The Crime Crypt

CHAPTER VI. THE ALIBI

“Do you know Fritz Fursch?”

Brodie Brodan put the question to Joe Cardona. At the same time, he gestured toward Fritz, the man whom had met at the Grand Central Station.

“Never met him,” answered Joe.

“Meet him now, then,” suggested the gang leader. “Fritz, this is Detective Cardona. Joe Cardona — a good guy.”

Cardona shook hands with the man from Chicago. They had reached Brodie Brodan’s room and the gang leader was placing his bags upon the bed. He turned to switch on a light, for dusk had brought gloom to this narrow-windowed room.

“Thought you was a dick,” confided Fritz Fursch, speaking to Joe Cardona. “You looked like one when we seen you in the lobby.”

Joe Cardona made no response to the comment. He turned and spoke to Brodie Brodan.

“Where’ve you been, Brodie?” he asked.

“Me?” returned the gang leader. “Chicago.”

Cardona stared steadily. The gang leader was unstrapping his suitcases. Brodie stopped as he noted Cardona’s gaze. For a few moments, they stood facing each other, without a word.

Fritz Fursch watched the tableau. His eyes went from man to man. All three were engrossed. None saw the motion that occurred on the other side of the room — behind Fritz’s back. A door was opening slowly.

It was a connecting door to an adjoining room. Inch by inch it moved until it allowed a narrow crevice through which a keen eye peered.

THE SHADOW had entered the next room. Silently, he had gained this vantage post. He could see and hear all that transpired between Cardona and Brodan.

“Chicago, eh?” questioned Cardona. “When did you get in from there?”

“Six o’clock this afternoon,” returned Brodie, promptly. “I came in with Fritz. Chicago is his town. We rolled in on the Starlight Limited.”

“When did you leave Chicago?”

“Say” — Brodie’s tone was challenging — “what’s the idea of this third degree? I thought you was a good guy, Joe. You heard what I just told Fritz.”

“Never mind the good-guy stuff. I want to know where you were last night. That’s all.”

“O.K., Joe. Suit yourself. Fritz and I pulled out on the Starlight. Left Chi at ten o’clock.”

“What were you doing in Chicago?”

“Say — that’s a mean one, Joe. If I had been doing anything, I’d think you were working along with a bunch of Chicago dicks. I wasn’t doing anything, though, so I’ll tell you. I was staying at the Hotel Drury, trying to put through a deal with some birds who want to start a night club in New York.

“That’s where I met Fritz. Found he was coming on to New York, so we came along together. I wired here yesterday. Told them to hold a room for me. That was before I bumped into Fritz.”

Fritz watched Joe Cardona closely. It was Fritz who had sent the wire from Chicago. He looked to see if the detective suspected the truth. Cardona gave no inkling.

“Starlight Limited, eh?” quizzed Cardona. “Got anything to show for it — outside of this guy’s say-so?”

“Ticket stub,” grinned Brodie, producing the article from his vest pocket, as though the idea had just occurred to him. “There it is, Joe.”

“You got one too?” quizzed Cardona, turning to Fritz.

The Chicago man produced the required stub. Cardona examined it along with Brodie’s. The gang leader began to unpack his bags. Clothes were in a state of disarray.

“Look at that, Joe,” said Brodie, with a grin. “I threw everything into the bag in a hurry. This other bag is just as bad. Say — I didn’t get it shut until we were on the cab to the station in Chicago. Lucky I never opened it on the train. Maybe I wouldn’t have got it shut.”

The second bag was bulging. Shirts fell out as Brodie opened it. The gang leader unpacked a suit, which needed pressing. He found a razor and shaving cream. He laid them on the bed beside the bag.

“So you came in from Chicago, eh?” Cardona was persistent. “Then you don’t know anything about Perry Trappe?”

“Perry Trappe?”

“Yeah. The curio collector who was murdered in his apartment, last night.”

Brodie Brodan looked up from the suitcase. He stared at Joe Cardona; then laughed.

“You mean the guy who was bumped off with his servant? All about him in the evening papers? Say — have you gone goofy, Cardona?”

The detective did not reply. Brodie guffawed and shook his head.

“That’s hot,” pronounced the gang leader. “Remember, Fritz, you showed me the paper in the club car — the one with the dead guy’s mug on the front page? Coming in from Albany, wasn’t it?”

Fritz nodded.

“Is this the paper?” Brodie pulled a folded journal from Fritz’s pocket. He saw that it was a Chicago newspaper. “No — that isn’t it. I guess we left the New York paper on the train. Say, Joe” — Brodie’s voice became earnest as the gang leader addressed Cardona — “you’re following a wrong steer. If you’re after the bird that killed this guy Trappe, why waste your time?

“I came in with Fritz on the Starlight Limited. That’s that. You know me well enough to know that I don’t chase around collecting curios. I’m in the night-club business — building it up from a side line. They used to try to pin rackets on me — but never any hokum like this. Grabbing off curios — say, I’ll be cutting up paper dolls before I go into that line.”

Brodie bent over the suitcase and pulled out the few remaining objects. One was an excellent desk clock.

Brodie set the time piece on the bureau and noted the dial as he did so.

“Ten after seven,” he remarked. “I want to get up to the Club Madrid at eight. So if you’ve got any more questions, Joe, shoot ‘em. But I’ve given you the straight dope. Fritz will vouch for it.”

JOE CARDONA shrugged his shoulders in a fashion that was a trifle sheepish. To cover up his lack of composure, he drew his watch from his pocket.

“Ten after seven,” he confirmed. “Well, Brodie, I’m moving along. I just picked you as the first person to see because I had a hunch you’ve been laying too quiet lately. But this night club business of yours sounds straight. Lay off the racket boys and maybe you can make an honest living — if fleecing customers can be called that.”

With a gruff laugh at his own weak jest, Joe Cardona turned toward the door. Brodie Brodan was peeling shirt and vest. He picked up his razor and spoke to Fritz Fursch.

“Ride down to the lobby with Cardona,” suggested the gang leader in an affable tone. “Take your bag along — check in and get a room for yourself. Kind of an old joint, this hotel, but it’s not bad.”

Fritz picked up his bag and followed the detective. The door closed behind the pair. Brodie Brodan did not show the slightest elation. His poker face remained the same. The gang leader turned to cross the room.

The door opposite slid tightly shut, just before Brodie glanced in that direction. The Shadow had heard Joe Cardona’s quiz. Like the detective, he was leaving.

RIDING uptown on the elevated, Joe Cardona checked his list of names. He crossed out Brodie Brodan. The gang leader’s alibi stood, so far as Joe was concerned. The Chicago story had the ear-marks of a correct one, one Joe could not dispute.

There had not been a flaw in any of Brodie’s statements, so far as Cardona could see. Everything had stood the test. A man riding eastward on a limited would have no thought of preparing an alibi. Joe Cardona had picked Brodie Brodan on a hunch. That hunch was fading — it was out.

In retrospect, Cardona recalled each statement that had been made; he defined Brodie’s actions and formed the final conclusion that there was not a single shred of evidence to indicate falsity in the gang leader’s story.

SUCH was Cardona’s conclusion. The detective thought that it was thorough. He was sure that nothing had escaped his keen attention. But Cardona was not the only investigator who had viewed Brodie Brodan at the Hotel Spartan.

There was another — The Shadow. He, the mysterious supersleuth, had been there also. He had heard Cardona’s quiz. Like the detective, he had analyzed the statements of Brodie Brodan and had witnessed all of the gang leader’s actions.

The Shadow, like Cardona, had an answer. It differed, however, from Cardona’s. It came, shortly after Cardona had formed his final decision regarding his suspect.

THE light clicked in The Shadow’s sanctum. Long white hands appeared beneath the bluish glare. The Shadow’s right hand wrote a name upon a sheet of paper; beneath the name went two short statements:

A laugh sounded from the gloom on the near side of the bluish light. That laugh betokened keen understanding. It told of a clew which Joe Cardona had not noticed; one, however, which had not escaped The Shadow.

Brodie Brodan had been in Chicago for three days or more. He had told Cardona that he had packed his bags in a hurry; that he had not opened the second bag upon the train. Therefore, the clock had not been touched since it was packed.

Ten minutes after seven! A clock packed in Chicago — hurriedly — had registered New York time! There could be but one answer. Brodie Brodan had not packed that desk clock in Chicago. Had he done so, it would have shown ten minutes after six, allowing for the difference in time between Chicago and New York.

Brodie had packed his clock in New York. He could not have gone to Chicago, as he stated. There was a chance that he might not have changed its time during his sojourn in the Middle West. That chance; however, was slight.

The clew was sufficient for The Shadow. It was the thread which marked Brodie Brodan’s alibi as a doubtful one. With that thread as a starting point, The Shadow was ready to trace Brodie Brodan’s activities in the immediate future.

A long hand reached across the table. A tiny bulb flashed from the wall as The Shadow drew a pair of earphones toward him. A quiet voice came over the wire:

“Burbank speaking.”

“Instructions to Marsland,” ordered The Shadow, in a low whisper.

“Ready,” was Burbank’s answer.

The sinister tones of The Shadow’s eerie voice clung to the lighted corner of the room as the master worker gave his orders. When Burbank’s final corroboration came, The Shadow placed the earphones back upon the wall. The little bulb went out. The blue light clicked. The sanctum was in complete darkness.

Then came a whispered laugh. It rose to a strain of shuddering mockery that awoke ghoulish echoes from the hidden walls of blackness. When the reverberations had died, deep silence reigned.

The Shadow had departed. His orders had been given. The Shadow had taken the first step to trail Brodie Brodan — the gang leader whom he suspected was concerned with the death of Perry Trappe.

Where Joe Cardona’s hunch had faded, The Shadow’s inkling had begun. From keen deduction, The Shadow had picked up the trail which Cardona had lost. Crimes like the murder of Perry Trappe were due to fall in sequence.

Through his agent, Cliff Marsland, The Shadow would gain the word he needed. When crime next struck, The Shadow would be there!