The Blue Sphinx

CHAPTER XIV WITHIN CLOSED WALLS

TWENTY-FOUR hours had elapsed since the murders in the Latuna Museum. The Shadow, guised as Henry Arnaud, was seated at a writing desk in his room in the Wilkin Hotel. Across the street, he could see two khaki-clad policemen on duty near the Hotel Phoenix.

The Shadow extinguished the main light. His hands appeared long-fingered and white, beneath the glow of the desk lamp as they opened two sealed envelopes. The Shadow read reports from Clyde Burke and Cliff Marsland. The agents had left them in Henry Arnaud’s box.

That had been in accord with an outlined plan. The two aids, however, did not know that their chief had checked in before tonight.

Meanwhile, another agent had arrived. Harry Vincent, a most competent worker, had seen Clyde’s story in New York and had come to Latuna. He, too, had acted on instructions previously given by The Shadow.

Clyde’s report laid emphasis upon his visit to Harrison Knode’s. It described his trip to the museum and stressed Bart Drury’s private interview with Knode, particularly Bart’s warning that Knode’s appointment with Rubal was not to be made public.

Cliff’s report emphasized that all of Konk Zitz’s pals had been at the Phoenix Hotel. None of them could have possibly visited the isolated Latuna Museum.

Finished with this report, The Shadow moved from the writing desk. He clicked on the main light; again he appeared as Arnaud.

Seating himself in an easy chair, The Shadow picked up the Latuna newspapers. The Gazette carried the big story. Dunham had printed Grewling’s statement; also the testimony of attendants and watchmen. Theories showed that the law had struck close to the possible details of the crime.

The stumbling block was the clue that Dunham had himself uncovered. Some one had had an appointment with Joseph Rubal at eight o’clock the night before. Speculation was rife as to the identity of that person.

The Enterprise carried a resume of the story in the Gazette. A few added details of the coroner’s inquest failed to add spice.

Harrison Knode had been forced to leave out an announcement that would have staggered Howard Dunham. He could have made a scoop by printing the name of the man who had the eight o’clock appointment with Rubal. He had omitted that name because it was his own.

A SOFT laugh came from the lips of Henry Arnaud. The Shadow was considering the oddity of the case. Then he noted an item stating that the museum had been closed to the public, pending solution of the murders. Instead of ordinary watchmen, nine picked policemen were on duty, working in three shifts, each of three men.

Reverting to the morning newspaper, The Shadow picked out a statement by the police chief. It stood apart from the murder story. It referred to the lack of criminal activity in Latuna; and stated that the police had been watching all suspected crooks who happened to be in town. This statement, The Shadow knew, was for the benefit of Harrison Knode.

Police Chief Grewling had spiked the crusading editor’s verbal cannon. Grewling’s action of putting watchers at the Phoenix Hotel, stood as proof that the police were vigilant. Neither Knode — nor any one else — could say that the murders in the museum were caused by the police ignoring the criminal element in Latuna.

Some lone wolf had performed the murders. Timing his deed to the hour when the museum offered the best chance for entry, this crafty killer had played a one-man game. His motive had been to rifle Rubal’s files. He had succeeded in his game, at a time when the curator was on the verge of resigning his post.

Harrison Knode had made no editorial comment. But The Shadow could foresee the editor’s future action. Once the excitement of the murder had died down, Knode would have his opportunity to link up the past with the present. Now was no time to drag the dead curator’s name through the mire. That would come later.

A laugh was The Shadow’s soft recognition of the policy that he could foresee. Rising, he extinguished the light.

He donned his black garb and descended to the parking space; there he entered a black coupe. The car was one that Harry Vincent had hired and left there after arriving in Latuna. Harry had later registered at the Wilkin Hotel.

THE coupe rolled from the parking space. It came to a highway that curved out of town and kept along until it neared the hill where the museum stood. The Shadow parked his car in a field and alighted.

The boom of a quarry blast came through the might air as The Shadow glided close to the museum. Barred doors and windows at the front; brick walls at sides and rear. These did not deter The Shadow.

From his cloak he drew forth suction cups of rubber, which he attached to hands and feet. He began a precipitous ascent up the side wall of the museum, accompanied by the soft, squidgy noise that he had never been able to eliminate from these concave disks without impairing their necessary efficiency.

Moonlight, trickling through rifted clouds, showed the spectral shape as it reached the roof. The Shadow had arrived at a flat ledge that led to the low, rounded dome above the Sphinx Room. Heavy frames containing frosted-glass, formed the sections of the broad dome.

Scraping sounds came from the spot where The Shadow rested as a shapeless blotch. Then a soft laugh as the slight noise ceased. A glass section moved free in the fashion of a skylight.

The Shadow had found the weak spot of this building which others regarded as impregnable. To him, the dome had offered a mode of access. Sheer walls had been regarded as an insurmountable hazard. Conquering those walls, The Shadow had found access easy.

The Shadow’s task, however, was not ended. As he lowered himself into the museum, The Shadow hung above a forty-foot space. He was poised above the floor of the central room that housed the Blue Sphinx.

Lowering his body in precarious fashion, The Shadow tilted his head and spied the wall close by. Coming in at the edge of the dome, he was close to an ornamental ledge that lined the Sphinx Room.

Clinging by one hand, The Shadow swayed his body like a pendulum. His free hand caught the ledge. He released his upper hand and swung against the wall. Both hands then gripped the ledge. The Shadow began a swinging, sidewise course along the wall.

He reached a space between two half pillars that came up from the floor. Smooth-surfaced, these afforded no grip. But they served The Shadow as a mode of descent. Swinging his body between the block-shaped pillars, The Shadow wedged himself in place as he released his hold upon the ledge.

Braking his descent, he slid straight downward to the floor. Doubling himself for the final jar, he broke the force of the arrival as skillfully as a parachute jumper ending a long drop.

Rising, The Shadow found himself beside the massive shape of the Blue Sphinx.

WITH a soft laugh, the weird intruder turned and went to the doors that led into the anteroom. He found them locked. With tiny flashlight glimmering, he used a blackened pick and gained results. Opening the doors, The Shadow stepped into the anteroom.

More formidable doors lay ahead. The Shadow worked on them with greater care. He knew that patrolling watchers were beyond. He muffled the sounds of his probing pick, until the clicks were almost inaudible.

When the doors opened, The Shadow peered carefully into the front hallway of the museum. The place was dimly lighted. No watcher was in sight. Softly, The Shadow emerged from the anteroom and closed the doors behind him.

Footsteps were clicking from a far corridor. They were coming from the turn beyond the Antiquity Room. The Shadow moved swiftly in the opposite direction. As he neared the Medieval Room, he heard new footsteps coming along the corridor from the curator’s office.

The Shadow swung swiftly into the Medieval Room, which offered a darkened, ghostly harbor. Stealthily, he moved among the huge oddities that furnished this chamber. A bulky object loomed beside him. It was the Iron Maiden.

A flashlight at the door. One policeman was coming in to make a routine inspection. The Shadow swung swiftly behind the opened door of the Maiden and stood between its hiding surface and the wall. The officer made his round and went to the door. The Shadow heard him pause to speak to a second patroller.

“What took you so long, Steve?” came a question. “I finished my side of this morgue five minutes ago.”

“Yeah?” questioned the cop who had just inspected the Medieval Room. “Well, you’ve got a cinch compared to me. I’ve got to look careful through all this junk collection.”

“I’ve got the room with all the statues. I had to look through there.”

“Yeah? Well, who’s going to be hiding in that joint? Nobody could duck out of sight in that gymnasium. This place is different. Say — a guy could even hide in that iron coffin over there, if he wanted to pull the door shut after him.”

“Fat chance anybody would,” scoffed the first cop, turning a flashlight toward the opened interior of the Iron Maiden. “How’d a guy close the door on himself, with all those spikes ready to run him through. Say, Steve — where’s Jerry?”

“In the office, Bill. He’ll join us in the front hall. We can chew the fat for half an hour, then make another round.”

The policemen left. The Shadow emerged and glided toward the door of the room. He waited there until he heard new footsteps coming along the corridor from the curator’s office. Bill passed and went along to join his companions inside the entrance of the museum.

With the way clear, The Shadow strode noiselessly along the deserted corridor and reached the curator’s office. Entering, The Shadow closed the door behind him and turned on the light. He was here to study the scene of crime.

OFTEN, The Shadow, on excursions of this sort, could uncover clues that upset the finest police theories. Tonight, he observed nothing that conflicted with existing conjectures. The Shadow, between the accounts that he had read and the reports that he had received from his agents, was in conformity with the existing opinions.

As he spied the inner filing room, however, The Shadow gained a mental picture that others had failed to view. He turned on the light in that little room. He went to the curator’s desk; arose and strode to the filing room; then across to the outer door. He looked at the spot where the bodies had been found.

A soft laugh. The Shadow was visualizing exactly what had occurred. The murderer had found the curator in the filing room and had shot him down from the outer door. From the filing room, the same killer had clipped Hollis.

There was no day calendar on the desk. It had been removed as evidence. Yet The Shadow knew the details of that memo; how Howard Dunham had chanced to notice it. He also knew that certain papers had been taken from this office.

Obviously, the murderer had overlooked the desk calendar. Its pages closed — as Dunham had first seen them — the killer had not noticed the memo made by the curator. But The Shadow saw a link between that calendar and the murderer’s purpose here.

Joseph Rubal had been going over past dates. He had been looking up documents in the filing room. These papers must certainly have concerned the museum itself. Rubal, long silent and long stalling, had been gathering data that might have caused some one trouble.

Searching the files, The Shadow came upon various papers that referred to the museum. Studying them swiftly in the light of the filing room, he noticed certain gaps. One notation referred to a temporary delay during a period of inspection. There was no paper, however, that told of the inspection itself.

This date was prior to the completion of the museum as it now stood; before the final day when the lower vault was bricked and the museum completed in its temporary form, for visits by the public.

The Shadow also found reference to three sets of plans. Referring to another folder, he discovered only two sets that showed the details of the museum. Where was the third? Had it been taken at the time of the murder? If so, why?

The Shadow studied the list of collections that had been donated to the museum. Barnaby Soyer’s treasures were in a separate file. The ones that concerned The Shadow were the gifts now on display in the exhibition rooms.

Most of these had been promised prior to the completion of the museum. The various exhibit rooms had been arranged for their reception. The curios in the Medieval Room had been presented by a group of private collectors.

The statues in the Antiquity Room had been gained by a civic appropriation which Mayor Quirby Rush had arranged as the first act of his administration. There had already been an incomplete fund raised by private citizens; the city funds had completed it.

STRAFFORD MALDEN had promised the Blue Sphinx at the time when the plans of the museum were under consideration. Importation had been arranged with the Egyptian authorities; and the pedestal had been built to the proper dimensions. Correspondence between Joseph Rubal and agents in Cairo showed that red tape had caused delay in the shipment of the sphinx.

The small exhibit rooms appeared supplementary to the carefully arranged plans. Their nondescript collections had been gathered while the construction was under way.

Studying the plans, The Shadow could readily see why the addition of wings and the proposed Modern Room offered problems. No exact provision had been made for their construction. Harrison Knode’s criticism of Rubal’s delay in completing plans for additions did not appear justified.

The Shadow’s study of existing documents came to a sudden finish. Replacing folders, closing drawers, The Shadow prepared to leave. He turned out the lights and departed. Advancing rapidly along the corridor, he reached the Medieval Room and entered it just in time.

Footsteps told that the patrolling watchers were going to the far ends of the museum to begin another inspection. The Shadow waited until footfalls had died. He headed for the Sphinx Room. Entering the anteroom, he locked the doors behind him; he came into the Sphinx Room itself and clicked the inner doors.

The policemen had not attempted to inspect the Sphinx Room. Its doors — presumably locked — were guarantee that no one could be lurking there. But should an officer happen to try those doors, he would now find them locked.

Looking about the moonlit room, The Shadow picked the spot between the pillars as the proper place for ascent by means of his suction disks. The smooth surface offered some difficulty, so far as proper adhesion was concerned. But a momentary failure of the suction disks would create no hazard. Between the pillars, The Shadow could brake himself as he had before.

That settled, The Shadow turned to the center of the room. Above the level of his eyes loomed the face of the Blue Sphinx. Solemn, unsmiling, with strangely carved eyes, that ancient monolith seemed lost in meditation. The eyes, by a freak of the moonlight, looked as if staring downward. Squarely into those carven optics burned the gaze of The Shadow. The Sphinx, famed in fable as a propounder of unanswerable riddles, was faced by the master of all sleuths.

The Blue Sphinx! From the correspondence in the curator’s office, The Shadow had learned the history of this stone monster. A relic of the Eighteenth Dynasty, this statue was but one of many sphinxes that studded the broad expanses of the Libyan Desert.

In Libya, lesser sphinxes of this sort were common enough among the desert sands. It required removal to give them the dignity for which they were reputed. Here, in Latuna; this lone Blue Sphinx was regarded as unique.

Crouched on the pedestal that formed part of the tiled floor, anchored immovable by virtue of its five-ton bulk, the Blue Sphinx seemed stately enough to be the keeper of some important secret.

The thought brought a soft, mirthless laugh from the hidden lips of The Shadow. Double murder had struck in this museum. He knew that those killings were but a part of crime. Evil had preceded death. Now evil was slated to follow.

The cloaked form turned toward the wall, as The Shadow prepared for his departure. Again the whispered laugh, significant in its sardonic tones. The Shadow had divined the riddle of the Blue Sphinx.