THE SHADOW KNOWS
A CHUBBY-FACED man was seated at a desk in his office in the Grandville Building. Before him lay a pile of newspapers. Through his spectacles, he was studying clippings that he had cut from the journals.
Some one tapped at the door. The man arose and opened it, peering into the outer office. It was the stenographer who had knocked.
“It’s nearly five o’clock, Mr. Fellows,” said the girl. “My work is finished. Is it all right for me to leave?”
“Certainly,” replied the round-faced man.
He closed the door and returned to his desk.
This man, despite his quiet and almost lethargic appearance, was in reality a very unusual person.
As Claude H. Fellows, the insurance broker, he had a wide circle of acquaintances, who looked upon him as a prosaic business man. But Fellows’ real work in life was more dramatic. He was the confidential agent of that mysterious personage called The Shadow.
The insurance broker was an important cog-wheel in the human mechanism that served The Shadow in his encounters with master criminals.
Fellows was a methodical man who had the ability to assemble facts and information. It was his duty to maintain contact with the unknown Shadow, and to pass instructions along to other workers.
To-day he had been busy all afternoon, clipping items that pertained to the suicide of Jonathan Graham, the millionaire importer. It was nearly twenty-four hours since Graham had died, and Fellows had gathered everything from all the newspapers.
The insurance broker went to the typewriter and prepared a synopsis that dealt accurately with the accounts of Jonathan Graham’s death. It was his duty to prepare reports on such occurrences as this one.
Jonathan Graham gave an interview to a reporter at four o’clock, stating that if he had but one hour to live, he would go about his work in regular procedure.
He lived up to that statement. He called in his secretary, Berger, and a stenographer, Miss Smythe, and dictated a number of letters, which he signed.
At precisely five o’clock, Miss Smythe left the private office. Berger followed with the signed letters. Miss Smythe was halfway across the waiting room when Berger came out. She had forgotten a pad, and she returned to the inner office.
She was speaking to Berger as she opened the door. He had turned toward the door, and as the stenographer opened it, Berger could see directly across the private office.
He dropped the letters suddenly, and leaped forward, crying, “Mr. Graham! Stop! Don’t! Don’t!” Then he slumped against the wall, gasping in horror.
Miss Smythe rushed into the office and was surprised to find that Jonathan Graham was not there. There were two men in the waiting room: one ran to the private office; the other went to aid Berger.
The secretary pointed and gasped: “The window! He jumped — we were too late.”
The man looked out the window, and saw a crowd gathering on the side street below. The explanation was obvious. Jonathan Graham had leaped to his death.
The newspapers have hinted various motives for suicide. No one was in the room when Berger saw Graham leap. No person could have escaped from the room.
FELLOWS ran down the margin of his report and inscribed certain numbers with a blue pencil. These corresponded to numbers on the newspaper clippings. When he had finished the work, the insurance broker folded the paper and clippings, and inserted them in a large manila envelope. He took the envelope with him when he left the office.
Hailing a cab, he rode to Twenty-third Street, and entered a dingy office building.
On the third floor he stopped in front of a door near the end of the hall. On the frosted glass appeared the name — B. Jonas.
The shadows of cobwebs appeared through the pane. Evidently the door had not been opened for many months. Thick dust on the glass was additional evidence to that effect.
Very little light came from the room within; evidently there was a single window that provided very little illumination.
There was a letter chute in the doorway, bearing the sign, “Leave Mail Here.” Fellows dropped the envelope in the chute.
What lay behind that door was a mystery to Claude Fellows. Once he had wondered about it — long ago. He had questioned tenants in the building, and had learned that no one ever entered the room — not even the janitor, for the tenants paid for cleaning service and Jonas had never requested it.
So Fellows had come to accept the strange, closed office as a very ordinary matter. To-day he walked away without even giving it a second thought.
It was simply the place to which he brought or sent reports and messages intended for The Shadow.
Once Fellows thought he had identified The Shadow, but he had found that he was mistaken. So he continued his routine work, satisfied with his reward, which came in the form of a monthly payment from some unknown source.
Who and what The Shadow was no longer concerned Claude Fellows’ mind.
The insurance broker remembered the envelope as he rode uptown. He thought of it lying beneath the mail chute; then he dismissed the matter.
But at the very moment that the thought of the envelope lingered in Fellows’ mind, that same envelope was lying open on a table, and two long-fingered hands were drawing the clippings from it.
THOSE hands were working in a circle of light that came from a shaded lamp, directly above the table. They were amazing hands, white and supple.
On one finger of the left hand gleamed a mysterious gem — a glowing fire opal that shone with crimson hue, and seemed like a living coal.
Beyond the hands was darkness, amid which invisible eyes watched and directed the hands in their work. A pointed finger ran along the lines of Fellows’ brief report.
Then the hands spread out the clippings. One by one they came under inspection of the invisible eyes; then all attention was directed to the front-page story that had appeared in the Sphere — the report of the last interview with Jonathan Graham.
The finger moved from word to word, as though ferreting the thoughts that had been in the mind of the millionaire when he had given the interview.
Had young Stevens been an experienced reporter, or one gifted with imagination, he might have presented a skillfully changed story, emphasizing certain details and subordinating others.
But as it was, his account was an accurate description of exactly what had transpired in Jonathan Graham’s office at four o’clock the preceding afternoon.
The hands suddenly folded the clipping and thrust it, with the report, back in the envelope. The other clippings were also put away. Then the hands produced a sheet of paper and a pencil.
Slowly and carefully the right hand wrote, and the words were so carefully marked that they seemed like spoken thoughts as they came on the paper.
Jonathan Graham’s death is classed as suicide. There are hints of motives. Every life has possible motives for suicide. Jonathan Graham did not contemplate suicide when he gave the interview. Nothing that occurred in the following hour could have made him decide to end his life. Therefore Jonathan Graham was murdered. Only one man’s testimony disputes that fact — the testimony of the secretary, Stanley Berger. Berger claims that he saw Graham leap from the window. Graham did not leap from the window. Therefore Berger did not see him leap. Why did he make his statement? To aid the murderer. Why did he wish to aid the murderer? Because he was the murderer.
The hand stopped writing. Then it began again, and the words that it inscribed came as a revelation that told exactly what had transpired in the office of Jonathan Graham.
It was a perfect reconstruction of the crime — formed by a master mind that had the uncanny ability to picture the thoughts and actions of another person.
Jonathan Graham had a habit of standing by the window, which had a low sill. This fact appeared in the account of his last interview. Berger and Miss Smythe were in the office with Graham at five o’clock. Graham turned to look out of the open window, as Miss Smythe left. Berger was gathering a few letters. He was standing close to Graham as the door closed behind Miss Smythe. It was an opportunity. Like a flash, Berger pushed Graham through the window, catching him off balance, sending him to his doom. Berger left the room immediately. It was done so rapidly that he seemed to come out right behind Miss Smythe. That was to be his alibi. Yet he must have had qualms. When Miss Smythe turned to go back to the private office, Berger gained a sudden opportunity. Staring directly into the office, he screamed a warning as the stenographer opened the door. Then he yielded to his shaking nerves.
The hand stopped writing. It began to tap the pencil against the paper, counting the seconds that were marked by a watch that lay on the table.
The brain in the darkness was going through the murder of Jonathan Graham, counting from the very instant when Berger pushed the millionaire through the window until the moment when the secretary screamed his warning.
Thirty taps. Then the hand wrote:
Half a minute at the most. No one knows the exact minute at which Jonathan Graham’s body crashed to the street. The time element is perfectly in Berger’s favor. Berger’s alibi is now perfect — to the unthinking minds of those who were in the office — and to the minds of the police. But to the deductive brain, Berger’s action betrays his crime.
The right hand picked up the paper, and crumpled it into a ball. The hand disappeared and returned without the paper. Then on another sheet, it wrote:
Stanley Berger murdered Jonathan Graham.
The pencil remained still for two short seconds; then it moved again, and the hand inscribed these words:
The Shadow knows!