The Living Joss

CHAPTER X. THE CRAFT OF CHUN SHI

WESTLEY HARTNETT’S apartment was a long way uptown. Despite the fact that the lawyer had traveled rapidly in his car, it was nearly midnight when he reached his destination. Had he been riding to a locality in lower Manhattan — Chinatown for instance — he would have been there long before.

Westley Hartnett felt that he had made swift progress coming home. Another car, however, had followed at a much more rapid pace. The Shadow, sensing a menace to the lawyer, had taken up a speedy chase after he had left Harry Vincent. As Hartnett was entering the lobby of his apartment building, a trim coupe was swinging up the avenue less than a dozen blocks away.

Trivial incidents sometimes have important bearing on what is to follow. The elevator door was closing when Westley Hartnett approached. The operator just managed to glimpse the arriving lawyer. He reopened the door.

At the same time, back on the avenue, a taxicab from a cross street collided with a sedan, and traffic was automatically blocked. The driver of a coupe was forced to wait while the cars ahead of him moved into single file to pass the unexpected barricade.

Thus, Westley Hartnett experienced no delay whatever in going up to his apartment, whereas the person who was following his course lost precious minutes in his effort to overtake the lawyer.

Reaching his apartment, Hartnett promptly unlocked the door, and turned on a light in the entry. Had he paused here to remove his hat and coat, he would again have had a chance of thwarting impending doom. But tonight, contrary to his usual procedure, Hartnett walked directly into the large room, and turned on a floor lamp.

The lawyer happened to pick the lamp that was nearest to the window. Deciding that the room was stuffy, he raised the sash. Perhaps the fact that he had not yet doffed his overcoat was the cause for his decision that the room was too hot. Whatever the case might have been, Hartnett was unwittingly making a play into hands that lost no chance for prompt action.

As the lawyer turned from the window, a strange creature sprang in from the outer darkness. Like a human spider, it threw its long arms and legs about the attorney’s body. Westley Hartnett uttered a choking gasp as he wrested forward, trying to shake this insidious clutch from his frame.

The creature twisted itself about the intended victim. Hartnett found himself staring into the eyes of an evil-faced yellow man — the spidery Chinaman known as Chun Shi, the Crafty. This minion of Kwa had been waiting on the outer ledge for the lawyer’s return.

Throttling hands caught at Westley Hartnett’s throat. Before the attorney could break the hold away, Chun Shi had added new twists. Like the curling tentacles of an octopus, the long limbs of the crafty slayer were encircling their prey.

With choking power, the Chinaman prevented Hartnett from making any outcry; yet he allowed the lawyer to stagger about the room. Therein lay Chun Shi’s cunning; and Hartnett performed a fatal error.

Had he struggled against the hands alone, he would have delayed his death, for Chun Shi would have required considerable time to strangle him.

IRONICALLY, a rescuer was nearing this very spot, and headwork by Hartnett would have meant salvation. But the lawyer staggered about at random, and brought himself into the exact position that Chun Shi required.

Near the table, with Hartnett leaning backward, Chun Shi’s distorted body seemed to spring upward, and the change of weight caused the lawyer to lose his balance. As Westley Hartnett toppled backward, the Chinaman emitted a fiendish croak and drove his right palm squarely into the lawyer’s face.

The back of Hartnett’s head smashed against the corner of the heavy desk, driven there with the crushing blow of a pile driver. The body collapsed limply and crumpled to the floor.

Chun Shi vaulted away with the ease of an acrobat. His long-limbed frame hovered above the lawyer’s form. Beady, almond eyes saw that Hartnett’s doom was sealed.

With a quick stride, Chun Shi gained the window. He slipped his feet to the ledge below, and scrambled in crablike fashion along the side of the building. He was like a yellow spider as he fled from window to window, always keeping below the level of the sills.

Within half a minute after he had sprung away from Westley Hartnett’s body, Chun Shi had gained the window that led to the side hall. That marked his final departure from the neighborhood of death.

There was no motion in Westley Hartnett’s body. It lay unbreathing upon the floor beside the desk. Slow, tedious minutes passed. Something clicked in the lock of the apartment door.

The portal opened, and a black shape came into view. The Shadow moved swiftly to the large room. A strange, spectral figure in the room illuminated by a single lamp, the master of darkness viewed the workmanship of Chun Shi.

Westley Hartnett was dead. Fate had conspired tonight. From the moment when Harry Vincent had missed the lawyer in the sun porch, all events had favored the evil schemes of murderers.

The insidious figure that Harry had seen on the streaky lawn had commanded The Shadow’s investigation. The swift race of The Shadow had been intended to prevent that creature from overtaking Hartnett. Instead, a lesser fiend had been awaiting the lawyer’s return to his apartment.

Despite that, The Shadow could have made the rescue but for freakish factors. Westley Hartnett’s prompt arrival home; The Shadow’s unforeseen delay on the avenue; the crafty strategy of Chun Shi!

Westley Hartnett was dead. His slayer was gone, leaving no clew to his identity. Yet The Shadow, as he viewed the lawyer’s body with his searching eyes, knew well that death had struck but a few minutes before; and that there was but one avenue by which the slayer could have departed.

GAZING from the window, the keen-eyed investigator noted the ledge that ran beneath the line of windows. The Shadow knew that some swift-moving creature must have effected a rapid escape; that pursuit would not serve to overtake him.

A low, whispered laugh sounded in the dim room. It was a sibilant mockery of keen determination, The Shadow’s sinister cry of vengeance. Evil had triumphed here tonight. Whoever the unknown slayer might be, he would most certainly never succeed in taking another life!

The Shadow was reviewing words that he had heard spoken only a few nights ago — the cold analysis which Doctor Ward Zelka had made in Brindle’s restaurant. Westley Hartnett was one who blocked a crooked scheme. His elimination would further anyone who might plan for ill-gained wealth.

The Shadow’s thoughts went further. They were no longer concerned with the affairs of Westley Hartnett. The lawyer could not be restored to life. Another must be considered; one who was still alive.

Blaine Goodall! After Westley Hartnett, the president of the Huxley Corporation would prove a stumbling-block. Doom was due to strike again. How soon?

When crime was scheduled, The Shadow regarded it as an immediate menace. The master of detection never wasted time when fate had decreed that nothing more could be done.

Blaine Goodall, living, would need protection. Westley Hartnett, dead, required none.

The whispered laugh rebounded. Its echoes came back weirdly from the walls. When the last of those solemn sounds had ceased, the single-lighted room was occupied only by Westley Hartnett’s body.

The Shadow was gone. The successful craft of Chun Shi was but the first step in murderous crime. When the next stroke fell, The Shadow would there to fight it!