Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 306 - The Blackest Mail

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The Blackest Mail
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in
The Shadow Magazine #306
August 1946
Mysterious handwriting on a wall, a lady with a toy boat and a man with a
kite--all clues to a dramatic, cunning plot which finds The Shadow in
Hollywood fighting the macabre machinations of a ruthless killer.
I.
A LAND where anything is more than likely to happen. A land of
make-believe where the world's dreams are put on celluloid and
sold...Hollywood! A land of Cinderellas and Prince Charmings, where fortunes
are made.. and lost. And walking through that dream world is one who is
turning the dreams into nightmares!
There was a fight going on. It was to be the biggest, most expensive
fight that had ever been filmed. There were to be more breakaway chairs broken
on more heads, more prop bottles shattered, more stunt men rolling all over
the set, than had ever been done before.
The crowding, fighting men crashed down a flight of stairs, a balcony at
the foot of a bend in the stairs gave way and dropped the experienced stunt
men down onto a specially built table that held for a moment, groaned and then
gave way beneath their combined weights.
Two men seated at a side table gravely played gin rummy. Neither
flickered an eye nor gave the slightest evidence that they were aware of the
mayhem going on around them.
"Gin," said one.
"That's a schneider for me!" He looked disgruntled.
The winner picked up the cards and shuffled them as a flying bottle just
missed his head. He gave no sign that he had even seen it.
Lamont Cranston, standing to one side of the racing camera that was
recording the scene for the moviegoers of the world, smiled. It was a nice
touch, he thought, the card players so occupied in what they were doing that
they were oblivious to the fight.
Sturm, the director, poked Lamont in the back with a riding crop. Then he
pointed to a table at which a single man sat looking off into space.
Lamont looked in the direction of the pointing crop. The man, Richard
Doster, was playing his role to perfection. In the film he was a man who was
being blackmailed. He was sitting, drinking, trying to get up enough courage
to refuse to pay the blackmailer any more money.
He looked as depressed as though he really were paying his fabulous
salary out to a blackmailer. He twirled a swizzle stick in his drink and then,
straightening his shoulders out with sudden determination, drained his drink
off at a gulp.
The fight ranged on around him and the card players. All, every human in
the scene, was a bundle of fighting, exploding energy, all but the three men
who played their parts so well. The card players laid their cards down as a
shot blasted over their heads. A vase on the wall near them crashed in
shattered shards. They didn't even blink. Doster, his drink consumed, looked
around the room. He was obviously ready for his set-to with the blackmailer.
The look in his eye boded no good to the man who was mulcting him. He stood
up.
Cranston realized that the selectivity of the movie camera's eye was
being used to focus on Doster. The swirling fight was now a background to the
purposeful way that Doster strode across the wrecked room.
As Lamont Cranston watched the scene with an appreciative eye, the two
puzzling questions that had teased him till they carried him on wings, across
the continent to this place of fantasy, tickled at his mind. The questions
were: why does the handsomest man in America fly a kite at midnight, and why
did the most glamorous woman in America put a toy submarine out in the waters
of the Pacific Ocean?
Doster was standing in front of a door now. It was obvious that it was
going to take all his courage to face his blackmailer. He put his hand on the
knob and started to turn it. Suddenly, and it was frightening in its departure
from the norm, he stopped, straightened up and pitched forward on his face.
"Cut!" Sturm was raging mad. He threw his riding crop on the ground and
then jumped up and down on it. Cranston grinned. This was the first real
sample of Hollywood temperament he had seen. Sturm was raging.
"Imbecile! How many times must we re-do this scene? I have the directions
given! Over and over I have them given! Slow, I say, fall slowly! Ten times I
have so said! But when he falls, fast he must!"
Sturm bent over and picked up his riding crop which was scarred from
previous bursts of "artistic temperament."
"I say we will again do it. This will be the last time. If that dolt,
Doster, can't imitate a dying man better than that I shall a real actor get!"
A frown deepened on Lamont Cranston's forehead. The actor had not moved
through all that tirade.
Flip Hiller, the special effects man, walked across the set with another
drink. He was going to place it on the little table where Doster had drunk the
last one! As he walked he looked down at Doster. His face, normally sullen,
changed. It got more sullen. He said, "Hey, Sturm! I think you will have to
get another actor!"
"From you I do not need advice!" Sturm was determined to be nasty.
"Need it or not," was Flip's response, "Doster may have been a bad actor,
but now he's a good actor! He's dead!"
Cranston was across the set and looking at Doster's strained, dead face
before anyone else on the set had recovered from the temporary paralysis that
gripped them.
The special effects man knew death when he saw it.
Cranston looked from the dead face to the purpling face of Sturm who was
swearing under his breath in German. "To me these things have to happen! This
means that we have to re-film all the scenes this nincompoop was in! Gah... it
will be a better picture, for that!"
Genia Gladder whose pin-up pictures had adorned every G.I. barrack from
Timbuctoo to Tsien Tsin, moved, or maybe trickled would be a better word,
across the set towards the tableau that had grown around the dead man. Her
face was set in a pose that in pictures would be the one she used when she was
the poor widow sent out to the old ladies' home. She said, "How can you be so
cruel, so unthinking? A young man, dead! How terrible! Of course he did have
that dreadful habit of covering my face with his shoulder in every close up,
but I could handle that..."
"Wonder what killed him?" Flip still looked sullen, but curiosity was
getting the better of him.
Cranston had wondered how long it would take for someone to think of
that. He was positive that Doster had been poisoned. For of all the experts,
the highly paid technicians in Hollywood, Cranston was the specialist in the
subject at hand. He knew death in all its varied manifestations. Knew them
only too well. The awkward strained position that Doster had died in, the
convulsed set of his muscles, even the rather horrible grin that pulled at the
corners of his set mouth, added up to only one thing, cyanide.
Sturm, with a grimace of distaste, leaned down and sniffed at the dead
man's mouth. He grunted, "Potassium cyanide, unless I my guess miss."
A new figure shouldered his way in. It was Tony Hunter, and he was
excited. "I'm only the writer here, I know writers don't count for much out in
this madhouse, but don't you think I should be told a few..."
His words tapered off as he saw the figure on the floor and Sturm's words
seeped in.
"Cyanide? But... that tastes horrible! Why should Doster have swallowed
it? He must have committed suicide! No one would swallow a dose like that
without realizing that something was wrong."
"You just the stories write!" Sturm's voice was coarse; he was annoyed.
"I will the thinking do!"
"While you're busy being a master mind, old fruit, maybe you better call
the cops! They are very small-minded; they have a nasty habit of being annoyed
if they aren't told about stiffs cluttering up the place!" Flip's voice was
deliberately pitched so as to be as obnoxious as possible.
"I will the police call, yes. I was just going to..." Sturm got even more
red-faced as everyone in the vicinity chanted the end of his sentence, "...was
just going to think of that myself!"
Cranston realized that this was a procedure that went on continually.
Sturm did not take to ribbing. Naturally, that made ribbing him all the
better.
"Police, reporters, this is going to be awful!" Genia was in a flutter.
She was looking at her hair-do, an imposing pompadour affair, in a mirror as
she spoke.
"Yes, I can just imagine how badly that will annoy you! Publicity is so
distasteful, my dear!" Flip was being exasperating again. "As if you weren't
the worst publicity hound in the business!"
"You're going to get another of your usual black eyes if you keep this
up! My Donny won't stand for it!" Genia turned on her heel and walked away
from the group.
Cranston juggled names in his mind and realized that Donny would be Don
Barron, America's handsomest star. He hadn't known that Genia and Don were a
twosome. There seemed to be quite a bit of background to find out about.
Flip's sullen face lost none of its sullenness. It became, if anything,
more sullen, but overlaid was a new expression, one that came close to fear.
He pointed at one of the flats, a side of the set that represented a saloon
wall. There were pictures on it, a mural of sorts. In the center of the mural
there was a blank area that was framed in dryads and nymphs. It was this area
that Flip's trembling finger was pointing at.
All eyes followed his finger and then there wasn't a sound! People held
their breaths as an icy finger of fear ran over the assembly. Only Cranston
and one other person was impervious to the astounding thing that happened!
High on the wall, far from any human hand, a message was spelling itself
out. The flaring kleig lights with their thousands of watts proved that no one
was within twenty feet of the place that the writing was manifesting itself!
All eyes were glued to the flat as, letter by huge letter, appeared--
"Doster thought HE could avoid paying me! This is the last warning..."
Even the periods were huge and black, jet black. Cranston's eyes were
busy as he watched the various reactions to the astounding message. Flip
Hiller was petrified. He seemed to be reading and rereading the message.
Apoplexy seemed close for Sturm, his red, fat face was vermilion. His fat
bull neck tightened inside his stiff collar. He seemed ready to explode,
implicit with violence.
Two soft, white, long-red-finger-nailed hands went to Genia's pompadour.
She patted at it in that ineffectual way that women have. She was pale, even
under the panchromatic #27 make-up that covered all her visible flesh.
Otherwise, but for her slightly widened eyes, there was no sign of what she
might be thinking.
"What kind of nonsense is this?" barked Tony Hunter. He looked annoyed,
puzzled, but that was all.
"Yeah, what is it?" A new figure was on the scene, and the tones were the
deep virile ones that thrilled practically every woman in America and in a lot
of other countries too. Don Barron had the ability to make every entrance in
life as dramatic as his screen ones. He commanded the scene, his magnificent
black head of hair cocked at a quizzical angle. "Something new been added to
Hunter's corny script?"
"Look who's talking about corn!" Hunter was annoyed and looked about
ready to do something about it.
Genia was at Barron's side. She said swiftly, "Darling, I'm so glad...
the most horrible thing has happened... Poor Richard Doster... He's...he's..."
"Okay, kid, relax, I'm here. I'll look out for you.... Anyone been
bothering you?"
Genia let her eyes flick over Flip's sullen face before she answered.
"No... no one has annoyed me."
"I get it, that cheap carnival imitation of a hard guy's been at it! He's
gonna get dumped soon and I'm the guy that can do it!"
"Why you..." Flip was set and sending a round house on its way before
Sturm could move.
"Stop! Stop it!" Sturm had moved just before the punch landed. He grabbed
at Flip's arm and stopped it so suddenly that Flip was thrown off balance.
"Don't we have trouble enough, aber?"
Flip shook himself free of Sturm's iron grip and stalked off.
Trouble enough, indeed, thought Cranston. Death had struck quickly and
silently...and the sound stage of Impressive Films, Inc., looked as if it held
enough warring temperaments to guarantee more trouble and quickly. Tack onto
that the curious circumstance of the method of death, and the even stranger
writing on the wall...and, yes, it certainly was time for The Shadow to
appear.
Rocking, rolling from out of nowhere came the veriest whisper of sound.
It was so low as to be just the echo of an echo. But listening ears might have
heard the laugh, the knowing laugh of the Master of Men, the Crusader against
Crime, The Shadow--about to strike at any moment now.
II.
EFFICIENT as a fine machine, the police went about their duties quietly
and with self-confidence. Cranston saw that they were quite sure they were
going to nab the killer as soon as they gathered enough fingerprints, took
enough pictures of the body and asked enough questions. They had already asked
so many questions that tempers worn thin by the high pressure work they did,
were starting to crack the movie personnel into warring groups.
It was unusual to be at the scene of a crime without Joe Cardona in the
offing. No Cardona, no Commissioner Weston, and no rain. Despite all the
fables about California weather, Cranston was impressed by it. It was a hot
day. In New York, the hard working detectives would have been drenched with
sweat. But here, the lack of humidity saved them.
It was all of five hours since Doster had died. Cranston cocked a weather
eye out a window. The sun was still fairly high over the horizon and here it
was seven o'clock at night. No one had eaten, and they were starting to get
restive. Hunter was speaking.
"Look, Gestapo, how long do you think you can hold us this way,
practically incommunicado?"
"Not much longer, please be patient. The quicker we clean this up, the
faster you can all get back to normal. I know enough about movies to realize
how true it is that time is money. It is to your benefit as well as ours to be
cooperative."
The police out in this neck of the woods were certainly polite, Cranston
thought. This Lieutenant Sherly was really on his toes and doing a good job.
Still, the case was not a clean-cut one and the time might come when Sherly
would be grateful for The Shadow's help. Cranston glanced down at his brief
case which was at his feet and a curious smile played over his lips.
"Lieutenant, I realize the truth of all the things you say, but really, I
know nothing of all this." Genia looked ingenuous. She was seated with her
back to the baffling message on the wall of the set. The others were grouped
around in various positions. The calmness of the proceedings was in striking
contrast to the wreckage of the set that the movie battle had caused.
"Let's see how straight I've got all this. The fight was going on..."
The lieutenant looked over at the table where the gin rummy players had
sat. Tony Hunter was seated playing solitaire with exaggerated lack of
interest and pretended boredom.
"The gin rummy players were there, where Hunter is playing solitaire....
Richard Doster was at the facing table with a drink in front of him. Who
placed, it there?"
"I did. I'm prop man, special effects man, anything Sturm can think of to
hang on me. He was disciplining me. Ordinarily that job would have been done
by a thirty-buck-a-weeker."
Sturm nodded at the lieutenant's questioning look. "He was insolent, so I
demeaned him! He is under contract, I cannot fire him..."
"My next contract's gonna have something in it about the extent of the
jobs I can be asked to do and don't think it won't!"
"Your next contract?" Don Barron's voice was silkily questioning.
Flip half started from his chair and then thought better of it. "I've
been in these parts a long time...longer than you, pretty boy. I have a hunch
I'll still be here when you're back selling ribbons behind a counter."
Don's grin was irritating. "I guess anyone can stay here as long as
they'll go down the ladder the way you have. Remember when he used to be the
Humphrey Bogart of his time?"
"That was back in the days of Flora Finch and John Bunny, wasn't it,
dear?" Genia's sweet voice poured acid on the wound that Don had gouged.
"Time! Back to neutral corners all of you!" The lieutenant was serious.
"I'm never going to get this straight if you all make like prima donnas." He
looked from the table at which Doster had taken his death potion and his eyes
made a straight line to the door at which Doster had fallen. There was nothing
left to show that Doster had ever been but a chalked outline. The stark, rough
silhouette was somehow more tragic than the broken body had been.
"It's obvious that anyone would have had a chance to put the cyanide in
the glass. Or would it?... How can we check and see who passed close enough to
the table to drop the deadly mickey?"
"Why, that is so obvious! We can find out in the cutting room. I am
sure!" Sturm fixed his monocle in his eye and surveyed the group. "After all,
I am no quickie director, I use film."
"You certainly do! Now! What is going on! Speak up before my ulcers
strangle me!"
Cranston looked the man over. It was no one; it could be no one but the
fabulous president of the movie concern. His slightest sayings were quoted and
mis-quoted all over the world. He had more affectations than even the most
temperamental of his stars. If his will was balked in the slightest way, he
would have a tantrum that out-did anything pulled since the days of Pola
Negri.
"Mr. Gainsworthy. I had no idea that you'd be back from Mexico today!"
Hunter looked upset and Cranston noticed it, although everyone else was too
startled to notice anything but the amazing Mr. Gainsworthy. His sport jacket
would have made a color-blind man blink. His canary yellow slacks looked as if
they'd been pressed by a steam roller. His sport shirt made Joseph's coat of
many colors look pale. His tan face, his stubby, chewed-on cigar, all made an
ensemble known the world over. His fingers were tapping against the side of
his leg.
"Well?" Gainsworthy hung the word in the air and let it remain. He glared
at Sturm.
Even that doughty character looked a little peaked. He finally said,
"Why...uh... there has some trouble been!"
"You don't say so! I am blind? I can't take my eyes in my hands and look?
I don't know there has been a murder? You think the newspapers they do not
publish unimportant things like a killing on my lot?"
Sherly braved the storm. "Mr. Doster has died under curious
circumstances. I don't like this throwing around of the word murder. It may
well be a suicide for all we know. I am just investigating all eventualities
before I make up my mind. The drawback is that no one in his right mind would
drink cyanide. You'd have to know it. It has a strong, horrible taste... and
yet Doster drank his drink without even making a face of disgust or anything
of the kind. The handwriting on the wall, while baffling, may not have had
anything to do with the death...
"Handwriting on the wall?" Gainsworthy's eyes shot to the writing. "Who's
been scribbling on my set? I'm made of money? Next I suppose mustaches will be
drawn on my walls! Wait... it says something Hmmmmm..."
Gainsworthy whirled and faced Hunter. "This is some new brain breaker of
yours? In this script I don't remember this! It was not in the picture I
bought from you!"
"Of course not, J. G. The killer had a hand in that. It's a threat to
someone. The death of Doster was supposed to scare someone into paying
somebody something!"
"This is as clear as one of your stories! Someone, somebody, something!"
Gainsworthy bit the last half inch off his cigar. It was a battered wreck now.
"Who's that? Rubbernecks I have to have too?"
He was pointing to Cranston.
"But you invited him here yourself, J. G." Hunter sounded all upset.
"That's Lamont Cranston!"
"Why, of course, I invited him. Nice to have you here. You are having a
good time, I hope, Mr. Cranston?" He shook his head and then said, "What am I
saying? How can anyone have a good time with corpses all over the place?"
"I am enjoying watching the fine police work of the lieutenant here."
Cranston smiled at Sherly, who smiled back appreciatively.
"Police? What do they know? I know of your reputation, Mr. Cranston, any
friend of Commissioner Winston is a friend of mine! That card he gave me...
how many tickets in New York it has saved me you don't know."
"If no one minds, I am going out and eat!" Genia patted her hair again
and started to walk out holding onto Don Barron's arm.
"If she goes, I go!" Hunter was on his feet. The rest of the people were
restive.
Sherly looked at Sturm. "I suppose I really can't get much further
without looking over the film record of who was near the table. Suppose we put
that first on the agenda. The rest of you can go on about your business. But
no trips! You'll be watched. All of you! I'll have a tail on every soul that
was in this studio today, if it takes every beat cop in Los Angeles!"
Cranston put his brief case under his arm and prepared to leave. He felt
a little sorry for anyone who was detailed to trail him. He had a busy night
ahead of him and he didn't intend that any alien eyes be on him.
"You can't go, Mr. Cranston. What would you think of Impressive's
hospitality? Not a word! You come with me!" Mr. Gainsworthy was determined. He
hooked his arm in Cranston's.
Cranston looked over his shoulder at the retreating backs of the
lieutenant and Sturm. Perhaps Lamont Cranston was going to miss seeing the
playback of that movie, but The Shadow wouldn't!
Gainsworthy was still speaking or speaking still. It seemed impossible
for him to be still. He said, "You'll come with me and I'll have my cook
prepare you a home-cooked meal you'll never forget. He can make oatmeal and
cream taste like a steak if you give him a chance!
Cranston smiled and then whistled as he looked at his watch. "Oh, I am
sorry! I just realized I have to get back to my hotel for a New York call I am
expecting. Will you excuse me? Perhaps we can make it another time?"
Gainsworthy's face fell. He was not used to having his wishes flouted.
But he shrugged with fairly good grace and said, "Of course. Business first,
that's my motto too. We'll have to make it soon, though."
Gainsworthy watched Cranston's figure disappear around a corner. Then he
walked off.
It was Cranston who walked around the corner, but The Shadow who came
back. For, once in the comparative security of the shadows that based the
building, Cranston whizzed down a zipper in the brief case he had carried all
day. A black cape fluffed up out of confinement. That went around his
shoulders. A folded black hat came out of the brief case next. The brief case
was thin and flexible. It disappeared into the darkness that shrouded the
caped figure. No eye saw Cranston change. No eye saw The Shadow, as hugging
the eerie darkness that clung to the building now that night had finally
fallen, The Shadow stepped circumspectly out onto a street that led to the set
where death had appeared as an unpaid extra.
The photographic memory of The Shadow stood him in good stead as he made
his way across sets that ranged from the middle eighteenth century, to a
pirate hold and thence out onto a cobbled street that ended in the set The
Shadow was heading for.
Overhead in a lighted window, figures passed. The voices were those of
Sturm and Sherly.
The lights, the overhead lights in the projection room went out. There
was a moment of darkness, then the thin stiletto of light from the movie
projector lanced down onto the screen. Sherly sighed and hoped that this was
going to help him. Truthfully, he was baffled. The case was either too simple
or too complicated, he couldn't quite decide. In any event, he didn't care for
it.
For a few seconds there were three pairs of eyes watching the screen: the
cinematographer who ran the machine, Sturm and Sherly. Then, although no one
in the room knew it, there was a fourth pair of eyes there. Eagle-like eyes
that were all-seeing. Hidden in the darkness, The Shadow had climbed up onto
the window sill. He sat there now, half in and half out of the window as the
bizarre scene flashed across the screen.
There, a dead man lived, smiled, breathed. They watched as Richard Doster
made his way in front of the camera and slumped down in the chair. The table
was empty but for a shot-glass, a swizzle-stick and a highball glass.
All eight eyes were glued on the screen now. Doster poured the shot-glass
into the highball and lackadaisically watched the bubbles rise as it mixed
with the ginger ale that was already in the glass. Slowly he picked up the
swizzle-stick, looked at it, placed it in the glass and stirred.
His attention was diverted and he watched a fighting man crash off a
balcony and whirl through the air. At the other side of the screen a brawler
grabbed hold of a chandelier and swung in a lazy arc across the scene. He
landed on the far side on top of one of the brawler's necks.
The Shadow realized that this was a part of the picture that had been
screened before he arrived. Now... there...Genia Gladder was walking across in
front of the camera. Doster raised his eyes, looked at her appraisingly and
then lowered his eyes to his glass again.
Then the melee at one side of the room erupted. Flying bodies crashed all
around the stolid gin rummy players. They paid no attention. The Shadow
realized that while this was happening, the fatal glass was out of sight of
the all-seeing camera eye. The men's bodies screened it completely.
Then, and this brought a gasp from Sherly, the camera swiveled away
completely. It showed a close up of an action scene. The fatal
glass...anything might have happened in the five minutes that this bit of the
brawl consumed.
Sherly's voice cut across the voices of the actors on the screen. "We can
just forget about this giving us any help! There's not an alibi for anyone in
this reel!"
"Why, oh why, did I have to divert the camera at just that moment! It is
exasperating, no?"
Sherly smiled wryly in the dark and said, "It is exasperating, yes. May
as well put the lights on. I'm going back downtown! This is a waste of time."
But one of the viewers did not find the screening a waste of time. A
faint mocking laugh rippled through the room just before the lights went on.
Sherly said, "'Who was that?" Then he looked foolish. There was no one in
the room with him but Sturm. "Why did you laugh?"
Sturm looked outraged. "Me laugh? What about? I see nothing funny! I
thought it was you who had a sense of humor that was perverted!"
Both of them looked up at the projection booth but it was soundproof. The
laugh had not come from there...
III.
By the time the two men had reacted to The Shadow's laugh he was down off
the window sill and on his way across the street. His black-draped figure was
completely invisible. Years of experience had taught him just how far in the
shadows he had to stay. He walked forward purposefully but carefully. He knew
where he was going.
A huge building loomed ahead. The figure that was blacker than black
stopped and looked up. This should be it. A door. There it was, a small side
door. The door opened. It closed a moment later. But in that moment an unseen
figure had glided in. Ahead there was a glare of lights. That was good. The
brighter the lights the deeper the shadows on their perimeter.
A new Flip Hiller was seen in the bright lights. All his sullenness was
gone. He was seated at a small table. Some paper-wrapped sandwiches were at
his side. In front of him on the work table was a tiny, exquisite ship model.
The mast, the rigging, all laid flat on the deck of the ship. A thread,
fastened to the front of the base, ran the length of the model.
To one side a bottle, turned green by exposure to the sun, waited. The
Shadow watched as Flip delicately threaded the ship into the top of the
bottle. It just cleared. In the bottle, some green clay had been painted and
swirled to look like an angry sea. The ship, inch by inch, went down into the
bottle. Flip sighed as the sticky clay caught and held it.
That accomplished, he pulled the thread at the front of the mast. The
mast, the sail, the jib, all the rigging, rose. Finally, Flip pasted the end
of the thread to the front of the ship. He used a swab stick to do this
surgeon-like job. The ship was perfect. Its sail and jib ballooned out in a
breeze that never was.
Flip held it up at arm's length and sheer enjoyment lighted up his face.
He took a bite of a sandwich and looked off into space.
The Shadow made his careful way around in back of Flip. It was sometimes
very revealing to watch people when they were completely off guard, when they
had no idea that any eyes were on them.
As quietly as he had come, as soundlessly as a falling leaf in a forest,
The Shadow reversed his path. He was at the door. He looked back at Flip. He
still sat there chewing his dry sandwich with every evidence of enjoyment.
Then, with shocking abruptness the lights went out. It was so sudden, so
unexpected, that even The Shadow's cat-like eyes were useless for a split
second. In that flash of time, there was a grunt of pain and then, the heavy
sound of a human body hitting the floor.
Even with his eyes momentarily out of commission that sound was all The
Shadow needed. He covered the fifteen or twenty feet that separated him from
the work bench in two bounds.
Quiet as he had been, someone had heard him. A lashing arm wrapped around
his neck. He dropped to his knees instantly, before a strangle hold could be
applied. On his knees, he reached up and launched a blow at the spot where he
thought his assailant's midriff should be. A wheezing exhalation, as well as
the satisfying feel of flesh showed him he had landed.
He was on his feet instantly and looped a round house swing that should
have ended the fight. But the bushwhacker was no fool. He had shifted and the
dynamite laden blow of The Shadow flailed harmlessly through the air.
It was like fighting in a nightmare where every blow lands with
pillow-like softness. Holding his eyes closed for a moment The Shadow opened
them suddenly. The momentary respite had aided his vision. To one side, almost
out of reach, a shape was preparing to launch itself at The Shadow.
One attacking hand was misshapen by a blurred object. Ducking suddenly,
The Shadow felt the weight of the hand and knew he was fighting against a
blackjack. He twirled on his toes like a dancer and suddenly, to his
opponent's surprise, was in back of him. He punched down at the nape of the
neck that was near him. The blow landed but glancingly. The man--it was a
man-- lashed out again with the blackjack; this time only the quickness of The
Shadow's reflexes and the double fold of cloth of the cape at the back of his
neck saved him from a rabbit punch at the base of the neck.
The blow, a sure knockout if it landed, still did enough damage to make
The Shadow reach under his cloak. Instantly, his hand reappeared, but when it
did, it was full of Colt .45.
A creaking sound behind both of them froze them as they stood. The sound
emanated from the door. The Shadow's mind raced. He had no desire to have it
known that he was in sunny California.
His attention momentarily distracted, his silent opponent glided away.
Two sounds came almost on each other's heels. The door slammed shut and
muffled, almost hidden by the louder noise, The Shadow heard a window shut.
Whoever had opened the door was trying to find the light switch. At any
second the lights might flash on and reveal The Shadow, gun in hand!
Tony Hunter came in--he was the writer --and grunted as he found the
light switch. He wondered why builders seemed to put them in the least
conspicuous place. He grunted again but louder this time as he saw, crumpled
on the floor in front of the work bench, Flip Hiller's body. Surprise followed
surprise. He had just taken in the sight of the sprawled figure when out of
the corner of his eye a flicker of movement, a suggestion of black, brought
his head around with a snap.
But when he focussed his eyes there, there was nothing. Just a shadow. He
looked up at the ceiling light. Of course it would cast a shadow there.
He said to himself, "I'm getting as scatty as everyone else around here.
Wonder who put the slug on Flip."
He hurried to Flip's side and knelt down. Probing fingers searched for
and found a lump on the back of Flip's head. The fingers applied some pressure
to the lump and Flip emitted a groan and opened his eyes.
They were pain-racked. "Wh... Hey! How'd you get here! My ship... is it
all right?"
He swayed as he sat up and looked anxiously for his newly finished model.
It was gone!
He got to his feet groggily and said, "I don't mind the clout on the
noggin, but why would anyone swipe my ship?"
"Why, indeed?" asked Hunter.
"What in the name of the seven muses is going on in this studio? Last
week I was scared stiff my option wouldn't be picked up... now I don't care
one way or the other. If there's any more rough stuff, I'm going to do my best
to get it dropped. I mean it. This business is getting worse and worse!"
Flip nodded in agreement and then moaned. "Wow, that felt as if my head
was going to burst! This is just dandy. I come in here to do some work that I
enjoy and forget the whole mess and what happens? I'm catapulted right back
into the middle of it."
"I'll say you are, you're going to report this to the cops, aren't you?"
He started to nod in answer then thought better of it and said, "I don't
want to, but I guess I better. He stared off into space as though racking his
memory and then, "You know, I have a nagging feeling in the back of my mind
that I heard some kind of a ruckus going on in here after I was slugged. I
seem to almost remember hearing a tussle going on... but that can't be.
Besides I can't really bring it into focus. I better forget it."
That was all The Shadow waited to hear. He had wanted to be sure that
Flip hadn't come to at the wrong moment and spotted him. With that off his
mind The Shadow looked around for an egress.
The two men made up his mind for him. Flip, leaning on Hunter's arm,
walked towards the door. He said, "Will you help me to my car?"
As they headed for the door a fleeting form whisked across the floor
behind them. The window eased up and... The Shadow was gone.
"Hunter! What was that? That... that laugh?"
"Boy, that clout must be a dilly! I didn't hear a sound!" Hunter looked
puzzled. "Come on, I'll get you to your car."
IV.
AT the studio gate a sleepy guard stretched his arms and yawned. His eyes
closed for a moment as he rubbed them. At that second a shadow flitted by. It
is doubtful if even with his eyes open he would have seen the flickering
motion.
When he had rubbed some of the sleep out of his eyes and looked around
there was naught to keep him from boredom.
On the street outside the studio The Shadow, hugging the wall that
encircled the studio like the battlement of some castle of old, looked ahead.
Drawn up at the curb was a cab. A cab in Los Angeles that sported New York
license plates. The Shadow's sardonic grin deepened. He moved to the door,
opened it and in one motion was in the cab and seated.
"All right, Shrevvie, where do you want to go?"
"Awk!" Shrevvie swiveled his head and gaped at the figure of night that
now was his passenger. "How... how'd ya know?"
"The Shadow knows!" This was the irritating answer. As a matter of fact
The Shadow had read in the newspapers of the progress of several New York
cabbies who had picked up G.I. travelers who had been in a hurry to get to the
West Coast and could get no train or plane accommodations--so had chosen a cab
as their covered wagon. The papers had played these up as freak pieces of
news.
"Aw right, be annoyin'! Burbank said ya might need me! So here I am!"
That explained why a particular cabbie had been willing to make the
transcontinental trip at a time when some other cab drivers would refuse to go
a mile for fear their cabs would fall apart. The Shadow leaned back and
stretched his legs out.
"The nearest drug store."
"Check." His was not to reason why, his was but to drive. Shrevvie sank
down in his seat and expressed his disapproval with the back of his neck.
The cab stopped in front of an Owl Drugstore on Hollywood and Vine.
Lamont Cranston stepped out of the cab and walked into the drugstore. He
looked through a telephone directory, turning to the "H" pages. There it was:
Hunter, Tony.
Cranston glanced at the address and returned to the cab.
"Get down to Olvera Street." Should he see Hunter as Cranston or again
don the guise of The Shadow? The choice was open in Cranston's mind. While he
thought this over the cab drove through broad lovely streets that were
punctuated occasionally by palmetto trees. Cranston leaned forward as the cab
halted.
"Whatcha want to go to dis sucker trap for? Dis is strictly fer
tourists!" Shrevvie's finger pointed to the street that seemed to have been
transported right out of Mexico. Cobble-stoned, with small curio shops and
Mexican restaurants lining it, it was completely out of place in downtown Los
Angeles. Men and women in Mexican costume meandered up and down the street
with lazy pace and sleepy eyes.
Why Hunter, an extravagantly paid writer, would live here was a question.
Cranston stepped from the cab with his brief case under his arm. His mind was
made up. Cranston was the guise in which to operate, in this section. He was
摘要：

TheBlackestMailbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedinTheShadowMagazine#306August1946Mysterioushandwritingonawall,aladywithatoyboatandamanwithakite--allcluestoadramatic,cunningplotwhichfindsTheShadowinHollywoodfightingthemacabremachinationsofaruthlesskiller.I.ALANDwhereanythingismorethanlikelytohappen...

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