“But it is different. The others were received after death had struck. This one came before death.” The detective tapped the note with his forefinger. “This is the weapon which killed Thomas Sutton!”
Cardona turned to meet the commending eyes of Commissioner Ralph Weston. Professor Roger Biscayne was nodding his full approval of Cardona’s explanation.
A tenseness seemed suddenly to grip the room. For all three of the investigators knew that they were dealing with a supermind of crime — a slayer whose methods were as ingenious as they were deadly.
Three men had died. Their deaths had been announced. Would there be a fourth? That was the dread question menacing them at this instant. And the only way to thwart the murderer was to trace him through his own messages!
CHAPTER IX
THE SHADOW TAKES A HAND
THAT same evening, Detective Joe Cardona sat at a desk in headquarters. Before him lay a mass of penciled notes.
At one side was a stack of objects. The detective was puzzling over the intricacies of the three murders which had been perpetrated by some unknown killer.
Since this afternoon’s investigation, Cardona had swung completely to the theory propounded by Professor Arthur Biscayne.
He agreed, now, that the unidentified man who had met death at Harshaw’s was not an intended victim of the master mind behind the three deaths of Harshaw, Glenn, and Sutton.