Reaching the ground, The Shadow helped the stumbling, horror-maddened man around to Moe's cab. At intervals, Talney faltered as if paralyzed, and during that slow journey The Shadow recognized that there would be no further chance of trailing Dwig and the murder crew.
They had gone down the front stairway, after hurling the bombs. They couldn't have seen who was in the bombed room, for the first of their explosive missiles had struck the closed door; the next had sailed through a clouded atmosphere of smoke.
Having heard the shot, they might suppose that someone was in the room with Talney; but that was immaterial. They would be satisfied that they had delivered death.
THAT fact suited The Shadow.
It meant that Louis Talney was marked off the book. His servant, Glevin, if even considered, was written off, too. But Talney was the one that counted; he was the fifth link in the chain of death. Whether the chain went on from there, was the next point to learn. Already sure that it did lead farther, The Shadow now held the proof.
Talney's bewilderment over the cheap ring that Glevin wore fitted with The Shadow's own curiosity concerning the rings on the fingers of previous victims. Those rings should have had sapphires as gems.
Furthermore, the fact that they did not contain sapphires pointed to the rings themselves as bearing responsibility for death.
Glevin's case backed that point.
The servant had died instead of his master, Talney, and it was doubtful that human poisoners had made the mistake, since Dwig, very active in the chain of crime, knew what Talney looked like.
However, further speculation was hardly necessary, since The Shadow now held a valuable informant: namely, Talney. Should there be a sixth man listed for death, Talney might be able to name him; but there was no rush, for death, if scheduled, was by this time delivered.
Indeed, rush was impossible with Talney. Getting sense from him was equally difficult, as The Shadow learned while riding in Moe's cab.
Beside him, Talney sat staring, muttering useless words. His mind was still numbed by his recollection of Glevin's body and the startling events that had succeeded it. He didn't even see the black-clad battler who sat beside him. At moments, Talney's eyes lighted, when he opened his hand to stare at an object that he had clutched all through the excitement.
It was the dull, glassy ring that he had taken from Glevin's finger. Momentarily, Talney's eyes would brighten, then fade. This ring was not the one that he expected to see. He couldn't understand it.
The cab pulled up at an address around a corner from Park Avenue. It was the side entrance to the office of Dr. Rupert Sayre, who happened to be Cranston's own physician. Sayre was there, and lost none of his professional calm when he saw the cloaked figure of The Shadow bringing in Talney as a patient.
They helped Talney to a couch and let him lie down; hearing The Shadow's version of the patient's ordeal, Sayre nodded, and made a brief examination.
The Shadow, meanwhile, sat at Sayre's desk in another corner. Coming over, the physician stated:
"Our patient will need about an hour. Nothing serious; the combination of mental shock and physical exertion was too much -"
Pausing, Sayre stared at the ring that The Shadow held between the fingers of his gloved left hand. It was a very cheap ring, and The Shadow had been examining it with a powerful microscope on Sayre's desk.
At present, however, The Shadow was doing something that made Sayre think he might be a better candidate as a patient than Talney.
Having laid aside the microscope, The Shadow had picked up an eye dropper and filled it with ink from Sayre's inkstand. He was carefully inserting the point of the eye dropper beneath the colorless quartz that served as a gem for the cheap finger ring.
The Shadow heard Sayre's voice chop short.
"This stone is hollow," spoke The Shadow, quietly. "It is cut en cabochon, as jewelers say, meaning dome-shaped. The microscope shows a special mounting beneath the hollow. Watch this effect, Sayre."
AS The Shadow squeezed the bulb of the eye dropper, the hollow space in the quartz sucked up the blue ink. Only a small quantity, but the effect was splendid. Filled with blue, the worthless gem took on a gorgeous luster. Nor was that all; as The Shadow raised the transformed jewel to the light, Sayre saw scintillating streaks that radiated from the center of the imitation gem.
"A starolite," informed The Shadow. "The trade name for imitations of star sapphires. Usually a starolite is easily detected; but this one is different. The liquid deepens the color and magnifies the marked mounting."
It happened that Sayre had stopped in at the exhibit at Walder's. He couldn't fail to recognize the amazing imitation gem that The Shadow held.
"One of the six sapphires!" Sayre exclaimed. "Those that were cut from the Star of Delhi!"
"Supposedly cut from it," corrected The Shadow. "No one examined them. They were in a sealed casket that had no lights beneath its top of unbreakable glass. Let us try another experiment."
He held the ring to Sayre's desk lamp. As the blue stone heated, little dribs of ink began to ooze from it.
Sayre watched The Shadow wipe the blue dabs away with his glove, while the slow flow continued.
Fading gradually, the stone was a star sapphire no longer, but just poor quartz.
"You can answer the next question," The Shadow told Sayre. "Suppose the ink to be a virulent poison, oozing because of the heat of the finger that wore it, working its way into a man's pores -"
Sayre interrupted. He defined the very poison by its Latin name. The Shadow listened while Sayre gave more facts; how such a poison, slowly administered, would be absorbed through the entire blood stream, bringing eventual death. In the form of blue crystals, the poison, made into a solution, would have the same hue!
Death's riddle was solved by The Shadow!
Much, however, remained. Foremost was the tracing of the master murderer. The Shadow reached for Sayre's telephone; the physician heard him call the Cobalt Club and ask for Commissioner Weston. For the first time, The Shadow was using Cranston's tone. He seemed startled by what he heard over the phone.
"Another death?" he queried. "A man named Louis Talney killed in an explosion?... What? Someone called Raft's office... The last, you think! Well, that is helpful. I see. No other leads beyond Talney... I'll drop in later, at the club -"
Rising, The Shadow turned toward Sayre, who was seated beside Talney's couch.
"When he comes around," spoke The Shadow, in the whispered tone that suited his cloaked guise, "send him to the Cobalt Club. Tell him not to give his name; he is merely to ask for Cranston."
"But if the commissioner will be there -"
"It will be the last place in the world" - The Shadow's tone was a whispered laugh - "where Commissioner Weston would expect to meet a dead man named Louis Talney!"
The Shadow was gone while Dr. Sayre was considering the unimpeachable merits of that particular plan.
With a laugh of his own, Sayre turned again to his patient.
It took ten minutes for Moe's cab to get from Sayre's office to the Metrolite. When The Shadow alighted at the hotel, he was Cranston again. Inside the Metrolite, he found Margo waiting, and quietly apologized, as any gentleman would have, for coming to dinner at nine when he should have arrived at eight. Margo accepted the apology and asked no explanation. But while they dined, she gained the definite impression that Lamont Cranston, though as leisurely as ever, expected to keep further appointments before this night was ended.
CHAPTER XIV. MASTER OF CRIME
COMMISSIONER WESTON was very disappointed by the sudden way in which his friend, Lamont Cranston, lost all interest in the strange chain of quintuple death. Dropping into the club at about ten o'clock, Cranston listened to all that Weston had to say; then he yawned and decided to go home.
"But these are unexplainable riddles!" Weston exclaimed. "Men slain by a subtle poison administered in an unknown manner. We must solve these deaths! Think of the menace of a
type of murder that never fails!"
"It failed the last time," reminded Cranston, "in Talney's case." The statement carried far more truth that Weston suspected. The commissioner did not catch the point behind it.
"Talney died!" he insisted. "He was blasted out of existence. Don't you realize it, Cranston?"
"Of course I realize it. Again, I say the perfect murder failed. They had to bomb Talney, instead of poisoning him, and that, I hope, will be the end of it."
Accompanying Cranston out through the foyer, Weston stopped impatiently while his friend paused to shake hands with a man who was waiting for him. Cranston didn't bother to introduce his acquaintance.
He just waved to Weston and went out with the arrival.
The commissioner noted that the man had a solemn, squarish face, but soon forgot it. As yet, Weston had seen no photographs of Talney, a matter on which The Shadow had checked while chatting with the commissioner.
In Cranston's limousine, Talney showed quite plainly that Sayre had brought him fully around. He was very voluble in describing all that had happened, including his recollections of The Shadow.
"Dr. Sayre said that you might help me," concluded Talney. "He spoke of previous deaths and told me that you knew something about them, since you were a friend of the police commissioner."
"I do," returned The Shadow in Cranston's tone. "Five men died, all wearing rings with colorless gems.
"Not rings with star sapphires?"
"No. Rings like the one you said your servant wore. Wait - I think I can recall their names -"
He spoke off the list, keenly watching Talney. Though the man recognized none of them, he was definitely ill at ease. Suddenly, Talney blurted:
"Sayre said the rings could have been poisoned!"
"Poisoned?"
"Yes!" Talney was trembling. "He said it might account for them changing from blue to some other color."
Cranston's face registered amazement. Talney gripped his new friend's arm.
"There is much I have to tell you!" he confided. "Dr. Sayre preferred that I should talk to you, as he is very busy. You must hear it all!"
With that, Talney unfolded the history of the secret six, the group that Armand Lenfell had sponsored for the worthy purpose of selling refugee gems, at proper prices, throughout the country. Talney, of course, was a member of the group, but he had known only Lenfell.
"Only Lenfell." Talney's tone was hollow. "The same was true of the others. Until tonight, I had no idea who the rest might be. But from what you tell me, I am sure that they were four of the men who died so mysteriously."
LINKED deaths!
Those had been a problem, even to The Shadow, but now he understood. It showed the craft of a mighty mind behind the reign of murder. Except as members of the secret six, Talney and the four victims had been definitely disassociated. That was why steps had been taken to link them!
It was a move that led the law in the wrong direction, not the right. It made it seem that they had known one another, instead of being men who met only incognito. In Cranston's deliberate style, The Shadow suggested it to Talney, and the living dead man responded by ejaculating the very name that The Shadow expected:
"Armand Lenfell!"
Coolly, The Shadow inquired:
"You think that Lenfell is the murderer?"
"Who else could be?" demanded Talney. "He knew us all, he alone. It was his idea to cut the Star of Delhi into six portions and have Walder exhibit it. But he kept the real Star for himself, and had five poisoned rings made instead!"
"There were six rings -"
"Yes," interposed Talney. "Lenfell kept one, but obviously, he would not have filled it with the same deadly liquid. That ring, however, will prove Lenfell to be a murderer! We must stop and call the police at once!"
Talney saw Cranston stare idly from the window of the slowly rolling limousine, which was piloted by a very patient chauffeur.
"We are in Central Park," came Cranston's tone, "with no phone booths near. But it would be unwise to call the police. They believe you dead, Talney."
"I shall come to life -"
"And make yourself a target again?" Cranston's head shook slowly. "Quite unwise, Talney. The Shadow might not arrive, the next time, to save you!"
Talney slumped back into the cushions. He rallied, suddenly, to announce:
"I shall go direct to Armand Lenfell!"
"To accuse him?" interposed Cranston. "That would be dangerous. You would be giving away the fact that you live, straight to the man that plotted murder. He wouldn't have to wait for the police to proclaim the fact."
"But someone must go to Lenfell!"
The Shadow nodded, as he pretended to give the statement deep consideration. Then, in Cranston's slowest tone:
"I shall go," he said. "Lenfell will not suspect me. Stanley, my chauffeur, will take you to my home in New Jersey, and you can remain there, Talney, as long as it is necessary to play dead. I shall tell you later how I make out with Lenfell."
SOON after sending Stanley home, with Talney as a passenger, The Shadow approached Lenfell's gloomy house, but not as Lamont Cranston. The Shadow was cloaked, the proper guise for this occasion. In a way, he had borrowed an idea from Talney, based on the latter's tale of the secret six.
Since hooded men had moved in and out of Lenfell's practically at will, a cloaked visitor should find the same process satisfactory. But The Shadow was not taking this expedition as a sinecure.
From Talney's account, he inferred that Lenfell had given the servants evenings off whenever he expected his hooded friends - or dupes - to visit him.
Lenfell's house was an index to that fact. It was not as gloomy or formidable as Talney had described it.
The Shadow saw lights that appeared to be in the kitchen; others, on the third floor. Unquestionably, there were servants about. But when The Shadow glided to the side door and tried it, he found it unlocked.
The Shadow paused just inside. If Lenfell expected no more visits from his five companions in the secret six, why was the door unlocked? There was a plausible answer: the servants.
Probably Lenfell locked the doors himself; otherwise the servants, in the past, might have unwittingly blocked out the hooded visitors. It wouldn't be wise for Lenfell suddenly to change that policy over night, particularly on a night when murder was rampant.
Finding Lenfell's study was doubly easy. Talney had mentioned its location; from outside, The Shadow had seen a light in the room. Of all mysterious visitors who had entered Lenfell's house, none moved with more stealth than did The Shadow as he took the side stairway to the second floor. None, that was, except Jan Garmath, on the occasion when the elderly gem maker had returned to eavesdrop at Lenfell's study.
So far as the servants were concerned The Shadow's stealth was superfluous. None was close enough to overhear his approach to the study. The Shadow was thinking purely in terms of Lenfell, and when he reached the study, his gliding arrival gave proof of dividends. Through the door, which was ajar, The Shadow saw Lenfell seated at the desk.
Only a lamp gave light. It was on the desk, and its rays were directed toward a sheaf of letters. Lenfell was leaning forward in his chair, one elbow on the desk; his face, though away from the light's glare, was plainly directed toward the stack of letters. His other hand gripped a fountain pen, ready to affix a signature.
Easing the door open, The Shadow performed a quick, roundabout glide, skirting the desk in darkness.
An automatic drawn, he approached Lenfell and stopped short of the seated man's shoulder. One nudge of the gun muzzle, Lenfell would be helpless.
But The Shadow did not touch Lenfell with the muzzle. He did not even brush the back of the chair. He did feel a floor board give loosely beneath his foot, but he suppressed its creak by adding pressure.
That same board ran beneath a leg of Lenfell's chair. It might have jarred the chair a fraction of an inch, but not enough for Lenfell to have noticed it, because a slight
shift of his own body would have produced the same motion. In fact, Lenfell did not notice the effect at all; nevertheless, the result was large.
Lenfell's pen hand slid across the desk. It flopped past the edge, and its weight carried him with it. Rolling from the chair, the financier struck the floor and stretched there. His broad face, though turned upward, was not in the light, but his left hand was. It lay across his chest, and upon the third finger The Shadow saw a ring.
Not a ring with a sapphire, real or synthetic. The ring contained a specimen of very pure glass, as colorless as other worthless pieces of junk jewelry that The Shadow had viewed earlier.
Normally broad, Lenfell's face did not look bloated away from the light, but when The Shadow tilted the lamp toward it, the condition was plainly discernible.
The Shadow had come to meet the master of crime. He had found Armand Lenfell. The two were not the same, however deep Lenfell's schemes, no matter what part he had played in the strange plot of murder. For no man of hideous crime would have numbered himself among the victims.
Armand Lenfell was stone dead, struck down by the same virulent poison that had taken the lives of others whose fingers bore rings of doom!
A low, grim laugh whispered in the darkness above the dead figure on the floor. It was still The Shadow's task to find a master mind of murder!
CHAPTER XV. CREEP OF DOOM
UNDER the lamplight, Lenfell's face seemed to grimace upward at the eyes above it, as though the man enjoyed the death that had come his way. Certainly, Lenfell had more cause to grin in death than in life.
Had he been living at this moment, he would not have grinned at all.
There wasn't a doubt that Lenfell had betrayed the trust that others had placed in him. But his crimes did not include murder. Lenfell, alone, could point the finger upon the master plotter who had gone still further, to trick him along with his dupes.
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