The Third Skull

CHAPTER X. SPOILS RECLAIMED

“THAT’S all, Burke.”

Joe Cardona was emphatic as he made the statement. The detective was seated behind his desk at headquarters. Standing near him was another police officer: Detective Sergeant Markham. Clyde Burke was lounging at the opposite side of the desk.

It was late afternoon. Clyde Burke had come here for a story. The jewelry stolen from Tobold’s pawnshop had been reclaimed and the reporter wanted the details. But Cardona had been more than usually stingy with his information.

“It’s not much dope, Joe,” declared Clyde, ruefully. “You say you got the jewels back through a fence; but you don’t tell me who the fence was—”

“Why should I?” interrupted Cardona. “Do you think I want to make trouble for the fellow by giving his name to the newspapers?”

“I won’t print it, Joe—”

“Then why do you want it?”

Clyde had no answer to Cardona’s question. The ace detective scowled.

“Listen, Burke,” he said, “you’ve got all you need to know. I’ll repeat it. The stolen stuff was left with a jeweler for appraisal—”

“Who left it?”

“An unidentified stranger. Looked like a rowdy. The jeweler was suspicious. He notified the police. We looked over the gems and found them all there, according to the list.”

“And the value?”

“Between four and five thousand dollars. We’re looking for the man who left them with the jeweler.”

“You mean the fence.”

“Call him what you want: jeweler or fence. It doesn’t matter to me. We’ve got the jewelry if you want to see it.”

“Where?”

“Right here.”

Cardona yanked open a desk drawer. He pulled out a metal box and poured the contents on the desk.

Clyde saw a mass of rings, brooches, and bracelets. Leaning forward, he noted an odd ring. It was of silver, with tiny ruby settings.

“See that, Markham?” chuckled Cardona. “Everybody that’s seen the stuff has looked at that ring. Kind of odd, isn’t it — a skull with red eyes.”

“Worth much?” queried Markham, leaning forward. It was his first look at the jewelry. “Looks like platinum.”

“It’s silver,” returned Cardona, “and it’s only worth about fifteen bucks. Those eyes aren’t real rubies. They’re a couple of garnets.”

Clyde Burke finished his inspection of the articles. He looked at Cardona. The detective shook his head.

“Nothing else, Burke,” decided Joe. “I’ve told you all that you’re going to get.”

Clyde shrugged his shoulders and strolled from the office. He knew that Cardona’s decision was final.

Clyde had already reported to The Shadow that the jewels had been recovered; and Burbank had called back to assign him to the task of learning more about them. But Clyde had reached his limit.

LIGHTS had been turned on in Cardona’s office, for it was after sunset. The corridor that Clyde entered was a gloomy one, with dull lights.

As he started toward the outer door, the reporter jostled against a stoop-shouldered figure. He saw a pale, dull-faced man who was carrying a mop and bucket. One of the janitors.

“Sorry,” said Clyde.

“Yah,” returned the stooped man, with a meaningless grin.

Clyde went on. The janitor continued up the hallway, saw the lighted doorway of Cardona’s office and looked in. Cardona spied him.

“Hello,” Fritz greeted the detective. “We’ll be here a while yet. You can clean up here, later.”

The janitor did not appear to understand Cardona’s injunction. Instead of leaving, he came into the office and set down the mop and bucket. Cardona looked at Markham, then laughed.

“We’ll let him stay,” decided Joe. Then, to the janitor: “Say, Fritz — come over here and take a look at this stuff.”

The detective indicated the jewelry on the desk. Fritz shambled over. He stretched out a pale hand and began to fumble with the objects on the desk. Suddenly, he picked out the skull ring and held it up.

“Yah,” he declared, with an approving nod. “Yah. Goot, this one. Goot!”

“You’re wrong, Fritz,” chuckled Joe. “No good, that one. Cheap. Only fifteen dollars. Not much pfennig.”

“Yah,” grunted Fritz, half dubious. The janitor laid the ring on the desk, then went back to the mop and bucket. He started to clean the floor.

Ignoring the janitor, Cardona turned to Markham.

“You heard what I said to Burke,” announced Joe. “Well, there isn’t a lot more to it; but I couldn’t tell him the works. It was old Koko Gluss who had this jewelry handed to him.”

“The guy with the hockshop down on the Bowery?” questioned Markham. “Say — he quit fencing stuff after we put the clamps on him. I didn’t know he’d started in again.”

“He hasn’t. He wouldn’t have taken this swag, except for what the guy that brought it told him. The stuff was handed to him for appraisal.”

“Who by?”

“Some gorilla. The guy brought the jewelry into the hockshop along about ten o’clock. Asked old Koko to appraise it. Said Benny Lungo wanted to know what it was worth.”

“Benny Lungo! Say — he wouldn’t have been in on a job like this. He sticks with the dock-wallopers.”

“I know that. But it scared old Koko. He knew Benny by rep. So he appraised the stuff and did a right job of it. Figured the jewelry worth about forty-five hundred.”

“Then what?”

“The gorilla said Benny wanted to soak it. Told Koko to hold it until noon. The gorilla beat it and didn’t come back. Koko began to get worried.”

“What’d he do, call Benny?”

“That’s just what he did do. Sort of fished around when he talked over the telephone — Koko’s no dummy, you know — and found out that Benny hadn’t sent the mug. So Koko called me.”

“Scared to keep the stuff?”

“Sure. He figured it was hot and he knew he was in wrong already. Wanted to come clean. Said he was afraid somebody was trying to fence the stuff by putting it in soak. Its been done before.”

“So you went over there?”

“Yeah. And I’ve had a couple of men watching the place in case the gorilla comes back. I want you to relieve them this evening. That’s why I sent for you, Markham.”

“Probably the gorilla’s gotten cold feet by this time. Well, that proves just what you figured. A bunch of mugs pulled that job at Tobold’s, and after killing the old guy they wanted to ditch the swag in a hurry.”

Cardona nodded.

“What did Koko Gluss say the gorilla looked like?” asked Markham. “Suppose the guy shows up? How’m I going to know him?”

“Gluss can’t tell us much,” returned Cardona. “That hockshop of his is a dark sort of place. He used a light when he looked at the jewelry through a magnifier; but the gorilla kept away from it. Man about five-feet-ten, Gluss said, but not over heavy. Sort of wiry build.”

“Doesn’t sound like one of Benny’s dock-wallopers.”

“Why should it?” Cardona snorted. “Say, I went around to see Benny. Had to, in order to square Gluss. Naturally, the guy didn’t come from Benny. That was just a stall to scare Gluss.”

“Was Benny sore?”

“PLENTY!” Cardona chuckled at the recollection of his interview with the “pride of the dock-wallopers.”

“He didn’t blame Koko Gluss, though. He’d like to get the guy that pulled the gag. I asked him who he figured it could be.”

“Did he say?”

“He thought it over; then said there was only one bird lousy enough to have tried to get him in wrong. By that he meant there was only one who had nerve enough.”

“Who was that?”

“Flick Sherrad.”

Markham snorted. It was plain that the detective sergeant disagreed. So, for that matter, did Cardona.

“It couldn’t have been Flick,” stated the acting inspector. “That bozo took it on the lam after we busted his racket. Flick hasn’t been around for months. Benny just figured Flick because Flick’s the one guy who has Benny’s number.”

“What’s more, Markham, Flick Sherrad wouldn’t have been so dumb as to try to fence this stuff through Koko Gluss. Flick wouldn’t have used a gorilla as an errand boy.”

“It was just a bunch of nuts that tried that funny stuff at Tobold’s. They grabbed the swag and had a fight among themselves, unless—”

“Unless what?” inquired Markham.

“Nothing,” returned Cardona. “Call it a fight in which somebody grabbed the boodle. Let it go at that.”

He paused to shove the jewelry back into the box. “Well, I’m taking this stuff to Weldon Wingate, the lawyer, along with the lists. He’ll decide whether he wants to take it for five thousand or pass it back to Channing Tobold’s estate. Come along, Markham; you’re going over to the hockshop.”

“A swell chance that the gorilla will come back to see Gluss,” grunted the detective sergeant.

The two men left the office. Fritz remained with his mop and bucket. The janitor had overheard the entire conversation, including Cardona’s lapse when speaking of the gunfight.

There had been a reason for Cardona’s pause. The ace detective had been about to advance the theory that The Shadow had been at Tobold’s. For Joe Cardona knew well that The Shadow was an active warrior who had frequently broken up attempts at crime.

Fritz completed his mopping shortly after Cardona and Markham had left. The janitor’s mode of action changed. From a shuffling, lethargic worker, he became a swift-moving figure. Picking up mop and bucket, he went out into the corridor.

The long hall was deserted. With long stride, Fritz followed it and turned off to a room where he stopped before a locker. Dropping his utensils, he opened the locker and drew forth black garments. Cloak folds slipped over shoulders; a slouch hat settled on Fritz’s head.

Overalls dropped from beneath the cloak. The shrouded figure stooped, picked them up and put them in the locker. A soft laugh came from hidden lips. This was not Fritz, the shuffling janitor, early on the clean-up job. This was The Shadow!

CLYDE BURKE’S chief had learned what the reporter had failed to get. The details of how the spoils from Tobold’s pawnshop had been reclaimed. The Shadow had gained the facts that Joe Cardona had learned; and from the detective’s discourse he had gleaned a unique picture that Joe had failed to grasp.

The valueless skull ring was proof of one thing only. Men of crime had been searching for wealth that lay with a skull. Homer Hothan had long been the spy of a hidden crook who was interested in old Hildrew Parchell’s affairs. After gaining a half-destroyed document from old Parchell’s bedroom, Hothan had convened with his chief.

They knew that Hildrew Parchell must have placed wealth in some safe storage place. So they had taken the most logical guess as a beginning. They had gambled that the jewelry at Tobold’s might be worth far more than its supposed value of five thousand dollars.

Hothan, covered by thugs, with his chief in the background, had gone to get the jewelry. The half-burned document must have mentioned the word “skull,” for Hothan, seeing the skull ring, had prepared to murder Tobold and take the gems.

Hothan had been frustrated. His chief had stepped in to grab the swag. Like Hothan, the unknown murderer had fallen for the lure of the skull ring.

Later, however, both had learned that the swag was comparatively valueless; that it did not represent the treasure that they had sought.

Today, oddly enough, the crooks had acted exactly as Weldon Wingate had predicted. That is, they had acted as small-fry criminals would act. But these were clever crooks; in their action, The Shadow saw keen scheming.

By pretending that they had blundered, by sending a gorilla to “Koko” Gluss, the big-shot had created the definite impression that only ordinary thugs were responsible. Joe Cardona, reasoning along the lines of Wingate’s wise statements, had fallen for the bluff. But The Shadow had not.

GLIDING forth from headquarters, The Shadow had become a phantom shape, blending with the darkness that had settled above Manhattan. His obscure course was untraceable in the dusk. Only a soft-whispered laugh announced his presence in a darkened side street.

The Shadow had guessed another point. He knew that the smart crook who ruled Homer Hothan must also have had contact with some capable mob-leader who had supplied the gorillas for the battle at Tobold’s.

Picturing that fact, The Shadow had the key to the mob leader. Logically, the rogue would be the very man whose name Cardona had rejected. No ordinary gorilla had spoken of Benny Lungo just by chance.

The thug who had taken the swag to Koko Gluss must have come from “Flick” Sherrad.

Spoils had been deliberately thrown into the hands of the law; and the law was blind to the fact. The Shadow, however, had gained another objective; one that would lead him to issue new orders the moment that he reached his sanctum.

Agents were already searching for traces of Homer Hothan; they would have another to look for now: namely, Flick Sherrad. Two underlings to find: a furtive killer and a clever mob leader. Through one or both of these henchmen, The Shadow intended to meet the master crook himself!