prisoners.
But there were other sheets of consequence, supplied by Rutledge Mann, an investment broker in The Shadow's service. Those sheets listed the names of wealthy men who were investors in gems, as well as stocks and bonds.
Less than an hour after he had left Margo Lane, The Shadow completed a check-up of the lists.
The Shadow had rated them in order of importance, intending to investigate them, each in turn. He felt sure that one of the first four would prove to be the man who could supply much-needed information.
In that surmise, The Shadow was correct: Second on the list was the name of Uriah Crome.
It should have topped the list, as The Shadow was soon to learn!
CHAPTER XVII. A MATTER OF PRICE
WHILE The Shadow was still busy in his sanctum, Uriah Crome was receiving a visitor, which was something very unusual. Though he lived near the center of Manhattan, Crome was twin brother to a hermit. His penthouse, located on the flat roof of an antiquated eight-story office building, might well have been a cave in the middle of a wilderness.
Old, dyspeptic, as bald as an eagle and beak-nosed as a vulture, Crome had only two delights in life: jewels and milk toast. He liked gems because they glittered, and appealed to his miser's sense of ownership. He preferred milk toast because it was the only fare that did not cause him indigestion.
Crome's penthouse could only be reached by an elevator that had a night operator especially for service to the top floor. Since Crome owned the office building, it was impossible for anyone to come upstairs without his permission. The night man always telephoned up first, to make sure that Crome would receive any candidate for admission who happened to be downstairs.
On this evening, Crome was seated in an oak-paneled room which he termed his den, when one of his several servants entered with a note. After reading it, Crome placed bony fingers to his thin chin, pondered for a few moments, then ordered:
'Show the visitor up.'
The visitor was Jan Garmath, and Crome received him alone. While he finished his milk toast, the vulturous man kept surveying his dry-featured visitor with a look that would have suited a bird of prey.
Crome's gaze, however, was actually defensive. He regarded Garmath as the vulture; himself as anything from a worm to a fat-sized guinea hen, or whatever sort of tidbit a vulture might choose.
Crome opened negotiations with a sharpish query:
'You have come regarding the Star of Delhi?'
'I have brought the Star of Delhi,' returned Garmath in the mild tone he so often used. 'I thought that you would be pleased to view a priceless gem that happens to have a price.'
Producing a small jewel case, Garmath exhibited a great blue gem, which, to all appearances, was the synthetic replica that Commissioner Weston had taken credit for detecting that afternoon. Crome had evidently read the newspapers, for he shook his head as he held the jewel to the light.
'Bah!' he snorted. 'This sapphire is false!'
'It happens to be real,' returned Garmath. 'The synthetic stone is now in the possession of the police.'
'But this could be an imitation, too.'
'There could be another imitation,' agreed Garmath, 'had I chosen to manufacture two, instead of only one. But one' - he gave a dry cluck - 'was all I needed. This is the genuine Star of Delhi!'
BUSY with a microscope, Crome was learning for himself that Garmath spoke the truth. He pressed a button on his desk. One of the wall panels swung about, becoming a jewel case with shelves of resplendent gems that gave a great glitter to that side of the room.
'Bah!' Crome pressed the button again, to turn the shelves away from sight. 'I must have these buttons marked. I pressed the one that controls the emerald showcase, by mistake. Here is the sapphire button.'
He pushed it. A block of shelves swung from another panel, creating a bluish shimmer as they came.
Hobbling over to the display, Crome compared the Star of Delhi with other large sapphires. The comparison was in favor of the great gem that Garmath had brought. Coming back to the desk, Crome planked the Star in front of him and said to Garmath:
'I want it!'
'Of course you want it,' chuckled Garmath. 'Otherwise, you wouldn't have made a deal with Lenfell. Let me see' - Garmath faked a tone of recollection - 'what was the price he wanted? Three hundred thousand dollars?'
Garmath was simply making an estimate, for he had not heard Lenfell mention price to Crome during their phone conversation. Garmath calculated that if six smaller sapphires would have rated fifty thousand each, Lenfell certainly would not have set the price for the Star of Delhi as less than the sum of the smaller stones, had they been cut from the great gem.
Garmath's own deals with Lenfell had been strictly limited to the providing of six small synthetic sapphires; nothing more. But he wanted Crome to think that there had been a closer association.
The estimate was near enough. Early in negotiations with Crome, Lenfell had mentioned three hundred thousand dollars as a suitable price. Hence, though Crome shook his head, he did it slowly.
'Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,' Crome told Garmath. 'That was the most that I would have paid Lenfell. But my present offer' - he dug clawish fingers into the desk and leaned across with a triumphant grin - 'is only two hundred thousand!'
Garmath's eyes showed surprise, so well feigned that Crome was deceived. His beakish face agleam, Crome gloatingly detailed why he expected the Star of Delhi at a bargain price.
'I knew Lenfell's ways,' asserted Crome, 'the measures that he was taking to acquire the Star of Delhi as his own. He was betraying his associates; more than that, he was actually swindling them! That, of course' - Crome shrugged - 'was not my affair. It was Lenfell, not I, who had to cover up what he had done.
'Nevertheless, his failure to do so could have caused me certain difficulties, should it become known that I owned the real Star of Delhi. I insisted that Lenfell take that into consideration, and he did.
'Now, in your case, Garmath, men have not merely been swindled; they have died! Too bad' - Crome was clucking as though really sorry - 'but it means that you will have to give some extra consideration to the matter of price, in selling the Star of Delhi.'
Crome meant 'extra' to the tune of fifty thousand dollars, which he expected to retain, at Garmath's expense, in return for silence regarding Crome's own suspicion of the murders that Garmath had maneuvered. He was reaching to a desk drawer, bringing out crisp currency in bills of a thousand-dollar denomination and higher.
'Ten, twenty, thirty -' Crome had come down to the mere thousand-dollar bills, when he finally said:
'Two hundred.' He extended that sheaf to Garmath, while he put other bills away. Garmath merely folded his arms.
'My price,' he said, 'is half a million.'
'What!' exclaimed Crome. 'Preposterous!'
'Not at all,' remarked Garmath mildly. 'I reason rationally, not the other way about, as Lenfell did. The greater the crime, the greater the risk, and therefore - the greater the price!'
Crome swept back the money and dumped it in the desk drawer. Garmath was not at all annoyed. He simply leaned forward and added, pointedly:
'And the more certain the sale!'
THE words crept home to Crome as insidiously as the creep of Garmath's footfalls had once impressed Lenfell. Crome's hand had made an involuntary gesture toward the telephone. Garmath waved for him to complete it.
'Call the police,' suggested Garmath. 'Tell them that you intended to buy the Star of Delhi. When you do so, you will implicate yourself, not in five swindles, but in six murders! The police will find you, Crome, but they will not find me!'
Crome sagged back into his chair.
'No police?' queried Garmath. 'Then call your loyal servants and, have them eject me, while you keep the
