Wondering who else, Selbert decided to ask the only person who had been here at the time of Chardelle"s death. Jim turned to Hubert Aldion.
"Who was it?"
"- I wouldn"t know," stammered Aldion. "I was the Seneschal, you know. I was wearing a blue uniform and I was over by that door." Gesturing toward the outer door, Aldion added suddenly: "Ask her, she knows."
The person in question was Margo Lane. Tired of hunting everywhere else for the friends who had deserted her, Margo had finally come to the Hoodoo House.
"Yes, the Seneschal was standing over here," acknowledged Margo, slowly, "but his costume wasn"t entirely blue. The coat was blue; the trousers were red."
The Shadow"s low laugh showed that he appreciated that fuller description.
So did Jim Selbert.
"Red to match the Devil"s costume!" Releasing Ferrand who stood by with lowered gun, Selbert approached Aldion. "When you chased up to the second floor, which way did you go?"
"Why - the quickest way." Aldion was much confused. "I helped smash one door -"
"And you yanked open the other," put in Selbert. "But which door was which?"
Aldion tried to answer, but hesitancy gripped him. The Shadow"s laugh, supplying its same low tone, prompted Selbert to turn his quiz into direct accusation.
"You won"t say which," Selbert told Aldion, "because you know the witnesses will disagree when I get around to asking them. They all remember you opening one door, so they think you crashed the other." Looking toward The Shadow, Selbert caught the glint of burning eyes beneath the hat brim.Realizing he was right, Jim drove home the final point. "What you did was peel the Devil"s costume and chuck it through that window; then you yanked both doors open. You were the killer in the Mephisto Mask!"
Almost wilting under the accusation, Aldion finally rallied and gestured feebly to Margo.
"She"ll tell you I was by the outer door. I was standing there when Chardelle was murdered."
"Somebody was standing there," conceded Margo. "Somebody costumed as the Seneschal. Only I don"t know how he got there in the first place; I just remember that he started outside."
"After the murder?" queried Selbert.
"Yes," replied Margo. "Then next, I saw him upstairs. The Seneschal, I mean, or someone in such a costume. I wonder -"
The Shadow wasn"t wondering. His laugh supplied the difference and Selbert grasped it.
"Wondering if there were two Seneschal costumes," declared Jim. "Why not?
There were two Masks of Mephisto. You"ve clinched it, Miss Lane. Aldion must have gone upstairs while everybody was watching the Lottery pay off. Another Seneschal took his place inside the door!"
"And later went around through the little gate!" Margo exclaimed. "Why it could have been his car that I heard leave in back!"
Looking straight at The Shadow as she spoke, Margo was recalling Cranston"s earlier interest in the matter of that departing car. Another idea struck her, but Selbert was first with it.
"That car was parked under the little window," decided Jim. "The costume and the Mask landed right in it. Whoever drove away took it with him -"
There was a pause, as Selbert"s chain of thought continued. This time it was The Shadow who supplied the climax by completing the sentence in a strangely sinister tone: "- And wore it when he murdered Henri Moubillard, who unfortunately saw Ken Langdon come in with the other costume."
That brought a quick response from Fred Ferrand.
"I get it now! They were using this Langdon chap to put the frame on me!
But they were playing it two ways. If my bayou alibi held, they could switch the works on Langdon. Since there were two of them, why not have two of us.
Two.
of them -"
Pausing with his repet.i.tion, Ferrand heard the approving laugh of The Shadow. The term "two of them" held, because Aldion hadn"t been at large to murder Moubillard as a follow-up to Chardelle"s death.
And if Hubert Aldion was one, Rolfe Trenhue must be the other.
All eyes were on Trenhue as The Shadow spoke the accusation that had grown in every mind.
"You were late in meeting Joan Marcy," stated The Shadow, "because you were needed here, Trenhue, to double as Seneschal. From the Borneau Mansion you drove to the costume shop, murdered Moubillard, and sped back again. Brief though the interim was, you have no alibi to cover it."
Trenhue hadn"t and he knew it. He was afraid to argue the point, because he saw mistrust in Aldion"s gaze. These partners in murder could each expose the other and both knew it. The best Trenhue could do was voice something that might help them mutually.
"How could we have known about the Lottery money?" demanded Trenhue.
"Let"s hear someone answer that."
"Chardelle told Aldion," returned The Shadow. "That gave them the majority vote over Tourville, since Ferrand was too busy hunting treasure to play the Devil for the Krewe of Hades. Then Aldion told you, Trenhue." "I would have been a fool!" broke in Aldion. "What would have made me double-cross Chardelle?"
"One hundred thousand dollars," announced The Shadow. "You took the prize money from the box before you sealed it. You needed a partner to stage what you thought would be a perfect murder. Chardelle"s death was necessary to keep the Lottery ring from learning that he took you into his confidence."
Jim Selbert was stepping forward with Ferrand"s gun. His feet were clinking loose coins from the treasure coffer as he queried: "Where did you two stow that prize money?"
The Shadow"s low laugh joined the jangle of the coins that were answering for Aldion and Trenhue. Stooping, Selbert picked up some of the loose gold and silver.
"Old coins," spoke The Shadow. "Collectors" coins. Check them at the local shops and many of them will be identified, Selbert. Of course the dates are long enough ago. Aldion and Trenhue wouldn"t have overlooked that when they liquidated the Lottery money to turn it into treasure that Dominique never buried.
"Dominique"s letter is better evidence, Selbert. It won"t take an expert to prove it a clever forgery. Dominique couldn"t have addressed it to the editor of the famous L"Abeille, because the newspaper was not founded until
six.
years after the Seraphine was fitted for the cruise she never took."
So impressive were The Shadow"s words that Selbert reached for the letter.
To get it from his pocket he placed the gun beneath his arm, since his other hand was full of coins. Up from their pit came Aldion and Trenhue; flinging Selbert from their path, they drove for the outer door.
Despite its warning, The Shadow"s fierce laugh spurred the fugitives instead of halting them. His gun would have spoken next; he was waiting only until the murderers bottlenecked each other at the door. But at that moment, Ken Langdon made a most untimely arrival, with Joan Marcy right behind him.
Seeing guns muzzle-first, Ken flung Joan away from them. Turning to block the fugitives, Ken was grabbed by Aldion, who flung him in Trenhue"s path.
Un.o.bstructed, Aldion sprang through the door as Trenhue sprawled across the threshold. There, Trenhue heard the taunt of The Shadow"s approaching laugh, half-triumphant it seemed, because one murderer had remained within his reach.
Trenhue saw that it wasn"t only one.
Coming to his feet Trenhue lunged through the doorway, blasting shots ahead. He"d stop Aldion, the man who had left him to his plight, rather than turn and face The Shadow. Stop Aldion Trenhue did, and a few moments later Trenhue was racing past his floundering partner.
From the cobbles where Trenhue"s bullets had dropped him, Aldion raised himself on one elbow and gave the final say in this game of each man for himself. Aldion said it with bullets too and his dying grip did not destroy his aim. As Trenhue telescoped across the curb beyond the alley, Aldion sagged and lay equally still.
They were murderers to the finish, those two Mephistos, even when they were no longer wearers of the Mask. As they had canceled each other, so did they write off themselves, with The Shadow"s laugh their death-knell.
The next day, Jim Selbert had a problem for Lamont Cranston when the latter stopped at his office to say good-bye.
"It left me woozy," expressed Jim, "the way that Shadow guy disappeared.
He must have taken the Devil"s costume that was here in the office and right from under our noses, too. Because we know that Ferrand was wearing the duplicate that Aldion and Trenhue planted in Moubillard"s shop, hoping Ferrand would wear it and make himself a goat, which he did. "But here"s the problem. Who took the costume that was hanging here, the day the Masked Mephisto popped into Langdon"s studio and tried to murder Joan Marcy? It couldn"t have been Trenhue; he went along with me. Aldion wouldn"t have had time to get out here from his office and back to Langdon"s studio."
Cranston considered the problem briefly. Then: "It was Aldion," he decided. "Wearing the duplicate costume, he had plenty of time to work it that way."
Selbert smiled wisely.
"I thought you"d say that," he nodded. "But how did Aldion know that Ferrand had slipped the deputies and that Langdon had made a dumb trip out here? Unless he knew, he wouldn"t have tried another of those double frames."
"Remember the phone call Trenhue made to his house?" queried Cranston.
"Before you started out to look for Ferrand?"
"Why, yes. It was about some papers. I wasn"t here -"
Cranston didn"t have to interrupt. Selbert did it for himself.
"He called Aldion instead!" exclaimed Jim. "The duplicate costume must have been in Aldion"s office, so when Trenhue slipped the dope about Ferrand and Langdon, the rest was a cinch."
"Any other questions, Captain Selbert?"
Jim Selbert had none. He and Lamont Cranston just shook hands and said good-bye. Grinning from two corners of the office were two great empty faces that seemed to enjoy this parting scene.
They were the Masks of Mephisto.
THE END.