The Killer

CHAPTER XIV THE SPOKEN CLEW

MIDNIGHT. A group of sober-faced men were gathered in Sidney Cooperdale’s living room. Inspector Timothy Klein, Detective Joe Cardona, and Jim Clausey, were three members of the group. Lowder was seated, gloomy, in a corner of the room.

“It’s plain enough, inspector,” asserted Joe Cardona. “Cooperdale received the cane in the afternoon. This man of his put it in the curio room. The expected visitor came later.

“The snake was in the cane. The stick was hollow. All he had to do was open the door of Cooperdale’s bedroom — the little door that led there from the curio room — and then scram before the snake got loose.”

“And this visitor?” inquired Klein.

Cardona indicated Lowder. The servant spoke in a breathless tone.

“I didn’t see his face, sir,” he declared. “He was a tall rogue, with stooped shoulders. I talked to him outside the bungalow. He seemed loath to step into the light while I was there. He was wearing a gray hat — a soft hat, sir — a fedora.”

“Hear that?” asked Cardona. “The man we’re after. He was here tonight. Tell us, Lowder, about some of your dead master’s travels.”

“They were many, sir. He went to the Orient; to Egypt; with various expeditions. But his favorite country was Mexico. He spent a long, long while there.”

“Mexico,” declared Cardona. “Roy Selbrig was in Mexico. Burton Blissip was in Mexico. Sidney Cooperdale was in Mexico. It fits like clockwork.”

There was a rap at the door. Cardona answered it. A tall man entered. His hat rested atop a mass of bushy gray hair. He bowed.

“Professor Scudder?” questioned Cardona.

The tall man bowed again.

“We’re glad to see you,” asserted the detective. “We’re also sorry to have put you to all this trouble.”

“None at all,” said the gray-haired man, in a rich voice. “In fact, I am quite interested in this matter. I consider it fortunate that I happened to call up my old friend, Doctor Rhodion, the celebrated zoologist.”

“We called him first,” admitted Cardona. “When we learned that he was ill in bed, we did not know what to do next. Then came a return call from Rhodion, stating that you had happened to telephone him. He said that he had managed to persuade you to come out here. You know all about snakes, I understand.”

“Yes. I should like to see the reptile.”

CARDONA led the way to Cooperdale’s bedroom. The dead man’s body had been removed. The snake, however, was still upon the floor. The gray-haired professor nodded as he looked at the reptile.

“There’s no question about Cooperdale’s death,” stated Cardona. “The police surgeon recognized at once that it was from the bite of a poisonous snake. But we’d never seen a snake like this before. Here’s the cane that it was in—”

The professor smiled.

“This species of snake,” he said, “is called the naja haje. It is the Egyptian cobra. A most venomous reptile. The fact that it was in this cane is quite interesting; and also readily understood.”

“Why?”

“The faquirs of Egypt — street jugglers of Cairo — perform a most curious trick with snakes of this species; after it has been rendered harmless, of course. Their feat is almost a survival of a trick attributed to the ancient Egyptian magicians; the transformation of a staff into a serpent.”

“You mean—”

“That the naja haje easily assumes a condition of rigidity. Pressure against a spot just below its head causes it to resemble a stout cudgel. It can be handled as such; but when struck against the ground, the paralysis is ended. The snake resumes its normal life.”

“Then,” remarked Cardona, “when this snake was loosed from the hollow cane, the man who performed the act would have had no trouble in getting away from it?”

“None at all,” stated Professor Scudder. “The reptile, experiencing a reawakening of life, would not have been capable of striking until after a short period of time.

“The lighting of these rooms, I may add, would have been all in favor of the reptile. The naja haje, like the cobra of India, writhes away from a brilliant light flashed suddenly upon it.”

“Cooperdale,” said Cardona, “was in the dark. The snake must have been here by the connecting door. We believe that he saw the cane, picked it up, and then encountered the snake. He must have been bitten while retreating, but managed to kill the snake before he died.”

Cardona spoke with such emphasis that Professor Scudder made no reply. The savant seemed more interested in the snake than in the crime. Nevertheless, he listened while Cardona recounted all the details.

“We know the man,” decided the detective. “That is, we’ll know him when we get him. But it’s a crazy hook-up. A snake from Egypt, in a cane from Penang, placed here by a man from Mexico!”

Thanking Professor Scudder for his visit, Cardona offered to take the learned man back to Manhattan. Scudder declined, with thanks.

“I was at the Cobalt Club when I called Doctor Rhodion,” he said. “A friend of mine — a Mr. Cranston — kindly offered me the use of his car. It is waiting outside.”

“Lamont Cranston?” questioned Cardona.

“The same,” replied Professor Scudder.

Joe Cardona knew the name. Lamont Cranston, millionaire globe-trotter, had a home in New Jersey, and lived there when in America. He spent much of his time, however, at the Cobalt Club.

Professor Scudder shook hands with the detective and Inspector Klein. A smile appeared upon his broad, friendly face as he bowed himself out and entered a luxurious limousine that awaited him. The chauffeur headed the car for Manhattan.

When the limousine reached the Cobalt Club, Professor Scudder alighted. He went into the club; several minutes later, a tall, dignified man came out. The chauffeur recognized his master, Lamont Cranston.

“New Jersey, Stanley,” ordered Cranston, as he stepped into the limousine.

While the car was rolling toward the Holland Tunnel, Lamont Cranston drew an object from beneath his coat. It was a wig of bushy gray hair. With it were other articles of make-up.

This act denoted a strange fact. The broad-faced personage who had posed as Professor Scudder was now in the guise of Lamont Cranston, whose features possessed thin lips and hawklike nose!

The wig went into a portfolio that lay upon the rear seat. It joined the folds of a black cloak and the flat body of a broad-brimmed slouch hat. Here was another strange fact. The identity of Lamont Cranston was also an assumed one. The being who rode in the limousine was none other than The Shadow!

Detective Joe Cardona would have been amazed had he known these truths. He might have realized then that The Shadow had been present when the police had reached Sidney Cooperdale’s bungalow, that the phantom listener had heard the call put in to Doctor Rhodion, that he, in turn, had called the zoologist, and announced himself as Professor Scudder!

Thus had The Shadow entered upon the scene after the detectives had investigated. In return for his illuminating data regarding the reptile known as the naja haje, he had learned all the findings that the police had made.

CARDONA was still at Cooperdale’s bungalow. He had finished his quiz of Lowder, but he knew that the servant was stunned by his master’s death. Of Lowder’s innocence, there seemed little doubt. Cardona conferred with Inspector Klein. He came to a decision.

“We’re letting you stay here, Lowder,” he told the servant. “Get some rest; maybe you can give us clearer testimony later. Of course, we must leave a man here with you. Detective Clausey will remain.”

Jim Clausey took charge as the others departed. He told Lowder to sleep on the couch in the living room. The old servant wearily stretched out and quickly fell asleep. Clausey sprawled in a big chair, and remained awake, puffing on one of Cooperdale’s cigars.

Dawn appeared. Clausey was half dozing, yet vigilant. He snapped up suddenly as he heard a plaintive cry from Lowder. The servant sat bolt upright on the couch. He stared wonderingly at the detective.

“My master,” he gasped. “Where is he?”

“Cooperdale is dead,” answered Clausey.

“I remember now,” said Lowder slowly. “I remember. But it seems — it seems that I heard him talking. Wait a moment, sir. Now I recall it!”

“What?”

“Mr Cooperdale talking on the telephone, sir. Just as I came in to call him to dinner. He was talking to the man who came here—”

“The fellow with the gray fedora,” prompted Clausey. “You told us that Cooperdale called him, and spoke to you about it afterward.”

“Yes, sir. But I was bewildered after I discovered my master dead. I could remember nothing clearly. Now it comes back to me; words that he said over the telephone — the name he mentioned.”

“To the fellow on the other end of the wire?”

“Yes. Mr. Cooperdale pronounced his name. I remember it perfectly, now. The man whom he was calling was named Mullrick.”

“Mullrick?”

“Yes, sir. I am positive.”

Clausey whistled. He remembered the telephone operator’s testimony in the Hotel Goliath; how she had heard Burton Blissip try to pronounce a word: “Merk.” Cardona had taken it for Mexico. Cardona was wrong. Mullrick was the name.

The detective wrote the name upon a slip of paper. He pocketed it with a smile. This was his clew; one that he could look up, and then pop on Joe Cardona.

“We’ll put that in your testimony, Lowder,” said Clausey, to the servant. “Go back to sleep. You need more rest.”

Lowder rolled back upon the couch. Jim Clausey resumed his vigil, wide awake. He would follow this clew when he returned to Manhattan. A man would be out to relieve him by nine o’clock. This was something better than the thankless job of trailing Slugs Raffney, the gang leader who was lying low.

Elation was the spirit that Jim Clausey had imbibed. He had gained a spoken clew; a name which Sidney Cooperdale had pronounced, and which Lowder had recalled. The trail of a murderer opened up before Jim Clausey’s eyes.

The detective was sure that he would get one man who had killed three: the slayer of Roy Selbrig, Burton Blissip, and Sidney Cooperdale. He, Jim Clausey, would uncover the man from Mexico, the assassin who wore the gray fedora.

He knew the name: Mullrick. Jim Clausey would find success where Joe Cardona had encountered only failure. Jim Clausey possessed the spoken clew!