The Ribbon Clues

CHAPTER V. IN THE MORNING

AT nine o’clock the next morning, a brisk, square-built man walked into the office of the Indo-China Shipping Bureau. Black-haired and dark-eyed man, his features showed a determined, outthrust jaw that marked him as a keen man of business.

“Gentleman to see you, Mr. Mallikan,” observed the girl at the switchboard, turning about in her chair. “Came in about ten minutes ago.”

“Where is he?” demanded the black-haired man, glancing quizzically at the empty waiting benches.

“I sent him into your office,” replied the girl. “He said that he was a friend of yours from China.”

“What was his name?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

Mallikan snapped a sharp retort. Then, curbing his angriness, Mallikan turned on his heel and strode across to his private office.

The Indo-China Shipping Bureau was located high in a downtown skyscraper. When Mallikan entered his office, he saw a young man standing by the window, gazing off beyond the Battery, where an incoming liner looked like a tiny toy between microscopic tugboats. Mallikan closed the door with a thump; the man at the window turned about with a nervous start, then grinned.

“Dave Callard!” exclaimed Mallikan. “Well, well. So you’re back from China earlier than you expected.”

“I am,” returned Callard, advancing to shake hands. “What’s more, I’m glad to be here. Those months in the cooler weren’t any too pleasant.”

“The consulate fixed it for you?”

“Not so much. My Chinese friends in Canton were the ones who really pulled the trick.”

“Sit down. Give me the details.”

MALLIKAN took a chair behind a large mahogany desk; he proffered a box of expensive cigars.

Callard accepted one of the smokes and seated himself opposite the black-haired shipping man.

“It was a real mess,” explained Callard. “Started in Canton when I made a deal with some Chinese merchants to convoy some of their boats up the Chu-kiang.”

“You mean the Canton River?”

“Yes — or the Pearl River, as some call it. Well, the American consul found out what I was doing and advised me to lay off. I went ahead. Smeared a bunch of pirate sampans and thought I’d done a swell job until I landed back in Canton.”

“Yes. I knew your trouble started there.”

“The pirates had friends among some of the local officials. They grabbed me and shoved me in the yamen. Mean places, those Chinese jails.”

“What did the consul do about it?”

“He wanted to try me in the international court. If they’d found me guilty, I’d have been shipped to Manila. I wanted to stay in Canton, on account of my Chinese friends. Well, there were all sorts of complications; but it finally worked out the way I wanted it. Technically, I was sentenced to serve a year in the Chinese prison; but I was transferred to the custody of the international settlement.”

Callard paused to puff at his cigar. His lips hardened into a shrewd smile as he recalled his experiences.

“I was counting on some of those smart officials getting the bounce,” he resumed. “They were pals of the pirates, taking a cut on every robbery, even though they pretended to be on the level. It worked out like I expected. At the end of six months my friends were back in power. They sent a polite delegation to the American consulate and I was released.”

Mallikan began to drum his desk. He was gazing from the window, pondering upon the facts that Callard had just related. At last he nodded brusquely.

“I thought it was something like that, Dave,” he declared. “You were pretty well filled with desire for adventure when I arranged your first shipping berth a few years ago. But I never expected you to get into a scrape as bad as this one.”

“It did look bad when I wrote you about it,” replied Callard with a short laugh. “You’d have thought I was a pirate on my own, the way they grabbed me, there in Canton.”

“I informed your uncle of the details,” declared Mallikan. “I followed your advice. I told him to do nothing for you. I explained that if your captors knew that you had a wealthy relative, they might spirit you away to some place in the interior and hold you for ransom.”

“Which they would have, at the time. Well, it was all right temporarily after I was moved into the international settlement. But just the same, it was wise for Uncle Milton to forget me.”

Mallikan chuckled at the remark.

“HE did forget you,” observed the shipping man, dryly. “He told me he was going to cut you off in his will. I wrote the American consul about it. You probably received the message.”

“I did,” returned Callard, “and my uncle wrote the consul also. He said the same. I was disinherited because of my so-called crime. Because I sided with those who were in the right.”

“I suppose you did, Dave. But you were indiscreet; and indiscretion carries a penalty.”

“Does it?” Callard arose from his chair; his question was a hot challenge. “I’m not so sure of that, Mallikan. Not if I knew my uncle rightly. I’ve come back here, Mallikan, believing that Uncle Milton simply played the game as I wanted him to do. I still think that he arranged some legacy for me.”

Mallikan shook his head.

“I understand,” he said, “that your uncle left his entire estate to charity. After all, he did not have much wealth. Less than fifty thousand dollars, I believe.”

Dave Callard delivered a raucous laugh.

“You believed that, Mallikan?” he questioned. “Why no one who knew anything about my uncle’s affairs would have let that joke pass. Uncle Milton was worth millions!”

“I never met your uncle,” reminded Mallikan. “I merely talked with him over the telephone.”

“What about his secretary?” demanded Callard. “Basslett? Didn’t you have any dealings with him?”

“None at all. I never saw the fellow. Did he know much about your uncle’s affairs?”

“Enough to know that fifty thousand dollars wasn’t much to Uncle Milton.”

“Why not look up Basslett then?”

“Perhaps I shall. I came to see you first; that was all. I thought that because of our old acquaintanceship, Uncle Milton might have confided in you.”

Dave Callard had again seated himself. It was Mallikan who had now arisen. The shipping man was pacing toward the window. He stopped there to watch the boats in the bay. Mallikan shook his head as he heard Callard’s remark.

“I received no confidence from your uncle,” he asserted. “When he stated that he intended to disinherit you, I considered the matter closed. As for Basslett, I never met him; and I have no idea where you could find him.”

“I can find him,” returned Callard. “I know where” — he paused as he eyed Mallikan’s profile at the window — “that is, I think I know where he might be. I’ll look him up later on.”

“You arrived last night?” queried Mallikan, still staring from the window. “Aboard the Tamalpais?”

Callard started to speak; then caught himself.

“I came in on the Zoroaster,” he replied, in a casual tone. “Docked this morning.”

“The Zoroaster?” queried Mallikan, swinging in from the window. “That ship came from Pernambuco.”

“I shipped on at Trinidad,” explained Callard, rising from his chair. “Stopped over there for a week or so. Well, Mallikan” — the young man extended his hand — “you have a busy day ahead. I won’t occupy any more of your time.”

Dave Callard departed. Roger Mallikan’s keen features showed a frozen smile as the shipping man stared at the door through which his visitor had left.

Mallikan went back to his desk and began to busy himself with details. An hour passed; a stenographer entered to announce another visitor.

“A gentleman named Burke,” stated the girl. “He says he’s a reporter from the New York Classic.”

“Show him in,” ordered Mallikan.

A WIRY, friendly-faced young man was ushered into the private office. This was Clyde Burke, on the staff of the New York Classic, one of Manhattan’s tabloid journals. As a roving reporter, Clyde did double duty.

He was more than a newspaperman; he was secretly an agent of The Shadow. It was in behalf of his hidden chief that Clyde had come to interview Roger Mallikan; but he intended to camouflage the visit under his guise of newspaperman.

“Good morning, sir,” said Clyde, briskly. “I’m from the Classic; we’re after a story on a young fellow named Dave Callard.”

“Why come to me?” queried Mallikan, dryly.

“I looked up Callard’s name in the newspaper morgue,” replied Clyde. “Found that he shipped abroad a few years ago on a boat that your company controlled. We just learned that young Callard came into New York last night aboard the Steamship Tamalpais. Thought maybe you’d heard from him.”

“The Tamalpais?” demanded Mallikan. “You’re sure of that? Dave Callard was aboard that boat?”

“Certainly,” replied Clyde. He drew a folded newspaper from beneath his arm; but did not open it “A couple of detectives saw him at the dock—”

“Dave lied to me!” exclaimed Mallikan. “He told me that he came in on the Zoroaster, this morning. I doubted his statement at the time.”

“When was that?”

“This morning. An hour ago.”

“He was here in this office?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

CLYDE BURKE unfolded the newspaper. It was the first edition of an evening tabloid. Mallikan stared at the headline to which the reporter pointed. It told of double murder; the deaths of Ralgood and Basslett.

“The police received an anonymous tip-off,” explained Clyde. “After midnight. It brought them to Luther Ralgood’s residence They found the bodies there; and they discovered a letter from Dave Callard to Luther Ralgood.”

“My word!” gasped Mallikan, settling back in his chair. His eyes flashed as he stared at the reporter. “Dave Callard mentioned Basslett here this morning. He said that he intended to hunt up his uncle’s secretary.”

“He knew where Basslett was,” remarked Clyde. “Dave’s letter to Ralgood was proof of that fact. Basslett had written Dave in China.”

“And Basslett was in the employ of Ralgood?”

“Exactly. That’s why I’m here after a story on Dave Callard.”

“You’ll get one, young fellow.” Mallikan reached for the telephone. “Stay right here and listen. I am calling the police. I am going to tell them all that Dave Callard said when he was here this morning. He deliberately lied to me after he found out that I knew nothing about his uncle’s fortune.”

Clyde Burke smiled in satisfaction as Roger Mallikan put in the call. The reporter felt that he had scored a ten-strike. At The Shadow’s order, Clyde had gone through files at the Classic office; in them he had made the discovery of Dave Callard’s former acquaintanceship with Roger Mallikan.

Those headlines in the evening newspaper blared forth the fact that Dave Callard was being sought for murder. While the police were hunting blindly, Clyde had gained a lead.

That thought, however, was not the real cause for Clyde’s elation. The reporter was pleased because he had performed an even greater duty. Clyde Burke was prepared to pass this news of Dave Callard’s most recent whereabouts straight to his hidden chief.

The Shadow, like the law, would have another trail in the coming search for Dave Callard.