Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 314 - Model Murder

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MODEL MURDER
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I
? CHAPTER II
? CHAPTER III
? CHAPTER IV
? CHAPTER V
? CHAPTER VI
? CHAPTER VII
? CHAPTER VIII
? CHAPTER IX
? CHAPTER X
? CHAPTER XI
? CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER I
PASTORAL as an old painting—the mountainside, trees, grass, and motionless cows were the only
witnesses as the freight train came curving down from the top of the mountain. Leaving the tunnel behind,
the locomotive pulled the endless lines of flat cars and reefers, of coal hoppers and cattle cars around the
switch-back and down, twining a serpentine path through the landscape.
Then, above the sound of the trains rattling and puffing, there came a louder sound wheezing as though
some ancient nature god were having an attack of asthma.
Following on the heels of this mighty sound came that of a crash which drowned out all the sounds of the
train. Then it shuddered away into nothingness and again the only sound was that of the freight train going
on about its business.
The final stage was shocking. Near the very tip of the mountain through the black hole that was the mouth
of the tunnel, a strange, scrabbling thing made its way from the darkness.
Blocking the entire aperture, the white thing with five mobile extensions stretched out and curled around
the track that fed from the tunnel. The white of the object changed slowly to crimson. The tips of the
extensions curled up and then went flaccid. Across the tracks, huge and frightening, lay a hand.
The hand dwarfed the tracks. It was wider than the tracks, longer than the locomotive that still chugged
its way down to the base of the mountain as though nothing had happened.
The cows standing stock still, the trees unmoved by any breeze, the billboards unmarred by weather, all
were silent spectators.
The freight train speeded up as it hit the straightaway. Gone now were the endless curves. Ahead lay a
clear stretch of track with nothing but highballs along the route.
Now Death was the only occupant of the scene.
Walking from exhibit to exhibit, Lamont Cranston's face was relaxed. His mouth curved up in a smile of
pleasure. It was a delight to see the ingenuity and handicraft of the members of the Hobby Horse. There
were boats three feet long, exquisitely built with steam plants capable of driving them along at the rate of
forty and fifty miles an hour. Airplane models with gas engines that whipped the planes through the air
were just like their larger brethren of which they were the prototypes. The trains were in a variety of
gauges from HO which is minuscule, to standard gauge, each perfect in its own right, each a scaled down
replica of real trains.
The man with Cranston, who was named Harry Owen, said, "Like it?"
"Love it." Cranston looked all around him. Right ahead was a layout that paraphrased in miniature the
controls of a railroad line. Knobs, dials, rheostats, all controlled a block system that allowed the model
railroad to fulfill the functions of a regular railroad. The man at the controls, a good-looking youngster
looked up at Owen and spoke. His name was Bruce Bedrick.
"Everything's going along too good. I expect a train to derail or something to happen at any second."
"Relax," Owen said, his broad pleasant face splitting in a smile, "everything's under control."
From the youth of Bruce to the middle years of Owen, Cranston thought, they are one and all bound
together by the common thread of their interest in models. It was nice to see such community of interest
at work.
About twenty feet away from them, the tiny railroad curved up a scaled replica of a mountain and then
the wall was cut open by a tunnel which fed the tracks out of this big room and off into another one. This
aroused Cranston's interest.
He asked, "Mr. Owen, where does the Bump and Wiggle R.R. go after it enters that tunnel?"
"Haven't you seen that yet? That's the most impressive part of the set up in my opinion. The next room is
completely untenanted by human beings. The train works out all by itself. We've tried to give a complete
illusion there that the trains are full size. Come, I think you'll like it."
Following the broad, middle-aged back of Owen, Cranston looked back over his shoulder. In the center
of the big exhibit room they were leaving there was a wired enclosure about fifty feet in diameter.
In this wired arena was a post set up in the center. From this post a long wire went down to a model
plane that a member was tuning up. Around the floor they had set up a circular ramp from which the tiny
models took off. Fastened to the piano wire, the planes took off under their own power, flew madly
around the circle to which the wire held them and then when the few drops of gas were exhausted, came
down to a perfect three point landing.
Every hour on the hour, a flight was put in progress. The time was due for one now. The plane skimmed
around the runway and took off, the motor making almost as much noise in the circumscribed area as
though it had been a man-carrying one.
Chattering away, the plane flew around and around making an obligatio to the surface noise of people
moving around, talking and making all the other sounds that a mob does. In the smaller room which cut
off from the main exhibit room, it was suddenly quiet. Cranston looked around appreciatively. Painted on
the walls proper, the panorama of scenery was done in exaggerated perspective that was completely eye
deceptive. In front of the painted scenery the model scenery picked up so that you could barely tell
where the three dimensions took over from the flatness of the two.
From the mountain top the railroad made its way down over a pastoral scene. Then Cranston saw Owen
turn color.
The man said, "Cranston... the tunnel... it's clogged..."
Glancing at the mouth of the tunnel, Cranston had to adjust his mind to the size of the hand that blocked
all ingress or egress.
Instead of the railroad looking small, the hand seemed gigantic. It was as though a magician had caused
an illusion that was slow in being dissipated.
"Cranston, that's blood... that stain on the fingers... isn't it?"
Nodding, Cranston went closer. The fingers were relaxed in that utter flaccidity of death that was
completely unmistakable.
On the ring finger of the hand there was a cartouche. Cranston asked, "Is that ring familiar?"
The fat middle aged man nodded. His face looked shrunken. "Yes. It's... it's Dolly Dimples." His mouth
curved in nausea. "I mean... oh, I can't think straight. That was what we called Don Darry."
"Is there any way to get under the mountain and get closer?"
"Sure." Owen bent over and released a latch. He pulled up a whole section of the scenery.
Under the mountain, the body was still seated on a soap box. The man's dead body held by the confining
quarters sat as though in life. His arm extended down along the tracks so that his hand seemed to be busy
with some life of its own.
Protruding out of the center of his back was a chisel.
CHAPTER II
LOOKING closer, Cranston saw a set of initials burnt into the handle of the chisel. They read R.B.
Cranston didn't touch anything. Instead he said, "Will you call the Homicide Bureau, Owen?"
Glad to get out of the room, away from the body, Owen almost ran from sight.
Cranston sighed. People were milling all around—perhaps fifty members of the model club, plus untold
numbers of the general public like him, come to see the annual show. It was going to be tough going.
The blood had barely dried on the extended, scrabbling fingers which might help in setting the time. Silent
death. Stabbing would give no clue as to the minute of expiration.
But come to think of it, even if the killer had fired a gun, the model airplanes zooming along would have
masked the sound. Where to start? That was of the essence.
Here he'd been all set to relax and get some of the kinks out of his nerve endings in the soothing
atmosphere of the hobby club. That relaxation which other men got out of making models, out of pitting
their office soft muscles against steel and brass, that easing of the mind from the stresses and strains of
every day life, Cranston could sometimes get just by being near the off shoots of their skills.
This, he would have sworn, was to have been one of those days. His life recently had been too hectic
even for his iron frame. He had wanted to get away if only for a couple of hours from that strange life
which he had made his own when he had assumed the peculiar double personality that was his and The
Shadow's.
And here, in these premises, dedicated to what the psychiatrists would call manual therapy, he had come
face to face with sudden death. It was a little hard to take. He shrugged, took a deep breath, swore at
the fates for dealing him a low card and went to work.
Going to work meant standing stock still and taking a good look all around him. His eyes cold and set.
The easy, relaxed man who such a short time before had been enjoying all the exhibits at the hobby show
was gone, and in his stead was a master man hunter.
He looked around the room. Not much to be learned from it—a room with a dead body in it, a room
where a chisel had punctured the heart of a man.
Hearing the noise of feet, Cranston looked around. It was the young man, Bruce Bedrick who had been
at the block system. Bruce said, "What goes? I just saw Owen run out of here like the devil was tapping
him on the shoulder."
He stopped talking as he saw what Cranston was examining.
Cranston said, "Know him?"
"Sure, that's Dolly..." He stopped as he realized the inappropriateness of the nickname. "It's Don."
For want of something better to do, Cranston said, "Will you do me a favor?"
The young man nodded eagerly. "If it'll help any, sure. Don was a good friend of mine."
"Don't say anything about this, but round up what members of the club you can and send them here. By
the way, how'd you get away from the control panel?"
"My time was up. We stagger the duties there." Bruce, anxious to help, left the room.
When the first one came in, Cranston was almost sorry he had asked for them. The man who came
huffing and puffing in was the most pompous little pouter pigeon you could imagine. He said, "Here now,
what is all this? How dare you lift the scen..." His irate high pitched voice petered off into silence as he
saw the corpse.
But he recovered fast. He clipped, "I see. Murder. Well then, I still want to know by what right you are
in there! Speak up man!"
"My name's Lamont Cranston. What's yours?"
"Richard Brodder. I'm the chairman of this organization and as such I would still like to know by whose
delegation you are interfering!"
Owen returned to the room. He said, "Don't be such an ass, Dick. This is Cranston. The noted
criminologist. I can't think of a better man to be right where he is than Lamont."
"How dare you speak to me that way, Owen? How dare..." Brodder spluttered as neither man paid him
any attention.
Cranston asked, "Get the Homicide boys?"
Owen nodded. "They'll be right here. Anything we can do in the meantime?"
"Not a thing." Cranston watched as still a third man came in, did a double take at the corpse, looked at
him and said, "Why did Bruce send me in here? He said there was a short in the tracks."
"There is," said Owen. "Don's hand made the short circuit. Oh, Cranston, this is our club treasurer,
Smitty."
"Hal P. Smith." Smitty said indignantly.
"Know anything about all this, Smitty?" Cranston asked.
"No." Smitty was surly.
"After full and complete consideration, I don't see that you have any right to ask any further impertinent
questions," Richard Brodder said.
"Really?" Cranston was amused at the little man's obvious Napoleonic leanings. Chest stuck out, hand in
vest pocket, he was like a caricature of pomposity.
Before the air in the room could get any more strained, a man looked in through the door. He said, "Hi,
Cranston," and then elbowed his way past the irate chairman and treasurer of the club.
"Farrell! Long time no see." Cranston was pleased. This was one of the best men on Homicide.
Lamont Cranston was not one of those fools, one of those criminologists, who sneer at the regular police.
Cranston knew and knew full well that there are many functions which only the police can fulfill.
Let the most brilliant amateur try to take over any of those functions and that amateur would become a
fool. It just can't be done. Despite the number and intelligence of The Shadow's assistants, they could
never have the all encompassing abilities of the police.
The scientific branches of the department are superb. For blood analysis, for spectroscopic analysis,
fingerprint identification and the like, Cranston never hesitated to call on friends in uniform for aid.
Farrell, for example, as a homicide man was beyond reproach but within limits. After a few years on the
force a detective inevitably becomes molded into the grooves of the men around him. He gains certain
abilities by this, but also loses some. The lost abilities were those which Cranston had and used so
superbly.
Cranston could see that Farrell was not his usual self. Something was on his mind above and beyond the
murder case at hand. Wondering what was up, Cranston waited for Farrell to work his way to his side.
Bending down next to Cranston looking at the body, Farrell whispered in Cranston's ear, "What's the
deal here? The commissioner almost had a hemorrhage when he heard there was a killing down here."
"I don't know why. Is Weston coming here himself?"
"Sure... and you know that means trouble." Farrell didn't look happy.
Getting up, puzzled, Cranston walked away and left Farrell with his duties.
"It may help if we all get out of here." Shepherding them in front of him, Cranston made them by sheer
force of will leave the room. Of course Brodder was the last to leave. He was apoplectic looking. He
said, "The commissioner will hear about this, never fear! I'm a good friend of his. We'll see about these
dictatorial tactics."
Bruce said, "Look at who's squawking about dictatorial anything."
"That was uncalled for, Bruce." Brodder turned on the young man. "You know very, well that I have
fought for democratic methods in the running of the club."
"Yeah, very democratic as long as your steam roller gets you what you want!"
Cranston noticed all this and became aware that for people with a community of interest there was
certainly a lot of bad feeling in the membership of the club. This would warrant some investigation.
Out in the main exhibit room, the men made a tight little knot in the center of the people who milled
around the various sights.
They seemed held together by the knowledge that they shared. Suddenly Brodder snapped his fingers.
He said, "Of course, I have it!"
"What? Leprosy?" Bruce asked.
"I'll disregard that. I know who the killer is!"
They all looked at him curiously.
"Don't you see? The one who's been stealing the models! I'll bet Don found whoever is guilty and they
had to kill him to prevent him from telling the police!"
"That's nice. Good going." Bruce's voice was sarcastic. "We don't even have the slightest idea whose
been stealing us blind, but if we did, then he's also the killer. Cute."
"What's all this?" Cranston asked.
"Some sneak thief has been coming in here and going away with some of our most valuable models. You
may not know of it, Lamont," Owen said, "but there are individual models that are worth from five to ten
thousand dollars."
Thinking of the years of effort that went into making some of the models, Cranston could understand that.
Bruce said, "Take the 6-6-o John F. Murray bought. It was a steal, at eleven thousand."
Murray! That did it. That accounted for Weston, the Police Commissioner getting upset. John F. Murray,
the name was one with Huntingdon and all the other railroad magnates. Murray owned so many different
kinds of industries that it was sometimes hard for the newspapers to decide on a name for him. What
sense in calling him a rail magnate when he owned enough steamers to be a ship magnate. Real estate,
factories were all one to the Murray kingdom.
Cranston asked, knowing the answer before it came, "Is Murray a member of this club?"
All three nodded. Bruce said, "Sure, we couldn't get along without him. He underwrites us just as he
does so many other things. Nice guy though, with all his dower. Not like some others I know."
Brodder glowered at Bruce, but said nothing. It was obvious that he was meant.
While the police went about their many duties with the precision of years of practice, Cranston drew
Bruce aside. He said, keeping his voice low, "How about a cup of coffee?"
"Sure. There's a coffee shoppe right on this floor."
They were practically unnoticed as they made their way through the crowd that still was in ignorance of
the dreadful thing that had happened.
About two doors down the hall from the office that the model makers had converted into a model set-up,
there was a sandwich place: It was handy for people who worked in the building.
There was an air of camaraderie about the little shop. It was clear that everyone knew everyone well.
The waitresses smiled at Bruce as he and Cranston were seated.
The prettiest of the waitresses came over. "Hi."
"Hello, Marie. May my friend and I have a cup of that which cheers but never inebriates?"
She grinned and said, "That's a change for you."
While waiting for the coffee Cranston asked, "How come there's so much subterranean rigamajig going
on in your club?"
"How come there's always a struggle in any group of human beings to see who'll be the boss? Because
some of the idiots get some kind of ego maximation from being at the head, from holding the reins of
power. Take Dick Brodder. Although he exasperates me, I understand him. His wife is a wealthy woman
and dominates him by holding the purse strings.
"It's easy to see that he tries to be the big heap boss around here to make up for the beating he takes at
home. But even understanding him he's pretty hard to take." Bruce put some sugar in his coffee.
"So there are cliques and power struggles right under the surface of a club which is supposed to be
dedicated to relaxation. That's fine. If I had joined the club to get my mind off the things I see every day,
I'd wind up in a fight with the powers that be." Cranston made a face.
"It sounds bad when you put it that way. I don't know how many organizations you belong to, but
everyone I have ever been in has had the same problem. The ones that are in power," Bruce went on,
"have to try to continue to stay on the top of the heap. The others are hacking away all the time, trying to
get up to the top.
"But that's not the worst. Besides the power struggles for policy between the ins and the outs, there are
other internecine struggles. For instance, the railroad men think there's too much accent on the boat
members. Of course, the men who are interested in boats think there's much too much about railroad
hobbyists.
"Then, as if that wasn't enough, there are pitched battles between the railroad men who use electricity and
those who claim that the only decent models are those that are powered by steam."
"Whew..." Cranston whistled.
"That's not the worst. In the ranks of the electric railroad fans there are battles about different gauges.
For instance, the standard gauge men think that HO gauge is a preposterous one and talk disrespectfully
of toys when they mention HO."
"But," Cranston said, "HO is just smaller than standard. There's no difference other than that, is there?"
"Not a bit. Nevertheless, there are arguments that have been going on for ten or fifteen years about just
that difference. If you want real madness there are arguments between the HO men and the OO men!"
"There's all of a sixteenth of an inch difference between those gauges isn't there?" asked Cranston with a
wry grin.
"Oh, easily." Bruce Bedrick made a mock toasting gesture with his coffee. "Bottoms up."
"Here's cheers." Cranston returned the toast. He drained off his coffee. "We'd better get back before the
police think we've beat it."
"Sure." Bruce threw a quarter to the waitress who smiled at him. "See you later, beautiful," he said.
Cranston and Bedrick left the coffee shoppe and there was no way they could know that ten feet away
from them, inside the premises of the model show a man was dying as no man had ever died before.
Dying despite the fact that the whole place was staked out by police. Dying in a manner that Cranston
was to call the most viciously ingenious in all his, experience!
CHAPTER III
THE girl who took the tickets at the door reached for a ticket with an automatic reflex, until she
recognized Bruce and Cranston. She smiled and said, "Hello, Bruce, long time between drinks, isn't it?"
"We can do something about that," he said.
Harry Owen spotted them and walked towards them away from a couple of policemen to whom he had
been explaining some fine points about models. One of the cops was saying, "Awright, so they're models.
To me they look like toys, do me somethin'."
The other cop said, "Mahoney, don't be such a creep. Shut up."
Then they all shut up as the scream, high and inhuman, lanced through the manifold sounds of the room. It
was much too high to have come from a human throat, and yet it did.
Stopped in their tracks, each person froze. It was too much. It just could not be happening and yet it
was. Like some primitive yell, it wrenched and tore at all their consciousnesses.
Only because he was more used to violence than the others, Cranston responded as the sound was
repeated. A sound that could not be was sounded again.
Cranston ran across the floor towards a door at the back of the main exhibits. It was a door he had
wondered about earlier. It was the only closed door in all the space devoted to men's hobbies.
Close on his tracks Bruce came and then following like lambs to the slaughter came the police. Cranston
wrenched the door open and looked inside the room.
At the far end of the room a lathe still turned away at the work which had been entrusted to it. Forgotten
by its operator, it continued to eat away pieces of metal from the stock that rotated in the jaws of the
machine.
Across the room diagonally there was another machine. Bigger than all the others it would have
dominated the workshop in any event, but now with a victim clenched in its jaws like Moloch of old, it
held all eyes.
It was a band saw. Chattering away madly even though it had completed its task of severing a man's
head from his body, the saw went on about its business, with a fine disregard for human sensibilities.
Even as they watched, the stasis was broken. A round object the size of a child's basketball rolled off the
table of the band saw. Then, a split second later, the body of the man fell to the floor. First came the
sound of a cantaloupe landing on concrete, then the slumping sound of potatoes in a sack.
Making the dead man seem somehow more horrible, there was, behind the band saw, a pipe. It lay on its
side as though the black bit had just fallen from between clenched teeth.
It seemed desolate and lonely. Because of the clouds of sawdust in the room one couldn't tell if there was
still smoke coming from the bowl of the pipe or not.
The high lights in the room cut down with cruel clarity outlining things too clearly. Cranston looked
around. There were the regular tools that one would expect in such a machine shop. Merely those and
nothing more.
Or... what was that black box? Looking away from it, Cranston saw that there were some windows in
the back of the shop. Outside of them and the door through which they had entered in answer to the
scream of the dying man—there was no other means of ingress or egress.
Cranston saw that Bruce was being affected by the sight of the decapitated man. He walked over to the
youngster and stood near him.
"Not very pretty, is it?" Cranston asked.
Bruce shook his head. His face was white. He looked around desperately. He didn't like to give up so
easily, but he had to get out of the room.
Cranston stood behind him in case he fainted. It would not be the first time that a healthy, strong man had
passed out at the sight of violence.
Retching at the sight of the carmine that pumped from the decapitated body, Bruce staggered away from
the door. The cops didn't do much better. Only Cranston, eyes narrowed in thought, watched.
Out in the other room, Bruce brushed against Owen. "Bruce, what's wrong, man? You look like death
warmed over."
"Gimme a drink."
"Sure, take it easy, son. Here. You know where my cache is." Owen lead Bruce to a locker. He reached
in and handed over a nearly full bottle.
Bruce sucked greedily at the mouth of the bottle. The liquid went down about to the halfway mark before
he lowered the bottle from his mouth.
"Feel better" Owen asked as he put the bottle away.
"A little."
Owen and Bruce watched as Farrell, the homicide man, elbowed his way through the crowd that clogged
the path to the death room. He was swearing under his breath. As he passed them they heard him say,
"What now? That was a death scream or I've wasted twenty years on the force. But who'd be nutty
enough to kill with the joint lousy with cops?"
The uniformed policeman who was at Farrell's rear said, "Chee, I dunno."
"Who's talkin' to you?" Farrell snapped irately.
"But you was sayin'..."
"I was talkin' to myself."
Farrell and the cop disappeared into the machine shop.
"Feel well enough to tell me what's up?" Owen asked.
"I guess so. Ira Downs had an argument with a band saw and lost."
"You mean that scream... was Ira! He's dead?"
Bruce nodded.
"But good God, how could he be so stupid as to go near a band saw?"
"It's a little late to ask him."
"Oh... I don't mean that the way it sounded. But of all machines you have to treat with respect..."
"I know what you mean. And Ira was too good a machinist to forget that a band saw will bite the hand
that feeds it."
"And yet... he's dead!"
"What I can't get is why or how he could put his neck near the blade. It almost seems like suicide," Bruce
said.
"What would he have to..." Owen's head swiveled as he and Bruce turned and looked at the room at the
far end of the main room. Inside, a man had been murdered and left under a model mountain....
Could...?"
"I wonder..." Bruce said.
"You mean, maybe Ira killed Dolly Dim—I mean Don Darry. It might add up that way. Don't you think
so, Lamont?"
Bruce jumped. He had not even seen Cranston walk up to them.
"What do you think?" Owen asked again.
"It might. It might just be a killing and a suicide. But... it's a little early for guessing."
Cranston thought of something he had put to one side for the nonce. He asked, "Anyone else but the little
Napoleon in the club have the initials R.B.?"
"Why?" Owen scowled with thought.
"Can't think of anyone else," Bruce said. "Why?"
"The chisel that killed Don Darry had those initials on it."
摘要：

MODELMURDERMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI?CHAPTERII?CHAPTERIII?CHAPTERIV?CHAPTERV?CHAPTERVI?CHAPTERVII?CHAPTERVIII?CHAPTERIX?CHAPTERX?CHAPTERXI?CHAPTERXIICHAPTERIPASTORALasanoldpainting—themountainside,trees,grass,andmotionlesscowsweretheonlywitne...

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