The Silent Death

CHAPTER XVI. THE DEATH THAT LURKED

TOTALLY unnerved by the terror which now confronted him, Grewson stared upward into the blazing eyes of The Shadow. The master of darkness stood with folded arms. His brilliant gaze seemed to pierce the pitiful coward who crouched before him.

At last, the inscrutable eyes raised slightly and looked toward the bed against the wall, where Thomas Jocelyn, his breath coming in long, heavy sighs, was slowly coughing out his miserable life. Grewson, momentarily released from the stern gaze of The Shadow, rose slowly, as though to spring upon his enemy.

One folded arm moved. A black-gloved hand swung promptly into view. It clutched a huge automatic.

Staring into the wide, round muzzle of the powerful weapon, Grewson quailed and sank back toward the floor.

Slowly, The Shadow approached. Instinctively, Grewson retreated with crawling pace. At last, the gangster crouched beside the foot of the bed. The Shadow, standing above him, surveyed his pitiful prisoner.

“Speak.” The Shadow’s words came in an ominous whisper. “What part have you performed in this crime!”

The sentence was a command, not a query. Grewson, trapped, could give no answer other than the right one.

“I–I gave Jocelyn the poison,” the gangster admitted, in broken tones. “It — it came in bottles and I mixed it in the glass — the glass which Jocelyn broke.”

“Who gave you the liquids?”

Grewson cringed at the sound of The Shadow’s sardonic voice. He tried to restrain his answer, but failed. He could not struggle against the terror cast by The Shadow.

“I–I got it” — the man’s voice broke — “got it from — from Larry Ricordo.”

“When?”

“A — a couple of days ago. He called me — tonight — on the telephone — to tell me to use it.”

“Where is Ricordo now?”

“I–I don’t know. That’s straight! He hadn’t told me anything — I don’t even know why he wanted Jocelyn bumped off—”

The Shadow’s gaze turned toward the pitiful figure on the bed; still, the menacing automatic covered Grewson. Thomas Jocelyn, his face deathly white, was staring toward The Shadow. He had recognized the form in black. Amid his long, sweeping sighs, his moving lips were trying to speak.

IT was plain that Jocelyn intended to convey facts that Grewson could not give; to reveal the purpose of those who had brought him to this plight. The effort seemed futile, for the motion of the dying man’s lips brought nothing but wavering echoes to his sighs.

With hawkish gaze, The Shadow watched for any sign that might reveal the financier’s thoughts. Slowly, the black-hatted head began to incline, then suddenly it turned. The Shadow’s eyes glared once more in Grewson’s direction. They saw the cringing gangster starting to rise.

Instinctively, Grewson slumped back to the floor. At the point of the automatic, he pleadingly blurted the reason for his action.

“The bulls are coming!” he groaned. “Jocelyn got at the telephone. The operator turned in the call.”

A ray of hope kindled in the crook’s eyes. He thought that this bit of important information might alarm The Shadow or else cause the weird avenger to soften. The Shadow’s derisive, reverberating laugh was the answer that only brought new dread to Grewson. The bold visitant had no fear of the police.

Nevertheless, Grewson’s words did inspire The Shadow to swifter action. Once again, the blackclad watcher noted Thomas Jocelyn. The dying financier was living only by virtue of tremendous gulps. With wide-open mouth, Jocelyn took in a breath, then expelled it with his peculiar, wheezy sigh, in one long exhalation. The action was repeated. Again, still again.

Those powerless lips could not frame words; but perhaps, in those long sighs could be heard a coughed utterance. To listen closely, one would have to lean close to the mouth of the dying man. To perform that action, The Shadow would be forced to cease his vigilance with Grewson.

The sparkle of The Shadow’s eyes showed that this thought was within The Shadow’s mind. A glance at Grewson told The Shadow that the cowered gangster would no longer be a factor, even though given opportunity. But that pause caused a new light, as The Shadow surveyed Thomas Jocelyn.

The prolonged, mechanical breathing of the financier had become a continued monotone.

Why did it persist? Why had not the potion which had produced this result taken its toll of life? There was something ominous in Jocelyn’s lingering death.

The Shadow drew away from the bedside. He turned to Grewson. The automatic in the black-gloved fist described a slow arc from the gangster toward the dying financier. The voice of The Shadow spoke a stern command.

“This is your work,” declared The Shadow solemnly. “Now you shall make amends. Jocelyn is trying to speak. Learn what he has to say. Tell me every word.”

Grewson nodded. He knew that his only hope was to obey The Shadow’s bidding. The police were coming. The one chance of escape lay in quickening this scene.

Grewson sensed that Jocelyn knew vital facts concerning Larry Ricordo. By learning them and repeating them to The Shadow, Grewson might curry favor with his captor.

The Shadow, in turn, had solved the problem of watching Grewson while Jocelyn tried to speak.

As Grewson half arose and crouched toward the head of the bed, his body came directly in front of the blackclad master. Grewson was to listen while The Shadow covered him.

Still, The Shadow could glimpse Jocelyn’s upturned eyes. The financier was looking toward The Shadow with a pleading expression in those optics. It was evident that he had heard all that The Shadow had said.

“Tell what you can.”

The Shadow’s whispered words were addressed to Jocelyn. The dying man understood. As Grewson leaned above him, Jocelyn imbibed a long draft of air. Grewson’s face was close to that of the man whom he had so treacherously served. With head half turned, the gangster listened.

Thomas Jocelyn gave an incoherent gargle as he expelled a long, sighing breath. Grewson could not make out the word; that was impossible. The poison had done its work too well. The fetid odor of the sigh filled Grewson’s nostrils.

Again, Jocelyn breathed inward; once more came the throat rattle, accompanied by reeking breath.

Grewson was leaning closer to the dying man. The gangster’s head was swaying slightly.

Thomas Jocelyn made another effort. The intake of air was followed by a long exhalation, a sign that Jocelyn had tried, with all his remaining strength, to speak. Grewson’s head moved from side to side. The gangster’s fingers clawed feebly at the bedspread.

The dying man was seeking to deliver another effort. Before he succeeded, Grewson’s fingers lost their hold. The gangster’s body tumbled to the floor and rolled over on its back. Grewson’s eyes gazed upward in a glassy stare.

The Shadow stood like a statue. His keen eyes studied the weird result that had occurred. Thomas Jocelyn was breathing on, with long, wheezy sighs. Life still was lingering within his frame. But Grewson, the treacherous servant, had succumbed to a more sudden fate.

Grewson was dead!

THE SHADOW’S laugh echoed eerily through the room. There was no mockery in its sound. It was a laugh of understanding. The secret of Thomas Jocelyn’s peculiar breathing was apparent to The Shadow now.

Death lurked in every exhalation that came from the dying financier’s lips!

The chemical compound that Jocelyn had taken, was, itself, a death trap for whomever might approach the victim!

An effervescent fluid, caused by a strange, secret mixture, had poisoned Thomas Jocelyn and had paralyzed his limbs. It had destined him to a lingering death, a long, continued spasm during which he could only breathe with great and constant effort.

With each gasp, Jocelyn breathed out the fumes of a poisonous vapor. He, a dying man, had been transformed into a potential killer!

Only by amazing intuition, only through his capture of Grewson and his orders to the gangster, had The Shadow evaded the most fiendish of Professor Folcroft Urlich’s snares.

Silent death! It had awaited The Shadow surely tonight; yet silent death had failed again. Grewson, the man who had administered the fatal potion to Thomas Jocelyn, had gone to a deserved doom slain by the breath of the man whose death he had assured!

Grewson lay dead upon the floor. Thomas Jocelyn still breathed his sighing, dying gasps. The death that lurked had gained an unintended victim.

Grimly, The Shadow laughed.