footfalls audible. Silent in his creep, Garmath had become a most insidious figure.
Peering between the edge of the library doorway and a curtain, Garmath observed Lenfell and a hooded arrival. Not having considered it necessary to mask on this occasion, Lenfell expected his lone friend to raise his hood, which the other man did.
The two were talking as man to man, Lenfell expressing regrets over Walder's death and bolstering them with the very arguments that Garmath had provided. Garmath saw the unhooded visitor nod his sympathetic understanding; then, when Lenfell opened the jewel case, the man took one of the rings.
That visitor was hooded and on the way out, as other footsteps came up the stairs. Squeezing his frail form deep in the doorway, Garmath waited. He saw another of the hoods enter and unmask to chat with Lenfell. New footsteps were approaching, when the second man took his sapphire ring and departed.
The same process took place with the third; and after a brief wait, Lenfell received a fourth of the hooded group. Having seen all their faces and observed the transfer of the rings, Garmath waited patiently for the fifth man to arrive.
After several minutes, Lenfell became restless. Sensing that the financier might return to the study, Garmath sidled in that direction himself, again making his creak noiseless.
Garmath was seated in his chair, apparently half asleep, when Lenfell arrived bearing the jewel case with two rings left in it. He removed one and slipped it on a finger of his left hand, grinning toward Garmath, who chuckled. Then, surveying the last ring with a frown, Lenfell remarked:
'I wonder why he hasn't come. I know that he was out of town, but he promised to return this evening. I suppose that it can wait -'
Pausing, Lenfell decided otherwise. He took an envelope from his desk, wrote an address on it, and placed the ring inside. Then the thought of sending even a false sapphire by messenger troubled Lenfell.
He was shaking his head, when the doorbell rang. Pocketing the envelope, Lenfell gestured for Garmath to remain where he was.
Garmath did. But as soon as Lenfell went downstairs, the white-haired man stretched a long hand to the desk and picked up the blotter that Lenfell had applied to the envelope. The address was plainly legible in reverse, and Garmath read it without the aid of a mirror. The blotter was back on the table when Lenfell returned.
'It was his servant,' he said, referring to the last man of the hooded six. 'He said his master will not arrive home until midnight, so he called by long distance, telling the servant to come here. I gave the envelope to the servant.'
TURNING to the safe, Lenfell unlocked it; from a cash box, he brought out a sheaf of crisp bills and counted off a stack of large denominations, to the total of six thousand dollars.
'Your fee, Garmath,' said Lenfell. 'Ten times the value of the rings you made for me, but well worth it.
Those imitation sapphires had to stand the test of expert scrutiny, though I saw to it that they could not be handled, thanks to the sealed case in which I delivered them to Walder.'
Showing Garmath to the stairs, Lenfell was conscious of the creaky stride that old Jan no longer sought to keep unheard. He was still listening for those creeps as he returned to the study, and Lenfell was at last satisfied that they had dwindled clear to the front door. After a few moments of silence, Lenfell stepped into the study.
He thumbed the remaining bills in the cash box, counting out a batch which he had promised Garmath as a bonus after a certain transaction was completed. Then, as he replaced the cash box in the safe, Lenfell stared mistrustfully at the square case which contained the Star of Delhi.
He opened the case hastily, saw that it still held the great sapphire. Closing the safe and locking it, Lenfell picked up the telephone.
Outside Lenfell's door, a man was listening at the crack. The man was Garmath; he had returned, in his silent fashion, by another stairway. Garmath caught Lenfell's tone:
'Yes, yes. I still have the sapphire, the original Star of Delhi... The exhibit at Walder's? That was merely for our mutual protection... Yes, poor Walder supplied imitations himself, to help create the impression that the Star of Delhi no longer exists -
'Yes, it was wise, considering those recent robberies... Yes, the fact that crooks sought the smaller gems proves how they would have coveted the Star... Next Monday? Certainly, I can see you then, Crome -'
As Lenfell's receiver clicked upon the hook, Garmath moved away. By overhearing that telephone call, he had learned what he wanted. Descending the front stairs again, this time in absolute silence, Garmath crept out through the big door and went away from the gloomy mansion.
Quickening his creep into a lengthy stride, Garmath covered a few blocks before stopping in a drugstore to make a telephone call of his own. Even in a phone booth, Garmath was cautious, something that Dwig Brencott hadn't been at the Club Cadiz the night The Shadow overheard him.
Oddly enough, the voice that Garmath heard from the receiver was Dwig's. Placing his thin lips close to the mouthpiece, Garmath spoke in a voice much firmer than the rattly wheeze that he had used before.
Garmath's words were terse. He said:
'Take care of Sherbrock.'
CHAPTER VI. THE WRONG FOEMEN
OUT of a rather tiresome evening at the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston had at least gleaned one point of information through his friendship with Commissioner Weston. In sifting the Walder murder anew, Weston had called in various jewelers, and the question of the six sapphires had been raised.
None knew who the owner of the gems could be, nor did they consider the matter relative to Walder's death since the exhibited gems were gone when robbery began. They felt that the owner of the sapphires might find himself in a spot like Walder, should his name be learned and made public.
Inasmuch as the police had traced none of the remaining killers, Commissioner Weston was not anxious to add fuel to new crime. He decided to let the subject pass, for the present.
Mention of the six sapphires, however, had turned the conversation to the Star of Delhi. Before they realized it, the jewelers were talking shop. It didn't take them long to agree on the very thing that Walder had said privately to Lenfell - that there was only one expert in New York to whom the cutting of the great stone could be entrusted: Roger Sherbrock.
Whether Sherbrock could have found time for the task was another question. According to the jewelers, the expert cutter was working night and day on orders of long standing.
The technical talk bored Weston, and his friend Cranston walked out in the middle of it. Inasmuch as The Shadow was interested in tracing the past history of the Star of Delhi, a prompt visit to Sherbrock's had become a logical step. Before leaving the club, The Shadow telephoned Margo and asked her to meet him near Sherbrock's place of business.
At present, The Shadow's agents, Moe Shrevnitz included, were busily seeking traces of Dwig Brencott, who had conveniently left town not long after the Walder affair. Upon meeting Margo, who came in her own car, The Shadow explained the new situation in Cranston's style.
He wanted Margo to drive him to Sherbrock's and wait outside, while he interviewed the gem cutter.
Margo observed that Cranston was carrying a briefcase. He opened it, to take out a small bag containing some uncut diamonds which he intended to show Sherbrock.
Margo suspected that the briefcase also contained a slouch hat and a black cloak; but if it did, the garments were packed so deeply that she could not see them.
Sherbrock's place was on the second floor of a rather old and dilapidated building in a fairly disreputable neighborhood. It looked like an ideal place for crime, except that the windows were barred. Lights from the second floor indicated that Sherbrock and other cutters were at work.
Alighting from Margo's car, Cranston strolled into the building, and just as he passed through the doorway the girl noticed that he had taken the briefcase with him.
A blunt-faced husky was in charge of the second-floor portal. He looked like a janitor, but acted as if he were Sherbrock's confidential secretary. Impressed by the visitor in evening clothes, he accepted Cranston's card and took it through an inner door that looked like the entrance to a strong room.
While waiting, The Shadow observed several other small rooms with heavy doors, evidently the work-shops assigned to the gem cutters.
There were large safes around the floor, at least a dozen of them, and when The Shadow was ushered into
