The Black Hush

CHAPTER VI. IN GOLDY’S APARTMENT

HARDLY had Clyde Burke left Goldy Tancred’s apartment before Curry entered to speak to his master.

The servant’s expression was quiet. His tone was confidential. He was announcing another visitor.

“Ping Slatterly,” he informed.

“Bring him in,” ordered Goldy.

A short, squat, hard-faced man was ushered into the room. With the frame of an orangutan, a visage like a chunk of hewn rock, and hands that looked like mallets, Ping Slatterly looked like what he was — the toughest gang leader in the underworld.

“Hello, Ping,” greeted Goldy.

“How’re ya?” returned the gang leader. “Say — I’ve been stickin’ around on the floor below, waitin’ to hear from you. Well — what’s the news?”

“All set.”

“Yeah? Well, leave the rest to me. I’ll pull this one like I did that job at the Olympia.”

“You’re laying low?”

“Say — I’m like a dead log, Goldy. There ain’t nothin’ creepin’ out, neither. There ain’t nobody knows what’s comin’ — even the mob I’ve got. They’re waitin’ for the word; an’ they’re keepin’ mum while they wait.

“I’m just nobody — see? They think I’m through — all tough looks an’ no punch. That’s the way they’re goin’ to stay. I mean the guys that ain’t in the know. I’ve got my mob trained all right.”

“Stay away from here,” warned Goldy, “until I send for you. That won’t be until after we pull the job. You’re sure that it’s all set?”

“Just the way we want it, Goldy. Douse the glims, an’ I don’t care if there’s a hundred bulls in the place. How about the bump-off at the Olympia? Good, eh?”

“Perfect,” admitted Goldy.

Ping Slatterly’s huge chest swelled. The evil-faced gang leader leered. He sauntered toward the door, with Goldy Tancred following, and turned to deliver his parting expression of assurance.

“They’ll all be close to me, see?” he concluded. “When I shoot on the bull’s-eye, the rest is easy. Each guy has his place. Teamwork. Fast pick-up and a quick getaway. You’ve got it set for fifteen minutes, huh?”

“That’s the time”

“Soft. Nothin’ to it. Wait and see.”

Curry appeared at Goldy Tancred’s call. The servant went with Ping Slatterly down a flight of stairs. He was taking the gang leader to a service elevator on a lower floor. A dumb operator, an exit at the rear of the hotel — that was the course which Ping Slatterly took when he visited the big shot.

BACK in his living room, Goldy Tancred strolled about, smoking a cigarette. His teeth gleamed in occasional smiles. At last, with a bored expression, the big shot sauntered from the room.

Minutes drifted by. Not a sound came to this apartment high above the street. Then, so slowly that its motion was almost unnoticeable, a window sash began to rise. Through the opening came a long, black silhouette that projected itself across the floor.

Something blotted out the reflecting surface of the raised window pane. The sash moved downward. The silhouette advanced across the floor. Seemingly from outer darkness, a tall figure materialized. It developed into the shape of a being clad entirely in black.

With cape reaching from his shoulders, with hands encased in thin black gloves, his features obscured by the turned-down brim of a slouch hat, The Shadow stood within the confines of Goldy Tancred’s living room!

A soft, whispered laugh came from invisible lips. The black-hatted head tilted upward. A pair of burning eyes studied the scene. Those glowing optics turned in the direction of the bookcase, close beside the window.

The position of the heavy articles of furniture answered Clyde Burke’s description to Burbank. The Shadow stooped, a small object showed in his hands.

With calm precision, the strange visitant moved the bookcase slightly away from the wall and attached a small instrument. The bookcase moved back. The Shadow’s hands urged a thin wire behind the curtain.

Then continued to draw the connection toward the window.

Suddenly, the worker stopped. Stepping half behind the curtain, he became entirely motionless. Not even the slightest rustling of the hanging betrayed his presence. The long silhouette still stretched its black shape across the floor, but it did not waver.

Curry had entered the room. The servant was closing the place for the night. He walked directly to the window, passed within inches of The Shadow’s hidden form, and tried the sash to find it locked.

Wheeling, Curry went back toward the outer door and extinguished the light.

Departing footsteps faded through the hallway beyond the room. The Shadow’s laugh came in a sinister whisper. By absolute stillness, this weird investigator had completely avoided discovery. That was The Shadow’s purpose on this night.

The window sash moved upward. The Shadow reached the balcony. Invisible, he lowered the sash so subtly that it seemed to creep downward of its own accord, inch by inch. A steel instrument entered between the sections of the sash. An unseen hand relocked the window from the outside, so perfectly that no trace of the deed remained.

The free end of the wire dropped from the balcony and hung down the darkened wall of the hotel. The Shadow’s phantom figure moved to the end rail, then stretched itself upward and outward. Long, strong fingers caught the projecting cornice of a window above. Climbing like a human fly, The Shadow reached his goal and entered an apartment.

This place was occupied, but no one was awake. The Shadow’s cloak swished slightly as its wearer made his way to an outer door. Silence lingered after The Shadow had departed.

TEN minutes afterward, a window opened in an apartment a few floors below Goldy Tancred’s domicile.

An invisible hand stretched out into the night, and caught the end of the slender, hanging wire. A tiny flashlight threw a dollar-size disk of light upon the wall of the apartment where The Shadow now was. A gloved hand drew the end of the wire to the bell box of a telephone that was set against the wall.

There, The Shadow attached another mechanism. The operation here required a multitude of details.

When it was completed, The Shadow stepped back and viewed the completed job with the light of his tiny torch.

This was a private telephone, and the owner of the apartment was away. Upstairs, in Goldy Tancred’s living room, The Shadow had attached one end of a dictograph connection. Here, he had hooked the line with the telephone.

Through a perfected mechanism of his own invention, The Shadow now had the communication that he desired. It merely remained for Burbank to call up this apartment. The ringing of the bell would do the rest. The call would apparently be completed; actually, a connection would be formed with the dictograph line. This meant that Burbank could listen in at will to whatever was said in Goldy Tancred’s place.

By hanging up his own receiver, Burbank would complete the supposed call. Thus The Shadow’s hidden agent could follow everything at a distance, whenever the occasion might require. There would be some long calls over this wire during the next few days!

The flashlight went out. The Shadow swished through darkness. The closed apartment was once more empty. The Shadow’s work was done.

Impending crime! Could The Shadow learn its secret? Would his efforts frustrate the schemes of evildoers?

Tonight, Clyde Burke had gained an inkling. The Shadow, although too late to witness Ping Slatterly’s visit, had accomplished something that would reveal to him all telephone calls and conversations in which Goldy Tancred might be concerned.

Well had The Shadow planned! His eyes had seen; now his ears would hear. Important contact formed.

The Shadow held a great advantage.

Only one factor served to spoil The Shadow’s measures. Tonight, Goldy Tancred had completed plans so effectively that the big shot had decided to abandon all communications for the present.

Unwittingly, Goldy had acted with great wisdom. The black hush was due to fall again — in a place other than the Olympia Hotel. Where it came, crime would follow. Until then, Goldy was preserving silence.

The ingenuity of The Shadow had already been counteracted by the man who did not even suspect its presence.