The Black Master

CHAPTER X. KILLER BRYAN SPEAKS

Henry Arnaud had escaped! But he had been recognized, and his identity admitted. The morning following the affair at the Goliath Hotel, his picture had been published in the newspapers.

Then came the bombshell. A statement from Toronto declared the real Henry Arnaud was in that city. A man well known in the Middle West, and a frequent visitor in New York, he denied any connection with the case, and his ironclad alibi was a sensation.

In the apartment of the German criminologist, Doctor Heinrich Zerndorff, Inspector Burke and Joe Cardona were discussing the murders of the night before.

Zerndorff, eyebrows bristling, leaned forward in his chair.

"I cannot understand it," he said. "Who is this man who looks like Henry Arnaud, yet is not Arnaud?"

Cardona shrugged. He was thinking of The Shadow, but keeping those thoughts to himself. He remembered the phoned warning that had led to discovery of the bomb in the Financial Building.

Could it be that the murders of Perry Warfield and Matthew Stokes were connected with the explosions that had terrified New York?

"Well," said Inspector Burke, "we must get busy, Cardona. There's too little evidence in this Stokes case.

"We figure the killer must have been waiting. Stokes was shot in bed, and the blankets were used to muffle the sound of the gun. We've got to locate this fake Henry Arnaud!"

Darkness was gathering outside. Joe Cardona stared speculatively from the window. Somewhere in that gloom, two men were buried in the depths of Manhattan. It was his task to find them.

The telephone rang. Doctor Zerndorff answered — and then turned the phone over to Joe Cardona. A low, whispered voice began to talk the moment that Cardona placed the receiver to his ear.

"You are looking for me," said the voice. "I am the man who called himself Henry Arnaud.

"I did not kill Perry Warfield. The murderer is Killer Bryan. He also murdered Matthew Stokes. I have located him. You can capture him tonight. But take him alive. You understand? Alive!

"He is hiding out in a rooming house two doors west of the Pink Rat," the voice continued. "You know where the place is?"

"Yes."

"His room is the first to the left, at the head of the stairs. He will be in there at ten o'clock. He does not know that he is suspected of murder. Be there with your men tonight!"

The receiver clicked. Cardona turned to the other men. He told them what he had heard.

"Trace the phone call," ordered Inspector Burke.

"It won't do any good," replied Cardona. "We'll try it though."

"You will go there tonight, yes?" questioned Doctor Zerndorff.

"You're right I will!" replied Cardona emphatically. "I've been tipped off before. We'll get that guy, if I'm not mistaken!"

"I think I shall go with you," declared Doctor Zerndorff. "Perhaps I shall be of use."

It was shortly before ten o'clock when a thickset, long-armed man entered the doorway of the second house from the Pink Rat. He climbed stealthily up the stairs to the second floor, stopping at the top to listen. He entered the room at the left of the stairway, and snapped on the light.

The hardened face of Killer Bryan was revealed. He looked about the empty room and laughed. Then he turned out the light and lay down on the creaking bed.

Outside the room, there was a slight rustling sound. But Killer Bryan couldn't hear it. Someone was passing the doorway in the darkness. Someone was moving — a silent, invisible shape. Then came absolute silence.

From below a door opened softly. Four men were on the stairway, creeping softly upward. Then they stopped.

"You will go in alone, yes?" came the whispered voice of Doctor Zerndorff.

"Yes," came the reply from Joe Cardona. "I'll nab him. Stay outside with the others, professor."

The four men silently took positions in accordance with a rehearsed plan. Joe Cardona moved to the door of Killer Bryan's room. Doctor Zerndorff remained by the stairway, where he commanded a direct view of the door. The other men stood away from the door.

Cardona advanced cautiously. He waited, listening.

Then came action. His hand was on the knob. His men clicked their flashlights, focusing their powerful glare upon the doorway. That was the signal for Cardona to rush in upon Killer Bryan.

But as the lights went on, the door opened inward, seemingly of its own accord. There stood Killer Bryan, his evil face leering in the glare, his automatic aimed directly at Cardona, his finger on the trigger.

At that instant, another pistol spoke from the darkness, and a bullet from an unseen hand tore through Killer Bryan's fingers. With an oath he dropped his gun.

Cardona, his life saved, whirled toward the doorway, a startled exclamation coming to his lips.

But he had no time to think of the strange, black-clad figure he had glimpsed; a tall, imposing being whose smoking gun was already disappearing beneath the folds of a flowing cloak.

For almost at the same instant he flung himself forward on Killer Bryan; heard the snarl of a cornered beast at bay, and then heard more shots from a new quarter. And even as Cardona seized his antagonist, the killer's body collapsed limply in his grasp.

Doctor Zerndorff had fired, and the bullets from his Luger had found their mark in Killer Bryan's body.

Together, the detective and Doctor Zerndorff bent over the form of Killer Bryan. Cardona gripped Zerndorff's hand.

"You saved my life, professor," he said. "Those shots were in the nick of time. I wanted to get him alive — but we had to take him dead."

They carried Bryan's inert form from the house to a patrol car outside. Cardona loaded the victim into the patrol and ordered a quick trip to the nearest hospital — a mere formality, he believed, for Killer Bryan was dead, to all appearances.

Zerndorff remained on the street with the detectives.

At the hospital, Cardona was struck with amazement. Laid out upon an operating table, Killer Bryan opened his eyes. The attending physician shook his head.

"There's no hope for him," he said. "He'll only last a few minutes. Maybe you can make him talk."

Cardona leaned over the dying man.

"Did you kill Matthew Stokes?" he demanded.

There was no response. Killer Bryan's eyes glared coldly. A hospital attendant entered. He walked up to the group gathered about the table. He pressed Cardona to one side.

"Let me talk to him," he said.

He held his hand in front of Killer Bryan's eyes. Cardona noted that the hand was holding an oddly shaped piece of black metal, which rested in the attendant's palm.

A strange change came over Killer Bryan. His glassy eyes were centered upon that object. He seemed oblivious to everything else.

"Speak!" said the attendant. "Tell everything!"

Killer Bryan nodded feebly.

"I killed Warfield," he said slowly. Cardona, the doctor and two nurses heard his words. "I killed him in the Goliath Hotel. I killed Stokes — the same night. I shot him in his bed."

"Why did you kill them?" questioned Cardona.

"Because — The — Mas—"

The last word ended in a hoarse gasp. The physician bent over Bryan's body.

"He is dead," he said.

"We must make a record of his statement immediately," declared Cardona. "I have four witnesses, doctor. Yourself, the two nurses, and that attendant—"

He looked about him. The man who had made Killer Bryan speak was gone. Cardona blinked.

"Where — where is the attendant?"

A nurse shook her head.

"I don't know," she said. "I don't even know who he is. I never saw him here in the hospital before!"

Fifteen minutes later, as Joe Cardona was leaving the hospital, he encountered Doctor Zerndorff, entering with the two detectives. They had followed in a cab.

"Bryan was dead, of course," commented Doctor Zerndorff, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"He is dead now," replied Cardona. "But before he died, he gave us this."

He held up a typewritten copy of the Killer's statement, signed by himself, the physician and the nurses.

"He confessed, yes?" exclaimed Doctor Zerndorff. "You made him tell what he had done?"

"Not I," replied Cardona. "It was another man. We don't know who he was."

"No?" questioned Doctor Zerndorff sharply.

Cardona shook his head as he pocketed the typewritten statement.

Killer Bryan was dead, his guilt admitted at the command of an unknown stranger. But despite his feigned ignorance, Cardona was positive of the identity of the man who had appeared so mysteriously.

There was but one man who could have accomplished such a mission — and that man was The Shadow!