The Shadow - The Devil's Partner Part 14

"How are you, Lamont? You look both sad and dry."

Anthony Kilby chuckled. "Were you hoping that if you stared long enough, the bar would move out here and bring you a drink?"

The Shadow rose to his feet. As Lamont Cranston, he laughed pleasantly.

"A fortunate arrival, gentlemen. I insist that you both join me in a drink."

They went into the bar. Kilby and Swade outdid themselves in friendly talk. Cranston matched their mood. His delight was not faked. The inaction for the past two evenings had been hard to take. The Shadow was eager for action!

He was certain that action was at hand a few minutes after the barman had prepared drinks for him and his two companions - for the conversation of the trio at the bar was interrupted by a nasal cry behind him.

A newsboy had entered the bar with an armful of papers. Or rather, a newsman. He looked like one of those flinty-faced middle-aged hawkers who occasionally range through residential areas trying to sell papers by howling "Extry!" in tones filled with phony excitement.

The Shadow suspected that this particular fellow had been well paid beforehand by Swade and Kilby.

His arrival was suspiciously prompt. A second fact also served to put The Shadow on guard. There was a regular newsboy who always made the rounds of the public rooms of the club. The Shadow had never seen this flint-faced fellow before.

"I'll buy a paper," Swade said, and named his choice.

He took the paper, fished carelessly in his pocket, handed the newsman a half dollar.

The newsman took quite a while a.s.sembling his change. When he pa.s.sed it to Swade, he pa.s.sed something else along with it. Swade's hand closed quickly. He put the change in his pocket without so much as a glance. But The Shadow saw the flash of a folded sc.r.a.p of paper.

Swade rested his gla.s.s on the bar, took a slow look at the front page. As he did so, his eyelids blinked.

Kilby took the hint. He began to talk to Lamont Cranston. He started an anecdote that took some time in the telling.

The Shadow, however, had no trouble in discovering what Swade was up to.

He had palmed the note the newsman had pa.s.sed to him with his change. Under cover of his spread newspaper, Swade was swiftly reading the note.

A moment later the note dropped back into his coat pocket. It was done without finesse. In fact, it was done so stupidly that The Shadow realized Swade's cunning purpose.

Swade wanted Lamont Cranston to see that note. A trap was being laid for Lamont Cranston - and for The Shadow!

The Shadow was sure of it when Swade folded his newspaper. Picking up his drink, he began an animated conversation with Kilby. As they talked, Swade turned aside so that the coat pocket into which the note had been dropped was very close to Cranston.

CRANSTON obliged by promptly picking Swade's pocket. The note left the pocket with a lot more deftness than it had entered it. Cranston cupped it, read it swiftly, replaced it.

Swade saw what was going on. It would have been strange if he hadn't, for he was using a small mirror in his own averted hand in combination with the reflection of the big mirror behind the club bar.

The Shadow gave no hint that be was aware of this. He ordered another round of drinks. He waited for an invitation that he felt sure was coming next.

It didn't take long. Kilby glanced at his watch.

"Sorry, but we've got to run. Swade and I are taking in a musical show tonight."

"Why don't you come with us, Lamont?" Swade chimed in. "We'll make it a trio. I know an excellent night club that hasn't become too popular as yet. After the show, we can -"

Cranston shook his head.

"Sorry, gentlemen. I'd like to, but it so happens" - he put repressed eagerness into his words - "that I have some personal affairs to attend to tonight. Personal correspondence that I simply must write. Some other time, gentlemen."

He could see a gleam in Swade's eyes.

"Too bad," Kilby said, echoing Swade's remark.

The pair left the bar and got into a taxicab outside. But they didn't drive very far. A block away, Swade said to the driver: "Wait! We've changed our mind. Stop here, please."

He mollified the sullen driver with a handsome tip. With Kilby at his elbow, Swade walked back toward the Cobalt Club. The pair drifted out of sight at a spot where they could watch the wide doorway of the Cobalt Club without themselves being visible. "That proves it!" Swade snarled in a cold undertone. "He picked my pocket and read the note. If Cranston was what he claims to be - a simple-minded man about town - he would never have noticed that stunt with the newsman, let alone pick my pocket. It proves what I have insisted all along: Lamont Cranston is The Shadow!"

"He said he was going to his room to write some letters," Kilby muttered. "If he dashes out of the Cobalt Club in the next few minutes, it will mean that he has swallowed the bait."

"It will mean more than that," Swade snapped. "It'll mean that The Shadow is going to blunder right into a trap!"

They watched the club exit narrowly. The minutes began to pa.s.s. Kilby and Swade began to get nervous.

The Shadow, however, was calm. He wasn't writing any letters. In the privacy of his room, he was sitting beside his telephone.

The message he had read in the bar was engraved indelibly in his memory: Everything set. Stone house. Arlington Road. Minter ordered to bring second blackmail payment there tonight.

This was unsigned. But The Shadow didn't need any signature to inform him of the nature of the peril he faced or the author of that peril. He spoke softly into the telephone. A prompt voice replied: "Burbank speaking."

To Burbank, The Shadow delivered a command. It concerned Burbank himself. It related to Arlington Road, the address mentioned in the note. The Shadow suspected that the address was going to prove a very easy matter to check. That was why he entrusted it to Burbank for a quick check-up by phone.

THE SHADOW'S next telephone call was made in the voice of Lamont Cranston. He called the Long Island estate of Jonah Minter. Pellman answered the phone "Sorry, sir," the butler replied. "Mr. Minter is not at home tonight. As a matter of fact, he isn't in town. He was a bit upset by that strange attempt at burglary when you were here, Mr. Cranston. He had quite a severe heart attack later. The doctor advised him to go away for a short rest. He's at Atlantic City, sir."

"I see."

"I can give you the name of his hotel at Atlantic City, if the matter is urgent," Pellman continued respectfully. "Do you wish to talk to Mr. Minter by long distance?"

"It isn't necessary," Cranston murmured.

He knew Pellman to be an able and conscientious servant. Pellman was telling the truth. It was additional proof that the note The Shadow had read was a criminal fake, designed to lure him into a trap. Jonah Minter wasn't the visitor so eagerly expected tonight at a stone house in Arlington Road.

The real dupe was to be - The Shadow!

Soon Cranston's telephone rang again. Burbank was back on the line. He had no trouble with his a.s.signment, as The Shadow had antic.i.p.ated. Crooks had made things very easy. "Only one Arlington Road in Greater New York," Burbank reported. "It's in the waterfront section of Brooklyn. At the sh.o.r.e of Gravesend Bay."

"That is all," The Shadow said.

He left his suite and descended in the elevator. He left the Cobalt Club with every evidence of hurry.

His car was parked nearby. In fact, it was not very far from the ornate doorway of the Cobalt Club. The Shadow entered it swiftly and started the engine. As he did so, he noticed a tiny slip of paper tied with a bit of string to the clutch pedal.

Bending, he read five brief words of warning: Don't go! It's a trap!

It seemed a puzzling and mysterious contradiction. Were two forces working tonight undercover? Kilby and Swade were eager to lure The Shadow to death. What was this opposing force that was apparently just as eager to save The Shadow's life?

Laughter whispered as The Shadow straightened. Its sound indicated that The Shadow saw no contradiction in this second note. He would have been surprised if he had not found such a note!

He stepped on the gas, drove swiftly away.

His departure was witnessed by a hard-faced man who stood crouched out of sight in a doorway opposite. The moment the car vanished, the hard-faced man left his doorway. He made a hurried phone call around the corner.

Cranston's departure was watched by another pair of observers. Kilby's hand tightened on Swade's arm.

"There he goes. You were right!"

"Come on!" Swade snapped. "The goose is hurrying to jump into the pot. Time for us to go and cook the goose!"

ARLINGTON ROAD was a dismal thoroughfare in a more dismal neighborhood.

Lamont Cranston didn't stop there. He halted his car a block away. Gravesend Bay was very close, here. In Cranston's nostrils was the clammy odor of mud flats exposed by the low tide.

No one saw Cranston busy himself briefly in the back of his parked car. No one saw him emerge.

He emerged as The Shadow. His black cloak blended with the darkness of this poorly lighted slum region of Brooklyn. He moved swiftly to the corner, turned down a short street that stopped in a dead end at the muddy sh.o.r.e line.

It was easy to spot the stone house. It was the only stone building in the block. All the other houses were frame dwellings that had long since been abandoned to decay.

The stone building stood closest to the sh.o.r.e. A sign hung in front of it: "FOR SALE. CHEAP." It looked as if it had hung there for years.

Every window in the stone house was boarded up. The doorway was boarded, too. Not a soul was in sight. An easy place for The Shadow to get into. But The Shadow was in no hurry. Having scouted what he knew to be a death trap, he faded into the surrounding blackness. He was pretty sure that Kilby and Swade had not arrived yet. They had undoubtedly waited to make sure that Lamont Cranston had rushed away from the Cobalt Club after swallowing their bait.

Soon a car came into view. It showed only dim parking lights. They were extinguished as soon as the car halted. It parked at the other end of Arlington Road.

Swade and Kilby hurried on foot through the darkness. They didn't go near the stone house. Instead, they entered the frame shack next door. Neither of them seemed apprehensive of watchful eyes in the blackness. They vanished without once glancing back.

The Shadow allowed the grim farce of death to proceed. Presently, a light glowed within the frame house. It didn't come from any of the upper floors, but shone from a cellar window close to the ground at the front of the dwelling.

The light was on for two minutes or so, then it went out.

Accepting this obvious bit of guidance, The Shadow crossed the street invisibly and entered the frame building. He was not surprised to find that the front door had been left unlocked.

When he descended to the cellar, The Shadow's flash disclosed a peculiar wall. The wall was of stone, but one of the rough-hewn blocks seemed to be badly fitted. There was a perceptible crack between this stone and its neighbor.

It moved easily when The Shadow tugged. A square hole was disclosed. In the hole was something that looked like the rusted handle of an ancient bell-pull.

The Shadow pulled it.

A larger section of the wall pivoted. disclosing the entrance to a dark tunnel. From the direction of the tunnel, it was clear where it led. It was an underground approach to the cellar of the stone house.

Entering this next cellar, The Shadow used little caution. He didn't expect to discover Kilby or Swade in view when he emerged. They weren't.

The cellar was dusty, covered with cobwebs. The atmosphere was dank and smelly. The Shadow flashed his electric torch around.

Almost at once, he centered his light on the wall opposite the one he had come through from the tunnel.

Cobwebs that covered this opposite wall had been disturbed. Over one stone, broken filaments of cobwebs hung in telltale signal. To make it even more obvious, a splash of whitewash made this particular stone stand out more than the others.

The Shadow didn't accept that hospitable invitation to death. But he did notice that the stone had a small hole drilled in it, like a rather deep sort of keyhole. The gloomy cellar showed no sign of anything that could be used as a key.

GOING upstairs again, The Shadow scouted the rest of the house. All the rooms were empty. No furniture, no rugs. Nothing but dirt and decay.

However, on the top floor, The Shadow made an interesting discovery. Three or four pictures hung on the wall, as if the last owner had not troubled to take them down when he had moved. One of these pictures hung askew. A cleaner spot on the dirty wall showed unmistakably where the picture had slipped sideways.

The Shadow removed the picture.

Behind it was a hook. On the hook hung something that looked like a long b.u.t.tonhook. The Shadow's ironic laughter whispered when he saw that the long hook was painted white.

Crooks were not taking any chances of The Shadow missing a clue. If he had failed to notice the broken cobwebs in the cellar, the splash of white on the stone - here was a key painted white to match the stone.

With the key in his gloved hand, The Shadow started to leave the top-floor room. He moved slowly. The reason he moved slowly was because he had seen something else. Unlike those other clues, this was something he had not been expected to notice.

The Shadow was being watched by someone behind the dusty wainscoting! Behind that barrier, a man was hidden. The Shadow had caught a telltale blink of an eyelid behind a tiny peephole!

At the same instant, a stealthy noise was audible from the roof overhead.

Without moving his head, The Shadow allowed his eyes to veer upward. He saw the square outline of a trapdoor in the ceiling. Another veer of his eyes told him that the eye behind the peephole in the wainscoting was no longer visible.

The Shadow moved backward. His quick retreat took him into the dark hallway outside.

The trapdoor in the ceiling had opened. A man was wriggling swiftly downward. For a second, only his legs were visible. Then with a thump he dropped to the floor below. A knife was clutched in his hand. His face was taut.

A single glance was all The Shadow needed to recognize the intruder. It was k.n.o.bs Maletto.

An instant later, Maletto was fighting for his life!

CHAPTER XV. TWO-WAY TRAP.

THE attack on k.n.o.bs Maletto did not come from The Shadow.

A thug with a stumpy-barreled gun had leaped into view. He sprang from the wall covert where he had been hidden.

Maletto's quick drop from the ceiling to the floor staggered him. He lost his balance, toppled sideways.

The thug fired. No sound came from his weapon save a slight plop. The stumpy end of the barrel was a silencer. A noiseless bullet whizzed toward the spot where k.n.o.bs had landed.

It found no target.

Maletto's impact had sent him sprawling to hands and knees. The killer's bullet whistled above Maletto's toppled figure, smashed into the opposite wall.