compiled from notes by Maxwell Grant
Part I
The Problem
The aged Chinaman had been murdered. The position of the knife was a dead giveaway to Doctor Roy Tam's trained eye. But it was not this unexpectedly gristly discovery that froze the Oriental physician in his tracks, his hand rigid on the light switch he had flicked a brief moment before. Rather, it was the sinister shape of the cloaked figure that stooped above the body.
A natural assumption might have been that the cloaked figure was the murderer, lingering at the scene of his crime. This, however, was an assumption that Doctor Tam did not make. He knew the weird presence for that of The Shadow -- a mysterious crimefighter whose habitat was darkness; an ally upon whom Tam had relied many times in the past.
The handle of the death weapon was corrugated. There would be no chance of fingerprints. If the murderer had left a clue in the room, Tam could not see it. Ling Chiang, the man on the floor, had died too quickly to leave any message.
"How could this--" Tam cleared his throat, his voice subdued in respect of his dead friend. "I only left him for a moment -- to conceal the stone tiger. What happened?"
The Shadow rose, gestured with a gloved hand. In the corner, on its side, rested a light box of the sort commonly used to transport curios. It was the box in which Ling Chiang had carried a strange relic away from the auction-house where it had been purchased.
The box was currently empty. But the relic, a Bengal tiger carved of white stone with intricate obsidian stripes, had not been stolen. Tam himself, at Chiang's request, had placed it in his safe minutes before -- a fact that the murderer could not have known.
A sudden scuffle in the alleyway outside told the whole story. The Shadow seemed to melt out of sight as he swept through the back door.
Seizing a revolver, Tam hurried after him, picking his way over the debris scattered along the narrow path. The night was moonless; the darkness complete. Sight was limited to dim, amorphous shapes; yet The Shadow never altered his forward course.
There was a clatter of tin cans, and a sudden shout -- a stranger's cry, splitting the night. The Shadow leapt ahead, and Tam, hard on his heels, was almost bowled over by a human figure that had been hurled toward him out of the blackness.
The stranger struggled and tried to escape. Tam, feeling sudden rage toward the man who might have killed his friend Chiang, clutched him by the throat. But such measures were not necessary. The sudden chill of cold steel along his wrist told him that The Shadow had returned.
Feeling the muzzle of The Shadow's automatic at his neck, Tam's assailant subsided, allowing himself to be led back through the alley. Their progress was very noisy, and as Tam's vision adjusted to the dimness, he realized that he was leading not one suspect, but two, whom The Shadow had found struggling in the dark!
Marched through the door and confronted by the rapidly cooling corpse, the Shadow's captives appeared confused and horrified. The light fell on their faces, and Tam recognized the man who had almost knocked him down. He gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise.
"Gladstone Bierce!"
"And what of it?" demanded Bierce. He was in his late fifties, red-faced, with grizzled hair that hung in lank strings over the rims of his thick glasses. "What is this?" He gestured to the body. "Surely -- why, this is the man who outbid me at the auction this afternoon. Who killed him? Why have you brought me here?"
"That's what I'd like to know," said the second prisoner, a sharp-eyed young man with a wise face. "My name is Amos Flynn. I was passing the entrance to the alley outside when a man barreled out and hit me. He bowled me over, and the next thing I knew there was a gun to my head and he" -- crooking a thumb at The Shadow "--had marched me in here! I think I should demand an explanation."
"I didn't hit you," said Bierce in surprise. "If anything, it was you who ran into me. I was on my way to visit Doctor Tam--"
"About the stone tiger?"
"Yes--" Bierce paused and swallowed, his watery eyes blinking in new fear. He had realized how weak his story was.
Tam quietly explained to The Shadow that Bierce had been one of the most enthusiastic bidders for the stone tiger. That very fact had spurred Chiang to acquire the artefact. After the auction, Chiang had found a cunning spring hidden under one of the obsidian stripes, which had detached the tiger's head. Inside, nestled in paper, were twenty glittering diamonds.
"He brought it directly to me," said Tam, sorrowfully. "We guessed, from the condition of the paper, that the stones were probably stolen, and that they had been hidden there very recently. I went to the front of the shop and put the tiger in the safe. Chiang had closed its original box. To one who entered at that moment, it would have seemed that the tiger was still inside. Chiang must have been lured into this room and murdered before I could return."
"That has nothing to do with me," said Gladstone Bierce. "The tiger caught my fancy. I thought Doctor Tam might know who had purchased it, and that I might be able to negotiate some kind of trade. I didn't know the man was here."
"Of course I remember the tiger," said Amos Flynn. "But it had nothing to do with me. This place is on my natural way home. I was only walking by"
The whole thing was a mystery to Tam. Though each seemed sincere, he had a strong feeling that the answer was in plain view, if only he could see it. The Shadow's visit had not been entirely unanticipated; his agency had lately been working with Tam's on a different case. The unexpectedness of his appearance was only to be expected. The Shadow operated on no man's timetable.
Instinctively, Tam looked to The Shadow for an answer.
"What brought you here?" he asked. "Did you know about the tiger as well?"
"I did not," stated The Shadow. "I came on other business. Your patient is out of danger, Roy Tam. Her innocence has been proven. Her family is no longer threatened. She will live."
Tam smiled despite the present uncomfortable situation. This was a result for which he had been working tirelessly for days. The verdict would give the woman new hope and end a feud that had lasted half her lifetime. Her friends had not labored in vain.
The Shadow continued:
"Believing that you were otherwise engaged, I chose to wait in this room, for it seemed that no one was there -- but as I entered, I became aware of the presence of death. I discovered the corpse of Ling Chiang. At that moment Doctor Tam returned from the front of the store."
Tam nodded. The rest he knew -- all but one essential fact.
"This is terrible!" cried Flynn. "You'll have to have the police in. But I dislike the situation extremely. This is murder, and the authorities won't tread lightly with it. This gentleman--"
"I admit I was on my way here," said Bierce. "I wanted certain items from the auction for my own collection. But I intended to offer the full price to the other buyers. And this man -- Flynn -- was also at the auction. If I'm not mistaken, he was bidding for the tiger!"
"You are wrong," said Flynn. "I bid for several objects. I had no interest in the tiger. You are covering your own crime!"
Their argument ended suddenly. Both men flinched, falling silent as though some elusive menace had snatched the breath from their throats.
The Shadow had drawn away from the center of the room. Standing beside the door through which Tam had come less than fifteen minutes before, his hand half raised as Tam's had been, he uttered a low, mocking laugh. It echoed strangely, in that room of death. Though Tam knew The Shadow for a friend, he felt chilled to the bone. He looked in bewilderment from one suspect to the other.
Then, unexpectedly, his square face hardened. He stepped back and steadied his revolver. He had discovered the purpose in The Shadow's laugh.
He knew who had killed Ling Chiang!
--
Part II
The Solution
"Rhodopsin!" came The Shadow's sibilant tone. "The word is largely unknown to the layman. It is a medical term. But it has a special meaning for one of us. He may not know what it is, but he knows how to depend on it.
"It allows the human eye to see in the dark!"
Flynn gulped. His sharp eyes darted about like trapped flies. Almost unconsciously, Gladstone Bierce touched his hand to the thick rims of his spectacles.
"The light was off when I came in," accused Tam. "It had remained off during the murder, for the curtains had not been drawn, and The Shadow would have seen light before he entered. Only a man with excellent night vision would have dared to strike such a blow -- precisely enough to kill poor Chiang without a sound."
"You remained by the window," said The Shadow, "to make sure that Doctor Tam discovered nothing that could implicate you. You did not realize that I had come until I shone my small flashlight on the face of Ling Chiang. At that moment Doctor Tam returned. By turning on the light, he inadvertently destroyed your night vision. You attempted to flee, and ran headlong into another man in the darkness.
"You will telephone the homicide bureau, Gladstone Bierce. Far from being a murderer, your interference has furthered the cause of justice."
Mechanically Bierce reached for the phone. Turning to keep his weak eyes on the strange tableau, he started and gasped.
Doctor Tam, his weapon steady as he held the murderer at bay, knew what Bierce saw. Or rather, what he did not see.
His task ended, The Shadow would not have remained. His whispered laugh still echoed in that confined space, but its author, the master of elusiveness, had vanished into the night!
THE END
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Disclaimer: This story was written in a deliberate imitation of the novels written by Maxwell Grant and published in The Shadow Magazine. I am neither Grant's ghost nor one of his heirs, and write this only in tribute to a series which has afforded me many hours of thrilling entertainment.
And I know rhodopsin wasn't discovered until the latter half of the 20th century. But if anyone could figure it out before that, the Shadow could. Hahahahahaha!