-made bird swept swiftly across the moonlit countryside. Flying low, the plane’s wings cast a swiftly moving shadow on the ground beneath.

That shadow symbolized the identity of the man who piloted the ship. The Shadow was headed for Daltona!