Shadow 171 - Death Ship 04-01-39, The by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street and Smith
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE first assumption was that Commander Prew had personally ordered the theft of his own ship. Previously, the only motive attributed to Prew was a desire to sell the Barracuda to some higher bidder than the United States government.

Now, there was a second motive, upon which the first depended. Whatever Prew’s underhand scheme, he would have had to keep it from his silent partner, Methron.

Obviously, he had decided to wait until the Barracuda was safely away before discussing the matter with Methron. He could have hoped to broach the subject cleverly, winning Methron over to the circumstance, provided all had gone well. But there had been trouble at the Sausalito pier. Not only had the Z-boat’s departure been rapidly discovered; Japanese trouble makers had been seen on the grounds.

Prew’s first knowledge of those circumstances had come when he had heard the radio news flash at his club. Prew had left there promptly, and at last the law knew the reason why. He could only have gone to see Methron, hoping to reach the promoter before the latter knew the facts.

Possibly Methron had already caught the news, for there was a radio set in his apartment. It was easy, in any event, to picture him listening to Prew’s arguments and remaining unswayed. The one detail that Prew could not possibly have explained away was the presence of Japanese at the pier.

Finding Methron’s patriotism too stanch, Prew had only one way to hush the man. That was by cold murder.

The fact that drove home the clincher to this theory was Prew’s knowledge of Methron’s whereabouts. For reasons of his own, perhaps fear of conniving enemies, Methron had adopted the name of J. H. Wiggin and had rented his apartment under that alias. It was the one place where he could slip to safety in time of stress, and the only person definitely known to be acquainted with the matter was Commander Rodney Prew.

The little address book with Prew’s name in it did not prove the fact. That was probably why Prew had left it in Methron’s pocket, for he could later deny any knowledge of Methron’s alias or residence.

But the envelope, overlooked in Methron’s suitcase, was addressed to J. H. Wiggin, with Prew’s return address, and it was written in the missing commander’s own hand!

From The Shadow’s viewpoint, these facts had value. He was particularly pleased, however, because he had not been identified as the intruder who had crashed his way out through the sixth-floor hall.

Popular opinion held that the man who engineered that flight must have been Rodney Prew, secretly returned to the scene of his crime by way of the fire escape.

More than one man had been reported on the fire escape, hence it was supposed that Prew had followers. There, again, was a case of suppressed identity, much to The Shadow’s liking. Not a single person had guessed that the men on the fire escape had been Japanese.

The Shadow was weighing that lucky factor as he stalked the fog-laden darkness of the San Francisco water front.

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