There, as Cranston alighted, he heard the shrill cry of a newsboy. Purchasing an evening newspaper, Cranston read the report of Brellick's collapse.
Had Sayre known of that case, he would have probably pronounced Thurnig to be a sleeping sickness victim; for here was apparent proof of an epidemic disease. Cranston, however, was armed with other facts, small though they were.
Behind the case of Martin Brellick, he saw the opposite sort of evidence. To Cranston, it still meant crime - more subtle, more deadly, than before. A master plotter had foreseen that medical men like Sayre would be reserving opinion until new victims were reported.
That scheming brain had clinched the matter, by spreading what appeared to be an epidemic. But in lulling medical investigators, the master crook had provided a new trail for The Shadow.
JUST before five o'clock, Lamont Cranston strolled into the office of Martin Brellick. He placed a brief case upon a chair, introduced himself as a friend of Brellick's. Soon, he was talking with the gum-chewing stenographer.
The girl remembered many facts, as she chatted. Somehow, Cranston's even-toned questions brought a wealth of answers, even though the stenographer did not realize that she was being quizzed. Cranston merely expressed sympathy for Brellick; expressed hopes that his business would not suffer by his absence. Those remarks brought results.
'He needed a rest,' insisted the stenographer. 'He's tucked away ten thousand dollars, Mr. Brellick has.
He owns property, too; that's the security he used to borrow another ten thousand.'
'I remember the loan' - Cranston spoke idly, as he gazed from the window into a courtyard - 'because Brellick mentioned it. I wasn't sure, though, that he had managed to raise it.'
'Maybe that was the new loan,' said the stenographer. 'The one he was going after today. Another ten thousand. Then he was struck - so sudden - just after that doctor from the Southeastern Mutual had said he was in such fine shape. He must have overexerted himself, that's what.'
'Overexerted himself? How?'
'Racing downstairs to answer that telephone call. The phone here was out of order. It was the repair man's helper who made Mr. Brellick rush there. I'd have told that helper plenty, afterward, but he was gone.'
'Then the telephone was fixed by that time?'
'No. You know what the repair man found? A cut wire. Looked like rats had gnawed it. Took him a long time to find it, too - working here alone, after the helper left.'
Cranston decided to let the girl close the office. He went downstairs in the same elevator with her; but outside, he turned back, as though he had forgotten something. Dusk was settling; the tiny offices were dark when Cranston entered with the aid of a skeleton key.
A flashlight glimmered along the baseboard, settled on the spot where the repair man had fixed the broken wire.
Then, in the gloom, Cranston made some telephone calls. His voice was a brisk, but guarded, tone, quite unlike his own. He introduced himself under another name; stated that he was calling for Martin Brellick.
From the office of the Southeastern Mutual Company, Cranston learned that there must have been a mistake, sending the physician to examine Brellick. The doctor was a regular company examiner; but someone in the office must have given him Brellick's name through error.
When Cranston located the repair man who worked for the telephone company, he learned that the fellow had not brought a helper. The repair man remembered that a chap in overalls had been hanging around the hallway, but he had supposed he was the building janitor.
LEAVING Brellick's office, Cranston went to the street. He entered the passage of the adjacent building, noted that it had a big door, to close it from the street. He had hardly reached the obscure telephone booth before a man appeared at the outer entrance and began to close the door.
That fellow looked like an actual janitor. Before he locked the door, he came through the passage to make sure that no one was in it. He did not see Cranston, who had stepped to a corner past the booth.
The janitor extinguished the dim lights. He went out through the street door and locked it behind him. In the thick darkness, Cranston entered the telephone booth and pulled its door almost shut.
The booth's automatic light did not glow. Using a flashlight, Cranston inspected the top of the booth. He observed that there was no bulb in the socket; and his keen eyes made other discoveries.
There was a thin, green-taped wire that ran from the door to the top of the booth. Another strand, difficult to see against the booth's green paint, extended to the side where the door closed. Fastened there, behind a molding, was a small latch. When Cranston's fingers worked it, the latch slithered noiselessly toward the door.
If fully closed, that door would have been locked by the mechanism.
Looking upward again, Cranston probed the light socket with the glow of his tiny torch. He saw a disk of black-painted metal studded with tiny holes. Gripping the socket, he drew it downward. The ceiling of the booth came with it!
The whole mechanism was as simple as it was effective. This false ceiling had been fitted into the booth, just above the level of the door, with a foot of space above it. When set, the device worked automatically.
Cranston drew the door tight shut. The false ceiling moved upward, like a bellows; the hiss of air came through the holes in the dummy light socket. Testing the door, Cranston found it tight shut, until the fake ceiling had finished its bellows motion, to rest flush with the actual top of the booth. At that instant, the trick latch released the door.
Pulling the door open in his test, Cranston became suddenly motionless. A distant sound reached his ears: the scrape of wood against metal. Some one was jimmying a way into this building, through a rear door!
In darkness, Cranston's hand opened the brief case that rested on the floor beside him. There was a swish of cloth, a dull clink as heavy automatics were plucked from the brief case. The flashlight shone guardedly upon the dial of the telephone.
That glow showed cloaked shoulders; above them, a slouch hat that hid the features of Lamont Cranston.
A low whisper pervaded the booth; it was a tone of sinister mockery, confined to the limits of that cramped space.
Men of crime were on their way here, not knowing that Cranston had come ahead of them. But they would not find the leisurely clubman. A greater surprise was in store.
Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow!
CHAPTER IV. DEATH BRINGS A TRAIL
THE closed door of the telephone booth muffled the clink of a coin that The Shadow dropped into the pay box. A hand, thin-gloved in black, was busy at the dial. The Shadow's finger produced the number that he wanted. A methodical voice was prompt:
'Burbank speaking.'
In reply to that word across the wire, The Shadow toned instructions in a sibilant whisper. He was ordering Burbank, his contact man, to dispatch certain agents to outside duty.
Easing from the telephone booth, The Shadow moved to a remote corner that would serve as a strategic spot. The muffled prying of the jimmy had ceased; evidently, crooks had finished with door bolts and were picking locks.
The purpose of their forcible entry was quite obvious to The Shadow. While he waited, he reconstructed the past.
It was plain that both Thurnig and Brellick had been gassed, by a powerful vapor that had induced a state of sleeping sickness resembling the little-known encephalitis lethargica. The gas, whatever its composition, must be a sort that would produce instant death if the victim had a weak heart.
Such death would make the police suspect murder. Therefore, a master crook had made certain that Thurnig and Brellick could stand the shock.
In Thurnig's case, everything had been made to order. Ill in a hotel room, he had been under the care of a physician, who had pronounced him well. Thurnig, The Shadow had learned from Sayre, had been capable enough to answer a telephone call a short while before his collapse.
Unquestionably, the man who phoned had learned that Thurnig was strong enough for the gas treatment.
