voluble in describing all that had happened, including his recollections of The Shadow.
'Dr. Sayre said that you might help me,' concluded Talney. 'He spoke of previous deaths and told me that you knew something about them, since you were a friend of the police commissioner.'
'I do,' returned The Shadow in Cranston's tone. 'Five men died, all wearing rings with colorless gems.
'Not rings with star sapphires?'
'No. Rings like the one you said your servant wore. Wait - I think I can recall their names -'
He spoke off the list, keenly watching Talney. Though the man recognized none of them, he was definitely ill at ease. Suddenly, Talney blurted:
'Sayre said the rings could have been poisoned!'
'Poisoned?'
'Yes!' Talney was trembling. 'He said it might account for them changing from blue to some other color.'
Cranston's face registered amazement. Talney gripped his new friend's arm.
'There is much I have to tell you!' he confided. 'Dr. Sayre preferred that I should talk to you, as he is very busy. You must hear it all!'
With that, Talney unfolded the history of the secret six, the group that Armand Lenfell had sponsored for the worthy purpose of selling refugee gems, at proper prices, throughout the country. Talney, of course, was a member of the group, but he had known only Lenfell.
'Only Lenfell.' Talney's tone was hollow. 'The same was true of the others. Until tonight, I had no idea who the rest might be. But from what you tell me, I am sure that they were four of the men who died so mysteriously.'
LINKED deaths!
Those had been a problem, even to The Shadow, but now he understood. It showed the craft of a mighty mind behind the reign of murder. Except as members of the secret six, Talney and the four victims had been definitely disassociated. That was why steps had been taken to link them!
It was a move that led the law in the wrong direction, not the right. It made it seem that they had known one another, instead of being men who met only incognito. In Cranston's deliberate style, The Shadow suggested it to Talney, and the living dead man responded by ejaculating the very name that The Shadow expected:
'Armand Lenfell!'
Coolly, The Shadow inquired:
'You think that Lenfell is the murderer?'
'Who else could be?' demanded Talney. 'He knew us all, he alone. It was his idea to cut the Star of Delhi into six portions and have Walder exhibit it. But he kept the real Star for himself, and had five poisoned rings made instead!'
'There were six rings -'
'Yes,' interposed Talney. 'Lenfell kept one, but obviously, he would not have filled it with the same deadly liquid. That ring, however, will prove Lenfell to be a murderer! We must stop and call the police at once!'
Talney saw Cranston stare idly from the window of the slowly rolling limousine, which was piloted by a very patient chauffeur.
'We are in Central Park,' came Cranston's tone, 'with no phone booths near. But it would be unwise to call the police. They believe you dead, Talney.'
'I shall come to life -'
'And make yourself a target again?' Cranston's head shook slowly. 'Quite unwise, Talney. The Shadow might not arrive, the next time, to save you!'
Talney slumped back into the cushions. He rallied, suddenly, to announce:
'I shall go direct to Armand Lenfell!'
'To accuse him?' interposed Cranston. 'That would be dangerous. You would be giving away the fact that you live, straight to the man that plotted murder. He wouldn't have to wait for the police to proclaim the fact.'
'But someone must go to Lenfell!'
The Shadow nodded, as he pretended to give the statement deep consideration. Then, in Cranston's slowest tone:
'I shall go,' he said. 'Lenfell will not suspect me. Stanley, my chauffeur, will take you to my home in New Jersey, and you can remain there, Talney, as long as it is necessary to play dead. I shall tell you later how I make out with Lenfell.'
SOON after sending Stanley home, with Talney as a passenger, The Shadow approached Lenfell's gloomy house, but not as Lamont Cranston. The Shadow was cloaked, the proper guise for this occasion. In a way, he had borrowed an idea from Talney, based on the latter's tale of the secret six.
Since hooded men had moved in and out of Lenfell's practically at will, a cloaked visitor should find the same process satisfactory. But The Shadow was not taking this expedition as a sinecure.
From Talney's account, he inferred that Lenfell had given the servants evenings off whenever he expected his hooded friends - or dupes - to visit him.
Lenfell's house was an index to that fact. It was not as gloomy or formidable as Talney had described it.
The Shadow saw lights that appeared to be in the kitchen; others, on the third floor. Unquestionably, there were servants about. But when The Shadow glided to the side door and tried it, he found it unlocked.
The Shadow paused just inside. If Lenfell expected no more visits from his five companions in the secret six, why was the door unlocked? There was a plausible answer: the servants.
Probably Lenfell locked the doors himself; otherwise the servants, in the past, might have unwittingly blocked out the hooded visitors. It wouldn't be wise for Lenfell suddenly to change that policy over night, particularly on a night when murder was rampant.
Finding Lenfell's study was doubly easy. Talney had mentioned its location; from outside, The Shadow had seen a light in the room. Of all mysterious visitors who had entered Lenfell's house, none moved with more stealth than did The Shadow as he took the side stairway to the second floor. None, that was, except Jan Garmath, on the occasion when the elderly gem maker had returned to eavesdrop at Lenfell's study.
So far as the servants were concerned The Shadow's stealth was superfluous. None was close enough to overhear his approach to the study. The Shadow was thinking purely in terms of Lenfell, and when he reached the study, his gliding arrival gave proof of dividends. Through the door, which was ajar, The Shadow saw Lenfell seated at the desk.
Only a lamp gave light. It was on the desk, and its rays were directed toward a sheaf of letters. Lenfell was leaning forward in his chair, one elbow on the desk; his face, though away from the light's glare, was plainly directed toward the stack of letters. His other hand gripped a fountain pen, ready to affix a signature.
Easing the door open, The Shadow performed a quick, roundabout glide, skirting the desk in darkness.
An automatic drawn, he approached Lenfell and stopped short of the seated man's shoulder. One nudge of the gun muzzle, Lenfell would be helpless.
But The Shadow did not touch Lenfell with the muzzle. He did not even brush the back of the chair. He did feel a floor board give loosely beneath his foot, but he suppressed its creak by adding pressure.
That same board ran beneath a leg of Lenfell's chair. It might have jarred the chair a fraction of an inch, but not enough for Lenfell to have noticed it, because a slight shift of his own body would have produced the same motion. In fact, Lenfell did not notice the effect at all; nevertheless, the result was large.
Lenfell's pen hand slid across the desk. It flopped past the edge, and its weight carried him with it. Rolling from the chair, the financier struck the floor and stretched there. His broad face, though turned upward, was not in the light, but his left hand was. It lay across his chest, and upon the third finger The Shadow saw a ring.
Not a ring with a sapphire, real or synthetic. The ring contained a specimen of very pure glass, as colorless as other worthless pieces of junk jewelry that The Shadow had viewed earlier.
Normally broad, Lenfell's face did not look bloated away from the light, but when The Shadow tilted the lamp toward it, the condition was plainly discernible.
The Shadow had come to meet the master of crime. He had found Armand Lenfell. The two were not the same, however deep Lenfell's schemes, no matter what part he had played in the strange plot of murder. For no man of hideous crime would have numbered himself among the victims.
Armand Lenfell was stone dead, struck down by the same virulent poison that had taken the lives of others
