The Creeping Death

CHAPTER III THE SHADOW PLANS

A BLACK-SHROUDED room, lighted only by the weird glow of a bluish light that shone upon the polished surface of a flat-topped table. Two hands, moving like pale white creatures beneath the circle of light. A mysterious gem that glimmered from a tapering third finger.

The Shadow was in his sanctum!

Somewhere in Manhattan, secluded in a spot known to himself alone, this strange being was at work! Only his moving hands denoted his presence; only the glowing jewel, a fire opal that constantly changed in hue, revealed the identity of the hands.

To police, as well as to criminals, The Shadow was a figure of mystery. His place lay in that borderland between the realm of law and the dominion of the underworld. A strange figure — a weird presence — his very identity was a matter of vague conjecture.

Who was The Shadow?

Many had asked that question. None had answered it!

Those who had encountered The Shadow had seen him only as a figure garbed in black — a tall, sinister form that came and departed as a phantom of the night.

Time and again, fierce wolves of the underworld had been thwarted by that sinister shape. Fiends of crime had faced the being in black, had met the burning gaze of eyes deep-set beneath the brim of a slouch hat, and had died with gasps of terror on their lips.

Minions of the law, too, had experienced the presence of The Shadow. More than once, a black-gloved hand, thrust from the folds of a crimson-lined cloak, had reached to rescue those who combated the hordes of evil.

Helpless men and women, doomed to die by the design of criminal plotters, had found salvation through the timely efforts of The Shadow. Yet none had seen the face of the being in black. In all his missions of retribution, The Shadow had departed; he was still unknown!

The voice of The Shadow, although a clew to his identity, had never enabled any one to trace him. When The Shadow spoke, his words were eerie utterances that chilled all hearers. More spectral than the voice was the laugh of The Shadow. When its mocking tones resounded, evil-doers trembled at the sound.

On certain nights, the voice of The Shadow was heard over the radio, on a national hook-up. With it came the echoing tones of the gibing laugh.

Shrewd persons had sought to learn the identity of The Shadow by watching the broadcasting station, but their efforts had been constantly frustrated. The Shadow spoke from a curtained room, where no one dared enter. His method of entrance and departure was known only to himself.

When daring crooks had hidden within the room to await the arrival of The Shadow, their purpose had been artfully thwarted by The Shadow’s uncanny forethought. His voice had come to the studio over telephonic connection to a distant point!

OF all his amazing activities, none were more important to The Shadow than those which took place in this black-walled sanctum, where two white hands, one wearing that priceless fire opal known as a girasol, were the only shapes in view. Here it was that The Shadow formulated his plans and received reports from his trusted agents. Sworn to secrecy, ready to risk death in service of their master, these agents of The Shadow were faithful men; yet despite their contact with the being in black, they, too, lived in ignorance of his identity!

They knew only what others suspected: that The Shadow was a master of disguise, who assumed many identities that were not his own. These agents had witnessed the prowess of The Shadow. Had they told their truthful stories, their statement would not have been credited. For the power of The Shadow surpassed all belief.

To-night, The Shadow was engaged in a deep and careful study. Before him, on the polished table, lay typewritten papers; reports compiled by his agents. The long white hands were fingering these carefully compiled records with care.

One sheet of paper bore the typewritten heading:

This sheet was the top one of several that were carefully clipped together.

The Shadow’s finger moved down the paragraph, passing one page and following through another, stopping momentarily as it rested on certain sentences. These were the most important statements that were noted:

Turning to an appended sheet, The Shadow’s finger rested upon a paragraph that included the name of Jerry Fitzroy as a special agent assigned to the work of tracing counterfeiting activities. The name of Vic Marquette also appeared.

Laying aside the report, The Shadow inspected another document. This was headed:

Again, the moving finger pointed out certain items in the paragraphs:

THE papers lay still upon the table. The hand of The Shadow drew forth a white sheet and a pen. But before the fingers began to write even while the pen was poised above the paper — a tiny light glowed beyond the table.

The left hand, with its radiant girasol, reached forward and brought back a pair of ear phones. These disappeared beyond the fringe of light; then the lamp clicked off.

A solemn voice spoke amid the darkness — a low, whispered voice that sounded hollow in the blackness of that shrouded room.

“Report.”

A quiet tone came over the wire.

“Burbank speaking. Word from Burke, in California. Received, in code, by Rutledge Mann. Report on Clifford Forster. Has left New Era Mine for the East.”

“Exact destination?”

“Probably New York — to-morrow night. Traveling alone. Sent word to his home in New York that he might be there to-morrow. No other facts available.”

“Report received.”

The little light was extinguished. The ear phones were replaced. Connection was ended. The glare of the lamp appeared; the hand of The Shadow poised above the sheet of paper.

The hand wrote a single word at the top of the paper. That word was the name:

Beneath the name, the hand inscribed these cryptic statements:

The hand moved away. Only the words remained emblazoned upon the sheet of paper in vivid blue ink, surveyed by invisible eyes that studied them from the darkness.

Then, as though responding to an unseen touch, those words began to vanish. First the name of Fitzroy disappeared, letter by letter; after that, the other words were lost in the same uncanny fashion. Only the blank piece of paper remained!

These words, written in the amazing disappearing ink used by The Shadow, had been like uttered thoughts. Now they were gone, existing only in the brain of the one who had inscribed them.

Two facts had been mentioned here that would have been obvious to Vic Marquette, the secret-service man who had gone back over Fitzroy’s trail. These were the facts that Jerry Fitzroy, investigating the matter of spurious foreign coinage, had gone to a place named Westbrook Falls.

But the final fact — the identity of the person whom Fitzroy had visited — had been divined by The Shadow alone.

To Vic Marquette, the presence of the feather in Fitzroy’s pocket was a mystery. To The Shadow, it was a proclamation of an unknown identity. Vic Marquette had looked upon the feather as one from any bird; The Shadow had recognized it as a partridge feather.

What was the connection between some unknown person and that feather? This was a problem that The Shadow was prepared to solve. But when the hand again appeared beneath the light, the new words that it wrote referred to another subject.

Again a name was inscribed in that ink of vivid blue — a name that was followed by carefully written comments:

The light clicked out. The ear phones clattered slightly as they were lifted by unseen hands. A tiny bulb gleamed as the voice of The Shadow whispered across the wire to Burbank.

“Post Vincent at the home of Clifford Forster. Immediate report upon Forster’s return.”

The ear phones were back; the glow was gone; the room was in total darkness. The Shadow’s plans were made. Vic Marquette had gone to Westbrook Falls; but while he was absent, a new trail would be opening, here in Manhattan.

Temporarily ignoring the events that had preceded the death of Jerry Fitzroy, The Shadow was training his observation upon a man who had been far away, but who soon would be in New York.

To-morrow night would be the test. From Clifford Forster, wealthy mining promoter, The Shadow would gain information relating to a riddle that involved events of international importance.

Where death once struck, death would strike again. To Vic Marquette, the demise of Jerry Fitzroy had been an unfortunate incident. To The Shadow, it meant the beginning of a reign of fiendish crime.

A laugh resounded through the blackness. It was a harsh, mirthless laugh, that laugh of The Shadow. It carried none of the mockery which the hidden being so often uttered. It was a laugh that denoted the grimness of the game ahead.

The lure of gold — that lust that has made men kill throughout the ages — was at work. Heinous crime was the ruling motive in the minds of evil villains.

To The Shadow was given the duty of thwarting great crime. Shrouded by darkness, a hidden factor in the cross-purposes of scheming men, he had planned to-night.

The echoes of the laugh rippled through the sanctum as though caught and shaken forth by the motionless curtains that covered the walls of the black room. The echoes died away like the cries of distant, spectral beings.

The sanctum was now empty. The Shadow had departed.

Two forces were already at work to oppose the crime that threatened. One, The Shadow, had planned and issued his orders. His work began in New York.

The other, Vic Marquette, was directed at the point of Jerry Fitzroy’s last activity — Westbrook Falls.

A giant struggle was already in the making!