The Shadow Laughs

CHAPTER III IN THE MORGUE

The city morgue was located in an old brick building that stood on a side street. It had been erected many years before, in the days when windows were few; and the architect had apparently sought to make the structure as forbidding as possible.

Detective Harvey Griffith stepped into gloom the moment that he left the street. He entered a long, echoing hall, that was illuminated by two small electric lights.

Visitors to the morgue had often remarked upon the depression that seemed to grip them when they entered the portals of the ugly building, but Griffith had been there too often to sense this natural repulsion.

There was a door at the right of the hall; it was open, and it showed the dingy office, where an attendant sat at a dilapidated desk. The man glanced upward and waved his hand in recognition.

“Hello, Mike,” greeted Griffith. “I’ve come to take a look at the body.”

“You’ll find it downstairs,” replied the man at the desk. “It’s on truck number six. You won’t have any trouble finding it.”

“Many people been in to see it?”

“Not yet. It was identified at the house. Couple of reporters came in. Expect there’ll be more later on; probably some female ones.”

“Yeah. They send the sob sisters out on these cases now. Gruesome details have a new touch when women write about them.”

“You don’t want to talk to any newspaper people, do you?”

“Send them down if they come in. They won’t bother me, and they won’t learn anything. It’s not my case anyway. Harrison is on it.”

Mike laughed.

“Well,” he said, “they’ve got to play up this murder with a lot of bunk. There’s no mystery about it.”

“No mystery?” murmured Griffith to himself, as he walked to the end of the hall. “We’ll see about that.”

Descending the stone steps at the rear of the building, Griffith entered the chamber below. His footsteps echoed on the concrete floor of the low room as he walked to the truck on which lay the body of Frank Jarnow.

The room was well illuminated, and Griffith stood a few feet away from the corpse, studying every detail. With his left hand across his breast, and his right against his chin, the detective became as motionless as the form which he surveyed. He stood like a statue, in a room of silence.

After a time, he leaned forward, and looked at Frank Jarnow’s form from close range. He felt through the pockets of the murdered man, but found that Harrison had made a thorough search. Then he stood back, and resumed his first position, looking at the body of the murdered man.

His eyes rested on Jarnow’s face: the dead man’s eyes were staring; the mouth was half-open, as though some terrible realization had caught the man at the instant of death.

Footfalls came from the steps, and Griffith turned to see a young man of medium height enter the chamber. The critical eyes of the detective studied the newcomer.

The fellow was about thirty years of age; his face was sallow, and his eyes were sharp. The man stopped, openmouthed, and glanced about him.

“Well?” growled Griffith.

The man blinked his eyes, and looked at the detective with a foolish smile.

“I’m from the Gazette,” he said. “My name’s Bolton. Harry Bolton. You’re Detective Griffith, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. You’re a new man on the Gazette, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. They just gave me a city job. Used to be an out-of-town correspondent. First time I’ve ever been in this place. Woozy, isn’t it?”

Griffith laughed.

“I never felt it that way,” he said. “Guess I’m used to it.”

He glanced around him, as though conscious for the first time of his surroundings. He realized that the place was indeed forbidding. The walls of solid masonry made it a sound-proof dungeon. The rows of trucks, a few of them occupied with bodies, lent a sinister aspect to the situation.

The detective noted that the reporter was sniffing, as though trying to recognize the peculiar, pungent odor which saturated the atmosphere of this hideous room.

“Formaldehyde,” explained Griffith.

“Oh, that’s what it is,” replied the reporter, removing his hat, and displayed a shock of black hair. He shook his head as though to fight off a feeling of nausea; then he glanced toward the body of Frank Jarnow. The sight of the murdered man did not seem to annoy him.

“I’ve seen a lot of dead ones,” he explained. “It wasn’t that that bothered me. It was walking into the place with that smell of formaldehyde hitting me so quick. It seemed like I was out of the world, just cut off from everything.

“The lights are bright” — he looked at the row of brilliant incandescents — “outside of that, it’s the gloomiest place I ever saw.”

The reporter walked about the room, as though to familiarize himself with the strange surroundings. White, blank walls on every side. He and the detective were the only living persons in this compartment where death reigned.

Bolton stopped, and then looked at Griffith, who was again studying the corpse. The reporter approached the detective, and also observed the lifeless figure.

“I don’t know what kind of a story you’re going to get here,” said Griffith. “The story happened last night. Seems like the papers always send men around after everything’s over.

“Guess they thought the experience would be good for a new man like you. Otherwise I can’t see what you’re going to learn.”

“Well,” replied the reporter, “they like to get the story from every angle. I’m kind of lucky at that, finding you here. Maybe you’ve got some new opinion on the case.”

“It isn’t my case,” laughed Griffith. “Detective Harrison is handling it. I’m just looking in on it, because it interests me.”

“The Gazette heard that you might take charge,” persisted the reporter. “The motive hasn’t been established yet. It’s an important case, even though the murderer is known — for Henry Windsor is well known in this town. So if you have any opinion—”

“None at all,” snapped Griffith. “I keep my opinion to myself, young fellow. Harrison has the facts. See him.”

“It couldn’t have been premeditated,” observed the reporter, ignoring the detective’s antagonistic air. “When Windsor fired that gun he gave it all away.

“Funny thing to do — use a gun up there. If he had intended to kill Jarnow, he could have stabbed him better — but he would have had to use a knife — from in back—”

Detective Griffith laughed good-naturedly. The wandering talk of the reporter pleased him — for it was drawing the conversation from a touchy point; namely the shots that killed Frank Jarnow.

With his newly found clues, the star detective was anxious to avoid any interview concerning the murder. So he interrupted suddenly, taking advantage of Bolton’s reference to a knife.

“Did you ever see any one use a knife?” he asked.

The reporter shook his head.

“You don’t know anything about it then,” continued Griffith. “Stabs don’t have to come from in back. Look at this.”

He lowered his right hand to his side, and half clenched his fist, indicating an imaginary knife. Then he swung his arm forward, and upward, directly toward the reporter’s body. Bolton stepped back nervously, and turned half away, to avoid the sweep of the detective’s arm.

“That’s the system,” said Griffith. “One thrust like that, and it’s all over — if the man knows how to do it.”

The detective was standing with his right arm still outstretched, a knowing smile on his face, as though pleased with his demonstration.

“Like this,” replied the reporter suddenly. He swung toward the detective, and his right hand shot upward from beneath his coat, in exact duplication of Griffith’s movement. But Bolton’s arm was swifter, and amazingly sure in aim.

The detective emitted one startled gasp as he saw the flash of steel in the other man’s hand. Then the long, thin knife was buried in his body.

With a grotesque twist, Detective Harvey Griffith toppled forward and fell across the body of Frank Jarnow.

The pretended reporter drew the blade from his victim’s body, and calmly wiped it on the dead detective’s coat. He did not seem nervous now; in fact he was extremely calm, and a contemptuous smile lit his sallow face.

He slipped the knife within his belt, into the sheath from which he had drawn it under cover of his coat. Then he stooped forward, and his fingers quickly moved through the pockets of the dead detective.

His smile increased as he opened the envelope containing the articles which Frank Jarnow had once owned. He pocketed the envelope, and then rapidly purloined Griffith’s notebook, and other articles of value.

With one foot, he drew a truck toward him; then rolled the detective’s body upon it, and pushed the truck back to its position.

He opened a cigarette case which he had removed from Griffith’s coat, and coolly lighted a cigarette. He studied the bodies that lay before him as a craftsman might admire his workmanship.

“You butted into it, Griffith,” he said, softly. “I thought you were on the right trail. So you had to go too.

“I made a nice getaway last night — good enough to fool that dumb-bell Harrison — but Harvey Griffith was wise. Wise, but not cautious.

“You didn’t have a story for a poor reporter, did you? Well, you’ve made one now. A better one than that fellow—”

He waved his hand toward the form of Frank Jarnow. Then, puffing easily upon his cigarette, the murderer strolled across the gruesome room, and ascended the steps.

Mike, busy at the desk, heard the supposed reporter stop at the door, and called to him without glancing in his direction.

“Did Griffith give you a good story?” he asked.

“No,” was the calm reply. “I don’t think he knows anything at all.”

The door of the morgue slammed as the man departed.