The Living Shadow s-1

by Maxwell Grant

  As Steve Cronin left the apartment, Croaker stood in the doorway. He waited until his visitor was out of sight. Then, as he turned to the room, he stood petrified with sudden fear, and his twitching face held a distorted position.

  For from his room came a low, mocking peal of laughter; a weird, uncanny laugh that was chilling to his heart. As he staggered into the lighted room he saw a mammoth shadow swing across the wall and melt into the black night beyond the window.

  He rushed into his room and looked out into darkness. He could see nothing; the courtyard below was silent in its gloom.

  Croaker stumbled to a chair and sat there, with dread in his heart; for he foresaw an unrelenting doom.

  A taxi driver, waiting in his cab in the street behind the apartment house, was quite as surprised as Croaker. As the driver’s gaze chanced to fall on the wall of the building, he saw a shadow three stories up that suddenly moved downward.

  But when the astonished man strained his eyes to examine the phenomenon, the moving shadow lost itself in the inkyness that obscured the lower stories of the edifice.

  He had no time to leave his cab and make a closer inspection. For while he still gazed at the building across the street, a tall man with a large felt hat tapped at the window of the cab and demanded transportation.

  Driving his fare to the address given, he still wondered about that mysterious shadow.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE SECOND MESSAGE

  Harry Vincent awoke the next morning with a troubled mind. His sleep had been disturbed by unwelcome dreams, in which the frightened face of Scanlon and the sinister features of Steve Cronin had haunted him.

  In the light of morning he chided himself because he had not anticipated and prevented the murder of the night before. His instructions had been to “watch the man in the next room,” and perhaps that might have meant to see that no harm came to the man. If such had been his mission, he had failed.

  The morning newspaper was at his door, and he scanned the front page for news of the murder. The story was there; but its details were very few. The police, ran the account, were rounding up suspicious characters, but so far no clews had been discovered in the room where the murder had taken place.

  Vincent dressed slowly, while he was reading and rereading the newspaper account. He was in a quandary. He knew that he possessed information that would be valuable to the police, yet he felt that he could say nothing until he received instructions from the sinister stranger who had become what amounted to his master, and whom he had promised to obey.

  Vincent thrust his hand in his trousers pocket, and brought out the strange, grayish disk that bore the dull-red Chinese character. Here was a tangible clew. So far as he could see, it was the only clew that existed. What should he do with it?

  He shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing to do but wait, for he knew of no way in which he could reach his mysterious benefactor and give him this bit of important evidence.

  Vincent speculated upon his own position with a vague feeling of insecurity. Suppose the police should decide to quiz him? What could he tell them?

  If they should decide to cross-examine him on the chance that he might know more than he had told, what would be the result? Vincent might be forced to tell his whole story; and who would believe him if he related the strange adventure of the mysterious man on the bridge?

  He felt nervous, and tried to calm his mind by reading other items in the paper. The principal story was another murder - a much more important one than that of Scanlon.

  A masked man had entered the home of Geoffrey Laidlow, a millionaire who lived in a palatial residence on Long Island. While opening the Laidlow safe, the criminal had been surprised by the millionaire and his secretary.

  There had been an exchange of shots; Laidlow had been killed and his secretary wounded. The man had escaped with thousands of dollars in loot - composed chiefly of valuable gems which the millionaire had collected.

  There was another story of violent death on the same page, but it was scarcely more than a brief item. The residents of an uptown apartment house had been awakened by pistol shots on the third floor. The police had found a man murdered. They had identified him as a gangster, who was known by the name of Croaker. The police suspected that he had been killed by other denizens of the underworld for some undetermined reason.

  “Three murders in one night,” mused Vincent. “All on the front page. This Croaker case looks fairly obvious - a crook bumped off for double-crossing his gang. Geoffrey Laidlow murdered because he tried to thwart a robbery. Scanlon killed - and no one knows why. That is, except for the precious little I know.”

  Vincent looked at the Chinese disk, examining it carefully. The same mystic character appeared on both sides. He wondered wherein lay the value of the disk. It must certainly be important and greatly desired; for a daring murder had been committed for no other apparent motive.

  The telephone bell broke in on his thoughts, and he trembled nervously. Who could be calling him? Vincent hesitated while the bell sounded a second time; then, steadying himself, he lifted the receiver and answered with a firm voice.

  “Mr. Vincent?” came the voice of the operator.

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to make sure I had your new room number right. Fourteen fifty-two. That’s correct, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a moment, please. Some one is calling you.”

  Vincent trembled nervously while he waited for the connection.

  “Here’s your party,” came the operator’s voice.

  “Mr. Vincent?”

  It was a man’s voice, smooth and modulated. Vincent acknowledged it with a feeble “Yes.”

  “This is Detective Harrison, of headquarters.”

  Vincent’s heart leaped to his throat.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Vincent,” continued the voice. “We are simply checking up on statements that were given last night by guests of the hotel. I am going to read the data that we have placed on the record concerning you. Will you please listen carefully?”

  “Yes,” said Vincent.

  The voice over the telephone came very slowly. Despite his nervousness and alarm, Vincent detected an emphasis on certain words.

  “You did not hear the REPORT of a pistol. You were called TO the corridor. There were three or four FELLOWS there. The house detective was in the COMPANY.”

  The voice ceased speaking. Vincent did not reply. He was thinking of the message, in which four words stood out so prominently: “Report to fellows company.”

  “Is that correct, Mr. Vincent?” came the voice of the man who had called himself Detective Harrison.

  “That’s right,” answered Vincent.

  The receiver clicked at the other end.

  “Just a moment,” called Vincent. The message had suddenly seemed insufficient. He wanted to hear the statement again.

  “Sorry,” said the operator. “Your party has hung up.”

  Vincent placed the receiver on the hook and began to repeat the words he had just heard:

  “Report to fellows company.”

  What could be the meaning of this terse, cryptic statement? Vincent wrote the words on a piece of hotel stationery, then tore the paper into tiny shreds and threw them in the wastebasket. The message was not clear; yet he was expected to understand it, and it must certainly be important. For it was a message from the man he called The Shadow.

  Vincent paced up and down the room, mentally repeating the four words he had learned. “Report to” - that part of it was plain. He was to go somewhere and tell what he knew about the affair in Room 1417 that had led to the murder of Scanlon, the shoe salesman from San Francisco.

  But what was “fellows company”? What could the words mean? He was to report to “fellows company.” He looked at the telephone, and his eye chanced to observe the gray-covered telephone directory.

  Perhaps the clew lay there. He was to report to “fellows.” What wa
s “fellows”? A name perhaps. If it happened to be a name, it might be in the telephone book. That was it! Fellows! A man named Fellows!

  He hurriedly thumbed the pages of the directory under the letter F. He found the name “Fellows.” There were not many persons of that name. He read each listing carefully, and a cry of exultation escaped his lips, as he read this line:

  “Fellows Co., Grandville Bldg.”

  He paid no attention to the telephone number that followed the name. He was to report, and that would mean a personal call. He knew the location of the Grandville Building, which was one of upper Manhattan’s newest skyscrapers.

  Vincent took out his watch. Five minutes after nine. That allowed time for breakfast, and by using a taxicab he could reach his destination before ten o’clock.

  Vincent shaved quickly and finished dressing. He descended to the lobby and left the hotel. He stopped in a restaurant and ordered a quick breakfast.

  As he ate, he thumbed the Chinese disk which now reposed in his vest pocket. Perhaps he would soon know something more about this baffling mystery.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE INSURANCE BROKER

  An amiable, round-faced gentleman was seated at a mahogany desk in an office on the fifteenth floor of the Grandville Building. It was the inner office of a suite; the door to the outer room was closed, so that not even the sound of the stenographer’s typewriter reached the man’s ears.

  The gentleman glanced at his wristwatch and noted that it registered twenty minutes after nine o’clock.

  “Time to start business”, he murmured softly.

  He placed a pair of large spectacles on his nose, and picked up a pile of letters that laid on the desk beside him. He began to sort the mail, slowly and methodically. In one heap went letters addressed: “Fellows Company.” A few others bore the name, “Claude H. Fellows,” and it was these letters that occupied the man’s immediate attention.

  Only four of the envelopes bore the personal address, one of which bore no return address. It was a long envelope, postmarked New York. The man at the desk opened it carefully with a paper cutter, and slowly unfolded the letter within.

  So far his actions had been very leisurely, but as he spread the paper between his chubby hands, he began to read with great rapidity. The words had been printed by hand, and they would have been meaningless to the average reader, for they were composed of jumbled letters that were unpronounceable.

  A cryptogram! The code to the cryptogram likely was simple, for Claude Fellows read it without difficulty. Evidently the letter was designed to perplex anyone for whom it was not intended, yet the make-up of the words was doubtless of the variety of cipher that would not be difficult to solve in an hour’s time.

  Fellows finished the document very quickly. At the bottom of it was a number - 58. He opened a drawer in the desk and brought out a card which bore numbers from 1 to 100. Every number had been crossed out, up to and including 57. He made a pencil mark through number 58, and replaced the card in the drawer.

  Fellows drew a cigar from his pocket, and lighted it. While he puffed contentedly and gazed toward the ceiling, he softly repeated the information that he had received in the message.

  While he was thus engaged, the letter lay spread on the desk before him. Slowly, as though eradicated by an invisible hand, the words of the cryptogram disappeared until nothing remained but a blank sheet of paper!

  “Laidlow murder,” mused Fellows. “This was not anticipated. Will require immediate attention. Scanlon murder at Metrolite Hotel. Important. May have been observed by Harry Vincent, our new operative. He will call today. Question him. Notify me if he has information. If he has, hold him for further instructions.”

  The chubby-faced man remained silent for several minutes as though pondering upon the message. Then, apparently satisfied that he would not forget its details, he picked up the blank sheet of paper, crumpled it in a ball, and tossed it to the wastebasket.

  Having regained his leisurely composure, Fellows pressed a buzzer. His stenographer entered a moment later. Fellows opened the other letters that were on the desk, read them in an offhand manner, and began to dictate replies, all of which obviously referred to matters having to do with his insurance business.

  While Fellows was occupied in this work - which required considerable time because of his leisurely way - Harry Vincent entered the outer office. Finding no one there, he sat in a chair to wait. He could hear a man talking in the inner office, and he paid very little attention to the dull, monotonous voice speaking of insurance policies and kindred matters.

  The stenographer came into the outer office a few minutes later. Finding Vincent there, she asked for his name. This she reported to Fellows in the inner office, and Vincent was ushered into the private sanctum.

  “See that I am not disturbed, Miss Carrington,” said the insurance broker. “Please close my door as you go out.”

  When the door had closed behind the stenographer, Fellows motioned Vincent to a chair at the opposite side of the desk. Then he removed his spectacles and studied Vincent with a calm gaze that was neither inquisitive nor too friendly.

  Vincent, in turn, was interested in the man across the desk. He knew immediately that Fellows was not the shadowy stranger of the bridge and the imported limousine, but he realized that there was a definite connection between the two.

  Fellows’ face was impenetrable. It was the face of a staid, methodical business man. It revealed nothing else to the man who inspected it.

  “You are Mr. Vincent,” said Fellows slowly.

  Vincent nodded.

  “You were told to report to me,” resumed Fellows.

  “Yes.”

  “Before you begin, Mr. Vincent, let me assure you that you are quite safe here. You were posted at the Metrolite Hotel to watch a man named Scanlon. He was murdered last night. You were in the hotel at the time. What do you know about it?”

  Vincent hesitated. Was this a trap? Did the police suspect that he knew more than he had told in his meager testimony? Could this prosperous-looking insurance broker be a detective?

  Fellows seemed to fathom his suspicions.

  “Let me reassure you,” he said. “I can tell you why you were at the Metrolite Hotel. Two nights ago, you were about to commit suicide, which a stranger saw fit to prevent. Following that, you agreed to perform whatever service this stranger required from you. I represent the man to whom you made that promise.”

  “You mean The Shadow?” blurted Vincent, without thinking of giving the name that had formed in his mind.

  The faint trace of a smile spread over the chubby face of the insurance broker.

  “The Shadow,” he repeated. “That is what I call him. I see the name occurred to you, also.”

  “Yes,” admitted Vincent. “I can only describe him as a shadow that came from nowhere and vanished into nothingness.”

  The insurance broker nodded thoughtfully.

  “That is all I know about him, too,” he replied. “Like you, I have certain duties to perform. My duty is to learn what you have done. So tell me everything.”

  Convinced by the man’s words, Vincent lost no time in giving the details of his recent adventures.

  Fellows listened blandly. He evidenced no surprise whatever when he heard of the finding of the Chinese disk which Vincent handed to him.

  When Vincent’s story was completed, the insurance broker drew a sheet of paper from the desk drawer, and thrust a pen in a bottle of light-blue ink. He wrote a short note with calm deliberation, folded the paper and sealed it carefully in an envelope. He addressed the envelope and buzzed for the stenographer, to whom he gave the letter.

  When the girl had gone, he spoke to Vincent again.

  “There will be a reply before noon,” said Fellows. “It may interest you to know that the letter I have just sent is to a man named Jonas, whom I have never seen. He has an office in an old building on Twenty-third Street.

  “When I first began
to receive instructions from this man we call The Shadow, I was curious - just as you are now. I used to investigate a bit, in the same way that you quizzed the chauffeur of the limousine which took you to the Metrolite.

  “So when I was told to send letters to Jonas, I took the trouble to visit his office. I found it closed, with a letter chute in the doorway, bearing the sign, ‘Leave Mail Here.’ I questioned people in the building, and learned that no one there had ever seen the man named Jonas; that his office is always shut, and never lighted.

  “What happens to the letters that go in that mail chute is a mystery to me. But I know that we will receive a reply within one hour.”

  Vincent stared wonderingly at the speaker, and Fellows added a further explanation.

  “I have told you this with a purpose, Vincent. The methods of the man we call The Shadow are unfathomable. He is entirely unconcerned about any methods you, I, or anyone else may use in an attempt to discover his identity. To him, we are no more than children. I discovered that some time ago; I am giving you the information to save you further useless effort.”

  Vincent stroked his chin in speculation.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mr. Fellows?”

  “Ask me any question you wish,” replied the insurance broker.

  “Have you ever seen The Shadow?” quizzed Vincent.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he live here in New York?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is his purpose in life?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he a crook?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he on the side of the law?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Vincent laughed, and even Fellows indulged in a serious smile.

  “You see, Vincent,” said the insurance broker, in an affable tone, “I know very little. I receive messages from The Shadow, and I reply to them. What he writes to me and what I write to him is all forgotten. Remember the answer I have given to your questions. Those three words, ‘I don’t know’ are often useful.”