DEATH IN THE DARK
DETECTIVE SERGEANT MAYHEW began his unusual duty the moment that Joe Cardona left Silas Harshaw’s apartment.
The big door that led to the hall had been repaired; so had the door between the outer room and the study. They had been fitted with locks instead of bolts, and Mayhew had the keys.
Presumably, Mayhew left the hotel shortly after Cardona. The detectives held a brief discussion in the lobby, and there was no doubt that their words were overheard.
Mayhew stated that he would be at headquarters within an hour, and he turned in the keys of the apartment at the desk.
Cardona went out through the lobby. Mayhew went into the dining room.
From there, Mayhew went to a small side door, but instead of leaving the hotel, he doubled up the stairway, and returned to the murdered man’s apartment. Duplicate keys were in his pocket.
There were several guests in the lobby when Cardona left. One of these was a tall, solemn-faced man who was resting leisurely in a large, comfortable chair.
Another was a powerful, thickset man who lounged in a corner, reading a newspaper. Shortly after Cardona’s departure, this individual went out of the hotel.
The tall man remained for nearly an hour, then he strolled to the street. He did not return. He was not in the lobby when the thickset individual came back at midnight.
Only the clerk remained in the lobby. He was half asleep. At times he roused himself and glanced toward the front; then, gradually, his head lowered.
It was during one of these lapses that the clerk’s eyes became suddenly focused upon a pillar midway between the revolving door and the desk.
A dull light projected from the top of the pillar, and its rays illuminated the entire post. As the clerk was watching, he saw a human shadow move slowly across the post!
Astounded, the man looked toward the floor. There he saw the same shadow; lengthening in an uncanny fashion.
It grew, then dwindled as it continued its even progress toward the interior of the lobby.
The clerk gripped the edge of the desk and shuddered as he watched that mysterious blot travel silently toward the darkened stairway.
Wildly, he sought to discover the living form that the weird shadow represented. He could observe nothing but that moving blackness.
As the gliding shadow reached the bottom of the stairway, it rose against the wall. There, for a brief moment, the clerk fancied that it took on a human form.
Upright, the mass of blackness shrank and seemed to assume a solidity. Then it merged with the darkness — and was gone.
What could it be?
The shadowy shape was no longer visible as it moved upward. It did not appear again until it arrived at the tenth floor.
There it emerged from the stairway and slowly transformed itself into a tall, upright form. It approached the door of Silas Harshaw’s apartment, where it assumed the proportions of a human being.
An odd-appearing figure, he stood beside the silent door. He was clad in a black cloak. He wore a black slouch hat that was turned down to cover his features.
There was a weird, sinister appearance in this man. In motion, his easy, gliding stride was uncanny. Standing still, he was even more mysterious.
Minutes ticked by, and the man of the dark gave no sign that he was alive. Then, from hidden lips, came a soft, whispered laugh.
The eerie sound throbbed through the hallway, and echoed back from the walls. It was the laugh of The Shadow!
The pulsating softness of those mysterious reverberations could not be heard through the barrier before which The Shadow stood.
Nor could Mayhew, on the other side of the door, possibly have heard the sound that followed. Metal clicked against metal, yet the noise was scarcely audible.
A key had been inserted in the lock. It worked as perfectly as the duplicate which Mayhew had retained.
The knob turned. The door opened, inch by inch.
THERE was a single light in the outer room of the apartment. The door to the study was closed. It was a tight-fitting barrier, and Mayhew was safe with his single light, for no rays could filter into the adjacent room.
It was not the light that The Shadow watched, however. The eyes that were hidden beneath the soft-brimmed hat were studying the detective.
Mayhew was comfortably seated in an easy-chair in the corner of the room. By turning his head from left to right, he could view either door, as he chose.
The Shadow was now inside the room. The door closed silently behind him.
Mayhew, totally oblivious, puffed deeply from his cigar, blew a cloud of smoke ceilingward, and rested his head against the back of the easy-chair.
Simultaneously, The Shadow glided directly in front of him.
The black-clad form seemed to dwindle as it swept noiselessly across the room. The man beneath the cloak had shrunk to half his former size.
While Mayhew still continued to speculate upon the swirling tendencies of heavy smoke, The Shadow arrived at the far end of the room.
Drawing himself up, he became a thin shape that stood motionless beside the door.
Mayhew shook himself and stretched. He glanced toward each door, shifted his position in his chair, and examined his cigar, which was commencing to come apart.
The detective grunted as he tried to repair the remains of the cigar.
While he was thus occupied, he failed entirely to observe what happened at the door to the study.
The Shadow moved over to cover the door. While his body blotted out the barrier, his black-gloved hand inserted a key in the lock. The slight clicking was muffled beneath the covering cloak.
The door opened inward — not more than a foot. The Shadow slipped into the study, and the door closed softly.
Perhaps it was a slight sound that attracted Mayhew’s attention. The detective looked suddenly toward the door an instant after it had shut. He went to the door and listened.
There was no sound from the inner room. Mayhew went back to his chair.
Absolute darkness pervaded the room in which Silas Harshaw had been slain. It seemed like a chamber of death. Not a single sound disturbed the sinister silence. Yet, there was motion in that room.
A man who was an integral part of the darkness was moving here and there. A tiny ray of light appeared at intervals. It illuminated the old man’s desk. It shone upon the bits of sculpture in the corner.
It rested on the chess board. It revealed the gas heater at the inner end of the room.
Only the reappearing light betokened the movement of the man who carried it. The gleaming spot came and went in haphazard fashion, arriving in the most unexpected places.
It disappeared for a full minute, then flickered in the bedroom that adjoined the study.
At last, it was back in the large room. It shone on the floor — at the very place where Silas Harshaw’s dead body had been found.
The silvery radiator glittered as the light ran along it. Then the gleaming torch made a small spot that zigzagged along the sill.
It disappeared and left no trace. The Shadow had returned to the gloom of the room.
Now he was below the window sill, a crouching figure, stooping as Silas Harshaw might have stooped, the night he met his doom.
For one fraction of a second, the light again glimmered on the floor. Then it was no longer visible.
The cause of its disappearance was a muffled sound that had occurred outside the window.
There was a slight crackling; the noise of metal driven into wood. The Shadow arose and stood beside the window.
SOME one was moving against the iron grating!
The window was a dim frame that provided very little relief from the blackness of the room, but now the vague outline of a man was visible there.
The sash had been left raised, exactly as it had been found by the police. Hence, a cautious, metallic noise was audible in the room.
The man who was working at the grating was a craftsman in his own line of endeavor. He was loosening the grating in expert fashion. Even when the iron barrier swung wide, its squeaks were repressed.
His difficult task accomplished, the man outside pressed himself through the window. He crawled along the sill, and as he did so, The Shadow drew back toward the nearest corner.
The man in black stood motionless, but his gloved hand gripped the handle of a hidden automatic.
The stranger had entered the room. He was crouched by the window sill. He remained there, listening. Several minutes elapsed before the newcomer was sure that all was well. His breathing, restrained though it was, made a wheezing sound in the darkness.
It was a marked contrast to the silence in the corner where The Shadow stood. No noise whatever came from that quarter.
Now a flashlight shone. It was turned toward the floor, and its bright circle reflected upward to show a huddled, stocky form.
Even in that dim surrounding, the man at the window might have been recognized as the one who had left the lobby after Joe Cardona had departed.
The light swung inward, and pointed at an angle along the floor. The increasing luminosity must have made the man fear it would betray his presence, for he clicked off the light.
He was cautious for a short time; then, again, the flashlight gleamed, but it was turned away from the room. It showed the floor and the base of the radiator.
It moved upward and went out as it began to shine on the edge of the window sill.
Silence reigned, but there was motion by the window sill. The man there was occupied in some mysterious work. He was totally oblivious of the presence of The Shadow. He did not know that a menacing form stood close by, with a loaded automatic in readiness.
The crouching man breathed quickly and eagerly. His lips were forming soft, incoherent words. A low exclamation — hardly more than a whisper — was uttered by him.
Then came the sound of a pistol shot.
It was a muffled report that seemed to be absorbed by the room itself. A wailing, gasping cry came from the window sill. A long groan followed.
This succession of startling sounds could hardly have been heard on the floors below, but they could not escape the listening ears of any one within the apartment.
A chair overturned in the outer room. Mayhew’s police whistle shrilled.
The latch of the door clicked. The door opened. Mayhew pressed the light switch, and leaped into the illuminated room, revolver in hand. The detective sergeant stared in profound amazement.
Stretched upon the floor by the window lay the body of a man.
Face upward, arms sprawled, it might have been the form of Silas Harshaw, for it lay exactly as the body of the old man had lain.
The second victim had been slain within the walls of this mysterious room!