Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 214 - The Green Terror

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THE GREEN TERROR
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. THE GREEN TERROR
? CHAPTER II. THE MAN WHO FAINTED
? CHAPTER III. GUN MOB
? CHAPTER IV. THE BLUEBELL GARAGE
? CHAPTER V. HOT SPOT
? CHAPTER VI. THE PEANUT MAN
? CHAPTER VII. HOUSE OF DEATH
? CHAPTER VIII. A CRIMINAL COMPACT
? CHAPTER IX. DARK DEATH
? CHAPTER X. FIFTEEN RINGS
? CHAPTER XI. THE SECOND RAID
? CHAPTER XII. THE CAMERAMAN
? CHAPTER XIII. SKY TERROR
? CHAPTER XIV. THE SEALED POOL
? CHAPTER XV. GUILTY SECRET
CHAPTER I. THE GREEN TERROR
THE man who entered the bank was a timid, inoffensive-looking gentleman. He was tall and gaunt, with
graying hair and stooped shoulders. He was carrying a leather suitcase. He looked around uncertainly,
then spoke to a uniformed attendant.
"I've been sent here by one of the bank's depositors. Which is Mr. Gaylord? I was told to see him."
"Over there, mister. Second booth from the left."
John Gaylord was one of the bank's vice presidents. He had sandy hair, a blond mustache and a pleasant
smile. He glanced up at the man with the suitcase.
"Yes?"
"My name is Hilbert, sir. I'm a clerk in the office of Daniel French. Mr. French was too busy to come
over himself. He sent me."
"For what purpose?"
"He needs certain things from his safe-deposit box. I have an explanatory letter to you from Mr.
French."
He handed over the letter, and Gaylord read it. It was a brief typewritten note on French's letterhead,
explaining that he was too busy to call at the bank in person. The note identified Hilbert as a secretary in
French's employ. It requested that Hilbert be given access to French's safe-deposit vault to remove
certain documents.
Gaylord nodded as he read it. The sending of an employee by French was not unusual. French was the
busy head of a large insurance firm. He was also one of the bank's most valued customers. A request like
this was not to be ignored.
Gaylord, however, was cautious enough to examine the signature under the bright circle of his desk lamp.
He was a personal friend of French and familiar with his signature. He found it to be genuine.
But there was something about the manner of the gaunt clerk with the suitcase that made Gaylord
hesitate. The man seemed ill at ease. The hand that rested on the vice president's desk was trembling
slightly.
Gaylord said curtly, "Just a moment." He glanced at the letterhead and reached for his telephone. He
dialed the office telephone number of Daniel French.
"This is Gaylord speaking, from the Coastal Bank," he said. "Sorry to bother you, Mr. French, but there's
a man here who says he's an employee of yours."
"You mean Hilbert? That's quite all right. Please see that he's given every courtesy. And by the way, how
about a round of golf with me next Saturday? I'd like revenge for the last time you trimmed me."
Gaylord grinned. French was an ideal golf opponent. He played poorly and always insisted on large side
bets.
The vice president hung up and scribbled a pass. Hilbert took it and went down the rear marble staircase
to the basement of the bank. When he showed his pass, the guard unlocked the massive barred gate and
admitted French's clerk to the vault.
Hilbert set his leather suitcase down on the floor and stared timidly about as the vault attendant reached
for the master key that was necessary to complete the unlocking of any of the safe-deposit boxes that
lined the inner wall of the vault.
There were three or four customers in the vault, but Hilbert seemed more interested in a large mirror that
hung on the wall beyond them.
His voice sounded shrill as he pointed to the mirror.
"Good heavens! What a queer color!"
The customers followed the direction of Hilbert's pointing finger. So did the startled gaze of the vault
attendant. The whole surface of the mirror was a bright pink! As they watched, they saw the pink color
deepen rapidly. It changed to blood-red!
No one noticed that Hilbert was no longer staring toward the mirror. He had bent quickly over the
suitcase on the floor. His thin fingers unstrapped it with a swift gesture.
Inside the suitcase was a metal box. It seemed to be made of lead. There was a small button on the top
of the metal box. Hilbert pressed it.
Instantly the four sides of the metal box dropped flat.
But before that happened, an amazing change occurred in the appearance of Hilbert. One hand had
jerked something from the pocket of his overcoat. It looked like a rubber bathing cap. He slipped it
completely over his head and face. It was a strange combination, like a football player's helmet and a gas
mask.
Thick rubber disks covered Hilbert's ears. Goggles of a greenish-tinted glass protected his eyes. There
was a snoutlike projection over his mouth and nose.
His rubber-and-metal mask was bathed in a vivid green light that shone from within the open lead box!
The light was thrown in all directions by reflectors inside the box. It came from a series of small bulbs like
the tubes of a radio set. There were loops of wire and a dizzy array of soldered connections. But if it
were a strange, new type of radio set, it contained no loudspeaker. The greenish glare of light bathed the
safe-deposit vault in a sickly silence.
The ray had no effect whatever on the masked Mr. Hilbert. But its effect on everyone else was
incredible.
Terror!
People froze horribly where they stood. It was as though the light had turned them into clay dummies.
Every muscle in their frozen bodies was tense. Their eyes bulged with unwinking horror in the greenish
glow. They were incapable of the slightest movement.
But Hilbert found no trouble in moving. He glided with catlike speed to the side of the attendant. The man
had just taken a master key from his uniform pocket. Hilbert pried it from the terror-stricken fingers.
He raced to a small cupboard where the duplicate keys of box owners hung on tiny numbered hooks. He
selected the key of Daniel French and several others. Then he sprang toward the locked boxes that
formed the inner wall of the vault.
It was impossible to see which box Hilbert opened. His hunched back hid the rapid motion of his hands.
Nor was it possible to tell what he stole. A sweep of his left hand transferred something to an inner
pocket of his coat. The lid of the box clicked shut.
Then Hilbert turned.
The hypnotized terror of his victims seemed to amuse him. A faint gurgle of laughter sounded from behind
that monstrous mask. Then Hilbert calmly replaced the master key in the stiffened fingers of the vault
attendant. He gave the man a contemptuous push and the attendant fell down. He lay in a stiff huddle, like
an overturned toy.
Hilbert strode toward the locked steel door of the vault. The guard outside was clutching the bars with a
force that whitened his clenched fingers. Hilbert reached through the bars, took a ring of keys from the
terror-frozen guard and quietly unlocked the burglar-proof barrier.
The guard fell on his face as the door swung open.
Hilbert glanced out. There was no one in sight at the foot of the marble steps that led to the main banking
room upstairs. Again laughter purred behind that monstrous mask. Hilbert raced back to the opened lead
box. He snapped the sides and the lid back into place.
The greenish glow died. But the mirror on the wall still held that strange hue of blood. And not a person
in the vault was able to move an inch or utter a sound.
Evidently the terror ray exerted a delayed effect that took time to wear off.
The mask that had protected Hilbert's ears, eyes and throat went back into his overcoat pocket. Once
more he became the timid, inoffensive clerk who had received permission from a vice president of the
bank to open Daniel French's box.
Upstairs, Gaylord glanced up briefly and nodded as Hilbert headed for the street door with his suitcase.
But a minute or two later all hell broke loose in the bank!
Shouts sounded from the basement. A wild group of men raced upward into view. Foremost was the
armed guard of the vault. His gun was in his hand now. He had lost all the terror that had frozen him to a
helpless statue in the glow of that horrible green ray.
He could see no sign of Hilbert outside.
He slammed the door of the bank and locked it. His hand jerked at an alarm device. Instantly a siren
began to shriek. It raised shrill echoes in the bank and in the street outside.
But it was too late. A daring bank robbery had been successfully accomplished. The guard, having seen
no sign of Hilbert outside, concluded that the meek holdup man was still trapped somewhere within the
premises.
It was a wrong guess. Hilbert had made good his escape. He had left the bank during the few minutes
that the delayed action of the terror ray had allowed him.
But Hilbert had not quite escaped detection. One man in the street sensed what was going on. He was a
crook with a quick wit and a smart, unscrupulous brain.
He was more than a crook. He was a ruthless killer!
SLASHER DOYLE didn't need a blueprint to sniff crime. He had a long nose and thin, cruel lips. He
thought it was a little odd when he saw a man dart out of a bank with a heavy suitcase. Slasher thought it
was even queerer when he noticed how quickly the man ducked from sight.
Slasher kept an eye on a nearby doorway, where the man with the suitcase had vanished. While Slasher
was doing this, the shouting bank guard peered vainly up and down the street, then jumped back inside
and locked the door.
After that the wild uproar of the bank's siren broke loose.
A huge crowd began to gather. A policeman came running down from the corner. From the distance
came the wail of a radio car. Slasher mingled with the crowd of spectators. But he kept an eye on the
doorway down the street.
He saw the man with the suitcase reappear and move quietly away from the disturbance. No one paid
any attention to Hilbert - or to Slasher, either. Slasher followed his quarry, making certain that he was not
noticed by the wise guy who had just cracked the bank.
The sag of that suitcase in Hilbert's grasp made Slasher's mouth water. It was a highjack job made to
order for him. Under Slasher's coat was a leather scabbard that contained a long-bladed knife. Slasher
never used a gun. Guns were noisy.
He figured that the suitcase of the guy ahead must contain at least five grand in cash. Even on a hurried
robbery, a guy ought to grab that much. The guy with the suitcase must have used a clever gag.
Otherwise how had he been able to walk out so quietly before the alarm started?
Slasher decided that the man had pulled a neat swindle of some sort. It made a highjack even easier!
Swindlers were a class of mugs that Slasher despised. They depended on their wits rather than tough
stuff.
The man ahead kept on walking. To Slasher's delight, he headed east toward a frowzy neighborhood of
tenements. When the time was ripe, Slasher crowded up behind his victim.
The sharp point of a knife made an agonized prick in Hilbert's ribs. The point pressed through Hilbert's
coat and vest as if they were butter.
"Keep your trap shut!" Slasher Doyle growled. "Act like you're an old friend of mine. Walk nice and
slow into that alley!"
The alley made a dark cut between the brick walls of two tenements. Hilbert gasped and obeyed. The
two men walked close together. No one on the sidewalk noticed anything unusual.
Behind the alley was a dim stone courtyard. A blank wall shielded it on one side. The overhang of a
cellar entrance hid the two men from the sight of anyone who might be looking out a rear window above.
"Don't kill me!" Hilbert gasped. "Take my wallet. I've only got a few dollars!"
"What's in the bag?"
"Nothing. Just some old clothes."
"You're a liar! You just stuck up a bank. I want that dough!"
Hilbert's eyes gleamed briefly.
"O.K. You've got me. I pulled a swindle on the paying teller and got away with ten thousand bucks.
Gimme a break and I'll split with you."
"It's a deal," Slasher hissed. "Get down in that cellar."
The cellar entrance was dark. It made a knife job easier. A yell from the sap wouldn't be heard. Slasher
leaned closer as his victim loosened the straps of the suitcase.
He didn't notice the snouted mask until it slid swiftly from Hilbert's overcoat pocket and snapped over
the bank robber's head. The sight of that ugly covering made Slasher recoil. For an instant he stood
instinctively on the defensive.
An instant was all that Hilbert needed. The sides fell away from the lead box. The greenish glow from the
reflectors bathed Slasher's face with a corpselike hue.
His eyes bulged with blind, unreasoning terror. One arm flung itself over his face. He stood stiffened in
that pose of terror.
Hilbert started to wrench the knife from Slasher's fingers. The paralyzed thug held on so tightly that it
wasn't easy to wrench the weapon loose. Hilbert changed his mind. He wasn't interested in murder; all he
wanted was to get away.
With a lithe motion he closed the leaden box. He snapped shut the clasps of the suitcase. He whipped the
mask from his face.
A moment later Hilbert vanished through the rear courtyard, leaving Slasher crouched like a stone
gargoyle, with one arm still frozen in front of his fear-twisted face.
HILBERT walked quietly down the street. Part way down the block was the goal he had been heading
for when Slasher had made his murderous interruption.
A car was parked at the curb. It was empty. Hilbert walked around the rear to the trunk. The trunk was
not locked. Raising it as calmly as if he owned the car - which he didn't - Hilbert stowed his deadly
suitcase away. He snapped the lid of the trunk shut, made sure it was tightly locked. Then he walked
onward to the corner.
An instant before Hilbert turned southward down the avenue, Slasher Doyle appeared at a tumbling trot
from the tenement alley. The tardy effect of the fear ray had worn off, but the memory of the horror he
had experienced was still vivid in Slasher's bulging eyes. A couple of pedestrians gave him a startled
glance, but Slasher paid no attention.
He had seen Hilbert vanish around the corner.
He began to hurry in pursuit, one hand resting grimly on the concealed knife scabbard beneath his coat.
Fear in Slasher's brain bad been replaced by rage. Rage - and wonder.
Slasher knew now the secret of that amazing suitcase! The thought of loot had vanished from his mind.
He had stumbled on a magnificent crime device, the like of which Slasher had never dreamed of.
He knew now why the guy with the suitcase had turned the bank upside down without being caught. Any
bank in the world would be easy meat for the owner of that hellish green ray. It had turned Slasher's
blood to water. It had changed him into a cringing dummy, unable to move a muscle or to utter a sound.
Slasher wanted that fear ray with every atom of lust in his criminal body!
His quick glance had shown him that Hilbert no longer had the suitcase. But that made no difference.
Without his lead box, the guy was helpless. Slasher's knife would make him talk and talk damned fast!
There was only one thing that the excited Slasher didn't notice. A car parked at the curb had a rather
queer-looking rear-vision mirror in it. Its hue was blood red.
But Slasher passed the empty car without turning his head. He rounded the corner.
A block down the avenue he saw the gaunt figure of the man he intended to kidnap. Slasher drew a deep
breath. His nerves quieted.
With death in his slitted eyes, Slasher Doyle began to trail his defenseless quarry.
CHAPTER II. THE MAN WHO FAINTED
"IT sounds crazy!" Joe Cardona growled.
"That's exactly how it happened," Gaylord said.
The bank's vice president stroked his blond mustache with a shaking hand. His face was pale.
Inspector Cardona had arrived swiftly on the scene after the first report had been flashed to
headquarters. In the New York police department Cardona was regarded as its ace sleuth. He barked a
quick command to the plain-clothes men who had come with him.
"Get busy! I want photographs. I want every inch of that vault dusted for fingerprints. Rafferty, phone in a
description of Hilbert to headquarters. I want a teletype alarm sent out to every precinct in the city!"
Through the front window of the bank, Cardona could see an enormous crowd on the sidewalk. It took
a dozen cops to hold them back. In some mysterious way a rumor had seeped to the crowd outside that
a holdup of a strange and baffling nature bad taken place.
"A radium holdup!" voices cried.
Cardona scowled as he heard the word repeated by an employee inside the bank.
"Radium, hell! Radium doesn't freeze people in their tracks. What were you so frightened about when
that green ray hit you?"
He was addressing the vault watchman. The man shook his head in dull wonder.
"I don't know, inspector. I'm no coward. I used to be on the force, as you know. There was something
hellish about that green light. It tied me in knots! Made me more scared than I've ever been in my life! I
didn't even know why I was scared."
Cardona looked unhappy. A ray that paralyzed men, that turned mirrors dull red, was something new in
the way of a bank robbery. And why had Hilbert confined his attention to the safe-deposit box? What
had he stolen?
Cardona wasn't even sure which deposit box had been robbed. The action of the burglar in shielding his
hands with his body at the moment of the actual robbery made it uncertain which of the steel boxes had
actually been opened. Perhaps the forged letter from Daniel French was a blind to hide a raid on the lock
box of some other depositor.
Gaylord shook his head when Cardona suggested this.
"It wasn't a forged letter. I'm perfectly familiar with French's signature. It was genuine!"
A moment later two men pushed through the massed crowd outside the bank. One of them was a
plainclothes detective. The other was Daniel French. The detective had been sent hurriedly to fetch the
insurance executive to the bank. His presence ought to help clear up the mystery.
The typewritten message which Hilbert had used to gain access to the vault downstairs was still lying on
Gaylord's desk. Cardona handed it to French.
"Do you know anything about this?"
French took a slow look at it, then shook his head.
"I never saw it before. I have no secretary by the name of Hilbert."
"I knew it!" Cardona growled. "You were mistaken about that signature, Gaylord. It's a forgery!"
"Wait!" French gasped. There was startled wonder in his eyes as he gazed at the paper in his trembling
hands. "The note is a fake! I never dictated it. But the signature is genuine!"
Cardona uttered an oath.
"If you never heard of Hilbert, why did you vouch for him when Gaylord called you up?"
"I had no phone call from Gaylord," French said slowly.
Cardona stared at the pale-faced bank vice president.
"Why did you lie to me about that phone call?"
"I didn't! I phoned French. He said Hilbert was his representative. At any rate, somebody spoke to me
over the wire. Somebody who sounded like French."
"What number did you call?"
"The number on the letterhead."
French took the typewritten sheet from Cardona's fingers. The wonder in his eyes redoubled.
"That's not my telephone number," he said. "The exchange is correct, but the number is wrong."
CARDONA swung on his heel. He handed the letter to one of the plainclothes men.
"Hop into a department car, Rafferty. Take this thing as fast as you can to the crime laboratory at
headquarters. Tell them I want an immediate test made. As soon as you get a report, hop back here."
Rafferty hurried out of the bank. Cardona grabbed up the phone on Gaylord's desk, called the telephone
company and spoke to a high official. His rasping brought quick results. After a few moments the phone
bell rang. Cardona wrote down the address of the location of the phone that Gaylord had called earlier.
"Don't let anyone leave this bank until I get back!" Joe barked.
A sergeant nodded. Cardona left the bank, shoved his way through the crowd on the sidewalk and
sprang into a police car at the curb.
The car sped away.
Cardona's goal turned out to be a shabby-looking four-story building two blocks away from the ornate
structure that housed Daniel French's big insurance company. Most of the offices were grubby little
affairs. A lot of them were vacant.
The office Cardona was interested in was on the top floor. It had been rented by a man named George
Mallory. But there was no sign of Mallory. All that the office contained was a shabby desk and a chair.
And a telephone!
The building superintendent couldn't remember clearly what Mallory looked like. Mallory had rented the
room three days earlier. He had paid a month in advance. He had worn a gray suit, was of average build,
and had a clean-shaven face.
"What color hair and eyes?" Cardona barked.
"I... I don't know. He had on his hat. And he was wearing dark glasses. Just like an average sort of guy."
Cardona cursed. But he was stubborn. He spent a long time in the office, hunting for a definite clue to
"Mallory." His time was wasted.
In the end he had to drive back to the bank. His mouth tautened as he saw that Rafferty had returned
from the police crime laboratory.
"Well?"
Rafferty was excited.
"They put the paper under the lights and found out the answer. Take a look at it now, inspector!"
Cardona studied the sheet. An amazing transformation had occurred to the document presented to the
bank by the sly Hilbert. There were two typewritten messages on the paper!
One was the note which Gaylord had read. The other was a routine message from Daniel French to one
of his subordinates. This latter message was between the lines of the first. It was faded and brown, but
clearly decipherable. The printed telephone number, too, was different.
"They faded out French's actual memo with some sort of acid," Rafferty explained. "They did the same
thing with the telephone number. Then they retyped the thing, without touching French's signature. That's
how Gaylord was fooled!"
Cardona swung around toward French.
"What did you have in that safe-deposit box downstairs," he demanded.
"Just a few routine papers of no particular worth. I can't understand why the theft occurred at all."
"We don't know yet whether French's box was the one raided," Gaylord suggested in a troubled tone.
"The vault attendant says that Hilbert screened his hands with his body when he opened one of the
boxes. Perhaps Hilbert deliberately involved French in this mystery so as to hide his real purpose."
"We'll soon find out," Cardona snapped. "Let's go downstairs."
The duplicate keys to all the boxes were still hanging on their rack, including the few which Hilbert had
snatched and returned to their places. Cardona selected French's key and obtained the master key from
the vault attendant.
There was an excited craning of necks when the little door swung wide. Inside was a flat tin box.
Cardona opened it. It was empty.
"That settles it," Cardona muttered. "It proves that your box was the one robbed, Mr. French. Damned
funny that a thief who went to all that amazing preparation should steal only a few unimportant papers."
"All I had was what I've already told you," French explained. "Things like my birth certificate, a few
trinkets of sentimental value. My dead mother's wedding ring, for instance. Nothing that could be of the
slightest benefit to a thief."
He spoke jerkily. There was a queer catch to his breathing. Cardona stared at him in wonder. A pallor
had come over French's face. Suddenly he staggered.
Daniel French toppled to the floor in a dead faint!
GAYLORD ran to his desk, opened a drawer and produced a bottle of whiskey. While Cardona
supported the insurance man's head, Gaylord poured some of the fiery liquor down French's throat.
After a while French revived. He rose weakly to his feet.
"I'm sorry to have made such an ass of myself, inspector. This thing has unnerved me."
Cardona didn't believe a word he said. No man toppled over in a faint because of the loss of a few
unimportant documents and a handful of trinkets.
But French stuck doggedly to his story. He was unwell, he declared. He suffered from low blood
pressure. The excitement of so baffling a crime had unnerved him.
He asked for, and received, police permission to go to his home. After French had departed. Cardona
scratched his head. Maybe the guy was telling the truth! His behavior was the least screwy part of this
whole business.
Who was Hilbert?
And what about that deadly lead box with the greenish ray that paralyzed human beings into statues of
terror? Was this crazy holdup perhaps only in the nature of a criminal try-out? Would there be more
attempts on the vaults of other banks?
Cardona put the problem of French's behavior out of his mind. He concentrated on the problem of the
fear ray. The more Cardona thought about that deadly green ray, the more his head ached.
He wished he could get in touch, somehow, with The Shadow!
THE room was shrouded in darkness.
Not a sound was audible. Not even a current of air moved. A human eye might have stared indefinitely
into that velvet blackness without being able to say positively that the room contained a living being. But a
living being was there.
The Shadow was in his sanctum!
Sibilant laughter hissed through the darkness. The laughter died into silence. Then suddenly a blue light
glowed. It was a small light, but very powerful. Its beam was directed downward. It threw an oval of
brilliance on the surface of a polished desk.
The hands of The Shadow rested in that pool of brilliance. Part of his face was visible. His hawklike nose
betokened strength and power. Thin lips were curved slightly in a meditative smile. The Shadow had
received interesting news from Burbank, his contact man.
The news had been relayed from Clyde Burke. Burke a reporter from the Daily Classic, had gone to the
Coastal Bank shortly after the amazing holdup. He had turned in a report to his paper. Then he had
telephoned Burbank.
Clyde Burke was a secret agent of The Shadow.
The tapering fingers of The Shadow moved beyond the spot of brilliance. When they returned they held a
sheet of blank paper. A quill pen of antique design was in The Shadow's right hand. Dipping the pen into
an ancient inkhorn, The Shadow wrote.
A mathematical equation appeared on the paper. It was a preliminary equation, one that summed up
preliminary thoughts on the part of The Shadow:
Zero in loot+French's terror=blackmail (?)
It was an indication of the drift of The Shadow's thoughts. Like Inspector Cardona, he didn't believe that
摘要:

THEGREENTERRORMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.THEGREENTERROR?CHAPTERII.THEMANWHOFAINTED?CHAPTERIII.GUNMOB?CHAPTERIV.THEBLUEBELLGARAGE?CHAPTERV.HOTSPOT?CHAPTERVI.THEPEANUTMAN?CHAPTERVII.HOUSEOFDEATH?CHAPTERVIII.ACRIMINALCOMPACT?CHAPTERIX.DARKDEATH?C...

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