The Crime Clinic

CHAPTER V THE SHADOW SEES

AMAZING though events had been at the home of Rutherford Casslin, the time element had been quite short. The living-room clock had been chiming nine when Doctor Dubrong had left. That same clock marked thirty-eight minutes past the hour when Joe Cardona reassembled the guests in the living room, following his finding of Rutherford Casslin’s body.

In the space of less than forty minutes, Casslin had exhibited the Bishenpur diamond, Hubert had been slain, Hodges had killed a murderous Hindu, and Casslin’s dead body had been found under circumstances which seemed incredible.

The bodies of Hubert and the Hindu still lay where they had fallen. Casslin’s body was upstairs in the tower room. The steel door was closed and locked; the key was in Cardona’s pocket. The detective, ever alert, was standing at the rear door of the living room. From this position, he could see all within the room, and also keep an eye on the steel door in the hallway.

Word had been sent to Inspector Timothy Klein. The grizzled police officer was coming hither with detectives. In the meantime, Cardona, a lone investigator, was analyzing the strange situation that existed.

The guests were seated about the room. Gilkins and Hodges were standing within the doorway. Mrs. Casslin, alone, seemed on the verge of collapse. She had not seen her husband’s body, but she knew that death had struck.

Cardona was in a quandary. He was solicitous for Mrs. Casslin, yet he knew the importance of obtaining statements and proceeding with an investigation. He spoke to Stephen Gloucester.

“Is everyone here?” he questioned.

“Yes,” returned Gloucester. “All except Doctor Lysander Dubrong. He left, however, before Mr. Casslin brought the diamond from the strong room.”

“Doctor Dubrong,” mused Cardona. “He is the man who has the East Side clinic?”

“I believe so.”

An interruption came from Gilkins who was standing by the wall.

“Pardon, sir,” said the servant, “I believe I heard the doorbell. Shall I answer it?”

“No, stay here,” ordered Cardona. “Would you” — he turned again to Gloucester — “mind answering the door.”

“Not at all,” returned Gloucester.

The dignified gentleman went from the living room. A few minutes later, rapid footsteps sounded. Into the room strode Doctor Lysander Dubrong, with Stephen Gloucester behind him. The physician went at once to Mrs. Casslin. The bereaved woman sighed.

“This is Doctor Dubrong” said Gloucester, in an undertone, to Cardona.

Dubrong himself spoke to Cardona a moment later. Standing beside the chair where Mrs. Casslin was resting, the physician made a professional pronouncement.

“Mr. Gloucester has told me what occurred,” he said. “We must take Mrs. Casslin to her room at once.”

“All right,” agreed Cardona. “Mr. Gloucester will aid you.”

“There are two maids in the kitchen, sir,” volunteered Gilkins. “I do not believe that they know what has happened. You can summon them from his telephone here, sir.”

“Call them,” ordered Cardona, while Gloucester and Dubrong were aiding Mrs. Casslin from the room. “Tell them to go to Mrs. Casslin’s room.”

Gilkins went to the telephone. Cardona, half in the hallway, kept throwing occasional glances toward the steel door. Tension seemed to be relaxing.

Yvonne Lydell was seated beside Bart Melken. Unconsciously, the girl found her eyes going toward the window at the front of the room. She suppressed a gasp; Bart’s fingers immediately clutched her arm.

For an instant, the girl had fancied that she had caught the gleam of eyes beyond that window. Then the illusion was dispelled. She regained her calm. She heard Bart whisper for her to remain quiet.

Straining her eyes, Yvonne could see the balcony rail beyond the window. The rail seemed to emerge from a haze of darkness, as though a blanketing cloud of black had been removed. Yet Yvonne decided that it could not be a living form.

IN this decision, the girl was wrong. There was someone upon the balcony. Eyes had actually viewed the scene within the room. Yet they were not the eyes that Yvonne had seen before.

Earlier, she had actually observed the peering Hindu. This time, she had caught a momentary glimpse of the eyes of The Shadow!

A tall shape was moving along the balcony. Like a creature of darkness, The Shadow had arrived from the void. He had not started for Five Towers as early as had Joe Cardona. Like the detective, The Shadow had gained his evening’s destination only to find that death had already fallen.

A window opened softly in the room that adjoined the living room. A creature of stealth, the black-garbed phantom entered. His footsteps were noiseless; even the swish of his black cloak was not apparent as The Shadow crossed the floor.

The Shadow went by the side entrance of the living room. No one even glimpsed his gliding shape. He arrived at the far end of the hallway. There his gleaming eyes saw the very sight which Joe Cardona was so carefully observing.

Hubert’s body on the floor; beyond the dead servant, the form of the dead Hindu, whom The Shadow knew was Tippu. The steel door also came within The Shadow’s notice. Then, his cloak blanketing him like a shroud, The Shadow moved away.

Doctor Lysander Dubrong and Stephen Gloucester returned into the living room via the side door. They took chairs, and looked toward Joe Cardona. Neither had noted a gliding shape that had followed them. Beyond the curtained doorway, The Shadow was looking in upon the quiz that was to come.

“Mrs. Casslin?” queried Cardona.

“Resting,” replied Dubrong suavely. “I gave her an opiate. The maids are in attendance.”

“All right,” decided Cardona. “I shall ask you, Mr. Gloucester, to repeat the brief statement which you gave me on arrival. After that, we shall have the testimony of the others present.”

Cardona made notes as Gloucester began. The other persons gave their versions all were corroborations of what Gloucester said. It was Yvonne Lydell who added the only testimony that was remarkable.

As the girl began to speak, Bart Melken’s hand grip tightened on her wrist. Nevertheless, the girl kept on. Bart relaxed his hold, and chewed his lips.

“I saw someone on the balcony,” stated Yvonne. “Just as Mr. Casslin left to go back to the tower, I happened to glance in that direction. I saw a dark face and gleaming eyes.”

“A Hindu?” asked Cardona quickly.

“I think so,” said the girl.

“Why didn’t you say something then?” quizzed Cardona.

Bart Melken’s grip again tightened on Yvonne’s wrist. The detective did not observe the action. Bart was on the other side of the girl. Doctor Lysander Dubrong, however, detected the movement. Nor were his eyes the only ones that made the observation. Peering from the curtain, just beyond the spot where Dubrong was seated, The Shadow also saw.

“I intended to tell Mr. Casslin,” announced Yvonne frankly. “However, he had already left the room. I intended to speak to him when he returned, for he had mentioned that a Hindu in Bombay was anxious to obtain his diamond. Then all the excitement happened.”

Cardona stared at the girl. He saw no reason to doubt Yvonne’s testimony. It had been voluntary. There was a naivete in Yvonne’s expression that added to her simple beauty. Cardona, as he jotted down the point that Yvonne had mentioned, felt that he had gained a valuable bit of evidence, one that would be useful later on.

“Did anyone else see a prowler by the window?” questioned the detective.

There was no reply. Bart Melken did not speak. When Yvonne made no further comment, the young man was relieved. He had not wanted Yvonne to mention that she had seen someone outside the window. However, the girl had omitted the one point that worried Bart the most: the fact that she had spoken to him of the face she had seen.

WHEN his turn for testimony came, Bart merely stated facts which others had mentioned. He gave his own reactions to the hubbub in the hallway. When the statement taking was completed, no mention had been made of anything that constituted suspicious actions on the part of Bart Melken.

Nevertheless, Cardona had been seemingly thorough in his questioning; and he had barely finished before Gilkins again announced that he had heard the doorbell. Stephen Gloucester volunteered to answer the ring. When he returned. Gloucester was accompanied by Inspector Timothy Klein, a trio of detectives, and a police surgeon.

Arrangements were quickly made. Two detectives were dispatched to make a thorough search of the ground surrounding Five Towers. One was left in charge of the living room, with the guests. Klein, Cardona, and the police surgeon prepared to visit the tower.

It was then that Doctor Dubrong advanced and stated that he would like to view the body of Rutherford Casslin. Inspector Klein stated that he could accompany the group. They began by examining the bodies of Hubert and the Hindu. Then Joe Cardona unlocked the steel door that led to the tower.

Strange it was that in this house, where death had fallen, a hidden being should be stalking almost within reach of the investigators. The Shadow had moved into a darkened room upon the arrival of Klein and the detectives.

After the two sleuths had been sent out to examine the grounds, he had moved to the far entrance of the hallway, where the bodies lay. Before Cardona had decided to unlock the steel door, The Shadow had departed.

His phantom presence manifested itself outside the castle. A fleeting patch of blackness against cold, gray walls. The Shadow circled the huge building, unseen by the detectives who were inspecting the dry ground with flashlights.

The rear of Casslin’s castle was almost black in the gloom of night. The tall turret that housed the dead millionaire’s strong room showed as a massive cylinder with ivied walls. At intervals appeared gloomy rectangles of light, the slitlike windows of the stairway and the three openings in the turret itself. The bars showed plainly against the dim glow.

Within the tower, Joe Cardona was leading the advance up the spiral steps. At each window, the detective stopped to unfasten the ironbound glass frame. Every crossbar came under his careful inspection.

During the ascent within the tower, another climb was taking place outside. The Shadow, blackened against the stones of the tower, was scaling the wall like a human fly. He was not trusting to the ivy; that was not thick enough to support more than twenty pounds of weight. Instead, The Shadow was relying upon flat disks that were pressed to his hands and feet.

Soft, squdgy sounds marked The Shadow’s upward progress. Those disks were concave circles of rubber that affixed themselves under pressure. A twist of hand or foot made each disk yield and come free while the others served as supports.

THE SHADOW’S climb was a steady one. When the black-garbed investigator reached the uppermost windows of the tower, his peering eyes saw that Cardona and the others had not yet arrived. Casslin’s body still lay alone upon the floor, with arms outstretched toward the wall below the safe.

The Shadow was clinging to the wall like a mammoth bat. His head moved away from the window as the broken door of the tower room opened, and Cardona came into view.

The detective’s first action was to open each one of the three windows, and try the crossbars. In performing this action, Cardona came within a foot of The Shadow’s head. He did not, however, notice the phantom shape without. The Shadow was motionless upon the wall.

As Cardona went over to Casslin’s body, where the police surgeon and Doctor Dubrong were making their examination, The Shadow’s head appeared at the lowest point of the central window. The frame was still open; Cardona had left it that way. Words as well as actions were plain to The Shadow.

“What about the windows?” Inspector Klein was inquiring.

“The same as those on the stairs,” replied Cardona, in a laconic tone. “The frames are nothing — anyone could jimmy them open and shut them again. But what good would it do?”

The Shadow saw Cardona make a gesture with his hands, to indicate a measurement.

“No one could squeeze through a space that wide,” declared the detective. “Those bars are just as solid as if they were part of the wall. That makes a square about six inches each way. This place is like a vault, so far as entering it is concerned.”

“What about the diamond?” questioned Klein.

“It’s gone,” assured Cardona, “unless Casslin put it back in the safe. That’s locked—”

“Are you sure?” interposed Doctor Dubrong, looking up from Casslin’s body. “I don’t see why Casslin would have locked it up while the diamond was out.”

Cardona walked over to the safe and tugged at the handle. The door refused to budge.

“Turn the handle farther,” suggested Dubrong.

Cardona complied. The firm twist succeeded. The combination knobs had not been turned. The safe came open. The small strong box was quite empty.

“That proves that the diamond is gone,” declared Cardona grimly.

The detective stepped to the window. The Shadow’s head wavered away from view. Cardona uttered a shrill whistle. An answering call came from one of the detectives below.

“See anything there?” shouted Cardona.

“Nothing,” came the answer.

“All right,” ordered Cardona. “Meet us inside.”

With Inspector Klein, Cardona completed the examination of Rutherford Casslin’s stronghold. Accompanied by the two physicians, the investigators started below.

THE room was again empty, save for Casslin’s body. The Shadow’s right hand appeared upon the central bar of the window. White fingers emerged from a glove. The Shadow touched the central bar — one which Cardona had so recently tested

There was no firmness in The Shadow’s grip. Cardona’s examination had shown that the bar was firm. It was with fingers only that The Shadow acted. His light touch moved along the bar, which was roughened with rust, except at the center, where the fingers encountered smoothness.

The same fingers moved along each of the other bars. With gleaming eyes, The Shadow stared through the opened slit, directly at the back of Rutherford Casslin’s prone body, a dozen feet away.

Then the descent began. Slowly, steadily, The Shadow moved downward. The ground detectives had gone within the house. At certain points, a tiny flashlight glimmered, its disk of illumination no larger than a silver dollar.

One hand was free; this, perhaps, accounted partly for The Shadow’s slow descent. Rubber suction cups paused in their squdge; occasionally, bits of ivy vine rustled under The Shadow’s touch. Once a twig broke free with a snap.

At the bottom of the tower, The Shadow became a thing of night. His flashlight no longer glimmered as his weirdly blackened shape again circled the house. The only sign of The Shadow’s presence was a murmured laugh that came in whispered tones.

The eerie sound faded. Silence lay about Five Towers, the castle of death. The Shadow had again entered the house where murder had struck.

The Shadow had seen all that others had seen. The Shadow had learned more. From the outside of the tower, he had peered in to gain a clew to the death of Rutherford Casslin.