Pocketing the envelope which dealt with Murdock's demise, Rutledge Mann glanced at his watch and noted that it was after five o'clock. He went into the outer office, told the girl that she could leave for the day; then descended in an elevator.
Taking the subway, he rode downtown to Twenty-third Street. There, Mann strolled along until he came to an old, squalid building that was virtually deserted. He entered and made his way upstairs to the door of a dingy office.
Upon the dirty glass panel appeared, in faded letters, the name:
B. Jonas
The investment broker dropped the envelope through the mail chute in the door. He heard it plunk behind the barrier. Then he went down the dimly lighted stairs and reached the street. He hailed a taxicab and rode to his club.
It was a strange business for an investment broker, this task of going over newspaper clippings and obtaining unprinted information through a reporter on the 'Classic'. Even more strange was the visit of Rutledge Mann to the squalid building on Twenty-third Street.
What dealings did the fastidious investment broker have with a man named Jonas, who inhabited one of the most obscure and decrepit offices in New York?
That was a fact known to a very few. Those who understood were sworn to secrecy. For Rutledge Mann and Clyde Burke were members of a small and obscure company. They were agents of the mysterious man called The Shadow — that strange figure whose name had become the terror of the underworld.
Clyde Burke had assembled material for Rutledge Mann. The investment broker had revised the data which the reporter had given him. Now the final reports were waiting in the mail chute for the man who had ordered them.
To all New York, the death of Clark Murdock might have been accepted as a misadventure. But to The Shadow, it must have a greater significance. For he had instructed Mann, through a mysterious message, to obtain information from Clyde Burke.