It meant that Louis Talney was marked off the book. His servant, Glevin, if even considered, was written off, too. But Talney was the one that counted; he was the fifth link in the chain of death. Whether the chain went on from there, was the next point to learn. Already sure that it did lead farther, The Shadow now held the proof.
Talney's bewilderment over the cheap ring that Glevin wore fitted with The Shadow's own curiosity concerning the rings on the fingers of previous victims. Those rings should have had sapphires as gems.
Furthermore, the fact that they did not contain sapphires pointed to the rings themselves as bearing responsibility for death.
Glevin's case backed that point.
The servant had died instead of his master, Talney, and it was doubtful that human poisoners had made the mistake, since Dwig, very active in the chain of crime, knew what Talney looked like.
However, further speculation was hardly necessary, since The Shadow now held a valuable informant: namely, Talney. Should there be a sixth man listed for death, Talney might be able to name him; but there was no rush, for death, if scheduled, was by this time delivered.
Indeed, rush was impossible with Talney. Getting sense from him was equally difficult, as The Shadow learned while riding in Moe's cab.
Beside him, Talney sat staring, muttering useless words. His mind was still numbed by his recollection of Glevin's body and the startling events that had succeeded it. He didn't even see the black-clad battler who sat beside him. At moments, Talney's eyes lighted, when he opened his hand to stare at an object that he had clutched all through the excitement.
It was the dull, glassy ring that he had taken from Glevin's finger. Momentarily, Talney's eyes would brighten, then fade. This ring was not the one that he expected to see. He couldn't understand it.
The cab pulled up at an address around a corner from Park Avenue. It was the side entrance to the office of Dr. Rupert Sayre, who happened to be Cranston's own physician. Sayre was there, and lost none of his professional calm when he saw the cloaked figure of The Shadow bringing in Talney as a patient.
They helped Talney to a couch and let him lie down; hearing The Shadow's version of the patient's ordeal, Sayre nodded, and made a brief examination.
The Shadow, meanwhile, sat at Sayre's desk in another corner. Coming over, the physician stated:
'Our patient will need about an hour. Nothing serious; the combination of mental shock and physical exertion was too much -'
Pausing, Sayre stared at the ring that The Shadow held between the fingers of his gloved left hand. It was a very cheap ring, and The Shadow had been examining it with a powerful microscope on Sayre's desk.
At present, however, The Shadow was doing something that made Sayre think he might be a better candidate as a patient than Talney.
Having laid aside the microscope, The Shadow had picked up an eye dropper and filled it with ink from Sayre's inkstand. He was carefully inserting the point of the eye dropper beneath the colorless quartz that served as a gem for the cheap finger ring.
The Shadow heard Sayre's voice chop short.
'This stone is hollow,' spoke The Shadow, quietly. 'It is cut en cabochon, as jewelers say, meaning dome- shaped. The microscope shows a special mounting beneath the hollow. Watch this effect, Sayre.'
AS The Shadow squeezed the bulb of the eye dropper, the hollow space in the quartz sucked up the blue ink. Only a small quantity, but the effect was splendid. Filled with blue, the worthless gem took on a gorgeous luster. Nor was that all; as The Shadow raised the transformed jewel to the light, Sayre saw scintillating streaks that radiated from the center of the imitation gem.
'A starolite,' informed The Shadow. 'The trade name for imitations of star sapphires. Usually a starolite is easily detected; but this one is different. The liquid deepens the color and magnifies the marked mounting.'
It happened that Sayre had stopped in at the exhibit at Walder's. He couldn't fail to recognize the amazing imitation gem that The Shadow held.
'One of the six sapphires!' Sayre exclaimed. 'Those that were cut from the Star of Delhi!'
'Supposedly cut from it,' corrected The Shadow. 'No one examined them. They were in a sealed casket that had no lights beneath its top of unbreakable glass. Let us try another experiment.'
He held the ring to Sayre's desk lamp. As the blue stone heated, little dribs of ink began to ooze from it.
Sayre watched The Shadow wipe the blue dabs away with his glove, while the slow flow continued.
Fading gradually, the stone was a star sapphire no longer, but just poor quartz.
'You can answer the next question,' The Shadow told Sayre. 'Suppose the ink to be a virulent poison, oozing because of the heat of the finger that wore it, working its way into a man's pores -'
Sayre interrupted. He defined the very poison by its Latin name. The Shadow listened while Sayre gave more facts; how such a poison, slowly administered, would be absorbed through the entire blood stream, bringing eventual death. In the form of blue crystals, the poison, made into a solution, would have the same hue!
Death's riddle was solved by The Shadow!
Much, however, remained. Foremost was the tracing of the master murderer. The Shadow reached for Sayre's telephone; the physician heard him call the Cobalt Club and ask for Commissioner Weston. For the first time, The Shadow was using Cranston's tone. He seemed startled by what he heard over the phone.
'Another death?' he queried. 'A man named Louis Talney killed in an explosion?... What? Someone called Raft's office... The last, you think! Well, that is helpful. I see. No other leads beyond Talney... I'll drop in later, at the club -'
Rising, The Shadow turned toward Sayre, who was seated beside Talney's couch.
'When he comes around,' spoke The Shadow, in the whispered tone that suited his cloaked guise, 'send him to the Cobalt Club. Tell him not to give his name; he is merely to ask for Cranston.'
'But if the commissioner will be there -'
'It will be the last place in the world' - The Shadow's tone was a whispered laugh - 'where Commissioner Weston would expect to meet a dead man named Louis Talney!'
The Shadow was gone while Dr. Sayre was considering the unimpeachable merits of that particular plan.
With a laugh of his own, Sayre turned again to his patient.
It took ten minutes for Moe's cab to get from Sayre's office to the Metrolite. When The Shadow alighted at the hotel, he was Cranston again. Inside the Metrolite, he found Margo waiting, and quietly apologized, as any gentleman would have, for coming to dinner at nine when he should have arrived at eight. Margo accepted the apology and asked no explanation. But while they dined, she gained the definite impression that Lamont Cranston, though as leisurely as ever, expected to keep further appointments before this night was ended.
CHAPTER XIV. MASTER OF CRIME
COMMISSIONER WESTON was very disappointed by the sudden way in which his friend, Lamont Cranston, lost all interest in the strange chain of quintuple death. Dropping into the club at about ten o'clock, Cranston listened to all that Weston had to say; then he yawned and decided to go home.
'But these are unexplainable riddles!' Weston exclaimed. 'Men slain by a subtle poison administered in an unknown manner. We must solve these deaths! Think of the menace of a type of murder that never fails!'
'It failed the last time,' reminded Cranston, 'in Talney's case.' The statement carried far more truth that Weston suspected. The commissioner did not catch the point behind it.
'Talney died!' he insisted. 'He was blasted out of existence. Don't you realize it, Cranston?'
'Of course I realize it. Again, I say the perfect murder failed. They had to bomb Talney, instead of poisoning him, and that, I hope, will be the end of it.'
Accompanying Cranston out through the foyer, Weston stopped impatiently while his friend paused to shake hands with a man who was waiting for him. Cranston didn't bother to introduce his acquaintance.
He just waved to Weston and went out with the arrival.
The commissioner noted that the man had a solemn, squarish face, but soon forgot it. As yet, Weston had seen no photographs of Talney, a matter on which The Shadow had checked while chatting with the commissioner.
In Cranston's limousine, Talney showed quite plainly that Sayre had brought him fully around. He was very
