Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 328 - Shadow Beware

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2 SHADOW
BEWARE
SHADOW BEWARE
by Maxwell Grant
A BELMONT BOOK-January 1965.
The alley was dark. A long tunnel of darkness opening onto the dim and narrow slum street in
a thin cold rain.
Inside the alley tiny claws scraped the ancient cobblestones, and beady little eyes alertly
watched an indistinct figure that stood hidden on the jar side of the street. The rats were wary.
Only a solitary street lamp cast its thin feeble glow on the dim street, and the careful rats could
not tell whether the figure across the street was male or female.
The figure wore a dark voluminous coat and hat. Rats scurried for safety to their hidden lairs
as a dog sidled into the alley to root among the garbage cans. The figure waited.
A black Cadillac appeared at the corner of the street to the right of the dark alley mouth. The
Cadillac's lights blinked on and oft once. The waiting figure moved across the narrow street and
entered the alley and stood just behind a door that opened into the alley halfway to the blank
rear wall.
Five minutes passed.
The door into the alley opened.
Along path of light from the opened door slanted like a sudden gash across the dark of the
alley.
A tall man stood in the light of the opened door. He wore a buttoned and belted trenchcoat,
and carried a small suitcase. His face was deeply tanned, and his alert eyes looked right and left.
He walked jour slow steps out into the alley along the path of light from the doorway behind him.
The door closed and the path of light suddenly vanished. The tall man turned toward the waiting
figure who had just closed the door.
"Have you got it?" the waiting figure said.
"Safe and sound," the tall man said.
The figure who had been waiting stepped toward the tall man with his hand extended in
greeting. The two indistinct shapes came together, both arms extended to shake hands.
For an instant they blended into a single dark shape. Then there was a low, muffled
explosion.
The tall man fell silently.
The figure that had been waiting, the killer, bent down over the fallen tall man. The killer
pulled open the trench--coat and the suit coat beneath, hastily, without unbuttoning either coat.
Then he straightened, took a flask from his coat pocket, and poured an amber liquid over the
fallen man. He returned the flask to his pocket and continued his hasty search. He removed the
fallen man's shoes. He dropped them in the rain. He began to swear. Still swearing softly, the
killer turned to the small suitcase.
The door into the alley once again began to open slowly. As the light slashed the alley the
killer grabbed the suitcase and faded into the night.
A small man came cautiously into the alley from the opened door. He glided to the fallen man,
sniffed the air, and looked oft into the dark of the alley listening. Then he bent over the fallen
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man who was still faintly breathing. The small man began to search. Feeling something, he
jerked back and his small eyes seemed afraid. He tore two rings from the fallen man's fingers
and walked quickly back through the door which closed behind him.
Minutes passed.
From the dark another figure approached the fallen man. it was the killer returning. Once
more the killer searched swiftly, swore, and picked up the fallen man's shoes. He worked over
the shoes for a moment, and then put them back onto the feet of the fallen man.
Then he was gone.
In the alley the fallen man lay in the rain. Soon he no longer breathed. He lay with his dead
face turned up to the falling rain, his dead mouth open, his eyes staring sightlessly up to the dark
sky.
He lay there for hours. Nothing moved. The rats remained hidden. The dead man lay coldly in
the rain
4 SHADOW
BEWARE
1
ON THE COLD nights of a London winter the wind blows the rain from the East off the angry
North Sea. It blows the huddled people through the dark and hidden places of the old city, whips
the rain-swept streets, and rattles high windows in the silent houses. There are sudden laughs in
the darkened alleys, and, sometimes, screams.
Then there is silence again away from the bright main streets, and old paper blows down wet
gutters
Hidden away behind the ancient face of the great city there is a large room where there are
neither screams nor laughter. A shadowed place where the wind and the rain never reach, and the
few solitary footsteps echo loud in the silence. This is the morgue.
On this winter night, the rain whipping outside, the only living occupant of the morgue dozed
at his desk. The ring of the telephone shattered the silence. Jerked awake, the attendant rubbed
his eyes and grumbled aloud to himself. For a moment he complained aloud to the silent corpses
hidden in their rows of cabinets. Then he picked up the receiver. His manner became official.
"Yes sir," the attendant said. "Immediately sir. Paulson? Yes, I'll have him ready. Yes sir!"
The attendant hung up. He turned to a thick card file in front of him. His shoulders relaxed.
"Bloody stupid cops," the attendant muttered aloud. "Can't leave a man to do his work."
He continued to talk aloud, with no answer from the hidden corpses who were his only
companions in the dim room, as his fingers searched through the cards. At last he extracted one
card, looked at it, picked up his keys, and stood up. He left his desk and walked down the rows
of cabinets until he reached the third cross row. He turned into the cross row, still mumbling to
himself.
As he turned he raised his eyes. He froze where he stood.
At the far end of the row one cabinet had been pulled out. In the feeble light of the single
overhead lamp that lighted the long aisle between the cabinets, a figure was bent over an exposed
corpse.
A giant shadowy, batlike figure.
The great bat seemed to fill the end of the aisle, its black wings shrouding the corpse as it bent
over as if to suck the last blood from the dead.
The attendant opened his mouth to scream.
The scream never came. His mouth open, the attendant found himself pierced by two glowing
eyes that seemed to burn through him and paralyze him. He saw the eyes and a sharp, hawklike
nose fixed on him from beneath the dark brim of a wide slouch hat. He tried again to scream, to
turn, to move and run, but he could do none of those things. He felt his will drain away, his body
go limp, his mind become hazy and clouded as if the dark mist of the city itself had crept into his
fogged brain.
He brushed his hand across his eyes, his clouded brain frying to remember what it was he had
wanted to do. He blinked, and the giant, batlike figure seemed to grow until it filled the entire
aisle. He became aware of a glowing, red stone that blazed with an inner light on a finger of the
great black figure. The black shape towered above him, enveloped him within its black wings.
Then the great shape appeared to vanish. Suddenly, as he had looked at the ring and the glowing
SHADOW
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eyes, he could not see the shape, could not quite remember what it had looked like. He was not
sure he had seen it. His legs gave way. He slid slowly to the floor.
Silently, the batlike figure, that had not vanished at all, glided along the aisle to stand over the
prostrate figure of the attendant who appeared to be asleep now but was really neither asleep nor
awake. For a long second The Shadow stared down at the fallen man. Then he turned and moved
soundlessly back to the corpse he had been bending over. The Avenger's piercing eyes stared at
the unmoving body of the man who lay now forever silent on the morgue slab. The Shadow
scrutinized every inch of the corpse.
The body was that of a well-built man of about thirty, Caucasian, an inch over six feet tall,
and muscular. The man had been shot once at very close range by a small caliber pistol. The hole
was small, and neat, and directly above the heart. There were powder burns still visible on the
deeply tanned skin of the chest. The heavy suntan indicated that the man had recently been much
in the hot sun, and showed that he had worn two rings on the second and third fingers of his right
hand. The marks of the rings were clearly visible. On the dead man's right forearm there was a
large, gaudy tattoo of a screaming eagle. The tattoo had been done over a scar to camouflage it.
Bent close, The Shadow studied the fingernails of the corpse. With a small, sharp knife the
black-shrouded Avenger removed tiny particles of some red dust from under the fingernails. He
studied the particles. He performed the same operation on the toenails of the dead man.
Meticulously, inch by inch, he went on with his close scrutiny. There were faint traces of a dried
black mud in the dark hair of the body. The batlike figure of The Shadow worked in silence.
Nothing else moved in the dim morgue.
Suddenly, The Shadow raised his head to listen. There was no sound in the dim aisle or
anywhere in the large room of the morgue. But The Shadow stood motionless, listening. To
normal ears there was nothing to be heard shut away here below the city. But the black-shrouded
figure did not have normal ears, he had the super-keen ears of The Shadow. Alert even while
studying the corpse, The Shadow had heard a faint, distant sound of approaching voices.
Swiftly he slid the body back into its cabinet. Stepping over the still unmoving form of the
morgue attendant, The Shadow glided noiselessly down the long aisle toward the desk where the
attendant had answered the telephone earlier. The desk faced the only door into, or out of, the
Morgue. The Shadow did not pause at the desk. He glided on past the desk and the main door to
a section of blank stone wall. The ancient stones were large. The Shadow quickly removed two
of the stones and vanished through the opened hole.
He fitted the old stones in place behind him, and stood in a dark and empty room. The walls
of the dark room were wet and encrusted with a thick coating of minerals that seemed to glow in
the dark. The same coating covered the floor of the room that had not been crossed by human
feet for centuries. The only light in the ancient room was the flashing of the fire--opal girasol on
The Shadow's hand-a light that had never dimmed since the great Master Chen T'a Tze had given
the ring to The Shadow many years ago in the Orient.
The Shadow did not need even the light of the fiery girasol. There in the Orient he had
learned the power of seeing in the darkness, and now he crossed the hidden and forgotten room
to a small iron door. He swung this door open, its hinges grating and grinding from the centuries
of disuse. He bent low and went through the old doorway. He closed the door behind him, and
locked its ancient lock with a key from the ring of keys he produced from beneath the folds of
his black cloak. Swiftly he crossed this second forgotten room to another blank wall. He
removed two stones and went through into a dimly lighted storeroom of the morgue. He slid the
stones into place behind him.
6 SHADOW
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Now The Shadow paused to listen again. The voices his keen ears, had heard so far away
were now much closer in the corridor outside the storeroom. There were three voices-two men
and a woman. From the sounds The Shadow knew that the three people were walking slowly
down the long corridor toward the entrance to the morgue. In a matter of seconds they would
pass the entrance to the storeroom.
One instant The Shadow stood there immobile in the darkened storeroom, the next instant he
seemed to move and vanish into the silent air itself.
Another man stood in the storeroom where The Shadow had been less than an instant before.
This man seemed smaller than The Shadow, shorter and stockier, although he was actually none
of these things. In place of the burning, piercing eyes of The Shadow, the new man's eyes were
hooded and impassive. His immobile face and half-closed eyes had a quiet, thoughtful aspect as
he stood exactly where The Shadow had last stood in the dim room. His quiet face was softened,
passive, with none of the alert and steely power that marked the half-hidden face of The Shadow.
And yet, beneath his short blonde hair that was only partly grey, the hawklike features of the new
man seemed to strangely resemble the face of The Shadow.
Perhaps if there had been anyone to see the new man appear where The Shadow had been,
and to notice the resemblance of the man to The Shadow, he would have realized that The
Shadow had not vanished at all, but had only changed into the new man. And perhaps the
observer would have recognized the man who now stood in the room as Lamont Cranston,
wealthy socialite and international businessman, close friend and helper of Police Commissioner
Ralph Weston of New York-and major alter-ego of The Shadow.
A man in the prime of life, Lamont Cranston's every move still showed the great muscular
control and agility of The Shadow hidden behind the innocent exterior of the socialite the secret
Avenger presented to the world. With amazing speed Cranston now hid the black cloak, slouch
hat, and fiery girasol ring in the secret pockets inside his businessman's suit, the special garments
folding into a size no larger than a handkerchief. All trace of The Shadow gone, Lamont
Cranston stood in the storeroom and listened to the voices outside. His keen ears told him that
the three people had just passed the entrance to the storeroom.
Lamont Cranston had ears as keen as those of his true self, The Shadow. All the powers and
knowledge of The Shadow were Crans
ton's-except one. As Lamont Cranston, the fire and power of The Shadow's eyes was gone.
The power to cloud men's minds, learned long ago in the Orient from the great Chen T'a Tze,
required the secret black cloak, the black slouch hat, and the fire-opal girasol ring. The secret of
The Master was of the mind, its true source unknown even to Chen T'a Tze, but could not be
used without the cloak, hat, and mysterious gem presented to The Shadow by the hands of The
Master before he died. Only one man in each generation could have the power, and Chen T'a Tze
had chosen The Shadow. The Avenger bad never betrayed that trust.
But Lamont Cranston had all the other powers of The Shadow, and now, moving with the
speed and silence of the secret Avenger, Cranston crossed the dim storeroom to the door that led
out into the corridor. He picked up the raincoat and dark homburg he had left in the room earlier
that night. He looked at the raincoat. It had become almost dry. Gliding to the sink in the
storeroom, Cranston wetted the raincoat to simulate the effect of the thin rain falling outside on
the London streets. He checked his shoes. They were still wet and muddy.
Satisfied, Cranston put on the raincoat and dark homburg, and silently opened the storeroom
door. He stepped out into the brightly lighted corridor. He made his breathing quick and heavy as
if he had been hurrying through the rain to catch the three people. No more than a few seconds
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had passed since The Shadow had become Lamont Cranston, and the three people were only a
few feet past the storeroom door. Cranston coughed aloud. The older of the two men turned to
smile at Lamont Cranston.
2
"THERE YOU ARE, Lamont," Police Commissioner Weston
said.
A tall, distinguished man with silver-grey hair, Weston smiled at his friend Lamont Cranston
and stood waiting for Cranston to reach him. Behind the suave manner and smile, though,
Commissioner Weston's eyes showed deep concern. The Commissioner was a worried man.
"Sorry to be late, Commissioner," Cranston said, "but my call took longer than I expected. We
left New York in such a hurry, I left a lot of business details unfinished, I'm afraid."
The second man, a short, dark-haired man with heavy, brooding eyebrows, narrowed his eyes
as he looked at Cranston. The man seemed to be studying Cranston's raincoat and shoes. This
man was Superintendent Rufus Jones of the C.I.D., Scotland Yard, and Cranston noted that, like
all good detectives, Jones was naturally observant and suspicious. But Jones seemed satisfied,
and smiled at Cranston.
"I thought perhaps our corpse was too much for you to look at, Cranston," Superintendent
Jones said.
"Lamont has seen enough corpses, Superintendent," Weston said drily. "He often works with
me on special cases such as this."
"We rather frown on amateur help here, Commissioner," Jones said, "but this is a somewhat
special matter, isn't it? Still, I don't see what Cranston can do to help. After all, he isn't exactly
familiar with our part of the world."
"I've done a great deal of business here," Cranston said. "My London company is my second
largest. I visit here often."
"That's hardly police work, Cranston," Jones snapped.
Cranston smiled politely, but for an instant his impassive eyes flashed like the eyes of The
Shadow. He could have told Superintendent Jones that the many visits of The Shadow to the
mists of England had hardly been business, but the secret of The Shadow was known to very
few, and the Avenger never wanted to change that fact. Even Commissioner Weston did not
know that Lamont Cranston and the mysterious crime-fighter were one and the same. The
woman who stood in the corridor looking at Cranston, and who spoke now for the first time, was
one of the very few who knew that she was looking at The Shadow.
"Was the business successful, Lamont?" Margo Lane asked.
"Inconclusive, I'm afraid, Margo," Cranston said cryptically. "I will have more work to do."
Margo Lane nodded to show that she understood what Cranston was telling her-that his secret
inspection of the corpse bad revealed little. Margo was not a tall woman, but the erect carriage of
her lithe figure made her seem taller. Her long, dark hair framed an alert, intelligent face that
fitted her position as private executive secretary to the wealthy and successful Lamont Cranston.
In her dark blue eyes there was the hint of hidden steel that fitted her other, more secret life-close
friend, operative, and right hand of The Shadow. A brief career in the theater, after leaving her
8 SHADOW
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native Denver, had given her the poise to maintain her dual life, as well as the acting ability to
assume her many roles in aid of the black-garbed Avenger.
Meanwhile, we have work to do now," Superintendent Jones said drily. "Not that I expect you
to find anything that we haven't found, but Washington insists you view the corpse,
Commissioner."
"They want to be sure," Weston said, "it's a delicate situation."
They had reached the door into the morgue by this time, and Superintendent Jones reached
out to open the door and go into the grim room. Jones stopped and looked at Margo Lane.
"Has Miss Lane also seen many corpses, Commissioner?" Jones asked. "Perhaps she should
wait at the desk?"
"Margo knew Paulson, too, Superintendent," Cranston said. "She might see something the rest
of us miss."
Jones shrugged. "Such a beautiful girl to know about corpses."
Margo smiled. "I'll be all right, Superintendent, and thank you for the description."
"The way the world is today," Cranston said, "I wonder if there is anyone left who hasn't seen
dead men."
Jones nodded, "You're probably right, Cranston, but I keep hoping there will be someone still
innocent. Well, we better get at it and get it over with, eh?"
Turning, Superintendent Jones opened the door and stepped into the morgue. Cranston,
Weston and Margo followed Jones into the dimly lighted room with its tiers of large cabinets
stretching away in rows and aisles into the gloom where the noises of the giant city outside were
only a distant murmur. At his desk, the morgue attendant looked up as they came in. The man
rubbed his eyes as he looked at Jones. The attendent seemed dazed, confused, and looked at the
superintendent for a full thirty seconds before he seemed to realize that he should be standing in
the presence of his superior.
"Sorry, sir," the attendent said, "I . . . I didn't see you, I was. . ."
The attendent stopped and brushed his hand across his eyes again. The confused man shook
his head as if to clear away a thick fog that filled his brain in the gloomy room of the morgue.
Jones looked at the man sharply.
"Are you all right, Higgins?" Jones snapped.
"Yessir, I'm fine, sir. I must have. ., must have dozed off a moment, sir."
"You're sure everything is all right down here?" Jones pursued.
"Yessir."
"The corpse is ready?"
The attendent blinked. "Corpse?"
"The Paulson corpse. I called you not ten minutes ago, Higgins. Have you been drinking?"
Jones asked, annoyed.
From behind Jones, Cranston watched the confused attendant. The man seemed to be fighting
to remember something. Only Cranston and Margo knew what the attendent was trying to
remember, to call up from the recesses of his mind that had been clouded by The Shadow. But
the attendent would not remember. All the man would be able to recall would be a vague
sensation of having seen something, somewhere, at some time.
"I . . . I must be tired, sir," the attendant faltered. "I remember your call, yes. Paulson. I went
back to open the cabinet, yes, I remember that. I suppose I must have done it. Only. . . I must
have dreamed, a black figure. .
"Get a grip on yourself, Higgins," Jones snapped. "Is the Paulson body ready?"
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"I'm sure it is, sir. I remember going back. It was later, when I sat down that I dreamed, of
course."
"Then stop wasting our time," Jones said.
"Sorry, sir. If you'll follow me."
In silence they all followed the attendent back into the recesses of the large room. At the third
cross row Higgins turned to go down the row. As he turned, Higgins seemed to tense as if afraid
of what he would see. But there was nothing to see except the low slab drawn out from the
cabinet. The body of the man lay on the slab. Cranston was satisfied to see the body ready for
viewing. As The Shadow he had slid the slab back into the cabinet, and the attendent, Higgins,
had awakened and reopened the cabinet according to instructions, his encounter with The
Shadow only a vague memory. Higgins was visibly relieved.
"I was sure I'd done it all right, sir. Just a bit tired, I imagine," Higgins said.
Jones nodded and dismissed the attendent. The Scotland Yard man looked down at the body.
Then be looked at Commissioner Weston who stood beside him as they viewed the remains of
the dead man, the small bluish hole standing out on the dead man's chest. Weston nodded now.
"Yes, that's George Paulson," Weston said. "Shot once at close range, the poor devil."
"His mother and fiancée identified him too," Jones said. "They flew over as soon as we
identified him."
"He'd escaped so many close calls when he was on the New York force," Weston said. "Ironic
he should die here."
"You have no idea who in London might have wanted to kill him?" Jones said.
Weston shook his head. "As far as I know, Jones, he had been in London only a few times in
his life."
"Well, somebody shot him, and from very close range. Whoever it was did not want him
identified, unless it was simply a thief," Jones said.
"A thief?" Cranston said.
"That's what Monk thinks. He's the inspector in the case, Cranston," Jones explained. "You
see, we found Paulson in an alley in the East End, a very unsavory area. He had been stripped
clean-wallet, rings, watch, everything except the pistol and the money in his shoes. That's what
took us so long to identify him."
"No papers at all?" Cranston asked.
"Nothing but the clothes he was wearing," Jones said. "That was what we worked on, of
course. The clothes were obviously American. They had the American cut, but no labels, so we
worked through Washington. His fingerprints were on file, of course, considering his job."
"All labels were cut out?" Weston said. The Commissioner was frowning, and running his
hand through his silver-grey hair. He gave Cranston a worried look again.
"No, I'd say there never had been any labels," Jones said, "or at least not for a long time. My
guess would be that Paulson either cut out the labels himself a long time ago, or wore clothes
without any labels in the first place. There were dry cleaning marks, but that couldn't help us
unless we already knew what city in America he had come from."
Cranston considered this information. The wealthy socialite realized what Jones was saying.
If the labels had been cut out of Paulson's clothes, then it would strongly indicate that the
unknown killer had purposely tried to prevent Paulson being identified at least for a few days.
But if the labels had already been missing from Paulson's clothes, then the taking of Paulson's
wallet, watch, and other valuables could easily be no more than the work of a mugger in a dark
alley who only inadvertently had made identification so difficult.
10 SHADOW
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Between the two possibilities, Cranston knew, there was a vast difference. The first choice
would almost definitely prove that Paulson had been intentionally murdered by someone who
knew who he was and wanted no identification. The second choice would almost as surely prove
that Paulson had been killed by a stranger after no more than his valuables. But if the second
choice were true, it raised an even more difficult question: why would Paulson have been
wearing clothing without labels? Very few men took the labels from their clothes. Cranston was
still thinking about this when Jones spoke again.
"Are you going to examine the body, Cranston? In case we missed anything?" Jones said.
"No, Superintendent, I'm sure your men have missed nothing of importance," Cranston said,
sure that at least The Shadow had missed nothing of importance in his--earlier scrutiny of the
body. "I think what we need now is to discuss the details of the crime itself. I think the
Commissioner may have a few questions.''
"All right," Jones agreed, "we'll go back to my office and talk to Inspector Monk. But I assure
you, Cranston, that we have very little to go on. As a matter of fact, the main thing we have is
one simple question."
"What question, Jones?" Weston asked.
Lamont Cranston began to nod his head slowly, his impassive eyes looking down at the dead
body of George Paulson. There was, really, only the one basic question that held the key to the
whole thing.
"The same question Washington seems to have, Commissioner," Jones said slowly. "What
was a Field Supervisor of the Peace Corps stationed in New Guinea doing in a London back
alley, dead, reeking of whisky, with one thousand pounds in English money hidden in his shoe,
and carrying a pistol he had not fired!"
3
TWO FLOORS above the greystone courtyard of New Scotland Yard, the traffic of a London night
close by and loud in the rain and wind, Superintendent Jones motioned Cranston, Margo and
Commissioner Weston into the leather seats of his small office. The trip through the narrow wet
streets of the old city had been silent, each of them intent on the single question that Jones had
spoken in the gloom of the morgue. The same question that had brought Weston and his friend
Cranston across the Atlantic-why had George Paulson been thousands of miles from his New
Guinea post?
"He was definitely supposed to be in New Guinea," Weston said now as he faced the
superintendent.
"You're absolutely sure?" Jones said.
"Peace Corps Headquarters had no knowledge that Paulson was anywhere but a hundred
miles from civilization in the back country of New Guinea. That was where he was supposed to
be. Five days ago he flew down to the Peace Corps office in Sydney, but supposedly returned to
New Guinea the same day. That was all they knew."
"So he was on his own?" Jones said.
Cranston was watching the rain fall outside the windows of the superintendent's office.
Except for the steady sound of traffic passing on the wet pavement, the police building was
strangely silent and peaceful.
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"That is what, worries Washington," Cranston said, his hooded eyes still watching the rain
through the windows. "What was he doing on his own? Why the pistol? What does the one
thousand pounds mean? Why was it in his shoe? Why the whisky? Even without the pistol and
the money, they can't have publicity about a Peace Corps man thousands of miles from his post,
drunk probably, lurking around back alleys where he got himself killed."
Weston ran his hands through his silver hair. "They can't have publicity even if Paulson's
strange activities and death had nothing to do with the Peace Corps. Officially they know
nothing, it's a local police matter for London. But they want to know just what Paulson was up
to. So they called on me."
"Because you knew Paulson and might be considered to have a personal reason for coming
here," Jones said.
Weston nodded. "George Paulson was a detective in my Homicide Department. He was
young and promising. Only a year ago he quit to work for the Peace Corps. I hated to lose him,
but I approved of his action, the world needs men like George to work on bigger things than
homicide. Now he's dead, here where he should not have been. He was armed, when he should
not have been armed. Officially, Washington knows nothing. Not even that Lamont and I came
here. We were approached directly by the Peace Corps, no other agency knows about our trip.
Lamont is supposedly here simply on his personal business."
Superintendent Jones lighted a heavy black pipe. Clouds of smoke ascended in the silent
office around his dark face and shaggy eyebrows. Jones puffed on the pipe as he knitted his thick
brows in concentration.
"And neither of you knows anything that might give us a clue? Enemies, friends, some
involvement in illegal activities he might have had while he worked for your police?" Jones said.
"His record was clean as snow," Weston said.
"He seemed like a completely honest and dedicated man," Cranston said.
Margo Lane, who had remained silent all this time, now spoke.
"Lamont had me run a full check before we left New York," Margo said, "just to be sure our
personal knowledge was correct. As far as any records show, Paulson did nothing wrong in his
entire life. A good war record, no police trouble before he joined the force, no hint of trouble on
the force. Everyone connected to him seems equally above reproach."
Jones sighed and puffed harder on his pipe. The Scotland Yard man was not happy. The pipe
smoke curled up around his frowning face. At last he leaned forward and spoke into the intercom
on his desk.
"Send Inspector Monk to me," Jones snapped, and then sat back and looked at Weston and
Cranston. "All of which leaves us with exactly nothing to go on. A man took some french leave,
which is not a crime, and wound up in London, which is also not a crime. Unfortunately he
wound up dead, which is a crime, but you can give me no reason for him to be dead. It begins to
look like Monk is right, a simple case of good old American style mugging in a dark alley."
"But you don't believe that," Cranston said.
"Monk does," Jones said, "and I have nothing to go on."
Before Cranston could answer, the door to the Superintendent's office opened and a thick-set,
blond man came in. The newcomer had the build of a wrestler, and the rolling gait of a sailor.
The man was as wide as he was tall, and wore a battered brown felt hat above a belted
trenchcoat. Below his blonde hair the fair skin of his face was heavily tanned from some sun
stronger than the northern English sun. The man was annoyed.
"I was on my way out, Super," the thick-set man said.
12 SHADOW
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"I won't keep you long, Monk," Jones said drily. "Commissioner Weston, Mr. Cranston, and
Miss Lane, this is Inspector Monk who is in charge of the case. Not as exotic as your last case,
I'm afraid, Monk."
"It's a case," Inspector Monk said shortly. "I don't much like the tropics."
"You're a gloomy man, Inspector," Jones said. "Now if you will just fill in these people on the
Paulson matter."
"That won't keep me long," Monk said. "Only I'm damned if I like any Yankee interference in
one of my cases.' It's bad enough they have to come here to be murdered."
"That'll be about enough, Inspector," Jones snapped. "I suggest you sit down. I want all the
details, is that clear?"
"Yessir," Monk said grudgingly.
The thick-set inspector sat down belligerently and glared at the Americans. He did not remove
his hat or his trenchcoat. He sat like some stolid statue waiting to be asked a question.
Superintendent Jones continued to puff on his pipe, the clouds of smoke filling the small room.
No one spoke. Monk reached into his pocket and brought out a worn black notebook. The gruff
inspector opened the book and began to read.
"Victim arrived at The Blue Admiral at approximately 8:00 P.M., he ordered a pint of Burton,
and. ."
"The Blue Admiral is a public house?" Cranston said.
"It is," Monk said.
"When you say approximately 8:00 P.M., how approximate?" Jones asked.
"Give or take ten minutes, probably less," Monk said. "The barman was busy, but he's sure no
customer waits more than a few minutes for service in his pub. He didn't actually see Paulson
come in, but it was just about eight when he took his order."
Jones nodded. "Go on."
Monk continued to read from his notebook. "Victim drank his one beer, then went back to the
toilets. The men's toilet at The Blue Admiral is in the rear and around a corner out of sight from
the public bar. The rear door into the alley is near the toilet. Victim was seen to enter the toilet by
a man who was coming out, but victim was not seen to come out. He was not seen alive again by
anyone who will admit it."
"Who found him, Inspector?" Weston asked.
"The barman," Monk said, and returned to his notes. "At 10:00 P.M. of the same night the
barman took slops out to the back alley. He found victim on the ground. Victim was lying on his
back, his raincoat buttoned and belted, his suit coat buttoned inside the raincoat. The barman
could see the victim was dead. He called us. When I arrived I determined the victim had been
shot once at extremely close range by a small caliber pistol, a .25 caliber Beretta as it turns out.
Victim was armed with an unfired .38 caliber."
"When you say close range, Inspector Monk," Cranston
said, "just how close do you mean?"
"I'd say the pistol was pressed directly against his body,"
Inspector Monk said. "There were heavy burns on the raincoat, on the suit coat underneath,
and on victim's skin."
摘要：

2SHADOWBEWARESHADOWBEWAREbyMaxwellGrantABELMONTBOOK-January1965.Thealleywasdark.Alongtunnelofdarknessopeningontothedimandnarrowslumstreetinathincoldrain.Insidethealleytinyclawsscrapedtheancientcobblestones,andbeadylittleeyesalertlywatchedanindistinctfigurethatstoodhiddenonthejarsideofthestreet.Thera...

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