Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 262 - Death's Masquerade.pdf

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DEATH'S MASQUERADE
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 15, 1943.
Music and gaiety offered cover for a strange stroke of death to challenge
The Shadow!
Hidden crime was at work in the model city of Industria. And to The
Shadow, master over all crime, the idea of stalking crime in ghostly style was
excellent. His own hand hidden, his very presence a mystery, The Shadow was
qualified to be a ghost of the future. As such, he could crack crime's riddle
and the hoodoo that went with it. The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER I
DEATH TO COME
THE man at the darkened window was anything but nervous. At most, he was
impatient, and to some degree annoyed by the luxury of his surroundings. For
Creep Hubin, specialist in murder, wasn't used to hiding out in first-class
hotels like the Progress House.
It simply chanced that the Progress House was the only hotel in the model
city of Industria, where everything revealed a perfect system of civic
planning. Not only was money plentiful in Industria; the town's income was
properly applied and always had been. Hence the Progress House, community
owned, provided luxury along with economy and thus crowded out all
competition.
Such fine points did not interest a specimen of human riffraff like Creep
Hubin. He was staring from his window like a rat from its hole. He formed a
hunched figure, his ugly face and narrow neck thrust forward from the
shoulders. The lights from the side street below showed sallow features with
leathery lips and beaded eyes, plus a pointed nose that suited Creep's
character as a human rodent.
Off beyond parks and boulevards, Creep could see the huge buildings that
had brought prosperity to Industria. One was the great foundry, the town's
original industry. Another was the dyeworks, in operation more than a quarter
century. The third, a comparative newcomer, was the chemical plant that had
recently switched from the profitable manufacture of plastics to the more
lucrative production of synthetic rubber.
Each on a hillside, these three plants formed a golden triangle that had
become Industria's horn of plenty. But that concerned Creep Hubin only because
somebody in the model town was wealthy enough to pay Creep's price, two
thousand dollars, for the prompt and efficient elimination of some other
resident of this ideal community.
This elimination, otherwise murder, was to occur at a time and place that
would be stipulated upon delivery of the cash. Meanwhile, Creep remained a
guest in the fastidious Progress House, occupying a room to which his unknown
client had assigned him. Needless to say, some proxy had signed the register
under an alias that went for Creep, because a stranger of his thuggish ilk
would have excited too much comment if seen in the luxurious lobby.
Not having heard further from his client, Creep was naturally impatient.
It was evening, about half past eight, a time when Creep had hoped to be
started on his mission.
Just around the corner of the hotel was the parking lot containing the
"borrowed" automobile which Creep had brought to Industria. If the job didn't
go through tonight, that stolen car might be traced too soon to suit Creep's
 
future plans, a thing which bothered the assassin more than a mere matter of
murder yet to be committed.
There was more that should have worried Creep Hubin, had he been
acquainted with recent events in Industria, which he wasn't.
In a pretentious office building several blocks from the hotel, the
directors of Gault Consolidated were holding an important meeting. Now the
name, "Gault Consolidated," meant nothing to Creep, but it counted much in
Industria. For Gault Consolidated was the holding company that controlled the
three industries on which the model city thrived.
The nominal head of the holding company was old Ellery Gault, nephew of
the man who had founded Industria back in the '80s. Ill health had caused
Gault
to retire a few years ago, and he seldom left the family mansion, which
dominated another hillside. Thus the directors were running Gault Consolidated
through an official known as "Vice President in Charge of Co-ordination," and
this evening they were choosing a new man for that office.
The last vice president had died very suddenly. So had the vice president
before him, and the one before that. Not only suddenly, but swiftly, which
meant that the office of vice president was a jinx job. It paid well, that
office, but who wanted a job that led to heart failure, an airplane crash, or
a
fatal automobile accident?
One man wanted it. His name was Ferris Dane, and he was likely to get the
job. Dane was the only supervisor who had served in all three factories, and
was therefore qualified to handle their various interrelations. And Dane was a
man who laughed at any mention of the word hoodoo.
Perhaps that accounted for Creep Hubin being in Industria. If design lay
behind the deaths of three successive vice presidents, a stronger dose might
be
needed in the case of Ferris Dane. By the same token, if Dane didn't happen to
be chosen for the jinx job, Creep's services might not be necessary. Which
meant that Creep's two thousand dollars was hanging from a tantalizing line
that might be yanked away before he could grab the prize.
KNOWING nothing of the possible situation, Creep stayed at his window and
glared at what he saw of Industria. His beady eyes went narrow, like his face,
when he saw a sleek, expensive roadster pull to a stop near the parking lot.
Creep was afraid that it was going to park across the little-used exit by
which he intended to leave the lot. But the driver noted the obscure exit and
pulled past it.
Watching, Creep saw a tall, well-dressed man alight from the car and
glance up at the hotel. It was odd how Creep shrank instinctively into the
deeper darkness of the room. Nobody could possibly have spotted a figure at a
blackened window four stories above, yet Creep felt that eyes were searching
for him.
Unused to such sensations, Creep gave a snarl, which turned to an oath
when he stumbled across a chair in the middle of the dark room. He was rubbing
his shin and muttering half aloud, when a knock at the door interrupted.
Reaching the door, Creep opened it a crack. A bellboy was holding a small
package, announcing that it was the order from the drugstore. It bore Creep's
room number, 415, so the rat-faced thug dug into his pocket and tipped the
bellboy a quarter in return for the package.
Locking the door, Creep started for the window; then, changing his mind,
he sidled to a deep corner of the room and turned on a table lamp beside the
telephone.
Among other items, the package contained a box holding a tube of tooth
paste, a luxury which Creep never used. Intrigued by such an oddity, Creep
opened the cardboard box. Instead of a tooth-paste tube, a roll of bills slid
into his hand. Gleefully, Creep counted the money and found that it came to
 
just two thousand dollars.
No instructions were included, because they weren't needed. Timed to
Creep's puzzlement came a jangle of the telephone bell. Answering the call,
which he would earlier have ignored, Creep heard a voice he recognized. It
spoke coldly, steadily, giving explicit instructions; but Creep was forced to
call for a halt.
"Wait a minute," he undertoned. "I gotta draw a pitcher. I don't want to
miss nothing important."
"You may use a diagram," affirmed the voice, "but be sure to destroy it
later. I would suggest -"
Creep grinned as he heard the suggestion, for he'd begun to have the same
idea. He was still grinning when he completed the diagram and tore it from the
telephone pad. By then, the voice had finished too.
Creep dropped his own receiver in response to a click from the other end.
Running his hand along his belt, he stopped and shifted it to his hip pocket.
From a chair, he slid a dark sweater over his shoulders, dropped his diagram
in
a cap and planted the latter on his head.
Opening the door, Creep looked warily along the corridor, then sneaked
for
the fire exit that led down to the parking lot.
In the lobby, the tall man from the roadster was checking into the
Progress House. As he wrote his name, Lamont Cranston, on the hotel register,
his eyes ran down the list of guests. Strange eyes, those, keen, boring in
their gaze, though the hotel clerk did not notice it, since Cranston's glance
was lowered. What did impress the clerk was the expression upon the man's
features.
Calm, immobile, the new guest's face was masklike. As Cranston turned
away, the clerk noted his hawkish profile and decided that it was the mark of
a
distinguished visitor. There was something cryptic in Cranston's manner, as
though, in mere moments, he had learned something of importance that he was
keeping to himself.
Since Cranston had noted nothing except the hotel register, the clerk
studied the names he saw there. All but Cranston's had been inscribed before
this clerk came on duty; still, nothing seemed amiss in any of them. What the
clerk should have observed were the room numbers alongside the names.
One of those numbers, 415, showed figures slightly smaller than the rest.
Someone other than the preceding clerk had written in that number, while
putting a false name on the register. Whoever was hiring Creep Hubin for
murder
hadn't wanted the sneaky assassin to be disturbed during his sojourn at the
Progress House.
How promptly Cranston could put a clue to use was demonstrated when he
reached his own room, on the sixth floor. The departing bellboy was still
closing the door when Cranston plucked a brief case from amid his luggage,
inverted it, and opened a compartment beneath.
Wedged between the sections of the brief case, this hidden compartment
disgorged a black cloak and a slouch hat. From the rolled cloak came a brace
of
.45 automatics, which Cranston placed in holsters beneath his coat. Then, with
a
single sweep, the tall hotel guest blotted himself from sight.
It was an amazing process, though simply accomplished. All Cranston did
was put on the cloak as he stepped toward a corner of the room. His stride
carrying him away from the light, the cloak did the rest. Merged with the
corner's gloom, Cranston became a voice, nothing more.
Singularly, the voice was Cranston's own. Usually, when cloaked in black,
he spoke in sinister accents befitting the personality of The Shadow, which he
now represented. The reason for the Cranston tone was explained by the ensuing
 
conversation. The Shadow was using the telephone to inform the hotel operator
that any calls for Mr. Cranston should be switched to Room 415.
A FEW minutes later, darkness stirred within the room that Creep Hubin
had
so recently deserted. Next, a tiny flashlight licked the gilded furniture,
finally concentrating its narrow beam upon the telephone desk. Expecting a
call, The Shadow was naturally interested in that corner, but he was further
intrigued by sight of the pad that lay beside the telephone.
Such pads could carry clues, even though their surface was blank. This
pad
was no exception. Under the beam that focused to silver-dollar size, The
Shadow's long, deft fingers produced a tiny bottle of fine black powder,
sprinkled some grains upon the paper and gave a spreading rub. Under such
treatment, Creep's crude diagram appeared, its lines tracing black amid the
gray, like a carbon-paper replica.
The Shadow's hidden lips phrased a low-toned laugh, a whisper that
befitted his mysterious personality. Facing toward the window, his keen eyes
picked out a portion of the distant landscape that Creep Hubin had earlier
ignored.
All three of Industria's factories were visible, for they were running
night shifts and hence were well illuminated. The one which The Shadow chose
was most conspicuous of all, for, as he gazed, a puff of light rose from amid
its buildings, revealing the whole plant with its glare. Those buildings
belonged to the old foundry, the keystone of the Gault fortunes.
The glare came from a blast furnace, and at this distance it chopped the
buildings of the foundry to the proportions of Creep's diagram. Though the
drawing was rough, there was no mistaking the buildings that it represented.
As if in response to The Shadow's low-throbbed mirth, there was a ring
from the telephone bell. Answering it promptly, The Shadow again used
Cranston's tone, until he recognized the voice that he expected.
"This is Burke," informed the caller. "They finished the director's
meeting. Ferris Dane gets the vice president's job, but they've got to notify
old Ellery Gault in order to make it official."
"Continue."
This time the tone was The Shadow's own, and it spurred Burke to the
delivery of further details.
"They're phoning Gault's house," informed Burke, "but it's hard to get
hold of him. The servants say he's busy and won't be disturbed. They're going
to call again and talk to his niece, Diana. She's the one person who can
interrupt him when he's cutting paper dolls, or whatever else he thinks is
important."
"And then -"
"That's about all," declared Burke, "except that when the directors
receive Gault's approval, they're going to inform Dane that he's elected.
Their
messenger is a chap named Traymer, and he's going over to the foundry where
Dane
is supervising the new night shift that goes on at nine o'clock."
"Report received."
The Shadow's final words carried a tone that startled Burke, for he had
never heard his mysterious chief end a call so abruptly. It was as if Burke's
last statement had simply corroborated something which The Shadow already
knew.
Such was the actual case.
Thrusting Creep's duplicate diagram beneath his cloak, The Shadow was
gliding from the room that the murderous crook had left earlier. More than
that, the red light of the fire tower was guiding The Shadow along Creep's
short route to the parking lot below.
 
The Shadow, master of vengeance, was on the trail of death to come. His
hand was to play its part in shaping crime's pattern into a mold of justice!
CHAPTER II
MOLTEN DOOM
LIKE a beckoning beacon, another vivid flare lifted amid the foundry
buildings, then dwindled, leaving blackness. A minute passed; again the glare
was repeated. Ominous things, those flaming bursts from the blast furnace.
They were tolling off the minutes that marked a race between life and
death, wherein The Shadow, master of night, was hard on the trail of Creep
Hubin, the sneaky assassin whose purpose was to murder an unsuspecting victim
named Ferris Dane!
How Creep intended to enter the foundry grounds was plain from his
diagram. Once inside, the route that he would take was also marked. It was The
Shadow's task to clip the start that Creep had gained, then choose a short cut
to the spot marked for murder, something that he knew would be quite possible
from his brief study of the diagram.
Naturally both Creep and The Shadow were avoiding the main entrance to
the
foundry, where big gates were guarded by armed watchmen. Those gates, however,
were open to anyone who had normal business in the place; hence a third factor
injected itself into the race. He was a human factor named George Traymer, who
arrived in his own car just as another puff from the blast furnace lighted up
the scene.
Recognizing Traymer, the guards passed him through. Everybody knew
Traymer
by sight, because he served as secretary to the directors of Gault
Consolidated
and acted as go-between in matters involving the various plants. But Traymer
wasn't familiar with the operation of the individual industries, hence he
wasn't qualified for the vice presidency that had just been given to Dane.
Nor was Traymer the executive type needed for such an office. He was a
studious-looking man, who peered through tortoise-shell glasses and spoke in a
weak, unoffending voice. The factory hands dubbed him Lady Traymer, and the
nickname was rather appropriate.
When Traymer inquired for Dane, the guards gestured toward the
supervisor's office. Whereupon Traymer drove ahead very carefully, giving wide
berths to building corners, slowing his car to avoid ruts that big trucks had
dug, even proceeding cautiously through puddles that might splash water up
through the radiator.
Indeed, the car looked ladylike, the way Traymer handled it. Commenting
on
the fact, the guards were too busy watching Traymer's driving technique to
notice the hunched figure that slipped past another building corner. Nor did
they look toward the high wall where a black-cloaked shape was dropping in
from
outside.
They might have spotted Creep Hubin, but they couldn't have sighted The
Shadow. He timed his drop between two of the furnace flares that marked the
minutes in his race against time - and death!
Alighting near the supervisor's office, Traymer skirted some rubbish to
avoid damaging the patent-leather shoes. Finding two brawny foremen in the
office, Traymer inquired for Dane. A foreman glanced at the office clock, then
gave a nudge.
"Gone up on deck," the foreman said. "Gone up to size the pour. You'll
find him there, unless you want to wait until he gets back in about ten
minutes. You know where the deck is, though -"
 

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