The Ghost Of The Manor

CHAPTER VIII THE SHADOW KNOWS

A CHUBBY-FACED man was seated at a desk in a New York office. From his window he could see a jutting vista of Manhattan skyscrapers. The city scene, however, held no interest for this methodical individual. His entire attention was centered upon a pile of newspapers that lay on the desk.

One of these was a local daily from the city of Newbury. The chubby-faced man looked down the columns. He came to an item that announced the burial of Winstead Delthern. Just as the man picked up a pair of scissors to clip the paragraph, the telephone rang upon his desk. He answered it.

“Yes,” he said, in a quiet, even tone, “this is Rutledge Mann. Yes, Mr. Barker. Certainly. I shall be pleased to investigate Leviathan Copper. It may prove to be a sound investment. I have my doubts, however.”

His call concluded, Rutledge Mann again took the scissors and sliced out the clipping that pertained to Winstead Delthern’s funeral. He read the item carefully. He particularly noted two words that were conspicuous: they formed the phrase “accidental death.”

Rutledge Mann added the clipping to others that were upon his desk. He picked up another newspaper — a Cincinnati daily — and cut out a front-page story that told of the amazing capture of a trio of bank robbers. The police had arrived to answer an alarm; they had found the crooks locked in the bank vault, all three in a dazed condition. Not one of the arrested men had been able to explain how he had landed there.

Rutledge Mann smiled as he added this clipping to the others. He doubted that it would be necessary. For Rutledge Mann, agent of The Shadow, performed the function of gleaning information concerning current crime which would be of interest to his mysterious chief.

It required no great sagacity on Mann’s part to decide that The Shadow must know all that was needed concerning the affair in Cincinnati! Such a coup as the locking of three bank robbers in the vault that they had come to rifle could only have been accomplished by The Shadow himself.

As Rutledge Mann was placing the clipping in an envelope, he stopped and again examined the one that told of Winstead Delthern’s burial. A trace of worriment appeared upon Mann’s chubby countenance.

A FEW days before, the investment broker had cut out a clipping which told of Winstead Delthern’s accidental death. Acting upon special instructions, Mann had been keeping close tabs upon affairs in Newbury. Calculating now, Mann realized that if The Shadow had gone on an emergency mission to Cincinnati, he could not possibly have received that first clipping.

With a perplexed smile, Mann replaced the Newbury clipping with the others, and sealed the lot in the envelope. It was not his part to wonder about the doings of his mysterious chief. Obedience to instructions was Mann’s sole duty.

Ending his idle speculation, Mann decided that The Shadow had, in all probability, arranged some other method of contact with matters in Newbury. These clippings might be merely a form of routine as a check-up.

To Rutledge Mann, The Shadow was a being of mystery.

Once — it seemed long ago — Mann had been on the brink of despair. A failure in business, he had seen only a hopeless future ahead of him. It was then that he had received a strange visit from The Shadow. A weird personage garbed in black had given him instructions which he had followed to the letter.

Installed in an excellent office, supported by funds that came regularly by mail, Rutledge Mann continued his business as investment broker. That, to the world, was his sole occupation.

Secretly, however, Mann followed the mandates of The Shadow, and served as contact agent for the unknown master who warred against crime.

His envelope sealed, Rutledge Mann left the office and taxied to Twenty-third Street. There, he entered a tumble-down building and went up a flight of stairs. He stopped before the glass-paned door of a deserted office.

To all appearances this room was unoccupied. The name “Jonas” appeared upon the dingy glass; but Mann had never met anyone who answered to that title.

In all probability, Jonas was a myth; this office a room that was rented, but never opened. Mann had no idea what lay behind the frosted cobwebbed pane in the door. The investment broker simply inserted his envelope in a mail slit and went his way.

This was one of his daily duties — the delivery of current clippings at the Jonas office. This envelope — like the others that Mann had deposited — would eventually reach The Shadow.

At present, Rutledge Mann was enjoying a partial vacation. It was not late in the afternoon, but his work was completed for the day. The investment broker took a taxi to his club, met a friend who had a car, and together they set out for a game of golf on a New Jersey course.

An hour after Mann’s visit to the Twenty-third Street office, they were riding past a Jersey airport. Rutledge Mann stared admiringly at a swift, shining monoplane that was heading downward for a landing.

STRANGE that Rutledge Mann should have noticed that ship! For although the investment broker never suspected the fact, the arrival of the monoplane had an important bearing on those clippings which Mann had left in the Twenty-third Street building; and, specifically, it concerned matters in the city of Newbury.

On the landing field, a man stepped out of the airplane. A uniformed chauffeur ran up and made a half salute.

“The car is here, Mr. Cranston,” he announced.

“Very well, Stanley,” returned the pilot of the plane. “I shall go to the house immediately.”

Half an hour later, the amazing personage who bore the features of Lamont Cranston was at the millionaire’s home, changing his attire. He questioned Richards, while he dressed.

“No letter at all?” asked Cranston. “You are positive that no word has come from Warren Barringer?”

“No message whatever, sir,” responded the servant. “I would have notified your hotel in Cincinnati, sir, as you instructed me.”

“Very well, Richards. Tell Stanley to be here with the limousine in five minutes. I am going to New York.”

IT was still daylight when Lamont Cranston alighted from his limousine on Twenty-third Street. He instructed Stanley to meet him at the Cobalt Club.

From then on — even in the light of afternoon — the millionaire’s actions were no longer apparent. He disappeared in a gloomy alleyway between two buildings, and no trace remained of him.

Some time later, a light clicked in a windowless room. Bluish rays shone from beneath a shade and focused the glow of the lamp upon the reflecting surface of a polished table.

White hands appeared as from nowhere. Long fingers held the envelopes that Rutledge Mann had delivered to the Jonas office during the past several days.

Shining from a finger of the left hand, a strange, glittering gem sent ever-changing rays up toward the light. The girasol, strange emblem of The Shadow, betokened the mystery of the personage who wore it. This gem, which had fascinated Warren Barringer, glimmered in fantastic colors.

Clippings poured upon the table as the envelopes were opened. Deft fingers separated them, seeking only those that had come from the Newbury daily. Sharp eyes discovered the items and read them.

The first of the clippings told of Winstead Delthern’s death. It recited how the chief heir to the Delthern millions had been found sprawled on the floor of the lower hallway. Winstead Delthern, a man of poor health, had been subject to spells of dizziness. Such a fit, the coroner had decided, must have overcome him upon the upper landing.

The long, spinning fall down the precipitous stairway had resulted in instant death. The body had been found by Winstead’s brother, Humphrey; his cousin, Marcia Wardrop; and the servant, Wellington.

The second clipping referred to the funeral. It was the one that Rutledge Mann had cut out today, and it gave no further information.

The girasol sparkled as the left hand replaced the clippings in their envelopes. A soft laugh came from hidden lips above the lamp. The light clicked out. The whispered laugh increased in sound. It broke in strident mockery; its sinister tones came shuddering back from blackened walls.

Dying echoes faltered, lingering with long, uncanny rhythm. When their last faint lisps had ended, the room was no longer occupied. This strange abode of darkness, the sanctum of The Shadow, was empty. The master had departed.

Not long afterward, Lamont Cranston appeared at the entrance of the Cobalt Club. Stanley, at the wheel of the parked limousine, spied his master, and drove the car to the entrance. Entering the automobile, the millionaire gave his order to the chauffeur.

“To the airport, Stanley,” came the quiet, even tones of Lamont Cranston’s voice. “I am taking another flight.”

The chauffeur nodded, and tipped his cap. He was used to such instructions. Lamont Cranston was a man who came and went as he pleased.

The chauffeur did not know that the man whom he served as Lamont Cranston was actually that strange being called The Shadow. Nor did Stanley realize that any adventure, other than a trip by air, lay ahead of his employer.

Such were the ways of The Shadow. Back from one episode in his career against crime, the master of the night was starting on a new mission, about to move to his destination with all the swiftness at his command — a swiftness almost unbelievable.

The Shadow was on his way to Newbury!