Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 200 - Q

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Q
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I
? CHAPTER II. THE WRONG SHADOW
? CHAPTER III. FACTS FROM THE PAST
? CHAPTER IV. TWO MEN MEET
? CHAPTER V. HOUSE OF SILENCE
? CHAPTER VI. A MATTER OF CASH
? CHAPTER VII. CRIME'S THRUST
? CHAPTER VIII. CRIME'S MYSTERIES
? CHAPTER IX. DAY VERSUS NIGHT
? CHAPTER X. CRIME'S REWARD
? CHAPTER XI. DEATH'S NEW SETTING
? CHAPTER XII. MEN IN THE DARK
? CHAPTER XIII. THE SHADOW'S QUESTION
? CHAPTER XIV. THE MISSING SHADOW
? CHAPTER XV. THE DEATH CALL
? CHAPTER XVI. CRIME TO COME
? CHAPTER XVII. CRIME FROM WITHIN
? CHAPTER XVIII. A MATTER OF ORCHIDS
? CHAPTER XIX. LIGHTS OUT
? CHAPTER XX. THE FINAL RIDDLE
CHAPTER I
DETECTIVES BRAUN AND JEPSON formed a good team. They proved it when they left the subway
shuttle train and went out through the subway turnstiles, toward the concourse of the Grand Central
Terminal. The man they were tailing did not identify them as a pair of headquarters dicks.
He was a dapper man, with a tiny mustache that bobbed whenever he twitched his lips, which was often.
Braun and Jepson knew who he was: Fence Cortho, peddler of stolen goods, back in Manhattan after a
long absence.
Braun paused at a newsstand to buy some cigarettes. He scanned the headlines of the evening
newspapers, accepting them rather grimly. They told of unsolved crimes, wherein crooks had blasted
their way into vaults and warehouses through the use of high explosives.
Plenty of swag had been taken in these robberies. Somebody was certainly peddling the loot. It could be
Fence Cortho; such work was his specialty. With a sidelong glance, Braun spotted Cortho turning into a
passage that led to the terminal's lower level. Braun resumed the trail.
Jepson had gone past the ramp that Cortho used. The second detective had paused, however, to set his
watch by a station clock, a very natural procedure. Reversing his route, he followed Braun down to the
lower concourse. Apparently strangers to each other, both detectives spied their man again.
Fence Cortho had stopped at the information kiosk in the center of the lower concourse. He was one of
half a dozen persons who were asking for timetables. Receiving one, he thrust it in his pocket, did a
face-about and went toward a stairway leading to the upper level.
There was always a crowd in Grand Central around eight in the evening. Losing themselves in the throng,
the detectives kept close tabs on Fence. All were caught in an incoming tide of passengers from a Boston
train. The swarm took them toward the taxicab driveway.
Suddenly realizing that Fence Cortho intended to take a cab, both detectives made valiant efforts to
catch up with him. By then, they were trapped between moving barricades of bag-carrying porters; the
jostled redcaps did not understand that they were hindering two detectives from overtaking a man
wanted by the law.
Out through the door to the taxicabs, Fence coolly pushed himself into a cab and told the driver where to
take him. The astonished redcap who had opened the cab door gradually found his wits, and put a pile of
bags into the next cab.
Detective Braun managed to get the fourth cab in line; he flashed a badge and told the driver to follow the
cabs ahead. It was a tall order, since the cabs scattered after they left the terminal exit. Within three
minutes after he took up Cortho's trail, Braun had lost it.
Braun's running mate fared better. Instead of taking a cab, Jepson grabbed the porter whom Fence had
pushed aside. He asked if the redcap had heard Cortho's order to the cab driver. The porter nodded.
"Yussuh. He said, 'Hotel Clarion.' That's what the gen'leman told the driver" - the redcap was eyeing
Jepson's badge respectfully - "as sure as I'm standing here."
Detective Jepson started for a telephone booth. He hadn't gone a dozen steps before he made a quick
grab for a long-legged, pasty-faced man who was dodging for an exit. In terrier fashion, Jepson wheeled
the fellow around.
"So it's Dip Perkin," growled Jepson. "What're you doing round here, trying to give somebody the
roust?"
"Honest, Jepson," whined the pickpocket, "I ain't ditched no leathers since I got off the Island."
Backing Perkin by a bulletin board, Jepson gave the dip a rapid frisk. Finding only some small change,
which was evidently Dip's own cash, Jepson told him to be on his way and not to stop until he was
outside the Grand Central area.
Over his shoulder, Dip muttered thanks as he shuffled away. Jepson didn't bother to listen. He was
stepping into a telephone booth.
THE detective had scarcely started his call to headquarters before Dip Perkin appeared again, warily
pushing his pasty face from the corner beyond the phone booths. Sliding into the nearest booth, he
dropped a nickel in the slot and hastily dialed a number.
A gruff voice answered; it sounded forced. Dip had heard that voice often, at various numbers which he
had called. He recognized it, though he didn't know its owner.
"There's two dicks tailing Fence," confided Dip. "They're wise to where he's stopping. He's headed for
the Clarion; it looks like they'll be putting the arm on him after he gets there."
The gruff voice acknowledged the timely information. Hearing the clatter of a telephone receiver, Dip
sidled from the booth and was off around the corner while Detective Jepson was still talking to
headquarters.
Several minutes later police calls were on the air. They were heard by a solitary passenger in a large
limousine that was just reaching Manhattan by way of the Holland Tunnel.
The passenger was a tall man, attired in evening clothes. His face, hawkish in its contour, had an
immobile, masklike calm. His name was Lamont Cranston, and he had a habit of listening to short-wave
calls when he rode in his expensive limousine.
Headquarters was calling a radio car that patrolled the neighborhood near the Hotel Clarion. Cranston
heard the order:
"Stop at Hotel Clarion... Look for man answering the description of Fence Cortho... Arrest and hold him
until arrival of Inspector Cardona -"
A soft laugh whispered from the lips of Cranston. The repressed tone produced a weird, shivery effect
within the cramped confines of the limousine. It was a token of identity, that laugh.
It marked Lamont Cranston, gentleman of leisure, as a double personality. His whispery mirth belonged
to another being; one who dealt in swift, uncanny action: The Shadow!
Long known as crime's superfoe, The Shadow, like the law, was seeking traces of persons responsible
for the recent robberies. His clues, so far, were identical with those that the police had gained. Crooks
had used powerful explosives in their crimes, obliterating all evidence except the actual blasts.
The Shadow hoped to move ahead of the law. The first step, therefore, was to keep up with it, which
explained The Shadow's interest in current police calls.
Like Detectives Braun and Jepson, The Shadow recognized the possible link between the robbery mob
and a swag peddler like Fence Cortho.
At the same time, the tie-up lacked wisdom. Fence Cortho was an expert in freezing hot goods, but his
contacts were mostly in New York, where he was wanted. Crooks knew that Fence couldn't handle
local sales; if they planned to dispose of their loot in other cities, they could find better peddlers in the
towns themselves.
To The Shadow, the coming arrest of Fence Cortho looked like a routine matter; a case connected with
the past, not the present. Thumbing the dial of his short-wave set, The Shadow tuned in on broadcasts
from amateur senders.
He was listening for something that he did not expect to hear, for it had come at comparatively rare
intervals. It was a wireless call that the law had so far overlooked, or ignored, yet which had a potential
importance in The Shadow's estimate.
The call had come on nights when crime struck home; it had a possible connection with recent
explosions. But the blasts had never come on successive nights; and since the last explosion was only one
day old, this seemed an unlikely evening for a message.
Long, thin fingers suddenly went motionless.
It was coming again; that mystery call!
"Dash - dash - dot - dash -"
A pause; the call was repeated. It formed a letter in Morse; the initial, perhaps, of the sender. Again and
again it came, as though to drill itself on some particular listener:
"Q... Q... Q... Q -"
It was slowing, but it still gave the letter "Q," and nothing more. The Shadow's eyes went shut; he tried to
shake away the tone of that coded letter, which his brain was repeating in advance of each coming call.
Out of a self-enforced blankness, The Shadow heard it again:
"Dash - dash - dot - dash -"
Imperceptible to an ordinary listener, something had crept into the "Q" call that gave The Shadow the
very link he needed. In a trice he had the proof of his suspicions. The mysterious Q was the master hand
behind the recent crimes!
IT wasn't mere coincidence; it was fact. Keenly, The Shadow was trying to locate the direction of the
call. His car, equipped with two-way radio, was a perfect direction finder. As it swung a corner, The
Shadow gauged the exact angle at which the call came strongest.
If the slackening "Q... Q... Q... Q - " kept on, The Shadow could tell whether it lay in front or in back of
his moving limousine, which had by this time gone many blocks uptown. He knew that it had moved to
various places on various evenings, for he had checked it in the past from two locations.
Given time, The Shadow might find the present headquarters of the mysterious Q. But that was
something that Q, himself, had probably foreseen. The slowed call cut off, as abruptly as it had begun.
The Shadow heard no more of it.
To The Shadow, however, Q meant more than crime. It signified crime of a specific sort, or - in a sense -
a deed that went along with crime. Contrasted to that fact was The Shadow's well-formed belief that no
robbery was due tonight.
As his fingers turned the dial, The Shadow heard new police calls coming through. They were mere
routine calls; the instructions to pick up Fence Cortho had evidently been acknowledged. But The
Shadow's own decision was reversed.
The Shadow believed in coincidences, because he knew they often occurred; but this was a time when
chance had struck too suddenly.
The law's guess regarding Cortho could still be wrong, while The Shadow's analysis was right. Yet, to
practical purposes, the law might be right and The Shadow wrong!
There could be a link, a twisted one. Something that lay beneath the surface; a situation away from
crime's apparent purpose. The Shadow's brain was probing those depths, finding various answers.
Though all were incomplete, The Shadow could fathom one essential fact.
A whispered laugh stirred within the limousine. Drawing out a hidden shelf beneath the rear seat, The
Shadow produced a slouch hat and a black cloak, along with a brace of automatics. As the car
approached a lighted avenue, he reached for the speaking tube that connected with the chauffeur's seat.
In the slow, even tone of Cranston, The Shadow spoke:
"Turn here, Stanley. Take me to the Hotel Clarion."
CHAPTER II. THE WRONG SHADOW
THE HOTEL CLARION boasted a glittering lobby that formed a midtown meeting spot. It was just the
hotel that a man like Fence Cortho would want. Bold enough to appear in public, Fence preferred
crowds to space. He figured that the chances of being spotted in a Manhattan crowd were about one in a
million.
Such calculation had made Fence unwary. He had mingled with too many crowds, some in the wrong
places. The Times Square shuttle was one; it was a crossroads often watched by detectives like Braun
and Jepson. Though he hadn't noticed the trailing dicks, Fence had become uneasy after his subway trip.
He was glad that he'd thought to take a cab from Grand Central. He was also glad to be back at his
hotel.
Waiting at the elevators, Fence didn't notice, from the elevator signal clocks, that one had stopped at his
own floor, the fourth. Nor did he observe the darkish passenger who stepped from that car along with
others when the car reached the lobby.
The man in question had a choppy face; was heavy-browed and big-lipped. He saw Fence turned the
other way, and was careful to shift in the opposite direction.
Only Fence Cortho would have recognized the darkish man, and considered his action specially adapted
to emergency. Once away, the fellow strolled indifferently to a telephone booth, from which he watched
Fence enter the elevator. The darkish man saw that Fence was nervous, and it rather pleased him.
In his booth, the darkish man dialed a number, the same that Dip Perkin had called from Grand Central a
quarter hour before. To the voice that answered, the darkish man said:
"This is Shoy. It's O.K., chief."
From his lookout post, Shoy watched a further scene unfold. A uniformed policeman had entered the
hotel and stopped at the inquiry desk. A girl there was shaking her head, when one of the house
detectives stepped over.
The cop spoke to the hotel dick, who gave a knowing nod. The two were starting toward the elevator,
when a stocky man accosted them.
The arrival was swarthy; he wore a poker-faced expression. Shoy recognized Inspector Joe Cardona,
ace of the Manhattan police force.
Like certain persons of questionable repute, Shoy didn't care to remain on any premises occupied by
Cardona. Taking advantage of the conference that Cardona was holding, Shoy backed from the
telephone booth.
Spying a side exit from the lobby, Shoy took it. As he went out, the darkish man tucked a flattish box
farther beneath his overcoat. The box was encircled by a coil of wire; it looked like a new style of
portable radio cabinet.
Concentrated upon the hotel dick's story, Cardona did not observe Shoy's departure. The house
detective was telling Joe about a man who had registered, a few days before, under the name of
Cortland, in Room 412. He was a wary sort, this Cortland, and the house dick classed him as a man
traveling under an alias.
He'd watched the fellow go in and out, and this evening Cortland had looked very nervous while waiting
for an elevator. He had only entered the lobby a few minutes ago; that fact, plus the dick's description of
the man in question, convinced Cardona that the fellow was Fence Cortho.
Telling the officer from the patrol car to wait in the lobby, Cardona started upstairs, accompanied by the
house detective. They were the only two passengers on the elevator. Its door was closing when a tall
man strolled into the lobby, carrying a coat over his arm.
He was wearing evening clothes, and seemed in no hurry to get anywhere. His stride, however, was
rapid; it was his manner that made it appear slow.
The stranger's eyes were keen, though their glance gave a casual impression. He caught a flash of the two
men as the elevator door was closing; before stepping into the next car, he watched the dial of the first
elevator and saw where it stopped.
He was leaving the ground floor just as Cardona and the house dick alighted at the fourth.
As the pair moved past a corner on their way to Room 412, Cardona undertoned:
"Got a gun?"
The house detective produced one.
"We may need them," declared Cardona. "This fellow Cortho is supposed to be working with the
dynamite mob. Give me that passkey of yours and I'll walk in on him. You cover the hallway."
There was a light shining through Cortho's transom; they could hear the man inside as he moved across
the room. The house dick gave a whisper as Cardona started softly to unlock the door.
"There's a writing desk in the corner, inspector. Sounds like he's going over to -"
A GRATING chair brought interruption; the sound testified that the detective's guess was correct.
Nudging his companion, reminding him to keep the hallway covered, Cardona turned the passkey, at the
same time leveling his revolver.
At that instant, a gunshot ripped through the hallway, and a bullet whined between the heads of Cardona
and the house detective. The shot came from the corner near the elevators. To Cardona, it meant the
opening gun in an invasion by crooks who had come to prevent the arrest of Fence Cortho.
Two figures separated, as if the wind from the bullet had blown them. Cardona was responsible for the
double dive. He gave the house dick a shove in one direction, and used his own push to recoil in the
other. But Joe didn't lurch into Fence's room, for two reasons.
First, Cardona hadn't quite unlocked the door when the shot reverberated; again, Joe wasn't going to
take any chances with Fence, now that the crook had been warned that persons were in the corridor.
Joe had sent the house dick forward, but across the hall, to a deep doorway on the other side. His own
direction being opposite, the ace inspector did a backward dive into the doorway just beyond Fence's. It
offered shallow shelter, and Cardona knew it; that was why the inspector took quick aim with his Police
Positive as he went.
With the stab of his own revolver, Cardona heard a sound that bewildered him. It came from near the
corner where Cardona aimed; the challenging mockery of an inimitable laugh that could mean one fighter
only: The Shadow!
Hitherto, that strident tone had always signified aid in behalf of the law. Tonight, it seemingly could not
mean rescue. The Shadow had not driven off arriving foemen. He was the marksman who had fired that
shot at the two men outside of Room 412!
Only The Shadow could have fired it.
Except for Cardona and the house dick, The Shadow was the only person in the corridor. Cardona saw
a cloaked form fading toward the opposite wall. Joe's shot had missed. Momentarily he was glad, until he
was told in no uncertain terms that The Shadow was his foe.
Answering Joe's fire came tonguing shots that nicked the edge of the doorway just above the clutching
fingers of Cardona's left hand. As Joe jerked away, another slug whizzed past his gun hand, so close that
the inspector could feel its scorching heat.
Wheeling, The Shadow jabbed two shots at the house dick, who was blazing blindly with his revolver.
Cardona heard the fellow howl as he sprawled.
Madly, Cardona pumped bullets at the black-cloaked attacker. He saw the figure zigzag, but kept on
shooting, confident that he would clip his foe. Maybe such shots couldn't reach The Shadow; but
Cardona felt that it didn't apply in this case.
Hat and cloak, even the laugh - they seemed genuine, but Joe would not believe it. This couldn't be the
real Shadow. Some artful crook had disguised himself to fool Cardona, and thereby aid in Cortho's
getaway.
Cardona was more than anxious to drop the foe in black; he felt that he had a double score to settle,
having guessed that he was shooting at the wrong Shadow.
Cardona saw the masquerader spin into a shallow doorway. Forgetting caution, Joe leaped from his own
shelter and spurted a quick shot. His next would have been point-blank if the cloaked foe hadn't
sprawled.
Seeing the masquerader strike the floor and roll, Cardona started a forward lunge, intending to deliver
bullets at close range.
Up from the carpet came fresh jabs of flame, accompanied by a laugh that had all the tone of a vengeful
sneer. The rolling sprawl was faked; the cloaked foe had used it to get away from Cardona's pointblank
aim.
Right now, he was giving Cardona two guns, not one. Joe wrenched himself half out of his shoulder
sockets, turned to dive to the far end of the corridor.
As he went, with more slugs skimming past him, Cardona was doubly sure that this was the wrong
Shadow. The right one, whether fighting a mistaken battle, or gone berserk, would never have missed a
target such as Cardona made at present. Nor would the wrong Shadow miss, if Joe didn't do something
about it.
WHAT Cardona did was almost ludicrous. He grabbed a fat fire extinguisher from the wall and clung to
it like a shield as he turned to shoot back at his foe.
Again Joe heard a sinister laugh, then the cough of a .45 automatic. Cardona staggered, as a bullet
punctured the metal case of the extinguisher.
He wasn't hit. It was the wallop of the bullet that jarred him. Tilted upward, the extinguisher spouted
liquid from its side. Recovering his balance, Cardona saw the black-clad marksman, well beyond
Cortho's door, aiming his gun, as though awaiting Cardona's own move.
There had been a dozen shots in less than the same number of seconds. Trapped between doorways, his
gun empty, the shielding extinguisher slipping from his grasp, Cardona stared, half hypnotized, at the
pointed gun, expecting another blast - the last.
It came.
If all the noise of fired guns had been combined into one big roar, they would have been puny compared
to the thing that happened. The muzzle that let off the titanic burst was nearly seven feet high and four feet
wide. It was the doorway of Cortho's room.
The whole space opened, splintering the stout door into shreds the size of match sticks. With the roar
came a mighty spasm of flame, like the opening of a blast furnace. The whole floor of the corridor
quaked, rocking Cardona from his feet. The building seemed to shudder in response to the blast.
The shock made the recent fray seem trivial. A man numbed, Cardona reeled forward with the spouting
fire extinguisher; he began to spray its hose on flaming chunks of furniture that strewed the wrecked
room, Joe was wondering what had become of Cortho, when a man stumbled into him.
It wasn't Fence Cortho. The man was the house detective, even more bewildered than Cardona. His
own senses returning, Cardona realized that the dick wasn't injured at all. His howl, his dive, had been
inspired by bullets that sizzled too close for his comfort, not because of hits.
Shoving the fire extinguisher into the fellow's hands, Cardona sprang out into the hall. His foot kicked
something; he stooped to pick it up. The thing was curved, and made of leather; the handle of a suitcase.
Clutched in a fist, the suitcase handle had survived intact, but the hand that had gripped it was gone.
Cortho's hand! Blotted out with the man himself, reduced to atoms by a bomb planted in the suitcase!
Only a substance as powerful as TNT could have wrought such complete destruction. If Cardona had
entered that room to apprehend Cortho, the ace inspector would have made a similar trip into complete
oblivion.
But Cardona wasn't thinking of himself, or Cortho. He was wondering about the cloaked fighter who had
risked his own life to drive Joe and the house detective away from the door of Room 412.
Arriving at the very moment when Cardona was about to enter the room, The Shadow had lacked time
to give any warning except with bullets.
He had chosen that method as a sure one, and it had worked. The only hazard had been The Shadow's
own, the chance that a return bullet might clip him. For The Shadow's shots, aimed by a master among
marksmen, were as harmless as blanks. Their closeness was merely part of his effort to make his attack
seem real.
Fearful that he had found The Shadow as a target, Cardona stared along the floor toward the corridor
corner. He saw no figure stretched there. Instead, from beyond the corner, Cardona heard the whispered
throb of a parting laugh; a tone that betokened satisfaction.
The wrong Shadow had turned out to be the right one. Correctly, The Shadow had interpreted Q's
message to mean death for Fence Cortho. Too late to balk the scheduled crime, The Shadow had saved
two other victims from a similar fate.
CHAPTER III. FACTS FROM THE PAST
A FEW hours after the explosion at the Hotel Clarion, four men gathered in conference at the exclusive
Cobalt Club. One of the four was Police Commissioner Ralph Weston, who spent much of his time at the
club after office hours.
Broad-faced, with short-clipped mustache, Weston was brisk of manner. He formed a sharp contrast to
the man who sat beside him, Bryce Dalvan. Long-featured, with wide forehead and sharp-pointed chin,
Dalvan was hesitant in speech, troubled in tone whenever he spoke.
Dalvan had reason to be so. He was the near-victim of a previous explosion, the one that had occurred
the day before. News of another tragedy had ruined what poise Dalvan had earlier been able to
command.
The news-bringer was present. He was Joe Cardona. He had a full report on the death of Fence Cortho;
that was, as full a report as the law had been able to compile.
Lamont Cranston was the fourth member of the party. Also a member of the Cobalt Club, Cranston had
dropped in, to find his friend the police commissioner chatting with Bryce Dalvan. He had just begun to
hear Dalvan's story of last night's crime, when Cardona had come in with his report on a fresh case.
"Resume your story, Mr. Dalvan," suggested Weston. "It sheds important light on the operations of the
robbery ring."
Dalvan gave his testimony. The explosion of yesterday had occurred at eight in the evening, outside a
jewelry store. It had blown an automobile to pieces and smashed the store window.
Some crooks had sprung through the gap and made off with a fair-sized haul, but the robbery had been
trivial compared with previous crimes.
Behind the indifferent expression of Cranston, The Shadow was keenly interested in Dalvan's account. It
furnished new angles to a case that had previously seemed ordinary. Early police reports had stated that
the explosion occurred within the jewelry store, not outside it.
"You see, Cranston," said the commissioner to his friend, "the car that blew up happened to belong to
Mr. Dalvan, whose office is next door to the jewelry store. He is in the real estate business."
"It wasn't my own car," corrected Dalvan. "It belonged to one of my collectors, Tillingham. He was killed
in the explosion. But it was pure luck that I wasn't with Tillingham at the time. If he had stopped at the
office a little earlier, he would have found me there and I would have gone with him on his trip."
"To make collections?" inquired Weston.
"Yes," replied Dalvan. "Our last stop was to be at the Gibraltar Trust Co., which is open until nine
o'clock. I intended to draw twenty thousand dollars, as a fund for next month's cash transactions.
Something which I do regularly."
Commissioner Weston proceeded to analyze the case in efficient fashion. It was obvious that crooks had
planted the bomb in Tillingham's car. They were on hand in cars of their own, ready to trail the collector
and his passenger, Dalvan.
The bomb had gone off ahead of time, which was a way with bombs occasionally. Dalvan had been
lucky enough not to be with Tillingham when the collector was killed, and the crooks had been somewhat
lucky, too. The chance smashing of a window in a second-rate jewelry store had enabled them to stage a
small robbery.
But they had lost their chance for the cash profit which would have been theirs, had the bomb blown after
Dalvan and Tillingham left the bank with the twenty thousand dollars. Obviously, the crooks would have
grabbed the cash box from the wreckage and made away with it.
TO a degree, Weston's theory fitted well with The Shadow's own findings. Last night, he had heard the
Q signals just after nine o'clock, which was when Dalvan should have been on his return trip from the
bank.
Very definitely, Q, whoever he was, had not learned of the ill-timed bomb that exploded nearly an hour
before.
The case threw new light on Q, altering The Shadow's analysis of the signals. Evidently, the Q call did not
always signify that a blast was to be planted or discharged; sometimes, that was attended to beforehand,
in which case Q flashed his word as a signal for other crooks to be ready for their part.
Dalvan was talking again, explaining the reason for his worry. He put the matter very frankly. Though
crooks had been after his cash, rather than himself, he feared that they would make him a future target.
His present testimony was putting him in jeopardy, because it gave the law some valuable clues.
Criminals who could plant bombs unmolested might easily wreak their vengeance on Dalvan, as an object
lesson to other persons who might also help the police.
Such talk made Weston chew his lips. He couldn't dispute Dalvan's logic. Tonight, Fence Cortho had
been blasted into nothingness, without cash profit to the crooks. Since this case smacked of vengeance,
the rule could apply to Dalvan, too.
"I see your point, Mr. Dalvan," conceded the commissioner. "Therefore, I assure you that nothing you
have said shall pass beyond this group. Every effort will be made to protect you. Should you feel any
precautions necessary, notify us at once."
The assurance relieved Dalvan. He settled back in his chair to listen to Cardona's account of Cortho's
death.
Cardona related how Detectives Braun and Jepson had trailed the wanted man to the Grand Central
Terminal, where they had seen him pick up the timetable from the information booth in the lower
concourse.
Joe mentioned Jepson's encounter with Dip Perkin, but regarded it as unimportant. Dip was too small a
fry to have figured in the tragedy that followed.
"We don't know why Fence was back in town," admitted Cardona, "but we do know that he intended to
get out again. The fact that he picked up a timetable at Grand Central is proof that he was going to
travel."
"To where?" inquired Weston.
"I wish I knew," returned Cardona. "Unfortunately, we couldn't find any trace of the timetable. It was
blotted out along with Fence Cortho."
"Did you inquire at the information booth?"
"Yes. But we couldn't find anybody who remembered Cortho, let alone what timetable he asked for.
摘要：

QMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI?CHAPTERII.THEWRONGSHADOW?CHAPTERIII.FACTSFROMTHEPAST?CHAPTERIV.TWOMENMEET?CHAPTERV.HOUSEOFSILENCE?CHAPTERVI.AMATTEROFCASH?CHAPTERVII.CRIME'STHRUST?CHAPTERVIII.CRIME'SMYSTERIES?CHAPTERIX.DAYVERSUSNIGHT?CHAPTERX.CRIME...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：78 页 大小：196.56KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

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