Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 178 - Death from Nowhere

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DEATH FROM NOWHERE
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," July 15, 1939.
Death from nowhere...but The Shadow was there to trace its source!
CHAPTER I
CRIME TO COME
THERE were very few patrons in the Club Cadiz at the early hour of five
in
the afternoon. Archie Dreller noticed that when he came up the stairs from the
street. A smile formed on his sallow, weak-chinned face, bringing a twitch to
the feeble tips of his half-grown mustache.
Passing a row of tables, Archie sneaked to a short hallway beyond the
telephone booths and knocked at the door of Silk Elredge's office. A smooth
voice invited him to enter and Archie did so, after casting a shoulder look
along the dim passage behind him.
That short hallway was not as deserted as Archie supposed. A tall,
hawk-faced patron had risen from a table when the young man went by, and had
taken the same route. Near the passage, however, the personage in question had
merged with the gloomy background, thanks to garments that he had drawn over
head and shoulders.
Attired in black cloak and slouch hat, he was a thing unseen as he glided
toward the closing door of the office. With gloved hand, he turned the knob
slowly, imperceptibly, and edged the door inward a mere half inch.
The Shadow, strange being who trailed crime to its source, was looking in
upon this interview between Archie Dreller and Silk Elredge.
Usually, chaps like Archie visited Silk because they owed him money lost
at the faro table on the floor above. This, however, was Archie's fourth call
during the past week: and the frequency of those visits told that something
else was afoot. Apparently, they had settled the details previously, for this
conference proved very brief.
Across the desk from Archie sat Silk Elredge, faced partly toward the
door. His roundish face had a smoothness that went with his oily tone; the
only
expression that he ever betrayed was a slight flicker of his eyes. Silk was
listening, with poker-faced attitude, when Archie questioned eagerly:
"Then I won't have to talk to my uncle?"
"Not a word," purred Silk. "Have your friends in for the poker party as
usual tonight."
"And tomorrow?"
"Start on that cruise we talked about. You've made the arrangements,
haven't you?"
"Yes. But I was afraid you'd changed your mind -"
"I seldom change my mind."
Silk spoke that sentence with a final note, that meant the interview was
ended. Archie arose, gave a grin.
"I'll run along and meet my sister," he declared. "She's got to be
somewhere at five-thirty, and I'm taking her there. Anything else, Silk?"
"Yes." Silk's eyes showed a flicker. "You'd better hold that poker game
to
a five-ten limit, so you won't be broke when you go on board ship tomorrow."
There was vacancy in the passage when Archie Dreller went out. Silk
Elredge followed, a few moments later, and paused to look around the night
club. He saw a tall, hawk-faced customer rising from a corner table, and
approached.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Cranston," greeted Silk. "It's rather unusual,
seeing
you here so early."
"I enjoy solitude," returned Cranston, in an even tone, "and no place
could be more quiet than a night club at five in the afternoon."
The statement brought a nod of agreement from Silk. The proprietor of the
Club Cadiz started across the dance floor. Halfway to the bar, a sudden
thought
struck him; he decided to return and give some pretext for talking further
with
Cranston. But when Silk finally turned about, he noticed the early customer
going down the stairway, carrying hat and coat across his arm.
MEANWHILE, Archie Dreller had reached a sporty roadster, wherein he
slouched behind the wheel and lighted a cigarette, expecting a prolonged wait
before his sister Louise joined him. To his amazement, she arrived within ten
minutes.
Though Louise had features that resembled Archie's, she was quite
attractive. Archie's profile consisted of a sloped forehead, a sharp nose,
puffy lips, and no chin - a very poor combination.
As for Louise, her fluffy blond hair produced an attractive forehead; her
nose, though thin, had an aristocratic touch. Her lips were definitely
languorous, and her chin could be properly described as small.
She was gifted, too, with a dimply smile and baby-blue eyes that carried
a
trustful gaze. Archie, however, considered the smile and the stare as proof
that
there was no brain behind them. He gave a snort when Louise told him that she
wanted to go to an address in the East Fifties.
"I thought so!" he exclaimed savagely, as he wheeled the roadster from
the
curb. "You're going to see that fortuneteller again!"
"Rahman Singh is not a fortuneteller," reproved Louise. "He is an adept!"
"An adept at what?"
"He holds the wisdom of the East."
Archie thought that one over, while they paused in front of a traffic
light. He gave another snort.
"Wisdom of the East Side, you mean! If Rahman Singh is such a hot-shot,
why isn't he on Park Avenue?"
"His surroundings are unimportant to him," replied Louise. "His occult
powers are superior to all else. He has proven that by the remarkable things
that he has told me."
Archie nervously slipped the car into gear. Giving a side glance toward
his sister, he asked anxiously:
"What did he tell you?"
"He told me," replied Louise, "that I had an uncle named Adam Rendrew,
from whom I shall inherit a trust fund of twenty-five thousand dollars. He
said
I had a brother - that's you, Archie - who was to receive the same amount."
"He pumped that out of you!" snapped Archie. "You're a fool, sis. A crazy
little fool!"
Louise didn't notice the comment. Staring straight ahead, she continued
her account:
"Rahman Singh also told me that Uncle Adam has a stepson named John
Osman,
who lives at the house with us. He said that John would receive the rest of
the
estate, about two hundred thousand dollars, because of the faithful way in
which he has managed Uncle Adam's business affairs."
Archie's attempted mustache was performing wigwags with its tiny tips.
This was going too deep into family affairs! But Archie was to hear more - and
worse.
"Besides," declared Louise triumphantly, "Rahman Singh told me all about
our cousin, Dwight Kelden!"
Traffic started a pile-up behind the roadster, when Archie jammed on the
brakes.
"You know what Uncle Adam has always told us!" he exclaimed. "We're never
to mention Dwight's name to anyone!"
"But I didn't mention it -"
"You must have! Listen: if Dwight ever found out that Uncle Adam swindled
his father, years ago, there'd be a lawsuit that would take every nickel that
Uncle Adam has got. If -"
Honking horns interrupted. Starting the car, Archie continued with
incoherent mutters, which ended only when Louise assured him that Rahman Singh
had said nothing about the money. He had merely stated, so Louise said, that
her cousin, Dwight Kelden, lived in California.
The car pulled up in front of a basement doorway flanked by
heavy-curtained windows. Louise alighted, and was admitted by a dark-skinned
servant in Hindu attire.
Archie drove away, intending to be back in half an hour. He didn't care
about the dusk and heavy traffic. He just wanted to be on the move, so that he
could mutter as much as he pleased without having people stop and stare at
him.
CONDUCTED by the servant, Louise went through a shabby anteroom, across a
larger room where chairs were set in rows in front of a platform. She reached
a
corner door, hung with frayed velvet curtains. The door opened, revealing a
bearded man with glittering eyes, who wore a Hindu costume complete to turban.
"Enter the sanctum, Miss Dreller," said Rahman Singh, in a rich, deep
tone. "The crystal foretold your arrival. We shall consult it further."
As they sat at a table centered by a crystal ball, Louise produced a
letter from her handbag. It bore an air-mail stamp and was postmarked San
Diego.
"It came this morning," said the girl. "From Dwight. I wrote him, as you
suggested. Of course, I didn't mention any of those family matters that you
learned from the crystal. But -"
She paused. Rahman Singh was drawing the envelope across his forehead. It
pressed the band that marked the lower border of his turban. A liquid that
Louise did not notice was sponged against the face of the envelope.
Lowering the letter toward the crystal ball, Rahman Singh was able to
read
the message, for the liquid had rendered his side of the envelope transparent.
Laying the envelope aside, he stared at the crystal.
"I see a journey," declared the Hindu, "to the south - to Mexico. Dwight
Kelden will be gone for two weeks."
"Oh, marvelous!" exclaimed Louise. "That's exactly what he told me in the
letter!"
She was reaching for the letter, but the Hindu's hand stopped hers. The
envelope was not yet dry; he had to fill in more time.
"I see a dark-haired woman -"
Louise interrupted with an exclamation; then laughed.
"It must be a Mexican senorita," she decided, "but I thought for a moment
that it might be Helene Graymond. She's the girl who comes to our house and
works as secretary for John Osman. She met Dwight when he was East, a year
ago,
but I suppose that by this time she has forgotten him."
Soon afterward, Rahman Singh completed his study of the crystal and
returned the letter to Louise. He reminded her that there was to be a special
seance at eight-thirty that evening.
"I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Louise. "I won't be able to come. I'm going to
a
party."
"With your brother?"
"No," returned Louise. "This is the night when he and his friends play
poker at the house. Why, you should be able to see all that, Rahman Singh!"
They had reached the anteroom; the Hindu gave an apologetic bow, showing
a
white-toothed smile from the black beard that adorned his darkish face.
"Without the crystal," he accented, gesturing back toward his sanctum, "I
am helpless. But with the crystal - ah! - you have seen my power to learn
all."
Louise was still nodding when the servant ushered her out to the street,
Rahman Singh returning to the inner premises. The girl looked at her watch,
noticed that it was not yet six o'clock, which meant that she would have to
wait awhile before Archie returned.
DURING the seven minutes that she stood outside the darkened doorway,
Louise became vaguely conscious of a stir from a passageway beyond a
neighboring house. Staring, she thought that she saw a sliding patch of
blackness. It faded as she watched, and Louise, from then on, was gazing in
the
wrong direction.
The shape had flitted along the wall beside her, to merge with deep
darkness. Eyes were watching from the gloom, when Archie's car pulled up.
Hovering closely, the unseen observer heard Archie say:
"Listen, sis, if that fake Hindu is throwing one of his shindigs tonight,
you're not going."
"There will be a seance tonight," returned Louise, icily, "but it happens
that I accepted an invitation to a party at the Witherspoons' apartment, and
am
going there instead."
Archie seemed satisfied, when they drove away. So did The Shadow, as he
emerged from darkness. Keeping clear of the doorway, where Rahman Singh's
servant might be on watch, The Shadow chose a rapid course along the gloomy
street.
Later, The Shadow arrived in his own sanctum, a room with shrouded walls
that spoke of actual mystery. Compared to the headquarters of The Shadow, the
tawdry parlor that Rahman Singh termed a sanctum was a pitiful sham.
The Shadow's sanctum was hidden away in an old building in the heart of
New York City.
Plucking earphones from the wall, The Shadow spoke to his contact man,
Burbank, and gave him certain instructions that were due to end the false
career of the self-styled Hindu, Rahman Singh. Then came a whispered laugh,
eerie and prophetic in its tone.
Apparently The Shadow, through methods of his own, was quite conversant
with circumstances that surrounded Adam Rendrew, and his various relations.
The
Shadow was to prove a figure in those affairs, as much as either Silk Elredge
or
Rahman Singh.
Just how those two fitted into the picture, only The Shadow knew; but
from
his findings, he knew that crime would soon be due. How soon it would strike
was
evidenced when he inscribed in ink the single word: "Tomorrow."
The written word faded from the paper, as was the way with all The
Shadow's secret writing; for he wrote with disappearing ink. Tomorrow, The
Shadow would be prepared to battle coming crime!
CHAPTER II
MURDER IN ADVANCE
AT night, the Rendrew mansion looked very much like a morgue. Standing on
a side street in Manhattan, it loomed above other forgotten residences, as if
proud of the fact that it had dominated the neighborhood for more than fifty
years.
The mansion's only rival was the house next door, but that structure had
long ago fallen into decay. Separated from the Rendrew mansion by an inner
courtyard, the next-door house showed lines of windows that had been boarded
up
for the past ten years.
The interior of the Rendrew house was anything but cheerful. The rooms
were large, but gloomy; the hallways seemed like caverns. The only place that
bore a modern touch was the ground-floor room that had been converted into an
office.
A girl was seated there, staring reflectively at the wall. She was Helene
Graymond, the secretary whose name Louise had mentioned to Rahman Singh.
Usually, Helene left the house at five o'clock and did not return until the
next day.
Tonight, she had remembered some important accounts and had come back
here
on her own. She had finished her work, and the silence of the old house had
stirred her recollections of those who lived in the place. Never had Helene
encountered a more curious menage than the Rendrew household.
Of course, old Adam Rendrew was the cause. He was a crabby old tyrant,
whose meanness forced others to adopt protective measures. About the only
person who could handle him at all was his stepson, John Osman.
Middle-aged and methodical, Osman handled Rendrew's affairs to
perfection;
in fact, had pulled them out of serious difficulties.
The old man had overinvested in real estate, which he had been unable to
sell. To offset that, Osman had become a rental agent, with his office here in
the old house, and was making the properties show a profit. Whenever he could
manage it, Osman went to his club for dinner, as he had done this evening, for
he disliked the smugness that he had to show in order to please old Rendrew.
Archie Dreller had developed into a whiny weakling, through living with
his uncle. He was always trying to please the old man, so that he would not
lose the trust fund that Rendrew had promised him. Archie's one refuge was a
room that he called his den, which was in the basement underneath the kitchen.
There, once a week, Archie brought in friends for a poker game, a
practice
which his uncle tolerated because the den was so remote. This evening,
Archie's
pals had been going through the hall on tiptoe, until they had all assembled.
Louise had always managed to offset Rendrew's tyranny by playing dumb.
When she went out evenings, she was supposed to be in by half past ten, and
the
side door was left unlocked until that time. Old Rendrew never checked to find
out if Louise did return by ten thirty.
He assumed that should Louise ever arrive home late and find the door
locked; she would become a wandering, shelterless creature, who would return
the next day broken by the cruel world.
New York, however, had changed a lot since Uncle Adam's day. Louise had
many friends, and if she couldn't get home by half past ten, she simply stayed
out all night. In fact, she had sometimes dropped into Helene's apartment
along
around three o'clock in the morning, to sleep there until noon.
There was another member of the Rendrew household. He was Froy, the old
servant, who moved about like a human cat and had probably moved into the
house
along with the original furniture. Froy, more than any one, seemed to have
been
completely shaped by the influence of old Adam Rendrew.
In the two years that she had worked for John Osman, Helene had met only
one person that she really liked. That person was Dwight Kelden, a nephew of
Adam Rendrew, who had visited the house a year ago. After staying two nights,
Dwight had gone to a hotel, but he had called Helene from there; and she had
seen him often while he remained in New York.
For some reason, Dwight's name was seldom mentioned by his relatives.
What
the mystery was, Helene had never been able to learn - not even from Dwight,
who
never seemed to take the matter seriously. Nevertheless, it was a problem to
which Helene gave much thought and hoped some day to find an answer.
FROM the hallway came a sound that ended Helene's reverie. It was the
chiming of the big clock; Helene counted the strokes that followed it. There
were nine, and the hour presaged an event that had never varied on any of the
nights that Helene had remained here.
Slow, draggy footsteps approached. They were shuddery as they echoed
through the old mansion; but the paces simply meant that old Adam Rendrew was
on his way to bed, as he always did punctually at nine o'clock. He based his
habits on a never-changing schedule that might have been actuated by the
mechanism of the old clock in the hall.
Outside the office door, the footsteps stopped.
That had never happened before. Suddenly, Helene had the reason. This was
the first time that she had ever worked late without Osman being in the
office.
That must have aroused either Rendrew's curiosity or suspicion. Turning toward
the door, Helene saw the old man bristling from the threshold.
Against the hall's gloomy background, Adam Rendrew looked like a gray
monstrosity matched by the house itself. His eyes were gray, so were his bushy
eyebrows, that seemed miniatures of his shocky hair. Even his withery face was
gray; down past his thin nose, a chin tapered beneath the points of his
wing-tip collar.
Helene was meeting the stare of tyrannical eyes that had never before
seemed to notice her. From deep in his throat, Rendrew croaked:
"Why are you here?"
Remembering how Osman met such challenges, Helene used the same system; a
methodical manner of reply.
"I had work to finish," she declared, "so I came here."
Rendrew's lips curled a smile of doubt, produced by a forward thrust of
his chin.
"I heard John say he would not need you," asserted the old man. "He told
you he was having dinner at the club."
Helene replied coolly that she had not remembered the extra work until
she
was having her own dinner. Swinging to the typewriter table, she began to
gather
typed sheets and arrange them. At moments, she turned in Rendrew's direction
and
was conscious that he had remained to stare.
It wasn't surprising that the old man should give the girl close
scrutiny.
His gray eyes saw a rounded face that had every claim to beauty. Brown eyes
shone beneath brows that had a penciled curve. Helene's nose was one of
sculptured fineness, above lips that were delicate, yet firm. Clearly outlined
against Helene's dark hair, that face was completed by a perfect chin, that
showed determination in its thrust.
That challenge was the sort that old Rendrew would accept from no one. He
lingered, seeking a pretext that would enable him to prove the girl at fault
merely because of her presence.
"I heard no ring at the front door," he creaked suddenly, "nor did I hear
Froy admit anyone."
"I happened to remember that it was Froy's night off," returned Helene,
"so I came in by the side door."
"Who granted you that privilege?"
"Mr. Osman. You may ask him to-morrow.
The direct reply settled Rendrew for another three minutes. Then he found
a chance to issue a command that Helene would have to obey.
"Froy always returns by ten thirty," reminded Rendrew, harshly. "When he
does, he will lock that side door. Be sure that you leave before that time!"
OBLIGINGLY, Helene nodded. Satisfied that he had scored a triumph, the
old
man moved from the doorway and started toward the stairs. It had been a long
strain for him, postponing bedtime for a full ten minutes. Helene decided that
Louise would enjoy hearing that, but probably wouldn't believe it.
Smiling as she gathered up the papers, Helene hit upon the humorous
thought that those ten minutes might be regarded as the most important period
in the life of Adam Rendrew. She was to remember that later, but from another
viewpoint.
Footsteps were dwindling up the stairs. They halted, as if the old man
had
paused to listen for some sound. Helene could picture Rendrew starting a
downward sneak; then the footsteps sounded again, traveling higher.
There was a second pause, and Helene, tense, was startled by the most
amazing sound that she had ever heard. It was lower than Rendrew's paces and
sounded like an echo to the old man's footfalls!
Then Rendrew's gait was a climb no longer. He was moving along the second
floor. But the echoes still were climbing in uncanny fashion. Helene was
gripped by an unreal horror which seemed to filter in through the walls of the
old mansion. Then, in a flash, she placed those ghostly footfalls.
They weren't echoes. They came from the side stairs beyond the office
partition. Those steps were the route that led from the side door that was
left
unlocked for Louise.
Someone was sneaking up that other stairway, but Helene couldn't place
who
it might be. It certainly wasn't Osman; he always stayed late at the club. It
couldn't be Archie; he was busy, at poker, in the den. As for Louise, she was
at a party, which meant she wouldn't be home at all.
Nor Froy. If he had stayed in the kitchen, as he often did on nights off,
he might be going upstairs; but Froy, the velvet-footed, never made a sound
anywhere he went about this house.
The echoes ended. Whoever the nocturnal visitor, he had reached the top
of
his stairway, Helene listened tensely; as if in answer to her own emotion, the
girl heard other sounds.
First, a voice. Not Rendrew's, for the tone was deep. Beyond that, Helene
could not identify it, because the long halls produced a hollow effect. It
might be anyone except Rendrew, which was proven when Helene heard a croaky,
incoherent voice reply. That must be Rendrew's.
The heavy voice was repeated; the croak followed it. Stepping out of the
office, Helene moved toward the front stairway. Still she couldn't catch the
conversation, until Rendrew's voice took a higher pitch.
"Get out of here!" The croak had become a wild cackle. "Get out, I tell
you, before -"
The other voice drowned Rendrew's words, but, like the old man's tone, it
was forced. No longer heavy, the intruder's speech was savage in its hoarse
response:
"Stop! Stand where you are, or -"
A gunshot sounded.
The report was muffled; but its intervention was so startling that Helene
stood frozen. Then, oddly, she was jarred back to her senses by another shock.
First, she heard a man's mad scramble somewhere in the upstairs hallway;
then another gun burst, this time a loud report that must have come from the
hall itself. With it, there was a sudden tinkle, the shattering of a window
pane, probably in Rendrew's room.
Despite herself, Helene screamed. The shriek that she gave was probably
louder and more harrowing than any of the preceding sounds, though she didn't
realize it. Then, amid the echoes of her piercing cry, the girl heard a clang
close by.
It was the old clock, chiming the quarter hour. Its four-note melody
seemed a knell, tolling an end to the career of old Adam Rendrew!
CHAPTER III
MURDER'S CLUES
MURDER had struck in advance of the time when The Shadow had expected
crime to begin. Though Helene Graymond knew nothing of the black-cloaked
investigator and his conjectures, she recognized intuitively that death had
occurred on the floor above.
Heavy footsteps were pounding down the side stairway. The invader was
seeking exit. Her natural bravery returning, Helene dashed along a hall toward
the kitchen, intending to cut through and head off the murderer.
She saw the little passage, the side door straight ahead. A single light
was glowing, as it always did, as a beacon for the wayward Louise. Then, as
the
man plunged suddenly from the side stairs, Helene was bowled over by another
person who was also intent to cut off the intruder's escape.
It was Froy. The old servant had not gone out on his night off, had been
in the kitchen. Hearing Helene's scream, he had come to give aid. The girl saw
Froy lock with the invader; together, they reeled out through the side door
the
intruder had opened.
Froy was taller than his adversary; that was all that Helene observed,
except that the other man was wearing a tan overcoat and a light-gray hat.
For a moment, the two were lost in darkness; then Froy came sprawling in
through the doorway, sent there by a well-directed punch. Coming from hands
and
knees, Helene was passed by a surge of men, who had arrived just in time to
see
Froy's fall. The newcomers were Archie and his fellow poker players. Froy had
called to them down the basement stairs.
The shirt-sleeved band took up the chase. Outside the door, Helene saw
them pursue the fugitive through a tiny alleyway that led to the rear street.
They were yapping like hounds, with Archie at the rear of the throng; but
their
prey outdistanced them. From the rear street, Helene heard the whine of a
departing motor.
A curious sensation seized the girl. She had wanted to stop that unknown
fugitive, but she couldn't suppress an instinctive sympathy toward the hunted.
She was almost glad that he was safely away. Then, biting her lips at thought
of such disloyalty, she turned to help Froy, who was groggily coming to his
feet.
"You heard the shots?" she questioned.
Froy gave a puzzled squint; then licked his pinched lips. His voice was
croakish, like Rendrew's, but with a servile touch.
"I heard no shots, Miss Graymond," he replied. "Nothing but your scream.
How many shots were there, and where were they from?"
"Two shots," informed Helene. "From upstairs."
The poker players were back, this time with Archie in the lead. Catching
what Helene had said, Archie gave one of his twitchy smiles, then suggested
that they go upstairs and see what had happened.
They took the side stairs. At the top, they looked into a small room that
Rendrew called his study and beyond which lay his bedroom. Both rooms were
dark.
Froy found a lamp near the door, but it didn't come on when he pressed
the
switch. Archie found a wall switch and produced a glare of lights from the
ceiling.
Directly in the center of the study lay Adam Rendrew. He was turned half
on his side, with his face twisted upward. The bristly look had left his
features; instead, they had a gruesome gape, intensified by the goggly bulge
of
his glazed eyes.
His knees were doubled, his shoulders huddled; but his back was arched,
as
if it had been poked forward by a sharp jolt against his spine. Rendrew, in
fact, had received just such a spinal thrust - from a bullet.
Darkness hadn't saved him from that first murderous shot. A hideous
splotch of crimson dyed the gray cloth of his coat. Considering his whole back
as a target, the bullet had reached the pin-point center of a bull's-eye.
Across the room were high, built-in bookshelves with their lines of
regularly arranged volumes. In a far corner was Rendrew's writing desk, beside
the door that led into his bedroom. Straight opposite the doorway from the
hall, where everyone stood, was a shattered window, the one cracked by the
second shot.
Helene drew the others from the threshold. Archie retired willingly, but
Froy remained to stare. On his face, Helene saw a faint smile, as though the
servant welcomed Rendrew's death in the manner a slave would be pleased by
release from long bondage. Sharply, Helene brought back the servant's drab
expression by her command:
"Froy! Go down to the office, call Mr. Osman and tell him what has
happened. Ask him to summon the police."
WITHIN a quarter hour, there were many new visitors in the Rendrew
mansion. Chief among them was a stocky man, swarthy of complexion, stolid in
expression, who introduced himself as Police Inspector Cardona. Standing in
the
study doorway, Joe Cardona cast an expert eye upon the scene.
Here was a squarish room, entered from a rear corner, for it ran
frontward
in the house. Starting from the shattered window, Cardona let his gaze rove to
the right. He noted the high bookcases, with their lines of volumes all in
even
arrangement. His eye reached the writing desk near the front corner.
With a sudden stride past Rendrew's body, Cardona reached the desk. On it
he saw a daily calendar, turned to the correct date, which happened to be
Tuesday, the tenth. That calendar leaf was torn; its lower section was missing
just below the date title.
Maybe Rendrew hadn't torn that sheet. Possibly the murderer had.
Inspector
Joe Cardona did not leap to conclusions. Instead, he poked about in a
wastebasket near the desk, found the bit of paper that he wanted.
It was slightly crumpled, so he smoothed it, touching only the edges, and
checked it by the torn leaf on the calendar. The edges fitted.
The bit of paper bore handwriting which Cardona decided must be
Rendrew's,
judging from samples on the desk. Its writing was penciled, and stated:
Expect Dwight Kelden tonight.
Placing the paper with the calendar, Cardona opened the desk drawer. He
found a revolver, loaded but unfired, with a permit made out to Adam Rendrew.
The gun was properly registered; that point covered, Cardona turned around and
pictured how the crime had been committed.
Someone had probably accosted Rendrew in the hall. The invader had
displayed a gun, to support some threat. Rendrew had scrambled into the
darkened study, perhaps to get his own gun from the desk. That had given the
murderer an obvious opportunity to shoot the old man in the back.
Springing back into the hall, the killer had fired another shot from
there, getting the window that time. He had heard Helene's scream and fled.
That reconstruction made Cardona decide that Rendrew, and not the killer, must
have torn the half sheet from the desk calendar.
Pacing across the room, Cardona came to the unlighted floor lamp. He
observed that the cord was plugging into the wall socket, and as he stooped he
found a bit of cloth just past the lamp.
It was an eyeglass wiper, that bore the printed advertisement:
WEEKER & SONS
OPTOMETRISTS
NEW YORK BOSTON
Adding that to the exhibits, Cardona went down to the first-floor office,
where detectives were in charge of the witnesses, who had already given their
first testimony. They consisted of Helene, Froy, Archie and the poker players.
With the group was John Osman, who had arrived from his club. He was
short, pudgy, and baldish, a man of about fifty. His large forehead, stubby
nose, and bulgy chin gave him a profile like the inside of a crescent moon.
In Cardona's experience, men with that type of profile were usually
serious-minded and methodical. The analysis fitted Osman, for he had brought
his attorney with him from the club.
None of the witnesses could be regarded as suspects. There were too many
of them, and their stories fitted too well. Helene Graymond had given a very
accurate description of what she had heard, even to the point of an exact time
element.
The clock had been striking nine when Rendrew stopped at the office door.
After his talk with her, he had gone upstairs; she had heard the other
footsteps follow. Then the voices; the shots - the first muffed, the second
louder, accompanied by the window smash. Her scream, at the moment of the
murderer's mad dash, had been echoed by the clock's chime of quarter past
nine.
Froy's story supported Helene's, for the servant had heard her scream and
had met her dashing to the side door after the fleeing invader. His claim that
he had shouted to the poker players, was supported by Archie and the others.
摘要：

DEATHFROMNOWHEREbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"July15,1939.Deathfromnowhere...butTheShadowwastheretotraceitssource!CHAPTERICRIMETOCOMETHEREwereveryfewpatronsintheClubCadizattheearlyhouroffiveintheafternoon.ArchieDrellernoticedthatwhenhecameupthestairsfromthestreet.Asmilefor...

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