The Crime Clinic
- Автор: Грант Максвелл
- Серия: The Shadow #43
- Год: 1933
- Язык: английский
- Год: Street and Smith
- Жанр: Крутые детективы
Электронная книга - «The Crime Clinic». Краткое содержание книги:
Joe Cardona suspected Doctor Lysander Dubrong. He had reason. The physician’s words could well have been calculated to throw the detective off the correct track.
Was Doctor Dubrong The Jackdaw? Or was that mysterious crook some other person who had kept completely from the light?
The Shadow, like Joe Cardona, was confronted with these questions. But The Shadow had gained advantages over the detective.
He — The Shadow — knew that one man here tonight had been working for The Jackdaw. He knew that Bart Melken had played a minor part in crime. Moreover, The Shadow had seen the tower room from the outside of the house.
The soft laugh whispered once again. It showed a glimmering of facts, an inkling of how Rutherford Casslin could have been slain in his tower room without the murderer being caught in his escape. It told, moreover, how the Bishenpur diamond might well have been stolen away.
The Shadow, like Joe Cardona, was on the trail of mysterious crime. The Shadow, master of the darkness, had found an insidious opponent worthy of his steel. From now on, The Shadow’s quest would be to find The Jackdaw, that master crook whose subtle ways were the mark of the supercriminal.
The Shadow’s laugh faded as the tall form in black merged with the gloom beyond the door of Rutherford Casslin’s living room.
CHAPTER VII
THE JACKDAW’S MINIONS
EARLY the next evening, a young man sauntered forth from one of New York’s uptown hotels. He hailed a taxicab and entered it. As the vehicle pulled away, a tall figure suddenly emerged from the darkened front of the building. A mysterious passenger stepped into another cab that was parked close by.
“Follow instructions,” came a quiet voice from the rear seat.
The taximan looked about in amazement. He had not heard anyone entering his cab. For a moment, he hesitated; then he spied a pair of burning eyes peering at him from the darkness of the vehicle. A ten-dollar bill fluttered into the driver’s hand. The argument was clinched.
The driver started his cab, and nodded as he took quiet instructions for every turn. He received no definite information that he was following the cab ahead; the weird passengers merely required that he should obey.
Twenty minutes later, the lead cab pulled up in a decrepit district of the East Side. The passenger in the rear cab gave a signal to stop. The driver obeyed. He waited, expecting further word. It did not come.
When the driver, gaining nerve, peered into the back of the cab, he found it empty. The burning eyes were gone. The unknown passenger had made a silent departure.
The young man who had come from the hotel was walking rather rapidly along a side street not far from the spot where he had left his cab. His eyes were straight ahead; but had he glanced to the rear, he would not have seen the flitting form that followed him. A streak of blackness, changing shape as it glided along the sidewalk, was the only token of an unseen presence.
The young man reached an alleyway, and stopped beneath a street lamp. His features came in view.
This visitor to a questionable neighborhood was none other than Bart Melken. The young man who had appeared as a fashion plate at Rutherford Casslin’s home had chosen a much less desirable district for tonight’s journey.
Melken entered the alley. Hardly had he disappeared before a blackened streak appeared beneath the glow that permeated the sidewalk. That patch of darkness was the visible sign of an invisible being. The Shadow was on Bart Melken’s trail.
BART MELKEN had been crossed from Joe Cardona’s list. The ace detective had not held a single guest for complicity in Rutherford Casslin’s murder.
But The Shadow had seen Bart Melken’s actions when the young man had urged Yvonne Lydell not to say too much. Only Doctor Lysander Dubrong had also witnessed Melken’s signal.
Until now, The Shadow had let Joe Cardona lead the way. That period was ended. The Shadow was working on his own. He was trusting in no subordinate tonight. He knew the worriment that was festering within Bart Melken’s mind. Since last night, he had been waiting some step on the young man’s part.
In the alleyway, Melken paused before an obscure door. It was the side entrance to what had once been an old hotel, but which was now an apartment building, of a sort. Bart Melken pressed an obscure bell. The door clicked. The young man entered.
The Shadow did not follow. From the other side of the alleyway, he had spotted lights on the third floor. At the rear of the dilapidated building was an old-fashioned fire escape with hanging ladder that was up. A long stick could have reached that pivoted ladder. The Shadow, however, did not resort to so simple a measure.
Pressed against the surface of the wall, he moved his long, supple body upward. The suction cups were not needed for this climb; The Shadow made the ascent by digging into the cracked spaces between the crumpling bricks. His gloved hands gained the fire escape.
The first manifestation of The Shadow as an actual form occurred when his tall figure appeared in the dim light of a third-floor hall. A closing door betokened the fact that Bart Melken had entered an apartment. The Shadow moved silently toward that door.
After a moment’s pause, The Shadow moved to the next door. This place had obviously been a hotel once; changed to an apartment, each room of the suite had its own opening on the hallway. A blackened instrument of steel appeared in The Shadow’s gloved hand. Keen eyes directed the probing tool. The door unlocked with a muffled click. The Shadow stepped into a dark room.
The adjoining door was open. The sound of voices came from that direction. The Shadow glided to the spot; ensconced in darkness, he could see, as well as hear, what happened in the other room.
BART MELKEN was sitting in an easy-chair. Opposite him was another man. Their faces formed a contrast. Bart Melken, handsome of physiognomy, but worried in expression, formed an antithesis of the man before him. The other was a tough-faced, sullen fellow, whose ugly countenance registered nothing but self-confidence.
The sitting room which the two occupied was luxuriously furnished; an odd arrangement in this neighborhood where poverty seemed rampant. The man with the ugly face was one whose identity was well known in the underworld. He was “Bing” Claver, a gang gorilla who had gone into retirement.
Unwanted by the police, unconnected with any racket, Bing Claver, well supplied with cash that he had saved, was the last man whom anyone would regard as a present menace to the law.
Such a character might well have been pleased to receive a visitor of Bart Melken’s appearance. This was not the case, however. Bing Claver’s growls showed that the hard-boiled gorilla was quite annoyed because Bart Melken had come to his apartment. Bing was expressing himself in this fashion.
“What’s the idea?” he was questioning. “There’s no use in you coming down here, Melken. You didn’t get no orders to show up, did you?”
“I’m worried, Claver,” protested the young man, in a troubled tone. “I–I’ve got to get out of it. That’s all. I’m telling you that I’ve got to quit.”
“Telling me?” Bing Claver snorted. “Tell The Jackdaw. That’s who you’d better tell.”
“I’d tell him,” returned Melken nervously, “if I could find him. I’ve got to see The Jackdaw. That’s why I’ve come to you. I want to know who he is.”
“The Jackdaw?” Bing Claver was scoffing. “Say — do you think I know who he is? Find The Jackdaw! Say — you’ll be asking me to find The Shadow next!”
“I’m losing my nerve, Bing.”
“Pipe down! Guys that go yellow get lead poisoning. I’m one of the guys that doses out the lead pills, too.”