The Third Skull

CHAPTER XVI. THE NEW TRAIL

THE meeting at Professor Morth’s had taken place at ten o’clock in the morning. Clyde Burke’s report had been forwarded to The Shadow at eleven. Noon passed; afternoon waned. Thick-clouded night descended on Manhattan.

A light burned in The Shadow’s sanctum. Those bluish rays had appeared previously today. On more than one occasion, The Shadow had reason to visit his mysterious abode where darkness ruled except when he was present.

All agents had reported further, regarding last night. Harry Vincent had remained at the motion-picture theater until after eleven o’clock; then he had decided to go back to the hotel, rather than trust to luck in finding Roger Parchell in the after-theater crowd.

Just before eleven-thirty. Roger had returned to the Hotel Metrolite. He had inquired for messages and had learned that there were none. He had left an eight-thirty call for the morning and had retired to his room.

Clyde Burke had not located Selwood Royce at all last night. The millionaire had not appeared at the club nor at his home. This morning, Clyde had received Royce’s apology. That was all.

Moe Shrevnitz had seen Weldon Wingate come in at midnight. The lawyer had returned in another taxicab. Moe had no idea where Wingate had been.

Doctor Rupert Sayre reported that Raymond Deseurre had returned unexpectedly to the Gray Room banquet one hour after he had left. Evidently, he had completed his emergency appointment in less time than he had expected.

MEANWHILE, The Shadow had allowed Cliff and Hawkeye but little time for rest. He had spurred those agents to new investigations in the underworld. All day, the pair had been taking turns in visiting underworld dives.

Cliff and Hawkeye were looking for new traces of Flick Sherrad. The mob-leader had not reappeared at his hideout. It was probably that he had another place of security. But in addition to the hunt for Flick, The Shadow’s aids were seeking trace of Homer Hothan.

For The Shadow had gained an important clue last night — one that he was outlining in inked words beneath the blue light. The Shadow had learned by observation that the supercrook who had hired Flick did not fully trust Homer Hothan.

The Shadows clue was the shot that a wounded gorilla had taken at Hothan. The mobster who had fired the bullet that had so oddly released the prisoner had not performed the action purely on his own initiative.

Gorillas, as a rule, were one-track thinkers. They took orders and obeyed them in spite of circumstances.

Ordinarily, a cornered mobster would have chanced a last shot at The Shadow, in preference to picking a squealing ally. There was one answer: The gorilla had been acting under strict orders from Flick Sherrad.

Unquestionably, Flick had posted his mob to drop Hothan on the spot if the sallow man showed signs of becoming yellow. Hothan knew too much. The big-shot who ruled Flick Sherrad had implanted that fact upon the mob-leader.

The Shadow saw Hothan as a pitiful tool in this game. One who had played a vital part; one who could still be used. Yet one who would be sacrificed the moment that he became a liability.

Reasoning from that point, The Shadow could visualize Hothan’s present circumstance. Hothan must be somewhere in the underworld, where he could be watched by Flick Sherrad’s henchman. The big-shot would not risk keeping Hothan in a respectable locality, where watching mobsters would be out of place.

Moreover, Hothan himself might be suspicious if he were thrown with thugs outside the confines of the underworld. Logic, of The Shadow’s keen sort, told that the master crook must have talked Hothan into believing that safety lay in the bad lands.

Not that Hothan was a prisoner. That would end his usefulness entirely. He would be blotted out before such necessity came about. Hothan was being allowed to move; to keep on working — but always under supervision.

Flick Sherrad’s new hideout would be hard to find. But not Hothan’s. Clustered mobsmen would be near it. That was why The Shadow’s aids were so busy in the underworld. They were filtering everywhere, looking for a clue.

SOON The Shadow would be with them. In these last few moments before his departure, he paused to study the list of names of those whom his agents had failed to follow the night before. A laugh came from The Shadow’s lips.

His long right forefinger touched the name he wanted. There was the man whom The Shadow had picked as the brain behind crime, the one who had urged Hothan to slay Hildrew Parchell; the man who, himself, had murdered Channing Tobold.

The same big-shot had been at Professor Morth’s last night. Without seeing him, The Shadow had guessed his identity. Agents had experienced difficulties last night. They were still in the dark. But The Shadow, knowing the parts of all concerned, with added information about the conference at Morth’s, had eliminated all but one of those who could possibly be suspected.

If all else failed, The Shadow could deal with that criminal direct. But it was better to give him rope; to let him move his pawns; to catch him when he made one last attempt to gain Hildrew Parchell’s wealth.

For The Shadow knew also where Hildrew Parchell must have stored his treasure. Tobold’s pawnshop had been eliminated; so had Morth’s residence. The list of old friends had narrowed down to one. The only other man who could have been guardian of Hildrew Parchell’s wealth was Thatcher Royce, the deceased father of Selwood.

A soft laugh that rose became an eerie, lingering whisper. The Shadow had started his agents on the move. He had picked the potential big-shot with whom he must fight; he had named the coming battleground. He wanted to anticipate the moves of underlings. He was on his way to that attempt.

FAR from Broadway’s glow, the shaded districts of the bad lands lay blanketed beneath a lowered sky.

This district, crime’s stronghold, seemed filled with skulking figures. Hoodlums and other riffraff were wending their nightly courses.

Here were the holes from which rats emerged to prey upon society, then scurry back to cover. This was the district where police hesitated to use the dragnet, because the grapevine invariably warned of its approach and let wanted men make for cover long before the law arrived.

In the heart of this district, two men were to meet again tonight: Cliff and Hawkeye, to compare notes.

The time for their meeting arrived. In the darkness of an alleyway, Cliff Marsland paused, to hear a hoarse whisper: Hawkeye’s.

“What’d you get, Cliff? Anything hot?”

“Yeah. Soak Burlow was down at the Pink Rat this afternoon. He ducked out; but I heard he was there. Nobody’s seen him since. Have you?”

“No. Say — Soak Burlow used to be a pal of Flick Sherrad’s, didn’t he?”

“He did. And today, he was talking with Scoot Zugg. That’s what I learned—”

“Scoot Zugg! Say, I’ve seen him, Cliff. Heading up past that blind alley in back of the Bowery Garage. Another mug was with him.”

“Did they come back?”

“No; but they didn’t look suspicious.”

Cliff grunted.

“They’re suspicious now,” he affirmed. “We both know that Flick’s got to line up some new torpedoes. Soak picked out Scoot; Scoot drew in another gorilla.”

“Let’s head over there, Cliff.”

The two men moved away. A dozen paces on, Hawkeye looked over his shoulder. The little man was suspicious. He always was; but usually with reason. In the old days, when Hawkeye had been at odds with the law, he had been known as the best spotter in the underworld.

Again, Hawkeye peered behind him. He had a lurking impression that he and Cliff were being followed.

Keen, thorough in observation, Hawkeye paused to stare into darkness. Satisfied at last, he moved along to rejoin Cliff.

THEY reached the blind alley that they sought. Sneaking into the depths of the cul-de-sac, Cliff and Hawkeye were tense. They tried doorway after doorway, looking for lurking mobsters, ready to act together if they found one.

No results. They emerged from the entrance of the blind alley.

“Locked doors in those crumbly houses,” commented Cliff, “and where there’s locked doors there’d be a lookout if the place was a hideout.”

“One door wasn’t locked,” commented Hawkeye. “It might be” — he paused — “listen, Cliff!”

A hiss from darkness. The Shadow! Hawkeye stood stock-still. He realized now why he had been suspicious back at the rendezvous. Some one had been there. The Shadow! The mysterious chief had trailed his agents here, despite Hawkeye’s final conviction that they were not being followed.

An order from The Shadow. Cliff and Hawkeye moved toward the wall. The Shadow had heard mention of that unlocked door. He was going to investigate it. The Shadow moved deeper into blackness.

As he neared the door, The Shadow paused. Some one was coming out. A figure stole into the alleyway.

Almost immediately, two others followed. The Shadow waited while they blundered to the street. Swiftly, he rejoined Cliff and Hawkeye.

Off across the street, a stoop-shouldered man was shambling toward the next corner. On the near side, two huskies were keeping pace. The Shadow spoke in a whisper; his words were meant for Hawkeye:

“Hothan. Trail him!”

As Hawkeye moved away, he heard The Shadow speaking again to Cliff:

“Report to Burbank. Instructions as follows—”

Hawkeye heard no more. He was out of earshot; but as he glanced back over his shoulder, he saw Cliff coming from the alley. Cliff, too, had duty to perform. One that meant moves by other agents of The Shadow.

BLACKNESS was moving into the blind alley. Phantom blackness that formed a silent, unseen shape that lived. The Shadow was moving into Hothan’s hideout.

He came to the unlocked door. He entered. He used no light. Feeling his way through darkness, he came to a stairway.

Silently, The Shadow moved upward. At the top, he could hear slight sounds from an opened doorway.

A watcher was in there; another like the two mobsters who had followed along after Hothan. As The Shadow had suspected, Hothan was moving under surveillance.

A closed door. Locked. The Shadow probed it noiselessly. A simple lock, the barrier opened almost immediately. The Shadow entered. Paper crinkled softly as he pressed it in the keyhole. Then his tiny flashlight played close to the floor.

Hothan’s hideout: a dingy room, with few furnishings. A cot with a scraggly mattress. A glimmer showed bits of straw upon the floor.

Stooping, The Shadow examined the edge of the mattress. His fingers found a razor-blade slit. Probing, The Shadow discovered a folded paper. He brought it out.

The flashlight showed a scrawl that ended in a succession of half-finished lines. A soft laugh from The Shadow. The right edge of the narrow sheet was burned. This was the half of the document that old Hildrew Parchell had set on fire the night that he had died.

The Shadow read the incomplete scrawl. It appeared as follows:

Carefully, The Shadow copied this message, leaving dots to represent the unfinished portion of each line.

He pushed the original back into the mattress. Extinguishing his tiny flashlight, he moved to the window.

By the slight light that came from a street lamp on the other side of the building, The Shadow began to fill in the gaps. Three minutes later, his completed message read:

By studying the lengths of lines, The Shadow had inserted words that represented the actual thought of Hildrew Parchell’s message. Twice, a name had been mentioned; both times, it had occurred at the right side of the document and had thus been totally destroyed. Also, another vital word was missing from that right side.

The name could have been Channing Tobold. It could have been Tyson Morth, or Professor Tyson Morth. The missing word could have been “jewelry”; again, it could have been “skulls.” The word “skull” did appear on the unburned portion of the sheet. That was why Hothan had set out in quest of a skull.

The silver skull had been a false trace. So had the mechanical skull that had trapped Hothan. There must be another skull — a third skull — and it would be found somewhere at Selwood Royce’s. For the old friend mentioned in the message could be none other than the young millionaire’s father, Thatcher Royce.

THE SHADOW laughed softly. His mirth died. He closed with gloom by the wall. Some one was unlocking the door of the room.

The Shadow waited while a man entered in the darkness. The arrival moved furtively to the bed, groped by the mattress and fished out the half-burned paper.

It was Hothan. The Shadow waited while the fellow sneaked out through the darkness. Then The Shadow followed, slowly. No sound from the room at the head of the stairs. Hothan’s pretended bodyguards had also gone.

Reaching the blind alley, The Shadow gave a soft whisper. Hawkeye bobbed forward and reported in a low voice to his invisible chief.

“He went to a drug store,” informed Hawkeye. “Made a phone call; I couldn’t spot it on account of the gorillas being around. Then he came back. Out again, with the gorillas tailing.”

“Up to the corner — half a block from here. Looking for a taxi. Moe was on the job. Picked him up, with two of the gorillas. Moe shot me a wad of paper with the tip-off: Pennsylvania Station. I called Burbank.”

A commending hiss from The Shadow. Hawkeye was to join Cliff at the rendezvous, from there to move to a spot that would offer ready contact with Burbank. With that, The Shadow moved out from the alley.

Hawkeye caught a glimpse of a fading form. The Shadow was gone.

FIVE minutes later, The Shadow entered the rear door of a small cigar store. He stepped into an empty back room. A telephone was on the wall in one corner. The Shadow made a call, speaking in a guarded whisper. Burbank answered.

Word to The Shadow. Burbank had received Hawkeye’s prompt call. He had phoned Harry Vincent at the Metrolite. While Moe had been taking plenty of time on his drive to the Pennsylvania Station, Harry had headed there.

Harry had spotted Hothan and the mobsmen leaving Moe’s cab. They had gone to the Long Island ticket office. There, Hothan had bought a ticket to Cordova, Long Island. The others had followed suit.

The Shadow whispered instructions. He hung up the receiver and departed. A soft laugh sounded on the outside street. Cordova was the station near which Selwood Royce’s home was located.

The trail was leading to the focal point. A grim game was due tonight. Henchmen were on their way in response to a big-shot’s order. The pay-off was coming; and The Shadow would be there.