a man who once had loved her.
'I have been dreading the anniversary of that night, thirty years ago. I have been trying to forget. And now -' His voice rose to a hoarse scream. He seized the paper that lay in Harry's hands. He tore it to shreds and flung the fragments in the air.
'The first of June!' Banks stared wildly as he uttered the words. 'The first of June! The night - the night -
that - she died! I must forget it! I will forget it! But now I have written it - and I cannot remember when!'
He arose and paced back and forth across the room, while Harry watched him in silence.
'I have written it myself!' gasped Hubert Banks. 'Written it, with my own hand! I cannot remember when. I found the paper on the telephone table. June the first, June the first, June -'
Banks placed his hand against his forehead and staggered toward the steps. Harry Vincent watched the man as he stumbled and then regained his footing.
Banks ascended the steps, crossed the hallway and ascended the stairs to the second floor.
'June the first -' came his voice, followed by a peal of insane laughter. The sound was repeated farther away.
Five minutes later, Harry arose and went to the second floor. He listened at the door of the millionaire's room. He tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He found Banks lying on his bed, in a stupor.
Harry turned out the light and waited by the door. At last he heard a regular breathing. Exhausted, Banks had fallen asleep.
Harry returned to the living room. At the writing desk in the corner, he wrote out a quick report and sealed it in an envelope. He picked up a small heap of letters that he was to mail for Hubert Banks. At the door, Harry encountered the butler.
'Do not lock up, Herbert,' he said. 'I shall be back in a few minutes.'
Harry returned a quarter of an hour afterward. He stopped in front of the millionaire's room and satisfied himself that Banks was sleeping comfortably.
Harry was thoughtful as he went to his own room. Tonight he had learned what troubled Hubert Banks -
and now that information was on its way to The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIV. THE UNSEEN HARD
A MAN stepped from a taxicab on a quiet street. He paid the driver and walked slowly toward a nearby house, glancing cautiously over his shoulder as he went.
When the cab had pulled away, the man stopped, looked up and down the street, and then sauntered away in the direction opposite that taken by the cab. Although the night was mild, the collar of the dark topcoat was turned up above his neck.
He turned suddenly and walked through a narrow passage between two houses. He came to a side door of a house on the next street. He tapped lightly. The door opened automatically.
Inside, he went up three steps, through a hallway to another door, which opened to his tapping. The man entered a room. The door closed behind him.
The room in which the visitor stood was the visible creation of a gruesome mind. It contained no furniture. Its walls were formed by billowy, jet-black curtains. A ghastly blue light pervaded the apartment.
There was a strangeness about this weird light that had a marked effect upon the man who had entered.
He could not see his own features, yet he seemed to realize that they were indistinguishable in that eerie illumination.
The curtains seemed to rustle uncertainly. The man was watchful. Then, at the end of the room, a black form seemed to emerge, from the bulging curtains; a human form, with face invisible, showing only as a white blur under the strange blue light.
The man who had come from outside shifted his position. The action showed that he had noted the arrival of the master of the strange room. He awaited a command.
'Speak!' said a quiet voice.
'Howard Jennings,' said the man in the center of the room, addressing the dim form that stood before the curtains. 'Now operating under the name of Graham Jenkins. Serving as valet for Hubert Banks.'
'Report!'
'The paper was placed. It worried Hubert Banks. He believes that he wrote it while telephoning. He destroyed the paper.
'He talked about it to his secretary, Vincent. Conversation only partly overheard. Banks was talking about something that happened thirty years ago. A woman dying.'
'Report on Vincent!'
'A third letter came for him this afternoon. He still does not suspect that I took the second - the one which you still have. I have brought the third letter.'
The man reached in a pocket of his coat. He produced an envelope. He advanced timidly, holding it at arm's length.
A black-clad hand extended from the figure that emerged from the curtains. It grasped the letter. The man who had delivered it stepped back.
'Wait here!' came the quiet, commanding voice.
The curtains rustled. The black form disappeared. A deathly stillness settled over the room.
While Howard Jennings, alias Graham Jenkins, was standing uneasily in the room with the gloomy black curtains, a silent man was at work in an adjoining room.
This compartment was a long, narrow room, in total darkness except for spots where small but powerful lights were focused. On a table beneath one light lay an opened envelope and a blank sheet of paper.
Two gloved hands appeared. Despite their black silk covering, the hands worked deftly. They held the letter which Jennings had delivered.
They inserted a thin-bladed instrument beneath the flap of the envelope. Part of the flap moved upward; then a moistened brush was pressed into the opening. A few moments later, the flap lifted up smoothly.
The hands brought out a folded sheet of paper. They carried it into darkness. It was fully two minutes before they reappeared.
This time they held a board, which they placed before another lamp that threw its glare against the wall.
On the board appeared the letter which had been removed from the envelope. The hands went away.
An instant later, something clicked in the darkness. Shortly afterward, the writing began to fade from the sheet of paper beneath the light. It disappeared, word by word.
There was swishing in the darkness - the sound familiar to all professional photographers. A plate was being treated in a developing bath.
A few minutes went by. Then the hands arrived again beneath the table light. They held a photographic reproduction of the letter which had been placed upon the wall. The click had been caused by the operation of a camera!
The duplicated message lay for a while on the table. At last there was a chuckle in the darkness. A low voice read off the message, which had been solved after a brief study of the simple code: Do not leave Banks tomorrow night. Stay with him every minute. Plot now understood since receiving your message. No danger while you are active. House will be watched. Signal if urgent.
Now the hands produced a pad and a bottle of ink. Dipping a pen in the liquid, the right hand wrote a few words on the top sheet of the pad. The ink dried in a few moments. It remained in view for about one minute. Then it disappeared. There was a chuckle from the darkness.
The hands took the blank folded letter - the one that had been lying on the table before the second was opened. Using the pen, the right hand wrote a short note in code, pausing now and then as though a reference were being made to the photographic reproduction.
As soon as the ink had dried, the letter was folded and sealed in its proper envelope.
