Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 231 - Garden of Death

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GARDEN OF DEATH
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. THE SILENT MANSION
? CHAPTER II. THE VANISHED PROWLER
? CHAPTER III. A MATTER OF MURDER
? CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW'S RETURN
? CHAPTER V. CREATURES OF NIGHT
? CHAPTER VI. CRIME'S CANDIDATES
? CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE OF FLOWERS
? CHAPTER VIII. THE SHADOW'S LINK
? CHAPTER IX. MURDER RETURNED
? CHAPTER X. THE TRAIL DELAYED
? CHAPTER XI. MURDER MUST OUT
? CHAPTER XII. ENOUGH OF MYSTERY
? CHAPTER XIII. AGENTS OF THE SHADOW
? CHAPTER XIV. WHEN FLOWERS TALKED
? CHAPTER XV. GAME FOR GAME
? CHAPTER XVI. AROUND THE CLOCK
? CHAPTER XVII. BAIT FOR MURDER
? CHAPTER XVIII. DEATH STRIKES
? CHAPTER XIX. WINGED BLACKNESS
? CHAPTER XX. BATTLERS OF NIGHT
? CHAPTER XXI. ASSISTED DOOM
CHAPTER I. THE SILENT MANSION
SERENELY, the Bendleton mansion basked amid the shelter of shade trees that skirted its broad,
well-kept lawns. In the thinning light of the setting sun, the house absorbed the laziness of the Indian
Summer afternoon, giving the outward impression that all was well within.
Only one pair of eyes in a thousand would have detected menace beneath that tranquil setting. It
happened that the thousandth pair were present, to view the deceptive scene.
They were the eyes of The Shadow.
His eyes alone betrayed the identity of the singular visitor who had come to Long Island to visit Richard
Bendleton. Burning eyes, whose glow seemed the reflection of the sinking sun that was screened by the
high hedge behind the mansion. Except for those eyes, The Shadow's features were calm, composed,
even maskish in expression.
Like the mansion itself, The Shadow gave an outward appearance that would have deceived the average
observer. Outwardly, The Shadow was Lamont Cranston, leisurely New York clubman, human symbol
of wealth and indolence. He had come to Long Island in his new limousine, which was piloted by his
regular chauffeur.
The limousine, of the convertible type, had its top thrown back so that its passenger could better enjoy
the favorable weather. That lowered top also enabled the complacent Mr. Cranston to gain a very
complete view of the Bendleton homestead.
To The Shadow, all was sinister.
Singular, that The Shadow, whose adventures had taken him to ghoulish, ruined manors at the dead of
stormy nights, should view the serene Bendleton mansion with a sentiment akin to horror; yet, the
consideration of one simple fact rendered the entire situation plain.
The Shadow had been in Bendleton's mansion. He knew that the proximity of shading elms and maples
produced an early darkness within the house. Always, lights were needed an hour before sunset; not only
in the gloomy halls and the deep living room, but in Bendleton's second-floor study, which had a single
window fronting toward the east.
There were no lights glimmering from the house, though Bendleton had promised to be at home.
Considering the urgency of Cranston's visit, which concerned important financial transactions that
Bendleton had not detailed by telephone, the silent house, sunlit without but darkish within, had all the
semblance of a morgue.
Cranston was alighting at the front walk which led to the house. Over his arm were black garments that
the chauffeur did not see. Quietly, Cranston spoke:
"There may be other visitors, Stanley. It would be better not to block the entrance. Take the car around
to the rear lane, and wait there until I summon you."
Stanley glanced back as he drove away. Not seeing Cranston, he supposed that his employer had
strolled directly to the front door of the great house. Stanley's guess was wrong. Actually, Lamont
Cranston had vanished.
Close to the house, he was sliding into the garments that he carried: a slouch hat and a black cloak.
Under the shelter of tree-fringed walls, Cranston obliterated one personality to become another: The
Shadow.
There was a side entrance to Bendleton's. It led through a so-called sun porch, which was only sunny in
the morning. At present, the inclosed porch was streaked with gloom, through which The Shadow moved
like a filtering stretch of blackness.
There were eyes present, sharp enough to discern the motion in the gloom, and their owner cocked his
head, to deliver a screechy "Hello!"
The sharp-eyed viewer was a red-and-blue macaw, perched in a large cage above a porch table which
bore two potted geraniums, side by side. Like the macaw's plumage, the red flowers caught the trickly
sunlight that came diluted through the tree branches outside; but The Shadow remained only a mass of
smoky blackness, drifting toward a door that led into the house itself.
Reaching the door, The Shadow found it unlocked. He opened it, stood in the block of gloom that made
the doorway.
IT was wise to pause before crossing that threshold. The whole house, horrendous in its silence, was like
a vast infernal machine.
The air was musty, but warm. The Shadow could scent a faint odor resembling almonds, which other
persons might have attributed to their imaginations, for its traces faded with the air that whispered in from
the screened porch.
Another whisper accompanied the fitful breeze - a grim tone of low, restrained laughter that lacked all
mirth. The tone was from The Shadow's hidden lips.
A slight swish of the gloom-shrouded cloak evidenced that he had crossed the fatal threshold. Through
the great, somber living room, the master of darkness was picking his way to the hallway beyond.
The thing that lay on the hallway floor looked like a crumpled rug bunched into an awkward pile; but no
rug belonged at that spot. There was a twinkle of The Shadow's tiny flashlight as he stooped to inspect
the object. It was the dead form of Harvey, Bendleton's butler.
Instead of examining the body further, The Shadow looked elsewhere for the cause of death. Stepping to
the rear of the hall, he turned on a table lamp and looked above it, to a gilded cage, much smaller than
the one belonging to the macaw on the porch.
The little cage contained a canary, which was lying wilted, on its back, its upraised claws even more
pitiful than Harvey's outstretched hands.
Dead butler and dead canary - both indicated the same touch of doom.
Before extinguishing the lamp, The Shadow noted a package that lay on the table. It measured about six
inches square, and it was addressed to Bendleton's sister, who lived in Philadelphia. The writing was in a
feminine hand, obviously that of Bendleton's daughter, Fay, whose name was in the upper corner. On the
package lay twelve cents: two nickels and two pennies, which were to cover postage.
Moving to the stairway, The Shadow paused there. Stabs of sunlight, from a small westerly window,
revealed the flat top of the newel post, which had circular streaks upon its oak-stained surface, indicating
that this had been the accustomed spot for one of the geranium pots that The Shadow had noticed on the
sun porch.
Going up the stairs, The Shadow entered a hallway even gloomier than the one below. His guarded
flashlight gleamed again, disclosing a shape that even his keen eyes could not have discerned in the thick
darkness of the floor. Another shape that looked like a crumpled rug, but wasn't.
The motionless form was the body of Bendleton's secretary, Jennings.
One hand of this victim was extended and half-closed, as though it had tried to claw the door against
which it rested. The door belonged to Bendleton's study.
Either of two actions might have been the secretary's last effort. Jennings could have tried to knock, or he
might have sought to grip the doorknob and turn it. Either case was an indication that Bendleton was in
the study.
Slowly, The Shadow turned the knob and opened the door inward. A warning sound stirred from the
room - a fierce, low hiss amid the darkness. Strained imagination could have identified it as anything from
a snake's challenge to the snarl of a trapped assassin; but The Shadow remained unperturbed.
He knew the hiss for what it was: the sizzle of a radiator. Under thermostatic control, the heat had come
up automatically when afternoon brought coolness throughout the stone-walled house.
Turning to blocky darkness that represented Bendleton's desk, The Shadow found another lamp and
pressed its switch. He saw what he expected: Bendleton's body, crumpled in its chair, tilted forward
partly across the desk.
SLEWED sideways, the third victim's face was uptilted in the lamplight.
Rugged, yet kindly; crowned by a wealth of gray hair, the countenance of Richard Bendleton looked the
same in death as it had in life.
Doom had come swiftly, suddenly, for Bendleton was in the midst of work. Stacks of financial reports
and correspondence rested on the desk; all relating to the Alliance Drug Corp., the extensive business
which Bendleton controlled.
The dead man's arm had bushed a few letter aside and they had fallen to the floor. The reason: Bendleton
had been reaching for the telephone when death struck. In fact, the phone was lying off its stand, just
away from Bendleton's half-opened hand. His face was resting on that same arm, but turned away from
the phone, indicating a sudden fading of his strength.
Whether Bendleton was talking to someone, or just beginning a call, was a question, though The Shadow
inclined to the latter theory. For the moment, however, the matter was quite unimportant. The Shadow's
attention was riveted by an object on the desk - the first evidence that in any way gave direct trace to the
cause of triple doom.
It was a little doll, about five inches high, fixed on a plywood pedestal. To be exact, it was a
weather-telling doll, for the pedestal so stated. Moreover, the doll had a skirt, which indicated the
weather by its changes of color from blue to pink.
A novelty of the Nineties, such weather dolls had recently been revived; The Shadow had seen them on
display in shop windows.
Perhaps the chemically-treated cloth was none too accurate as a weather indicator; but as a barometer of
death, it had startling merit on this occasion. The Shadow had seen such dolls in blue and pink, but this
one violated all the rules.
The doll's skirt was jet-black!
Carefully lifting the doll, The Shadow examined it closer to the light; then, with a low, cryptic laugh, he
carried it from the study, downstairs to where the package lay.
Opening the package, he found what he expected: another weather doll. Fay Bendleton had given one to
her father, and was sending the other to her aunt.
But the doll in the package was quite normal. Its skirt was a conventional blue. Tightly boxed, the second
doll had escaped the peculiar result which came to the one on Bendleton's desk.
For a few minutes, The Shadow pondered; then he placed the black skirted doll in the package and
wrapped it. Sliding the package and its curious evidence beneath his cloak, he carried the normal doll
upstairs and stood it on Bendleton's desk.
Outside, the sun had completely set. Save for that lamp in the study, the house was filled with darkness.
Under the lamplight, The Shadow watched a full five minutes. There was no change in the color scheme
of the doll that he had substituted. Its skirt remained blue.
Turning out the lamp, The Shadow left the unimpaired doll on the desk. Retaining the package, with its
black-skirted evidence, he returned downstairs. He opened the front door, tested it, to find that its
automatic latch was set.
Dusk was thick across the front lawn, but birds were chirping busily from high tree branches. Those
sounds drowned voices that came from the curb beyond the front walk.
Just as The Shadow caught the human murmurs, someone turned on a searchlight from a car. The brilliant
glow raked the walk and found the front door as its target.
In that instant, The Shadow was swinging the door shut as he wheeled back into the gloom of the front
hall. He was quick enough to hide himself, but arrivals saw the door slam. There were shouts, echoed
from about the house.
New arrivals had snared The Shadow within the silent house of doom!
CHAPTER II. THE VANISHED PROWLER
WITH his slam of the front door, The Shadow blocked the invaders coming from the walk, but from their
yells, he knew they'd come smashing through windows to reach him. Whoever the arrivals were, The
Shadow couldn't afford to let them grab him, or even get a real impression as to his identity.
His only course was to play the fugitive, so swiftly and effectively that his trappers would be mystified as
well as unsuccessful. With that aim in mind, The Shadow cut through darkness for the nearest and most
logical outlet: the route through the sun porch.
It was blocked before he reached it. The door came smashing inward, and The Shadow, wheeling back
across the living room, was almost spotted by the glare of flashlights. He caught glimpses of uniforms and
knew immediately what must have happened.
Two factors, quite unrelated, were responsible for The Shadow's present predicament.
First: the telephone off the hook in Bendleton's study. The central operator must have worried about it
and called the police. Second, The Shadow's inspection of the study wasn't quite over when the police
arrived. They'd seen the light go off and had promptly surrounded the house, sure that something was
amiss.
At this hour, with dusk actually at hand, the gloom of the mansion's interior was noticeable on sight. One
light, going off, with none to replace it, smacked of a prowler. Though the police expected to find a
burglar, rather than a murderer, they'd class a fugitive as both - should they capture him.
Such wouldn't help The Shadow's own investigation of Bendleton's strange death. But he wasn't planning
to be captured. The invading police would have to see him first, and he didn't intend to let them manage
even that.
A pair of officers, springing into the living room, saw curtains swishing from the farther doorway, marking
the course that The Shadow had taken. Dashing across, they heard the smash of a window and darted in
that direction, only to tangle with other officers, coming through the front.
The Shadow, meanwhile, was hurrying up the front stairs, intending to find a back route down again.
Unfortunately, the police recovered from their mix-up in time to turn toward the stairs, themselves. As
flashlights swept the steps in an upward bath of light, they threatened to expose The Shadow at the
landing, where the stairway turned.
Still desirous of escaping unsighted, The Shadow vaulted the banister and landed squarely in the rear hall,
near the table there. It was a clever ruse, a reversal of his course in vertical fashion, rather than in the
usual horizontal style.
Of four police heading for the stairway, not one saw The Shadow's sideward leap and the drop that
followed it. The clatter of their own feet drowned the light sound with which the cloaked fugitive ended
his drop.
Another turn, a short dash, and The Shadow would have either of two routes - through the front door, or
the side. Again, luck went against him.
A fifth flashlight gleamed from a door that slashed wide near the rear of the hallway. The Shadow had
scarcely time to whisk away before the glow was full upon him. At that, the flashlight's owner, a cop who
had entered from the kitchen door, managed to spy a diving, though undistinguishable, shape.
This time, The Shadow's strategy was even more remarkable. Headlong, he gauged the exact position of
Harvey's body, which his first pursuers had so far missed. Clearing the butler's dead form, The Shadow
continued toward the front door. The cop from the kitchen sped his flashlight in pursuit, but stopped it on
Harvey.
THE officer had every reason to suppose that Harvey represented the man who had dived from the
glare. With a shout, the lone pursuer reached the dead butler and stooped beside him, yelling that he had
made a capture.
Police on the stairway came about, to join him; but there was one who hadn't quite reached the stairs.
That fellow turned, his flashlight swinging with him. He caught a passing glimpse of The Shadow, opening
the front door.
The Shadow changed his course instantly, for he heard the shout that accompanied the sweep of light. He
saw that his discoverer was springing toward him, and he had to settle the flashlight before its blinding eye
focused full upon him. The thing that The Shadow used was an old umbrella stand by the front door.
Circular in shape, the umbrella stand formed a solid and fairly heavy cylinder, some four feet high.
Dumping the umbrellas and canes from within it, The Shadow sent the cylinder rolling on its side with the
sincere urge that a bowler puts behind an anticipated ten-strike.
It took two pins, the cop's legs. Floundering to the floor, the bluecoat lost his flashlight. On hands and
knees, he scrambled after it; but by the time he regained his feet, The Shadow was gone.
His route was toward the curtained living room, and The Shadow had a weapon, which he would
certainly need, for police revolvers had begun to talk. The Shadow's weapon wasn't a gun; it was one of
Bendleton's canes, which he scooped up from the floor.
Meeting an officer shoulder on, in the middle of the hallway, The Shadow side-stepped and caught his
adversary's ankle with the cane handle.
A revolver bullet punched the ceiling as the cop hit the hardwood. The Shadow was gone again, through
the curtains, as flashlights burned his way. He yanked a curtain loose and flung it, with a spreading
sweep, from the living-room side.
Police blazed shots into the room beyond; then, their flashlights showing no one in sight, they took it that
the fugitive must have reached the porch.
Some went across and around the crumpled curtain; others cut out by the front door and reached the
screened porch by a route so short and quick that there was no chance for any fugitive to be gone before
they arrived. Yet when those two quotas of police met each other with their glaring flashlights, there was
blank space in between.
The fugitive, whoever he was, had seemingly vanished in their midst. As if in proof of his invisibility, they
heard a sarcastic voice speak a sharp "Hello!"
The sound was at their very shoulders, and they wheeled with guns and flashlights, to see a ruffled macaw
that squawked indignantly at receiving the glare of all the flashlights.
Meanwhile, The Shadow was performing the sequel to his remarkable disappearance.
Back in the doorway between living room and hallway, he was rising from beneath the curtain that he had
flung. He'd needed a quick hiding place, so he had provided one. That wide fling of the curtain was more
than a gesture. With it, The Shadow had made a forward fall to the floor in acrobatic style, landing ahead
of the fluttering, spreading curtain.
Under the descending folds, The Shadow had gained absolute concealment. None of the excited police
noticed that the rumples of the curtain were a foot or more in height.
Sounds from the porch told The Shadow that his pursuers were engaged in argument, with the macaw
acting as referee, judging from the squawks that accompanied the disputing voices.
Picking up Bendleton's cane, The Shadow went out through the kitchen and paused to look toward the
porch. The police were coming out with their flashlights, determined to scour the grounds. Slipping them
would be easy enough, but their search would soon bring them to the limousine parked in the rear lane.
Stanley wouldn't be gone; in fact, the commotion that occurred was all the more reason why the
well-trained chauffeur would wait for Cranston's return. Explanations, however, would be embarrassing
for Stanley, should the police find him. Even more so for The Shadow, should he be questioned as
Cranston, regarding the prowler at Bendleton's.
The only way for The Shadow to detach himself from all erroneous connection with the deaths of
Bendleton and others, was to carry the misguided police on a final false trail.
PICKING out the sweep of a flashlight, The Shadow approached it, then made a quick turn as the beam
neared him.
As before, an officer sighted a fleeting figure and shouted for the others to join the chase. The Shadow
was gone, with a quick dart behind a clump of shrubbery near the rear of the lawn, but the flashlights
showed the bushes waving.
From the other side, The Shadow was weaving a course to a rear corner of the grounds, shaking the
shrubbery as he passed.
Hurrying to cut him off, the pursuers didn't spot the point where he reversed his dash, for The Shadow
was completely out of sight. Picking an opening in the hedge, The Shadow eased through, without a
trace, and located his pursuers by their voices. They had reached the inner corner of the grounds, near a
large apple tree.
On the high branches, The Shadow could see the ruddy fruit against the afterglow of the sky. The apples
were ripe, and there were plenty on the lower branches, too.
Taking Bendleton's cane by the ferrule, The Shadow gave it a long, hard fling across the hedge, landing it
a dozen feet up in the apple tree.
The police heard the cane clatter in the branches. Apples were still pelting them as they arrived beneath
the tree. The cane didn't fall, its hooked handle had caught a branch, where they couldn't see it in the
darkness.
They jumped to the logical theory that the fugitive had climbed the tree, only to slip among the branches.
They were shouting for him to come down, threatening to shoot him if he didn't.
Heading the other way along the lane, The Shadow reached the limousine, which was barely discernible
in the dusk. He was removing his cloak and hat as he silently opened the rear door. Timing his next action
to the shouts that he still could distinguish, The Shadow spoke in Cranston's calm-voiced tone:
"Very well, Stanley. You may return to town."
As Stanley pressed the starter, guns began to spout back by the apple tree. The police were carrying out
their threat against an imaginary fugitive. Shooting up into the branches, they didn't hear the limousine's
starter, nor the smooth purr of the big car's motor.
Headlights, faced the opposite direction, were hidden by the hedge as the limousine rolled away. Finished
with their useless fusillade, the searchers came plunging through the hedge a little later; but, by then, the
limousine's taillights had vanished in the distance.
There was no mirth, however, in the laugh that throbbed from The Shadow's lips as he rode back to
Manhattan in the guise of Cranston. His escape from the police was not an exploit; it was merely a
correction of a mistake.
A mistake which had threatened even the meager evidence from which The Shadow, otherwise Lamont
Cranston, hoped to solve the murder of his friend, Richard Bendleton!
CHAPTER III. A MATTER OF MURDER
IN the well-equipped laboratory that adjoined his sanctum - a place hidden away in the heart of
Manhattan, and known only to The Shadow - The Shadow was making tests with the weather doll that
he had brought from Bendleton's. He was working with sooty scrapings from the chemically treated skirt;
sooty particles that, so far, hadn't yielded their full secret.
Of one thing, however, The Shadow was certain. Some deadly gas was responsible for the blackness
that surfaced the color-changing dye.
It wasn't The Shadow's usual policy to appropriate evidence which might serve the law. In this case, the
situation had been thrust upon him. Planning a quick trip to his lab and back, The Shadow had hoped to
replace the weather doll himself, and had left the unchanged substitute to fill in temporarily.
There was a chance - as always - that a murderer might return. If the killer came across a blackened
weather doll, he would certainly remove it; hence, it was better, at the time, that The Shadow should
have taken it.
All that was changed, of course, by the sudden manner in which arriving police had given The Shadow a
surprise work-out. If they'd come a little sooner, The Shadow would have left the weather doll for them.
Still, having taken the evidence, The Shadow didn't exactly regret it. For one thing, he was wondering
what verdict would be found in Bendleton's death, without the incriminating evidence of the weather doll.
Quite possibly, the murderer hadn't known that the doll was in Bendleton's study. If so, the deaths of the
three men and a canary might have the elements of a so-called "perfect" crime. On that chance, The
Shadow decided that the death gas must be of an untraceable type, possibly akin to phosgene.
On the black-tiled laboratory bench stood a glass bell containing the figure of a weather doll, one of
several that The Shadow had purchased after reaching town. A hose ran from the bell top, branching to
various tanks. The Shadow was experimenting with carbonyl chloride, in combination with hydrogen
cyanide, plus gaseous mixtures of differing effects.
He was seeking a combination that would have a deadly effect, along with the faint, almost flowery odor
that he had noticed in Bendleton's house. Also, the gas would have to produce a blackness on the
weather doll. At last, the reaction came. Dark streaks appeared on the doll's skirt, proving the
experiment a success.
The Shadow was detaching the hose, when a buzz came from the sanctum. Entering the curtained room
that adjoined his laboratory, The Shadow picked earphones from the wall and spoke to his contact
agent, Burbank, who reported that Ralph Weston, the New York police commissioner, was on his way
to the Cobalt Club.
Leaving the sanctum, The Shadow entered his limousine, which was waiting on a darkened street. Placing
his cloak and hat beneath the rear seat, he told Stanley to take him to the Cobalt Club. Riding as
Cranston, The Shadow considered his recent findings.
Bendleton's death was murder, accomplished by a gas that had a remarkable penetrating effect, yet
which was unlikely to leave proof of its use. Whether Harvey and Jennings had been intentional victims
was another question.
It might be that they were merely unfortunate enough to be on hand when murder enveloped them, along
with their employer; just as Bendleton's daughter, Fay, had chanced to be out of the house at the time
death struck. As for the motive behind the murder, that was something The Shadow intended to discuss
with his friend the police commissioner.
ARRIVING at the Cobalt Club, The Shadow took on Cranston's strolling gait. He ran into
Commissioner Weston in the foyer. Weston was a brisk chap, usually the first to open a conversation,
but on this occasion, Cranston slipped in a few words first:
"Sorry I can't dine with you, commissioner -"
"You'll have time later," interrupted Weston. "Right now, I'm starting to investigate a most important case.
A serious tragedy, Cranston. I'd like you to come along."
"But I can't," returned Cranston. "I'm trying to tell you that I have a dinner engagement -"
Cranston paused, as Weston showed annoyance at the thought that a trivial dinner engagement could
interfere with something really important. Then, in Cranston's easiest style, The Shadow added the words
that electrified the commissioner.
"A dinner engagement," he repeated, "with Richard Bendleton, at his home on Long Island."
Grabbing Cranston's arm, the commissioner piloted his friend out to the official car, explaining that their
engagement was one and the same. Cranston wouldn't dine with Bendleton, but he was going to the
house, just the same, because it was there that the tragedy had happened.
Bendleton was dead, two others with him, under mysterious circumstances. If he had told Cranston
anything that might solve the puzzle, the commissioner wanted to hear it.
Since Weston put it that way, The Shadow confined himself to matters that had preceded Bendleton's
death.
"Bendleton intended to organize a new company," he told the commissioner. "Not a subsidiary of
Alliance Drug Corp., but an independent corporation, to be capitalized at a million dollars."
"Why?" queried Weston. "To compete with himself?"
"Not at all," was Cranston's response. "Bendleton talked of new drugs, that would benefit humanity.
Discoveries as remarkable as quinine. He specified one in particular, a preparation to be called
Somnotone, entirely harmless, but with sleep-inducing effects that would render it equal to an
anesthetic."
Weston gave his friend a sideward look.
"Bendleton expected to make millions out of the drug, I suppose?"
"On the contrary," returned Cranston," he planned a nonprofit corporation. Otherwise, he would not have
expected me to help finance it."
Coming from anyone but Cranston, the commissioner would have considered the statement
preposterous. It happened that he knew the altruistic tendencies of his friend. It wouldn't be like Cranston
to seek profits from a discovery that would prove a needed boon to the human race.
Evidently, Bendleton was a man with similar ideas, who had found it difficult to interest investors in his
humane proposition, until he had contacted Cranston. It seemed that the human race, in general, stood to
lose much through Bendleton's death. In his turn, Weston had lost something: namely, the theory that
Bendleton had been murdered.
"If no one was going to make anything," began Weston, "there wouldn't have been much point in anyone
murdering Bendleton -"
Weston ended his statement abruptly, under Cranston's steady gaze. Perhaps Cranston's eyes caused the
commissioner to catch the other side of the picture; if so, Weston didn't realize it. He actually thought he
had gleaned an independent idea.
"All the more reason for murder!" exclaimed Weston. "That's it! Bendleton could have been holding out
on people who wanted to clean up with the new discovery. Tell me, Cranston: who invented the
Somnotone preparation?"
"I expected to learn that this evening," was the answer. "Bendleton promised to introduce me to the
inventor of the compound."
"Probably someone connected with the Alliance Drug Corp."
"I doubt it, commissioner. The company would claim the discovery, if such were the case."
"Then, who -"
"We may find the answer at Bendleton's."
THERE was a double meaning to The Shadow's statement. They might find one answer to Somnotone;
another to Bendleton's death.
The full significance was dawning on Weston when the official car pulled up to Bendleton's Long Island
摘要：

GARDENOFDEATHMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.THESILENTMANSION?CHAPTERII.THEVANISHEDPROWLER?CHAPTERIII.AMATTEROFMURDER?CHAPTERIV.THESHADOW'SRETURN?CHAPTERV.CREATURESOFNIGHT?CHAPTERVI.CRIME'SCANDIDATES?CHAPTERVII.THEHOUSEOFFLOWERS?CHAPTERVIII.THESHAD...

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