Part 4 (1/2)
As Bewkel stepped upon the grating, the foreman saw his foot strike a broad metal bar at the nearer side. A slight click occurred. Even from where he stood, the foreman could feel the slight effects of a hot draft of air which came upward from beneath the grating.
Maurice Bewkel stepped hastily forward. He coughed in choking fas.h.i.+on as he headed on his way. The foreman pressed the switch twice. For a moment, his gaze lingered on Bewkel's tall form; then he called new orders to his men.
”That won't do!” were his words. ”Move those boards back. Ease those barriers toward the curb. Get busy. I'm starting for the drills.”
As the motor buzzed, the foreman gazed up toward the electric sign. The center light of each cl.u.s.ter had changed in hue. Single incandescents - one in each corner - registered red. The foreman looked along the street.
Maurice Bewkel was staggering. He was choking with odd gasps. He seemed to recover himself as he planted his cane against the sidewalk. Then he headed on toward the corner, a dozen yards away.
Wilton Byres had been coming along the other side of the street. The young man had avoided the grating.
He was starting to cross as though to overtake Maurice Bewkel, when he saw the gray-haired man stagger. Bewkel's cane slipped from his grasp. Faltering forward, the wealthy man sprawled as he reached the corner. Choking, gasping, he rolled over and pressed his hands to his chest.
Pa.s.sers-by rushed to the stricken man's aid. Wilton Byres stood stock-still. Then, as he observed a group a.s.sembling, he sidled away and turned the corner. Back at the electric machine, the nonchalant foreman pressed his switch three times.
Green lights turned to red. Solid cl.u.s.ters of crimson hue were the markers of the huge electric sign. Then came repeated blinks of the borders. Some other member of the death circle, stationed on the avenue, had seen Maurice Bewkel's collapse and had registered his location in addition to the one given by the watchful foreman.
CROWDS gather quickly in Manhattan. They come, however, from limited areas. The throng thatsurrounded Maurice Bewkel's prostrate body was a.s.sembled only from the corner. Other pa.s.sers went their way. The workmen, thirty yards down the side street, did not notice what had happened. The foreman did, only because he was an interested party.
Red lights of doom. They were Maurice Bewkel's parting knell. Policemen had arrived. One was ordering men to carry Bewkel's form while another was hailing a taxi. Three minutes later, the corner showed its usual pa.s.sing throng.
Aids of crime had relaxed. The doorman at the Hotel Zenith caught a last glimpse of red lights as they changed to white. So did the shambling sandwich-board man. So did others stationed within this death-infested zone.
Wilton Byres observed the changing lights as he hurried along a side street from an avenue. He had turned in the direction of the Hotel Zenith. Even though the lights had become white again, the young man kept glancing over his shoulder as he hastened.
He jostled into a tall man as he pa.s.sed. Startled, Byres stared at the stranger. He caught a burning gaze that worried him. The eyes that he saw were blazing like the lights upon the electric sign!
Such, at least, was the young man's quick impression. He quickened his pace as he turned the corner by the Hotel Zenith. The man who had watched him allowed a thin smile to appear upon thin lips.
Then, with a glance toward the doorman at the hotel, the stranger turned and strolled down the street. He pa.s.sed the sandwich-board man and kept onward. At the middle of the block, in one of those temporarily deserted spots that occur in the side streets of Manhattan, the tall man laughed.
His mirth was a strange, whispered tone. It was an echo of the laugh that had pervaded The Shadow's sanctum. It was a grim, foreboding laugh, that marked strange understanding, yet which was tempered with grim query.
The throngs of Times Square were proceeding on their devious ways. Maurice Bewkel's strange stroke had made no more impression than that of a pebble cast into a stormy lake. A man, collapsed upon a street corner, was but a scattered incident in this crowded section of the world's metropolis.
Minions of death had done their work undisturbed. Doorman, bus barker, cas.h.i.+er, soft-drink seller and all the others were at their accustomed tasks.
No more than a pa.s.sing ripple had marked their efforts. Throngs had failed to note the changing lights.
Those who had seen them had thought their odd behavior to be only a mechanical change.
Yet in the midst of the most crowded zone of Manhattan, the stroke of doom had been made again.
Within a circle where death could prevail, members of the death circle had performed their appointed work of evil!
CHAPTER VIII. REPORTS RECEIVED.
THE following afternoon found Inspector Timothy Klein seated in his office. With him was Detective Joe Cardona. The inspector was studying a report sheet.
”Hm-m,” commenced Klein. ”Accidental death.”
”Like Cruett's,” observed Cardona, grimly.
Klein looked up in surprise. ”I mean it,” a.s.serted the detective. ”Dustin Cruett dropped dead three nights ago. Maurice Bewkel collapsed last night and died. There's no trace whatever of homicide. And yet -”
”Yet what?”
Cardona shrugged his shoulders.
”It beats me, inspector,” he admitted. ”At the hospital, the doctors say Bewkel showed effects of gas poisoning - almost like a chlorine victim. But where could it have hit him?”
”Where was he coming from?”
”The Merrimac Club. He had dinner there. On his way to Times Square, evidently; from there he was going home. He certainly couldn't have been ga.s.sed at the club. The time between there and the spot where he died wasn't sufficient for him to have entered any place.”
”But still you think -”
”I don't know what to think. A man could be ga.s.sed in the open - but how? If someone had chucked a gas bomb, there'd be evidence. Bewkel wouldn't have been the only one to get it.”
A shadow fell across the floor. Inspector Klein noticed it and looked toward the door. He smiled as he heard the clatter of a pail. Fritz, the janitor, appeared with his inevitable mop and bucket.
”Come on,” suggested Klein, rising from his desk. ”It's late, Joe. These two odd deaths are just coincidences. When you think of how many people there are around Times Square, it's a wonder there's not a half dozen dropping dead every night.”
”This is different, inspector,” insisted Cardona, in a serious tone, as he watched Klein thrust the report sheet in the drawer, ”I'd think the same as you do - if it wasn't for this poison element.”
”What have you gotten in the way of clews?”
”Nothing. All I can do is watch for something new to develop. But I'll tell you this, inspector. I'm going to stick around Times Square at nights. I don't care what kind of death hits there - I'll be suspicious of it.”
”Not a bad plan, Joe.”
”I've got a hunch, inspector.” Cardona was accompanying Klein toward the door. ”I figure we may be up against something new - something in crime that's way ahead of us. Picture it - a death zone in Manhattan -”.
Cardona had pa.s.sed through the door while he was speaking. His voice had dwindled. Its tones could no longer be heard within the office. Fritz, his tall form almost doubled, kept on with his mopping for a few minutes. Then he stepped toward the desk and opened the drawer.
KEEN eyes surveyed Cardona's report sheet. As on the previous occasion, the dullness left Fritz's gaze.
His eyes were the eyes of The Shadow. The report sheet went back into the drawer. The false Fritz picked up mop and bucket and left the office.
Several minutes later, a vague form pa.s.sed along a dimly lighted street not far from headquarters. The Shadow, impersonating Fritz, had received his first report - from Detective Joe Cardona.
Some time afterward, a click sounded amid blackness. Bluish light was reflected by polished wood. The Shadow was in his sanctum. His long white fingers were opening envelopes while the girasol glimmeredwith its ever-changing hues.
The first reports were clippings. Statements had been gathered from newspapers regarding the death of Maurice Bewkel. The man was wealthy. His demise had commanded more s.p.a.ce than had the death of Dustin Cruett.