The Shadow's Shadow

CHAPTER IV THE MESSAGE

HALF an hour after his departure from Gats Hackett’s room, Squint Freston arrived across the street from the old building on Twenty-third Street. He stopped beside a flight of low steps that led to the basement of a house, and uttered a low, significant whisper. This received a similar reply.

Squint descended the steps and joined his watching comrades. He questioned them in a cautious tone. Neither of the two men stationed there had seen any one enter or leave the black-fronted building across the way.

With careful instructions, Squint ordered each of the men to leave his present post. They obeyed, and one walked in each direction. Squint watched them shamble across the street and station themselves in obscure spots, each some fifty yards from the entrance to the building which Squint was watching. With his helpers thus prepared, Squint emitted a grunt of satisfaction.

He had studied the arrangement of that building. Walled in between two other structures, backed by a warehouse, with only a well to let light into the inner offices, the building could not be entered except by the front door that opened on Twenty-third Street. The thoroughfare was dim before the building, but the rays of a flickering light showed through the transom above the blackened door.

The vague illumination varied constantly, and its obscurity made it of little value, so long as the door was closed. Nevertheless, Squint was counting upon that light to betray the presence of any one who might enter or leave the building. The opening door would surely cause a telltale glow.

Gats Hackett had not underrated Squint’s ability as an under-cover watcher. But despite all his skill, Squint was cautious, particularly because he was watching for The Shadow.

Familiar with all the lore of the underworld, the frail, fang-faced gangster knew well the menace of The Shadow. Bold though he was, Squint feared the dread presence of which he had heard tell. He also had high respect for The Shadow’s reputed ability to sense the existence of a snare.

To-night, while minutes dragged slowly on, Squint was taking no chances. He was confident that when The Shadow came, he would be seen, unless — this fact alone annoyed him — The Shadow had already come and gone, while Squint was away.

That seemed hardly likely. Four sharp eyes had been watching from these subterranean steps during Squint’s absence.

A BLANKET of mist was settling along the street. A slight chillness of the night air was surging slowly in from the river. Squint grumbled to himself, hoping that the visibility would not be destroyed.

The fog gradually seemed to end its increase. It remained a blackish haze, and Squint still watched unhampered.

Yet with the mist and the night, the beady squinting eyes of the evil gangster were balked without his knowledge. A form was coming along Twenty-third Street — a form that seemed without human frame.

Scarcely more than a flitting shadow, it slipped by a little alleyway where one of Squint’s watchers was peering out into the gloomy fog. As it neared a street lamp, this form lengthened into a long patch of blackness that stretched along the pavement.

The flitting shape merged with the darkness. Only intermittently did it appear; then it was no more than a fleeting splotch that escaped discernment.

Into the shrouded front of the black-faced building moved the shade of blackness. There it was totally invisible. It crawled, like a shapeless thing, along the wall, to stop directly before the door that Squint was watching.

Now there were sounds — so scarcely audible that they could not have been heard six feet away.

Standing in front of the building, so perfectly merged with its front that no human eye could have noted his presence, was a tall being in black. Every inch of his sinister form was hidden. His hands were invisible, for they were gloved. His face could not be seen, for it was lost beneath the protecting brim of a slouch hat.

Two eyes, alone, were apparent. They glowed like coals of fire. No one could see those eyes, however. They were focused directly upon the door of the building.

The Shadow had arrived!

Out of the darkness, through the fog, the man who moved by night was paying his anticipated visit to this building on Twenty-third Street!

An invisible hand inserted a black key in the lock of the door. The slight click of the metal was one of the sounds which an ear — less than six feet away — might possibly have heard. Another noise was the opening of the door — the faintest imaginable token that The Shadow was about to enter.

The door opened, inch by inch. With that opening, The Shadow moved slowly inward. His tall form slipped into the widening crack as though the inky blackness of the night were pouring itself into a container. The dampish fog seemed to project a portion of its mass through the newly formed crevice.

The tall form in black reached nearly to the top of the doorway. Its squeezing action enabled it to fill the space entirely. A tiny flicker of light gave evidence above The Shadow’s head; then the door was closing as the black form oozed completely through the doorway.

Squint’s vigil had not ceased across the street. Yet the shrewd-eyed gangster had not detected the entrance of The Shadow. The only clew that might have served him — the slight change in the rays of illumination — was not sufficient. Before Squint’s eagle gaze, The Shadow had gone into the building!

NOW the tall form in black was visible but not where spying eyes could see it. The Shadow, traveling along the wall of the inner hall, came momentarily into the sphere of light.

His shape made a fantastic picture. Tall, uncanny, and noiseless, it had all the semblance of a figure from the beyond.

The folds of the flowing cloak swished as The Shadow gained the stairs. The slight flutter of the garment revealed its deep crimson lining. The face, tilted slightly downward, was quite obscured underneath the hat brim. The Shadow disappeared on the stairs.

The silent figure came into view, being beneath an upstairs light. With sinister, soundless step, it moved into a side passage. There The Shadow completely disappeared. The passage was empty. Not even Squint, had he been stationed here, could have spotted The Shadow’s destination.

A glass-paneled door that fronted on the passage bore, upon its smudged surface, this name:

It was through the mail chute of this office door that Rutledge Mann had thrust the envelopes Harry Vincent had given him. Squint, cautiously in the rear, had not seen the action that afternoon.

It was Mann’s custom to visit this deserted office whenever he had messages for The Shadow. Mann knew that The Shadow must come here at times.

Yet even to-night, when The Shadow was actually in the building, there was no semblance of his presence within that office. The faint rays of the hall light showed the painted name upon the door, but not even the slightest sign nor sound indicated that any one had entered the room which “B. Jonas” was supposed to occupy.

Indeed, The Shadow’s sudden reappearance would have belied that he had even visited the proximity of that particular office. The phantom shape emerged eerily in the hallway where he had disappeared, outlined in fantastic form by the flickering upstairs light. Then came another vanishing — this time in the direction of the stairs.

On the ground floor, The Shadow reversed the weird procedure that had marked his entrance to the building. He approached the door and blackened himself against it. The barrier moved inward inch by inch, The Shadow’s form crowding into the slowly yawning space.

Then the door began to close, seemingly shutting of its own accord. An invisible form stood outside the building; but it did not remain there long. It detached itself from the blackness and flitted away into the foggy night.

Squint, watching as carefully as ever, was again deceived. He did not catch the tiniest glimpse of the departing shape. He still stared patiently, long after The Shadow had gone, waiting in hopes that if he saw nothing, one of his comrades might be more successful.

In this, too, he was disappointed. Only fleeting patches of black marked The Shadow’s route, in the direction opposite that from which he had come. This time it was the other crouched man who did not see The Shadow pass his lookout post.

From then on, The Shadow’s course was as untraceable as before.

It was not a sense of existing danger that had caused The Shadow to approach the building in such an amazing manner. The Shadow was indifferent to all danger. Always, by long-practiced custom, did he utilize this method when he neared a favored habitat.

To The Shadow, stealth was an instinctive possession. When garbed in his accustomed attire of black, he became a part of the night itself. Therein lay one genius of The Shadow.

SOME time after The Shadow had left the neighborhood of Twenty-third Street, a new scene transpired in a silent room located far from the building where Squint Freston and his yeggs lay waiting the advent of The Shadow.

The soft click of a light switch brought a strange illumination to an apartment which until then had been dark. A bluish bulb, suspended in the corner of the room, threw an eerie, unreal glow upon the polished surface of a table directly beneath. Off beyond the range of that deep-tinted lamp lay a gloomy region fringed with darkness.

Like the interior of a camera, the place was shrouded in black. Not even the weird personage who had turned the switch could be seen amid that manmade twilight. It was not until two whitish objects crept like living creatures upon the surface of the table that the presence of a human being became fully apparent.

By a strange metamorphosis, those white objects became hands that rested easily upon the table. Amazing hands they were, with long, tapering fingers that combined delicacy with strength. Upon the left hand glowed a reflected luminosity that cast long, sparkling shafts of color toward the bluish light above.

These were the rays of a glowing gem — a marvelous stone called the girasol. A species of fire opal, this jewel possessed an ever-changing power that caused it to run the gamut of the spectrum.

From the deepest hue of mysterious crimson, the girasol turned to rich purple; then, through no apparent cause, it glistened with bright azure, changing back again to a reddish tone that cast illusionary sparks into the air.

That remarkable jewel was the token of the man who owned it. It identified the being who occupied the somber room. It was the emblem of The Shadow!

This hidden room, lost somewhere amid the scurry of haste-mad Manhattan, was The Shadow’s sanctum. Its location known to him alone, the man of the night came to this spot whenever he chose.

Surrounded by the blackness which to him was home, The Shadow used this sanctum to prepare the thrusts and sorties that formed his relentless campaign against the foes of right.

To-night, The Shadow’s mission became apparent a few moments after his hands appeared within the light. Although the hands seemed to project from darkness, freed from the arms to which they belonged, the presence of The Shadow manifested itself as a low, soft laugh resounded through the room.

Shuddering tones of sibilant mockery marked the anticipation which The Shadow sensed as his hands crept away, then reappeared, clutching two envelopes within their grasp.

The soft, smooth hands opened the first of the wrappers. Sensitive fingers spread out the note that Harry Vincent had prepared. Unseen eyes scanned the coded lines. Then the blue writing faded, word by word, until blankness alone remained.

Again The Shadow laughed. He had read his agent’s message. He had learned the details of Harry Vincent’s discovery in Room 1408 and the subsequent verdict of Detective Joe Cardona.

SILENCE prevailed while those mystic hands held the second envelope. The eyes of The Shadow were studying the inscription that was scrawled upon the face.

The hands turned the envelope over; then back again. The fingers carefully tore the end from the envelope. They drew forth a folded sheet of paper.

This sheet, unfolded, bore writing in the same scrawl that was on the envelope. The message showed signs of hasty writing. It carried no greeting; it bore no signature. It consisted entirely of information, which read as follows:

The note lay upon the table, beneath The Shadow’s hands. Supplemented by the data sent by Harry Vincent, its origin and purpose took on an obvious touch.

“Zipper” Marsh and Dobie Wentz had worked together. A split had come between them; now Zipper was going it alone. Evidently, Dobie, feeling himself powerless to cope with his former friend, had prepared this message to The Shadow.

Had Zipper Marsh learned of Dobie’s action? Was that the reason for Dobie’s death? If so, why did Dobie still have the note when found by Harry Vincent? Had he managed to get away, to reach Harry’s room unmolested, only to die of poison previously administered by an enemy?

These were questions that confronted The Shadow. His keen brain was weighing them as his concealed eyes still focused themselves upon the note. Each phrase, each word — every letter and every characteristic of writing, was under the survey of that calculating gaze.

A blank piece of paper came into view, drawn there by The Shadow’s left hand. Upon it, the right hand wrote two names, side by side:

This pair of names formed a paradox. The living man was a trusted worker of The Shadow; the dead man was a double-crossing gangster. What connection lay between them?

Harry Vincent, in his note, had expressed an ignorance of Dobie Wentz’s existence. But the appearance of Dobie’s body in Harry’s room was too startling to be a mere coincidence. It proved that the gangster — or some one who knew him — had evidence that Harry was linked to The Shadow.

A new and surprising situation had arisen — something which was virtually unique.

Gangsters might cross their pals; they might live in hatred of one another; but all possessed one common thought — enmity toward The Shadow.

Stools might squeal to the police; but never to The Shadow. He was the terror of the underworld, the one power that was a constant, unyielding threat. True, he would prove a powerful ally; but never before had a gangster been so daring as to seek The Shadow’s cooperation.

As the mere bearer of a note like this, Dobie Wentz would deserve the sentence of death by the twisted laws of the bad lands. Even the expression of desire to communicate with The Shadow would mean doom if mentioned in the underworld.

The long finger of The Shadow’s right hand rested upon a single phrase in the scrawled message.

Those were the most vital words in the entire letter. They meant a time of action. The crux of the situation would be reached then.

It was Tuesday night to-night! Not yet midnight, plenty of time remained before the appointed minute. Then, in the home of Adolph Grayson, a solution to this odd problem would most likely be possible.

The light clicked off. The room was in darkness. A shivering peal of laughter rang through the gloom. Its mocking tones were filled with strange, unfathomable import. They carried a hidden meaning that was more expressive than words.

The laughter died away, its weird echoes shuddering into rippled oblivion. The sanctum was empty. The Shadow was gone, prepared to meet the challenge that had come through a man now dead!