The Mobsmen On The Spot

CHAPTER XVIII THE SHADOW KNOWS

IT was well after midnight. The Paladrome Theater was closed. The scene of the night’s tragedy had been forgotten until the morrow.

All evening, while business had continued as usual, police investigators had been at work. Every one who had left the theater had been watched, and at the close of the last picture, the body of George Ballantyne had been removed.

Various persons had visited that office of death. Most of them had been police detectives and inspectors. One other had been Lamont Cranston, who had chanced to visit the theater that evening.

Cranston had said nothing. He had simply watched the work of the investigators.

There was no clew to the murderer. Not a sign. It was decided that Ballantyne must have left the door unlocked; that the man had entered, and had killed him during the showing of the feature picture. That was the finding of the police.

The usher believed that Ballantyne had left the door unlatched; for he had been forced to use his key in entering, and would probably keep it unlatched. But the two detectives had believed otherwise.

They looked for finger prints by the automatic latch. They found nothing but confused blurs. Various persons had operated that latch.

Now, when all was still and quiet, the door of the death office opened once more, operated by a hand that was invisible in the darkness. The door closed silently.

The light on the table clicked. It revealed a man in black; a silent, sinister figure, who moved with amazing stealth.

The Shadow had come to the scene of the crime!

In action and appearance, this figure in black bore no resemblance to Lamont Cranston.

The features of The Shadow were totally obscured. He moved with swiftness where Cranston had moved with deliberation. Yet Cranston had looked in many places; and it was to one of these that The Shadow went without long hesitation.

The figure in black opened the closet door. The rays of a flashlight entered into an inspection. Detectives had looked into that closet during the evening. They had observed nothing. But The Shadow found something for which he appeared prepared.

It was a tiny fragment of paper that lay on the floor of the closet — nothing but a small corner of a large sheet.

The Shadow scraped this fragment into an envelope. With it went a few flakes of tobacco that lay beside it. These were visible also — if keen eyes looked for them.

Standing in the closet, cramped for space, The Shadow simulated the motion of a man drawing a gun from his pocket. He laughed softly. The action took place directly above the spot where the little particles had lain!

THE office light went out. The door opened and closed. The Shadow was gone.

It was scarcely a minute later when his presence again manifested itself — this time in a near-by darkened room, immediately after a click turned on a light that hung above a table.

Two hands appeared. They were not garbed in black. They were long, thin hands, with finely shaped fingers. Upon one gleamed a strange, fiery gem, of deep, changing hues.

It was a girasol, or fire opal — the only jewel which The Shadow wore.

A hand wrote. The letters that it formed were made rapidly, but perfectly. They seemed the physical expressions of an invisible mind that was formulating exact thoughts with quick exactness.

The hand stopped writing. It crumpled the paper and tossed it away. It produced an envelope and opened it.

Upon a sheet of paper, the hand of The Shadow dropped the fragment of torn paper and the particles of tobacco. Then another envelope came into view. It was sealed. The Shadow opened it and found a letter, written in a code. Its meaning was clear to those eyes in the darkness as they read:

The code used was the one which The Shadow had given to Cliff Marsland.

The hands found the articles mentioned within an inner envelope. They were placed on the table also.

Then the hands produced a strange machine that bore an odd resemblance to a stereopticon. It was a portable black-light apparatus — science’s latest weapon against crime. A wire ran from the machine. The hands disappeared.

There was a slight noise as the plug at the end of the wire was fitted into the wall of the room.

The Shadow was back at work. Beneath the circle of purplish rays that came from the strange machine, the hands set three tiny fragments of paper — two torn from the sheets sent by Cliff Marsland — the third the fragment that had been taken from the closet floor.

The slips of paper glowed with an eerie light. They seemed to be charged with luminous paint. One fragment had a darkish tinge. Two were a dull orange.

Above the rays of the detector, The Shadow held a microscope. The enlarged views of the orange-glowing fragments showed that they were identical.

The bit of paper found in the closet was the same as the sample that had come from Killer Durgan’s apartment!

Now the tobacco was subjected to the test. Here, again, there was a strange, oddly shimmering glow, that did not leave an iota of doubt. The same mixture of tobacco had been found in the closet and in Durgan’s cigarette box!

The violet rays disappeared. The table light came on. The hand wrote.

The paper was crumpled. The black-light machine was detached and packed away. The hand wrote again, beneath the glare of the lamp.

There was another click in the darkness. A long ray of white light streamed across the room, forming a luminous spot on a white screen.

The Shadow was alone in the private preview room of the Paladrome Theater!

The mechanism of a motion-picture camera began to operate. It could not be heard elsewhere, for the room was virtually soundproof.

In fact, the room, with its expensive equipment, had been triple-locked; yet The Shadow had entered!

A reel was showing on the screen. The Shadow was watching it from the darkness. His hand was still beneath the table lamp, with pencil poised to make notations.

On came the scene that showed Times Square in the distance; the picture which had been taken by Bud Sherman from the window of Howard Griscom’s office.

The street was thronged with people. Suddenly a man came in from the left and stood with his back toward the street. He was looking in Brantwell’s window. He was very small, for the picture covered a long area.

The hand wrote again.

Another man detached himself from the throng. He stood beside Marschik. He drew his hand from his coat pocket and moved close to Marschik, evidently to deposit an article in the other man’s pocket. Again the hand of The Shadow wrote.

The man had walked from the picture, and the reel came to a sudden end while The Shadow was still writing. So far the picture had shown nothing that had not been observed by Lamont Cranston from Griscom’s window.

Now came a strange action. The projector was operating again — slowly — and the reel was running backward!

THE unknown man backed into the picture. He stood beside Marschik, while the throngs moved in the wrong direction — automobiles backing toward Times Square — the whole scene a curious medley!

The important man backed away from Marschik now. He threaded his way curiously through the crowd, as though his eyes were in the back of his head. He reached the corner and walked back through traffic.

An automobile was waiting there. The man’s feet seemed to step upward and rearward. He moved into the open door of the car. The door closed.

The automobile backed slowly across the street through the crazy reversed traffic.

The Shadow’s eyes could not be seen, but the hand was evidence that they were alert. It was writing data, with rapidity.

The data was amazing. Even after the automobile had rolled back out of the picture, The Shadow’s hand was yet at work, putting down every item that might be used to identify the car.

An ordinary observer might have believed that it would be impossible to distinguish one car from another of the same model. The Shadow’s notations belied that fact.

Even though the list included only items that were discernible from a distance, they gave the automobile such a tabulation of individuality that the search could surely have been narrowed down to a comparatively small list of cars.

The Halcyon Eight was an expensive car. It catered to those who desired individuality in automobiles.

The room was in darkness. A low laugh sounded as hollow, echoing merriment. It was a laugh that indicated success.

To The Shadow, the task that lay ahead was not a great one. He had the facts he needed — how the man who had met Marschik had arrived on the scene.

Through the medium of the motion-picture reel, The Shadow had accomplished the impossible. He had made time move backward!