'Sometimes I have met men whom I believed were The Shadow. But there has been no proof.'
'I should like to meet this man,' said Doctor Zerndorff thoughtfully. 'This one man that you call The Shadow. He must know the one way that is sure to deal with those that have brains bad with crime. That is to fight them without the law.
'It is the only way that is sure. I have been with the law for so many years that I have seen that! Very often, Herr Detective.'
'You are right, professor,' agreed Cardona. 'Well, maybe we'll hear from The Shadow yet!'
'Ah! You think so, yes? Why is that?'
'This is a big case, professor. We've got the right men, all right, and we're going to hold onto them. But there may be more to it - gangsters and guns, as well as these bomb planters.
'If there are, it's big; and if it's big - well, that's when The Shadow may show up! If we've got to the heart of it, well and good; if we haven't - then - look for The Shadow!'
'The Shadow!' repeated Doctor Zerndorff.
Cardona nodded. He went toward the door.
'Well, professor,' he said, in parting, 'we'll need you any time now. The inspector will be up to see you.
We can count on you for full cooperation, professor?'
Doctor Zerndorff bowed.
The door closed behind the detective. Doctor Heinrich Zerndorff stood motionless. The eyes of the celebrated criminologist glowed with interest.
In all his years of warring against crime, this famous man had never before heard a practical-minded detective speak as Joe Cardona had spoken.
'The Shadow,' said Doctor Zerndorff, in a low, thoughtful voice, with guttural accent. 'I should like to meet this man that they call The Shadow. I should like to meet him, yes!'
He turned and went into his laboratory. There he encountered his serving-man, who questioned him in German.
'They have gone, sir?' the man asked.
'Detective Cardona has gone,' replied Doctor Zerndorff, in the same language.
'But Herr Inspector?'
'I did not see him.'
'He came a few minutes after Herr Detective -' The man's expression denoted bewilderment. 'I told him to join Herr Detective, in the room upstairs, to await you!'
Doctor Zerndorff turned suddenly. He left the laboratory and went into the room where he had talked with Cardona.
The chair in which the detective had been sitting was turned with its back toward the door. It would have been easily possible for someone to have entered without Cardona's knowledge.
Doctor Zerndorff crossed the room and whisked aside a curtain that hung beside the window. He saw nothing but the wall. He glanced quickly from the window but saw no one in the street below.
Then he stepped across the room and studied the curtains that hung upon each side of the window. The top of the curtain on the right was stretched fully eight inches farther than the one on the left.
'Otto,' called Doctor Zerndorff.
His man entered.
'The curtains are not even,' said Doctor Zerndorff, in German.
'I am sorry, sir,' came the reply. 'I always keep them even, sir.'
There was a slight look of puzzlement on the man's face. He arranged the curtains with his usual precision and Doctor Zerndorff noted that he narrowed the one on the right to conform with the one on the left.
The curtain which Otto moved was directly behind the chair which Cardona had occupied.
'This Shadow,' murmured Doctor Zerndorff. 'I think some day I shall meet him!'
CHAPTER VII. THE HUNTED MAN
WHEN Joe Cardona had mentioned the name of The Shadow to Doctor Heinrich Zerndorff, he had obeyed a sudden impulse. This had not been due entirely to chance. Cardona had been thinking of The Shadow.
Whenever the detective encountered the unexplainable in any mystery, he always thought of The Shadow. In this particular case, the unexplainable had entered. It concerned the finding of the bomb in the office of Barr Childs.
Cardona had admitted that he had received a tip-off. It had come over the telephone. He had been told to go to that particular office in the Financial Building, and that there he would discover a planted bomb.
So he had acted. He had found the bomb. But he had not been able to trace the phone call, nor had he any evidence that pointed to the identity of his informant.
The search for the person who had called Cardona at headquarters had been one of the many mystifying details that had come up during the investigation.
Inspector Burke, Doctor Zerndorff, and the others knew that Cardona had received a phone call. But all had taken it for granted that the quizzing of the suspects would clear this minor mystery. Such was not the case.
The voice that Cardona had heard had seemed vaguely familiar. The detective had encountered The Shadow in the past. He had heard the voice of The Shadow. It had differed on various occasions, and in this present instance, Cardona was too wise to mention his idea that The Shadow was the one who had called.
After all, the man of the night was officially a myth. The bombing investigations were moving satisfactorily, and the subject of The Shadow was a good one to forget.
The fact that the unexploded bomb had been placed in the Financial Building fitted in with the accepted theory that the series of crimes had been actuated by terrorists.
The new building was a monument to big business.
An explosion in it would have created a sensation equal to those which had gone before.
The placing of the bomb was a self-evident fact. The particular office in which it had been set was a logical selection as it fronted on the avenue below and was high enough to have attracted great attention.
But Doctor Zerndorff, too, had encountered certain puzzling factors which did not seem highly important in themselves. While the bomb was the craftsmanship of Isidor Vervick, Zerndorff could not fully understand the mechanism of the detonator.
He discovered no timing device that would have been responsible for the bomb going off at a certain minute. He could not explain why the bomb had failed to explode.
As this bomb was considered to be the same type as those which had actually exploded, these were important details. Fragments of the exploded bombs had been found and compared with the one which had been turned over to Doctor Zerndorff. They corresponded exactly.
During the twenty-four hours that followed Detective Cardona's visit to Doctor Zerndorff, much progress was made in the examination of the prisoners and in the acquisition of new witnesses.
Vervick's identity was rapidly becoming established. His lodging was discovered, an obscure house on the East Side. In the cellar the police found materials which he had used in the construction of the bombs.
Both Sforza and Pecherkin were forced to admit their former association with Vervick. Still they declared positively that they had not known of his presence in America, and nothing was established to prove that he had been brought here by them.
Bonzetti, Arno, and Michaels also made damaging admissions, but each of them swore that they had received individual orders from a man who had governed each of them.
They had been summoned to meetings, so they said, in a house on the East Side, and had often received instructions by telephone.
The fact that their stories held up under separate quizzings was troublesome to both the police and the secret-service investigators. It was particularly so to Joe Cardona. He had a great problem, and the matter of The Shadow was becoming burdensome.
This talk of a common master might mean The Shadow! But Cardona had no proof of it until he could trace the unknown phone call. The message over the wire was in itself contradictory.
All the time, the investigators kept working to supply the missing link between Sforza and Pecherkin and the three bomb placers. They began to get evidence; but it was all of the stool-pigeon variety.
The newspapers supported the police theory and reported progress.
