The Shadow 175 Smugglers of Death by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1939-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

RAYMOND KENDLER was helping the police commissioner sort the junk jewelry. To Kendler, who loved to handle real gems, these tawdry imitations felt like scum. He gave a distasteful grimace after he had finished.

“Put these things away,” he pleaded.

“I hate the sight of them!” Then, shifting his gaze from Cardona to Marquette, the baldheaded jeweler questioned: “Why did you let Marle pass you these wretched atrocities? Why didn’t you search his safe and find out what else he had there?”

“We did,” returned Marquette. “But there wasn’t anything else, except his ledgers and other books. My men took charge of them. They’ve been going over Marle’s figures all day, but there’s nothing wrong with them. I’m taking the books back tonight.”

“Inspector Cardona will go with you,” announced the police commissioner. “He will return Marle’s satchel and all its contents. Make sure”-Weston turned to Cardona-“that Marle’s list tallies with yours.”

Again, The Shadow was making good use of his Cranston pose. It enabled him to let his thoughts drift far. He was recalling the gems that he had seen last night: rubies, emeralds, sapphires, some of which had looked as large as humming-birds eggs.

Nothing junky about those jewels. They were the very stones that Waybrock had purchased abroad, only to lose. Frenchy Brenn, in turn, had passed them along, last night, to his unknown chief. He had done that during the interval between the capture of The Shadow and Frenchy’s reappearance at Myrna’s Connecticut cottage.

Talk of a messenger arriving at Marle’s, fitted with Frenchy’s own action. From reports that Weston had begun to read aloud, The Shadow learned that the messenger had been summoned to an office, where he had found the package waiting outside the door. The package had been marked for delivery to Marle.

Today, the police had investigated that office, only to find it empty. The Shadow could easily picture Frenchy inside the office watching to make sure that the messenger took the package. That far, all was good. But from all reports the package hadn’t contained the smuggled gems that The Shadow had seen.

The case brought up many questions.

Had a package of junk been sent to Marle, merely to mock the law? If so, had the wizened old jeweler received the real gems elsewhere? Or was Marle merely a blind? Had those tip-offs to the police been given to create an entirely false trail?

All those questions were interlocked. Somewhere among them was an answer. Looking ahead, The Shadow could see that the law’s final procedure would be to forget Marle entirely; in fact, both Cardona and Marquette were already showing such inclination.

For that very reason, The Shadow refused to reject Amos Marle as the big-shot of the smuggling ring. It would be a cunning stunt for a master mind to first bring suspicion upon himself, then shake it off. Amos Marle might be playing that very game.

Commissioner Weston was referring to other reports. His comments again aroused The Shadow’s keen, but well-disguised, interest. While Marle had been at his store last night, Feds and police had visited his apartment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.