The Shadow 228 The Shadow Meets The Mask by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1941-07-31T22:00:00+00:00

RETURNING to the grillroom to rejoin Weston, Cranston was just about to hear the same old story, when Warrendale arrived. A few minutes later, Joe Cardona joined the group.

The discussion hedged for a while, and finally landed on the subject of Warrendale’s missing wealth.

“I’m sure the funds are safe,” asserted Warrendale. “Of course, the bonds aren’t registered, because my list was in the safe-deposit box with them, and it was taken, too. Nevertheless, I feel secure. So does Renz, for that matter, except -“

“Except that he feels too secure,” inserted Weston, as Warrendale hesitated. “So secure, that Renz might be the Mask.”

“He might be.” Warrendale spoke slowly. “However, I’m equally suspicious of Alker. You know, he banked at the Crescent Trust. Renz used to meet me there, to give me the safe-deposit-box key. Alker might have been on hand at the wrong time.”

“Time will tell,” declared Weston “I mean the right time, Warrendale.”

Warrendale nodded. Then:

“The sooner the better,” he said. “Maybe we could make it sooner, commissioner, if we found out more about the Mask.”

“What more can we find out?”

Weston looked to The Shadow, who had an idea, but shrugged it away in Cranston’s manner. The Shadow was already following a plan, and didn’t care to add suggestions, just yet.

But Cardona kept pondering on the subject, and suddenly something struck him. From Joe’s exclamation, The Shadow knew that it must be the point that had

long been in his own mind.

“The mask, commissioner!”

“The Mask. Well, what about him?”

“I don’t mean the Mask, himself,” explained Cardona. “I mean the mask that

he wore: the fake face that looks like Warrendale’s. Where did he get it?

How?”

“An excellent point, inspector,” commended Weston. He turned to Warrendale. “What do you think? Could the replica of your face have been made from a photograph?”

“I doubt it, commissioner.”

Warrendale was meditative. His eyes closed. He set an elbow on the table and propped his large forehead in his upraised hand. At last, he raised his face.

“I have it!” he exclaimed. “The bust!”

Cardona stared. Weston saw his puzzled look.

“Warrendale means a statue,” explained Weston. “You know, inspector, the kind that are life-size, just head and shoulders. Proceed, Warrendale.”

“When I endowed a new room for the library at Marlborough College,”

explained Warrendale, “they wanted a bust of myself, to be placed there. The work was given to a sculptor named Leo Drock.”

“And he completed the bust -“

“Not yet. But he made a mask of my face, to work from. One of those plaster things. I should have remembered it before, but I am very forgetful. I depended so much on poor Lathan. He made it a practice to remind me of such things.”

“However, Drock, the sculptor, could have supplied the life-size replica of your face to the Mask?”

“Yes. Absolutely!”

Weston reached for a telephone book, to look up Leo Drock. Warrendale shook his head.

“You won’t find Drock listed,” he said. “In fact, it will be difficult to locate him.”

“Why?”

“Because Drock went away for his health, which is why he didn’t complete the assignment. I had a few letters from him and I understood that he would be back in town, at a new studio.

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