tough!'
Pinkey swung about angrily in his chair. 'Whatta you mean by tough?'
'I mean last night,' retorted Bugs. 'You said it would be soft, framing young Meriden. But it wasn't - not with The Shadow barging in on us.'
'Forget The Shadow!' scoffed Pinkey. 'He got left behind, didn't he? And today, Slick and me put the deal through with the kid's old man. That's one thing The Shadow ain't wise to.'
Bugs didn't continue the argument. He helped himself to an expensive cigar
from a box on Ondrey's desk. Scratching a match on the mahogany, he lighted the
cigar and puffed it in silence.
'The next job is soft,' assured Pinkey. 'We've already put through a lot of forged checks and notes with World Oil interests. There's only one guy who can spot that phony stuff. He's Lewis Bron, the auditor. He'll smell a rat as soon as he goes over the books.
'What we're going to do is get to Bron before he sees the books. When we've done that, he'll see things the same way we do. Once the books have his O.K., there'll be no more worry.'
No one asked Pinkey how he intended to handle Bron. The big-shot's word was good enough for the listeners. Even Bugs had no objection. He knew that Pinkey always changed his game when occasion required. There wouldn't be another tangle like the Masked Playboy proposition.
IT was Ondrey who voiced the main thought that all the others held.
'Over a million bucks,' said the night club owner, in an eager tone. 'You get half of it, Pinkey, and we three divvy the rest. Fair enough.'
'That's only half the story,' inserted Pinkey. 'This ain't just a million dollar proposition. I'm going to double it, before I've finished.'
Eyes popped, including those of Bugs Hopton. That was unusual; it took plenty to surprise the chunky mob- leader.
'Here's the lay,' confided Pinkey. 'All these companies we've nicked are owned by one outfit, and that's the World Oil interests. They call those companies subsidiaries; but that's just a business term. Big business is just a
racket anyway, from my way of looking at it.
'Western Oil Fields pumps the oil. Sphere Shipping runs the boats that bring it here. Eastern Refineries peddles the gasoline to the public. The gravy
all goes to World Oil, because it owns the rest of them.
'The biggest guy in the whole game is Giles Jondran, because he's the president of World Oil. It's the head of what they call a fifty-million-dollar corporation; and he's worth about ten million on his own. So when we've finished with the rest of them, we'll work on old Jondran himself.
'We'll tell him that we've snagged a million, and how we got it. We'll say
to him: 'all right old buzzard, you're going to double the ante!' And if he don't, we'll spill the whole works. It won't be us that'll take the rap. It will be guys like Milay, Thorry, and Meriden, along with this auditor Bron -'
A buzzer interrupted. It meant a house call for Ondrey. Pinkey waited while the night club owner spoke over the telephone. Ondrey was brief; when he hung up the receiver, he turned promptly to Pinkey.
'There is a gentleman who wants to see me,' explained Ondrey. 'He wants to
arrange a banquet; and he's the sort of customer that I ought to bring in here.
His name is Lamont Cranston.'
'You mean the guy that pals around with the police commissioner?' queried Pinkey. 'Say - that's neat! You're right, Ondrey: he's one guy that oughtn't to
be kept waiting. Come on you lugs' - Pinkey turned to his other companions -
'we're moving out -'
Slick was nearest to the wall behind Ondrey's desk. He pressed the edge of
a panel; the woodwork slid apart to reveal a tiny elevator. The three men entered it; Slick was about to close the secret door when Pinkey stopped him.
'Listen, Ondrey,' remarked Pinkey, 'we're going back to the hide-out. I got a phone there, but there's some calls I'd rather make from here -'
'You mean to Maude Revelle?'
'Yeah. So you call her for me. Tell her I'll meet her at the usual place an hour from now. That'll give you time to talk to this Cranston guy, first.'
Ondrey nodded. Mention of Cranston reminded him that he didn't want to keep the visitor waiting. He reached for the telephone, gave the order to usher
Mr. Cranston into the office. While Ondrey was doing that, Slick closed the elevator door.
Ondrey prided himself on that secret elevator. It was slow in operation, because it was designed for silence. There wasn't the slightest rumble from the
hidden shaft; nor even the vibration of a cable as the elevator made its ascent.
Ondrey stepped to the office door. He opened it to see Cranston coming through the passage from the night club.
A few moments later, Ondrey was bowing a hawk-faced visitor to a seat in front of the desk. Reaching into a drawer, the night club owner brought out a box of very special cigars, finer even than the brand that Bugs liked to smoke.
It was while Ondrey was bent above the desk drawer that Cranston's ears caught a distant sound, so slight that Ondrey did not notice it. That noise was
the muffled clang of an elevator door, closing, somewhere, a few floors above.
With the sound, Cranston's eyes went instinctively to the paneled wall behind Ondrey. There, his keen eyes picked a vertical line in the ornament woodwork. Gauging sight with sound, Cranston had the answer. He knew that Ondrey had talked with at least one visitor tonight.
More than that, Lamont Cranston could name the man who had departed. He was sure that Ondrey's principal visitor had been the lone-wolf racketeer, Pinkey Findlen.
For behind the masklike countenance of the supposed Lamont Cranston lay the brain of The Shadow!
CHAPTER VII
THE MEETING PLACE
IT required only ten minutes for Lamont Cranston to make arrangements for a banquet to be held at the Bubble Club. He named the date as ten days in the future; and Claude Ondrey was more than pleased to learn that Cranston intended
to invite the police commissioner to the affair.
That was the sort of news that Ondrey knew would go over well with Pinkey Findlen.
However, Ondrey's beaming smile began to fade, when Cranston continued the
discussion further. For some reason he wanted to settle many matters, including
such details as the banquet menu. Thus he prolonged his interview with Ondrey until nearly half an hour had passed.
During the first ten minutes, The Shadow sensed that Ondrey had something on his mind. He foresaw that subtle stalling tactics might reveal more; and the
system worked.
Toward the end of the half hour, Ondrey's fingers were itching to get at the telephone; and his constant glances in that direction flashed the fact that
he had an important call to make. Ondrey was at last relieved to see Cranston arise, ready for a leisurely departure. Ondrey bowed the visitor out to the night club; then, after a quick handshake, the portly man hurried back to the office.
Ondrey would have been startled had he taken time to look over his own shoulder.
Idly, Cranston turned about, as if he had forgotten something in the office. His easy action attracted no attention from the waiters. But once he was within the little passage leading to the office, Cranston disappeared.
In fact, as he stopped within a darkened corner of the passage, he seemed to draw blackness all about
