“I’m leaving here,” observed Hembroke. “I’m supposed to be out by seven. I don’t like the idea of you staying - but it’s on Pringle’s say-so. Come on.”
Hembroke conducted the architect back to the conference room. He pointed to a chair by the table. Carmody seated himself; Hembroke stalked about the room, and stared suspiciously at every corner. Satisfied that all was well, he went out and closed the door of the little anteroom behind him.
The detective paused to listen for a few minutes; then shrugged his shoulders and continued on his way. He left the offices of the Amalgamated Builders’ Association, and took an elevator to the ground floor.
In the conference room, Carlton Carmody waited until he was sure that the detective was really gone. Then, with an eager smile, the architect spread the plans on the table before him. His eyes were agog as he surveyed those charts - each of which now bore a crimson spot.
Minutes dragged by. Carlton Carmody was like a man in a trance as he noted the features of the plans. He was unconscious of the passage of time, concentrated solely upon the diagrams before him. Forty minutes passed. It was nearly half past seven, and he was still immersed in his work.
Suddenly, the lights of the conference room went out. After that event, Carlton Carmody knew no more.
This was the prelude to crime that was to follow, elsewhere as well as in this very room.
CHAPTER XVIII
ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
IT was precisely nine o’clock when Lamont Cranston appeared within the portals of the Club Janeiro. There was something mysterious about the millionaire’s arrival. The head waiter, watching the usual entrances, did not see him until after he was seated at a table far from the screened archway that led to the offices.
There was a reason for this phenomenon. Cranston had come in by one of the side corridors - a route which the police had searched in the belief that Socks Mallory had escaped by such an exit on the eventful evening when Tony Loretti had been slain.
In fact, Cranston had done more than simply enter. He had paid a brief visit to the center of the three offices; there, he had deposited a bundle in an inconspicuous spot beneath a desk.
The millionaire had not lingered long, however. The voice of Juanita Pasquales, speaking over the telephone in an adjacent office, had caused him to stroll away before the call was completed.
When he noted Cranston, the head water immediately started toward the screened archway. He must have met Senorita Pasquales before he reached the office, for the man returned quite promptly; and the proprietress of the Club Janeiro appeared a few minutes later.
Five minutes went by; then the events of a slowly unfolding drama began their occurrence. The head waiter, stopping at a table where four men were seated, passed a card to one of them. This fellow, a heavy, full-faced man, who looked like an old-line political boss, nodded his head. He spoke in a low tone to his three companions.
Lamont Cranston, calmly puffing at a cigarette, observed the happening with an eagle gaze. Impassive, betraying no interest whatever, the hawk-visaged millionaire understood what was transpiring as clearly as if he had been one of the distant group.
The bluff-faced man was “Dynamite” Hoskins, a former denizen of New York’s underworld, whose persistent use of fuse and bomb had caused him to depart for places unknown. Back in Manhattan, Dynamite was making his first reappearance at the Club Janeiro.
At the end of the interval which followed the head waiter’s message, Dynamite Hoskins arose and strolled past the fringe of tables that surrounded the dance floor of the night club. The spotlight was on the floor; couples were dancing there; and the passage of this one man was unnoticed - with one exception.
Lamont Cranston, his keen eye watching through the semi-gloom, saw Dynamite pass behind the screen that led to the office archway. A few moments later, Juanita Pasquales left in the same direction.
More minutes passed; then Cranston himself arose. Quietly, he strolled to the edge of the screen, paused, and stepped out of sight.
THE action brought an immediate response from the three men whom Dynamite Hoskins had left. They arose together, slunk toward the side of the big room, and sneaked in file toward the spot where they had last seen the departing millionaire.
Short, crouching forms; tight, tough fists that gripped stub-nosed revolvers; these were the three that took up Cranston’s trail. Smooth and shaven faces had given a very flimsy gloss to these thugs. A stalking trio, they were now displaying themselves as hardened gorillas - paid assassins of the bad lands.
Meanwhile, Lamont Cranston had passed the crossing of the corridors. In fact, he had paused there a moment. Eyes from one hallway had seen his standing form. As Cranston went on toward the central office, Juanita Pasquales slipped into an empty dressing room and pushed back a cloak that hung in a corner of the wall.
Hesitating - almost fearful of the deed she was now to perform - the woman pressed the button and let the cloak fall back in place. Hastening to the door of the dressing room, Juanita was just in time to see the three stalking gorillas pass the crossing of the corridors.
Lamont Cranston had gone straight into the center office. The three men were on his trail. Juanita stole to the crossing; she noted the stooped forms waiting at the door down the hall. With trembling step, the woman hurried toward the archway, back to the night club where the entertainment was scheduled to begin.
A gorilla’s hand was on the door that led into the suite of offices. The barrier moved inward as the man turned the knob. Peering cautiously into the lighted room, yet seeing no one, the first of the assassins beckoned to his fellows. With guns ready, they sidled through the opening.
The leader of the trio had opened the door with his left hand. Peering past the edge, he had looked toward the office which had once been Tony Loretti’s, while the others had headed toward the little office on the right.
As the first man stepped just beyond the edge of the door the barrier was swung shut by the quick thrust of a figure that had stood behind it. The slam caused the three gorillas to swing in that direction.
Between them and the door was the sinister figure of a black-clad being that had appeared as suddenly as a ghost. A long cloak hung from hidden shoulders; an upturned collar obscured the lower portion of the face above it.
Topped by a black slouch hat, the upper portion of the countenance was concealed by the broad, turned- down brim. Two blazing eyes - optics that burned with a glaring sparkle - were the only visible features of that unseen countenance.
Blazing eyes! Threatening eyes! But they were not the only menace which the startled gunmen faced. Black- gloved hands projected from the folds of the cloak; each fist grasped a huge automatic, and the muzzles of the .45s were covering the trio who had come to slay an unsuspecting victim.
“The Shadow!”
The gasp came from three husky throats; and the echo of those words was a whispered, mocking laugh that issued from beneath the brim of the slouch hat. By a ruse as simple as it was daring, the terror of the underworld had gained the drop on the three armed desperadoes!
THE taunt of The Shadow’s mirth was a command. The gesture of those looming automatics brooked no opposition. Sullenly, the gangsters backed across the room, their arms rising.
The Shadow’s back was against the door; his enemies were at his mercy. One second more - his opponents would have been totally helpless.
But in that fleeting instant, The Shadow’s keen eyes caught a sign that came as a strange satire to his own mighty presence. Across the center of the room, The Shadow’s silhouette lay in ominous blackness. Now, from the doorway of the dimly lighted office on the right, The Shadow saw a shadow!
Someone was creeping to the edge of that door; someone lying in wait until the three assassins had acted. The Shadow had no choice. Another moment spent upon the three men before him would mean a menacing attack from the other room.
The Shadow was prepared. In that split second, he performed the unexpected. His position against the door was one of clever design. The elbow of a right arm moved beneath the folds of the enveloping cloak. It pressed the light switch at the right of the door.
Darkness. With it, two men sprang forward from the other room. As quick fingers pressed revolver triggers, the blackened form of The Shadow dropped into total darkness. That fade-away came just before the shots were
