SEVERAL days had passed since the murder of Doctor George Lukens. The hue and cry of the tabloids had died away. The death of the physician had become one of those unsolved mysteries that are soon forgotten.
The pair of dice with their constant seven were not even mentioned in the newspapers. Cardona had pocketed the cubes and had shown them to Inspector Klein. They had seen a strange significance.
At intervals, New York had been victimized by startling crimes that had gone unsolved. There had been no direct proof that they had been the work of the same organization. The only clew had been the fact that the number seven had appeared, in each instance.
The bank safe had contained seven pennies. Seven buttons had been clipped from a murdered man’s coat. A dying gangster had gasped the word “Seven” when the police had captured him during an attempted burglary.
There was little discussion of Lukens’s death at the Merrimac Club, although the physician had been a member. The members kept to themselves as a rule. Once a man had become accustomed to the silence of the vast rooms, he moved about in his own particular fashion.
Rodney Paget had been a member for years. He liked the club because of its atmosphere of privacy. The only thing that made him uncomfortable was the occasional danger of being posted for back dues. That was an unpardonable crime, and Paget had barely escaped it at different times during his long period of membership.
In fact, the threat was hanging over him at the present time, and it worried him. For there were various reasons why Rodney Paget did not wish his name to become suddenly conspicuous.
Perhaps that was the reason why Paget did not realize a new habit that he had formed. It had become his procedure to enter the reading room immediately upon arriving at the club.
There were seldom many members present. Paget never gave a thought to them. Hence it became his daily procedure to go to the newspaper table and pick up the Morning Monitor — one of the oldest, most conservative of New York journals.
In it he studied each advertisement in a slow, careful manner, paying particular attention to the column headed, “Situations Wanted Male.” After that he folded the newspaper so that the front page appeared in view.
Each day when he performed this function, Paget left the table and leisurely inserted a cigarette in the long ivory holder.
On this particular day, it was late in the afternoon when Rodney Paget entered the Merrimac Club. He went directly to the reading room. His face bore an anxious expression, which was odd, for Paget’s demeanor was usually a pronounced calm.
The lateness of his arrival meant that he had been on an all-night party, for Paget always began his day by appearing at the Merrimac Club.
Paget, although careless in his hours, was not excessive in his indulgences. It was actual anxiety, not weariness, that controlled him this afternoon.
As he was turning the pages of the Morning Monitor, Paget started suddenly. A man was standing beside him. Paget recognized Walter Steuben, another club member. He laid the newspaper on the table and nodded.
“Rodney,” said Steuben quietly, “I want to know about that five hundred dollars. It’s been a month since you promised me—”
Paget gripped the man’s arm.
“Listen, Walter,” he replied, “it’s coming shortly. Give me just another week—”
“I need it now.”
“But I have to pay my dues,” pleaded Paget, in a low tone. “I can’t be posted, Walter. Give me just one week—”
Steuben nodded reluctantly and walked away as another man passed. Paget wondered if he had been overheard.
He did not recognize the passer-by, as the man’s back was turned, but he watched the fellow until he had taken his place in a corner of the reading room, where he sat obscured behind an unfolded newspaper.
PAGET referred to the Morning Monitor. He reached the desired page, and an exclamation nearly came to his lips. He placed his finger upon a paragraph and read the words eagerly.
Suddenly he felt a chilling sensation. Steuben’s interruption came back to him, and Paget became suddenly suspicious. Without raising his head, he turned his eyes to the right.
The man in the corner was still behind his newspaper, but Paget had a strange, unaccountable intuition that sharp eyes were watching him. He suddenly gained the impression that there were holes in that unfolded newspaper — many small, unnoticeable holes through which he was being observed.
Then, for the first time, he realized that he had made a regular practice of searching through the Morning Monitor each day when he arrived at the Merrimac Club. This action had been the only regular procedure in his otherwise unregulated life.
A deluge of thoughts gripped Paget’s mind. He controlled himself, carefully folded the paper, and sauntered across the reading room. There he sat in a chair and stared straight ahead; but his eyes could barely see the man with the newspaper.
Half an hour went by. Neither Paget nor the other man made a motion. Finally the strain told on Paget.
He arose and walked by the man.
He made no effort to repress his smile. The man was asleep!
Paget strolled from the reading room. He sauntered from the club and stood outside in the gathering dusk. Here, again, he felt the sensation of some one watching him.
He wondered if the man had really been asleep. He controlled the desire to return and see.
Instead, Paget called a cab. He rode to his apartment uptown. Arriving there, he made a careful search of every room.
Satisfied that he was alone, Paget entered a small closetlike alcove that led off from the bedroom. There was a window in the alcove — a high window with a small rolled-up blind. Paget drew down the shade.
A large sheet of paper fluttered to the floor.
Paget had performed this action in the semidarkness of the alcove. He went into the windowless hall and turned on the light. He scanned the sheet of paper, reading it as though to refresh his memory.
Satisfied, he replaced the paper against the shade; he let the shade fly up and the document was again concealed. A clicking sound informed him that the roller had locked automatically.
Paget laughed softly. All anxiety had left his face. He now seemed full of enthusiasm. With an effort he restrained himself and resumed his accustomed languor.
He had forgotten the man at the Merrimac Club in his elation.
BUT at that very moment, the man at the Merrimac Club was becoming suddenly active. The reading room was deserted, for most of the men in the club had gone to dinner. The man arose from his chair and revealed the features which Paget had vainly sought to observe.
The man’s face was a strange one — smooth, expressionless, and masklike. It was the face of the stranger who had visited Doctor Lukens, the night before his death.
The calm-faced man went to the newspaper table. He turned the pages of the Morning Monitor. He stopped at the section of classified ads. His eyes gleamed as they found a paragraph under the heading
“Situations Wanted — Male.”
The paragraph read:
Executive. Man of 23 years experience will accept responsible position. Minimum $9750 a year. Will deal with corporations only. BX-86.
The man laughed as he read the terms of the advertisement. His laugh was hollow — scarcely more than a whisper — yet it had a weird sound in that silent room.
The stranger folded the newspaper and walked into the lobby. He entered a telephone booth and called a number.
“Metrolite Hotel?” he asked. His voice was quiet. “Room 874.”
The man spoke again a few moments later.
“Mister Vincent?” he asked. “Sorry I can not go with you tonight. I am detained at home. I have to stay there once in a while. You understand, of course.”
The emphasized words phrased the sentence: “Go at once.”
Twelve minutes later, Harry Vincent, agent of The Shadow, alighted from a taxicab across the street from Rodney Paget’s apartment house. He strolled toward the side of the building and looked upward toward the lighted windows.
He made a careful calculation. He discovered one particular window — the living-room window of Paget’s apartment. The window was lighted.
Harry returned to a vantage point, from which he could watch the door of the apartment house. He waited patiently for nearly ten minutes. A man came slowly along the street and stopped a few feet away.
“Harry,” said a low voice.
“Hello, Clyde,” replied Vincent, in the same low tone. “I think you’re in time. I know what he looks like. When he comes out, I’ll tag him. You follow me. Be ready to take up the trail if I think he suspects me.”
“Right.”
A man appeared beyond the revolving door of the apartment house. He emerged to the street and looked slowly in both directions.
It was Rodney Paget. The man was swinging a light cane and smoking his inevitable cigarette. He sauntered along the street aimlessly. Harry followed.
PAGET apparently was in no hurry. He walked several blocks; then turned toward Broadway. He stopped once or twice in front of different restaurants, and Harry loitered well behind.
At last one eating house caught Paget’s fancy. He entered and went to a table at the end of the room.
Harry lingered outside until Burke arrived.
“We can go in without being noticed,” whispered Harry. “Paget is not facing the door. We can take a table near the front.”
The two men entered the small restaurant and ordered dinner. Facing each other by the front window, they could both observe Paget’s back while the clubman was dining. Paget appeared to be in no hurry with his meal.
“P-s-st,” signaled Harry.
Clyde looked to the left without moving his head. He noted that Paget was rising from the table at the end of the room.
The man had turned slightly so that his profile was visible. He drew a watch from his pocket and noted the time. Then he surveyed the restaurant in a curious way. Neither Harry nor Clyde made a suspicious movement.
Paget paid the waiter and looked about him. Then he strolled to the back of the room.
“He’s telephoning,” whispered Clyde. “There’s a booth in the corner. I can just see the edge of it.”
Harry nodded.
Minutes dragged by. Harry became uneasy. He glanced toward the back of the room. Then he leaned across the table.
“That’s a long phone call,” he whispered. “I’m going back there to look up a number.”
He arose and went to the back of the restaurant. Clyde saw him as he stepped beyond the booth. Then Harry’s face turned suddenly toward the table, where Clyde Burke was sitting and the newspaperman observed a look of profound amazement on his friend’s features. He arose in response to a signal from Harry.
“Look!” exclaimed Harry, when Clyde reached him. Vincent was pointing to the telephone booth.
Clyde Burke was too astonished to reply. They were in the extreme corner of the restaurant, in an obscure spot flanked by plain, painted walls. Before them, its entrance toward the back of the restaurant, was the telephone booth. It was absolutely empty.
Rodney Paget had disappeared!