The Black Master

CHAPTER IX. THE SECOND MURDER

HENRY ARNAUD lay in a corner of the room, his hands cuffed behind him. In front of him stood two hotel attendants and the house detective, keeping close watch, awaiting the arrival of the police.

Soon a plainclothesman shoved his way into the room. He looked at Arnaud, then glanced questioningly at the house detective.

"This the guy?" he asked.

"Yes."

"I'm Detective Blaine from headquarters," said the newcomer. "I'll take charge from now on!"

He asked Arnaud's name. Then, "You killed this man?"

"No!"

The detective laughed.

"The murderer," persisted Arnaud, "is a man called Killer Bryan. He has escaped. He intends to commit another murder. I can tell you the name—"

"Lay off that stall!" exclaimed the headquarters man threateningly. "It won't do you any good to try to lay the blame somewhere else. Get me?"

"The name of the man marked for murder is Matthew—"

"Shut up!" ordered the detective. "Another peep and you won't be able to do any talking. Get me? You'll have plenty of chance to talk at headquarters."

Henry Arnaud remained silent, but his eyes were intent, his face taut, as if he was engaged in physical effort. The headquarters detective leaned over the body of Perry Warfield. The others in the room concentrated on the action of the sleuth, as he made his careful inspection. It was then that the unexpected happened.

Slowly, almost unnoticeably, Henry Arnaud raised his body. A man beside him detected a sound and turned. Before he could make an exclamation, Arnaud's freed right hand swung from behind his back.

The handcuffs were still fastened to his right wrist. The solid mass of metal struck the watcher at the base of his neck. He collapsed.

Arnaud was on his feet. As the headquarters man turned, automatic in hand, the shackled arm descend and knocked the pistol from the detective's grasp.

The house detective and two other men made a leap for the prisoner; but Arnaud was too quick for them. His right arm swung in a wide arc.

One man escaped the blow by dropping to the floor. Another fell as he received a staggering stroke. The third grappled with Arnaud for a brief moment; then the conflict ended as the steel manacles glanced against the man's head.

The prisoner made a leap for the door, pulling the handcuff from his right wrist as he went. This amazing man, through some strange ability, could laugh at manacles.

The path to freedom lay ahead, but Arnaud scented danger. He dropped suddenly toward the floor and turned just as the headquarters detective reclaimed his automatic and raised it toward the fleeing form.

Arnaud's action required that the detective change his aim.

Before the threatening finger could pull the trigger, the handcuffs whizzed through the air at terrific speed.

The detective threw up a protecting arm. He was too late to save himself. The heavy steel cuffs struck the top of his head and he fell.

Then Arnaud was gone, but from the corridor outside the room came a last reminder of his presence. It was a long, eerie laugh, a terrible laugh that seemed a laugh of triumph.

It was the laugh of The Shadow!

Despite the consternation in the room where the murdered man lay, the baffled captors of the supposed murderer acted quickly. Within one minute after Henry Arnaud's escape, the news had been phoned to the lobby below.

Police had entered. A manhunt was under way. All available attendants in the hotel were pressed into service for the search.

The principal search was instituted on the floor where Perry Warfield had been killed. It had hardly begun before a cry of alarm was sounded by an elevator man. His car was stopped at the seventh floor.

He had looked up just in time to see a form speed rapidly to the head of the stairway!

"There he goes! There he goes!"

Uniformed police rushed from the corridors. Downward they went, in mad pursuit. And again, from the floor below came the sound of a mocking, bursting laugh.

A man appeared in the lobby of the Goliath Hotel. No one saw him arrive until he walked up to the policeman standing by the door. He drew back his coat and showed a badge. The policeman nodded.

"Headquarters," said the man nonchalantly. "Keep on the job, here! I'll be back with more men!"

As the man passed through the revolving door, two policemen dashed down a stairway into the lobby.

"There he goes!" cried one, pointing to the figure emerging beyond the revolving door. "That's the murderer! Get him!"

The guarding policeman joined in the pursuit. But he had realized his mistake a few moments too late.

When the bluecoats reached the street, their quarry had disappeared. He had vanished like a shadow!

Passersby were quizzed, but to no avail.

As the policemen were joined by others and the searchers scattered along the street, a form emerged from beneath the darkened windows of the dining room of the Goliath Hotel.

Silently, swiftly, a strange being flitted through the night, keeping always in the protecting shadows. He did not seem human, until he had reached a spot a block away from the hotel. Then he suddenly revealed himself in the light. It was Henry Arnaud!

The man stepped into a passing cab. He gave an uptown address — near the home of Matthew Stokes.

The taxi driver did not recognize anything unusual.

Matthew Stokes, despite his important position as the head of a detective agency, was a man who kept out of the public limelight. The importance of his investigations was known only to himself. He was a sleuth par excellence, who handled most vital cases for private individuals.

The front of the Stokes house was dark when a taxicab stopped several doors away. Shortly after the cab had gone, a stealthy figure approached the house and made its way up the side wall of the building.

Projecting cornices helped the task.

Two hands came from the darkness and raised a window. A man entered. He moved invisibly. Then he stopped in the corner of the room and listened.

There was no sound. Finally a slight click occurred. A small lamp turned on in the corner of the room.

Beside it stood the visitor, scarcely more than a shadowy mass of black in the dim illumination. The Shadow was in the bedroom of Matthew Stokes!

The room seemed silent and deserted. There was a bed in the opposite corner, with a high baseboard the foot. For a moment, the features of Henry Arnaud were visible as the shadowy investigator moved past the corner light. When he reached the bed, he appeared only as a fantastic, dark-clad form.

He stopped beside the bed. Then there was silence again. The Shadow did not move. He was contemplating the figure that lay huddled beneath the covers of the bed.

Although the night was warm, the man in bed was covered with blankets.

A hand appeared from the darkness and drew back the top edges of the blankets. A face could be distinguished in the gloomy darkness. It was the face of Matthew Stokes.

The eyes stared with the glassy stare of death. Matthew Stokes was dead! He had been shot in bed, the noise of the report muffled by the blankets!

The Shadow had arrived too late! "Killer" Bryan had come and gone before him. The nefarious gunman had committed a second murder!