The Black Master

CHAPTER XXIII. A SECOND TO SPARE

A man came into the lobby of an uptown hotel. He faltered as he walked, and he made a strange figure.

He was clad in a long black cloak. His head was bent forward and his face could not be seen beneath his hat. His dark garments were streaked with dashes of light-colored dust.

There were but few persons in the lobby. They looked curiously at the man as he went into a telephone booth.

A few minutes later, the man was speaking over the telephone. His voice was weak and his words were almost inaudible.

"Burbank," he said.

He waited for a reply.

"Emergency radio," he continued. "Immediately!"

The black-clad form seemed to collapse within the booth. It sagged helplessly for a time; then straightened. Once again The Shadow was calling a number.

"Cardona?" came his weak voice. "No? Then Inspector Burke? I must speak to him!"

"Hello, inspector. Explosion at Zerndorff's. No, I cannot tell you who is speaking. Listen — it is only the first. Act quickly!"

"Manhattan Bridge; a bomb there, somewhere — Holland Tunnel, another bomb — New Gotham Hospital, a bomb hidden there. That is all—" The voice trailed away.

There was a long silence while a huddled form lay almost invisible within the booth. Then the weary figure came to life again.

The man walked unsteadily through the lobby and out into the street. As he passed the clock above the doorway, the hands were nearing twelve o'clock.

At that moment, radio broadcasting in the entire East was encountering a sudden problem. Signals had been picked up, apparently some miles off the coast of Massachusetts. A ship at sea was signaling its distress.

A program was nearing its end at Station WKR, in New York. The end of a dramatic sketch was close at hand. Only five minutes remained.

A young man was sitting near the microphone, holding a gong in one hand, a padded stick in the other.

He was awaiting the end of the program, to strike the single gong that marked its conclusion.

A man hurried into the studio. He thrust a note into the hand of the announcer, who glanced at it quickly.

The announcer motioned the players to stop their dialogue. They obeyed.

The announcer spoke. He stated that due to S-O-S signals from a sinking ship, the program would not be completed.

As the announcer finished his statement, the young man near the microphone grinned and raised the padded stick. He held it for an instant; then struck it against the gong.

Just as the padding neared the metal, a hand pulled the switch in the control room. Station WKR was off the air!

The next afternoon, Clyde Burke was busy in his clipping office. This young man was an ex-reporter.

Secretly, he was an aide of The Shadow.

To date, his part had been a passive one. He knew nothing of The Black Master. He was puzzled by the clipping that he laid before him.

The explosion at Doctor Zerndorff's, with the resulting death of the famous criminologist, was important news. But it was not the main sensation.

During the night, the police, acting on a mysterious tip, had discovered three huge bombs, after an extensive search. One had been found beneath a pier of the Manhattan Bridge; another in the Holland Tunnel; the third in a locker room of the New Gotham Hospital.

In addition, there was a front-page story in the evening journals, telling of the discovery of a small broadcasting station near the end of Long Island. The man who owned it could not be found.

It was from his station, investigators believed, that spurious messages had been sent shortly before midnight, purporting to be the desperate distress signals of a sinking ship. Liners had stopped in response.

The station was unlicensed, but people living near the lonely spot recalled that a man had been seen there during the past six months. No clue could be obtained to the stranger's identity.

But the greatest story of all — the one that was most amazing to Clyde Burke — was the extension granted to the convicted men, Sforza and Pecherkin!

The governor, the story went, had been aroused at one o'clock in the morning. A messenger had brought him an important document.

The governor would not reveal its contents. He stated simply that the case of Sforza and Pecherkin would be reopened. He had ordered their commutation from the electric chair after they had already been placed in death cells at Sing Sing.

New police investigations were under way. It was said, on good authority, that the convicted men would be cleared.

Another was responsible for the crimes attributed to them. Detectives were following mysterious clues that had come from unknown sources.

It was all a mystery to Clyde Burke as he sat in his little office. As he pushed the clippings, one by one, to the side of his desk, they went away from the light of his desk lamp and over each long column of type fell a shadow.

Clyde Burke noticed it as he completed his work.

There was something mysterious in the simple occurrence. It seemed as though the hand of The Shadow had stretched forth to claim the glory that belonged to him.