Part 6 (1/2)
CHAPTER X. WORD OF THE SHADOW.
A LIGHT clicked in The Shadow's sanctum. Long white fingers appeared above the surface of the table.They opened an envelope. A yellow paper fell out. Spread, it proved to be a telegram: RUTLEDGE MANN.
BADGER BLDG.
NEW YORK.
GOODS SENT FROM ATLANTA s.h.i.+PPED TO WAREHOUSE TWELVE.
HARRY VINCENT.
A soft laugh. Long fingers opened a small, printed booklet. The Shadow's eyes observed key words and their meaning. This telegram, despite its ordinary style, was in code. Each word had a different meaning than the one given.
Between the lines of the telegram, The Shadow inscribed these words in bluish ink: Man gone to New York staying at Hotel Goliath In The Shadow's code book, each city bore the name of another; verbs and prepositions had varied meanings; hotels in every metropolis were listed as warehouses and by number.
This was important news from South Sh.o.r.eview. Its delay in reaching The Shadow was evidently due to trouble which Harry Vincent had experienced in learning where Bigelow Zorman had gone.
To The Shadow, the news was vital. As the blue-inked writing faded, word by word, a soft grim laugh sounded in the darkness.
The Hotel Goliath! The mammoth building was not far from Times Square, near the spots where Dustin Cruett and Maurice Bewkel had met strange doom.
There was no further news from Vincent. Evidently the agent had learned but little. Nevertheless, this was all that The Shadow required for the present. He had traced a connection from Dustin Cruett and Maurice Bewkel to the Electro Oceanic Corporation. The president of that concern was now in Manhattan!
The sanctum light went out. Silence remained amid thick darkness. The Shadow had departed. On this night he had fared forth to follow the lead that he had gained through his distant agent.
HALF an hour later, a tall man with hawklike visage appeared at a thronged corner near Times Square.
He was the same personage who Joe Cardona had viewed on the preceding night; the one who had appeared at the Hotel Merrimac as Henry Arnaud.
Inconspicuous among the throngs, Henry Arnaud entered a drug store and found a telephone booth.
There, he put in a call to the Hotel Goliath. He inquired for Bigelow Zorman.
”Room 1416,” came the response. ”Mr. Zorman does not answer... Expected in before eleven...”
A huge clock across Broadway showed the time as twenty minutes before the hour, when Henry Arnaud again appeared upon the crowded thoroughfare. Strolling onward, the mysterious visitant pa.s.sed the corner where Joe Cardona had first noted him. This was close by the soft-drink stand where busy attendants were selling Chromo.
Henry Arnaud's eyes seemed to miss nothing. They peered toward brilliant ma.s.ses of light formed byblinking electric signs. They settled on one in particular - a sign which had solid white corners and borders of white-light lines.
Henry Arnaud was heading toward the Hotel Goliath. It required only a few minutes for him to reach his destination. He entered a glittering lobby and strolled past the desk. His keen eyes noted the rows of pigeonholes which contained room keys. Seating himself not far from the desk, Henry Arnaud extracted a cigarette from his case and applied a match.
To all appearances, this arrival at the Hotel Goliath was merely waiting in the lobby for some friend.
Actually, Henry Arnaud was antic.i.p.ating the appearance of a man whom he had never seen. His keen eyes - the eyes of The Shadow - could spot the key that lay in the box marked 1416.
Bigelow Zorman, when he arrived; would necessarily inquire for that key. His act would be the means by which The Shadow would identify him. Minutes alone remained until the time that Bigelow Zorman was expected to return.
The Shadow's gaze returned at intervals to the pigeonhole. Between those times, the keen eyes roved the lobby. They were searching in their gaze, as they watched for other observers who might be awaiting Zorman's return.
BACK near Times Square, the huge clock on Broadway was chiming discordantly as it announced the hour of eleven. Its stroke boomed above the roar of traffic. A rotund man, crossing a street close to the sign, looked up to note the hour. It was Bigelow Zorman. The president of the Electro Oceanic Corporation was returning to the Hotel Goliath.
Zorman, as he reached the other side of the street, pa.s.sed the open door of a cigar store. His pudgy form was viewed by a clerk behind the counter. Turning, the salesman reached into a case against the wall and brought out a box of cigars.
Reaching to replace another case, he pressed a hidden switch behind a projecting corner. No one observed his action. Yet by that deed, the cigar-store clerk had paved another path to doom.
An agent of the death circle, this man had been on the lookout for Bigelow Zorman. He had sent the signal to headquarters. The zone of crime had awakened.
Before Bigelow Zorman had traversed another block on his way to the Hotel Goliath, signals were at work. The corners of the electric sign which served as beacon glowed green instead of white.
Borders blinked their signal. They marked the spot where Zorman had been first observed. Persons in the pa.s.sing throng became alert. Eyes that belonged to men of crime were viewing that signal that all could see.
While The Shadow, stationed in the Hotel Goliath, was awaiting Zorman's return, agents of doom were already springing to their quarry's trail.
A new victim had entered the circle of death!
CHAPTER XI. DYING WORDS.
GREEN lights of doom. People who saw them by chance did not know their meaning. Those who observed them by design were moving toward the spot that blinking borders had indicated.
Detective Joe Cardona, strolling down Seventh Avenue, nearly b.u.mped into a rotund man who was waddling in the opposite direction. So the detective stepped aside. Lounging along, he happened to gazeat the sign with green corners and white borders. He read the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the center of the sign, then continued to view the throngs about him.
Grim irony had tricked Joe Cardona. The man whom he had nearly jostled was Bigelow Zorman. The sign which he had viewed was the signal light that marked the rotund man as a victim of prospective murderers.
Within a few seconds, Joe Cardona had been confronted by two important clews. Both had escaped him. Such was the subtle way of the circle of death!
A taxi driver, parked by a convenient corner, watched Bigelow Zorman as he pa.s.sed. So did a restaurant cas.h.i.+er. The driver looked toward the sidewalk as though expecting a fare. A slouching pa.s.ser caught the signal and took up Zorman's trail. Meanwhile, the restaurant man pressed a switch located by his counter.
Twenty seconds. Lights blinked from the borders of the big sign. Zorman's trail was marked. To a horde of watching eyes, the victim's course was a single route through hundreds of pa.s.sing people.
The man behind the soft-drink counter saw the second series of blinks. He changed his position and edged by another clerk. Facing the avenue, he called his wares while he served waiting customers.
”Get the new drink!” he cried. ”Chromo hits the spot! Step up, folks! You'll like creamy Chromo!”
The man was watching as he spoke. He saw a group of persons stopped across the side street while taxicabs whisked out into the traffic of the avenue. Pressing toward the curb was a short, pudgy man.
Bigelow Zorman's face was plain to the clerk behind the counter.
As he reached for another gla.s.s beneath the counter, the clerk pressed a switch. He was watchful as he served new customers. He threw occasional glances toward Bigelow Zorman; his quick gaze turned upward toward the huge electric sign with green corners and white borders.
Two happenings occurred simultaneously. As Bigelow Zorman hastened across the street, the borders of the advertising sign blinked. Two short flickers - a pause - then a third. Bigelow Zorman's new location had been registered.
A man alighting from a taxicab had seen the sign. His quick glance sighted Bigelow Zorman among the throng. This man sauntered along in the victim's path. Another individual, who looked like a panhandler, came slouching across the street at the same time.