Steve Lang was totally amazed. The situation seemed unexplainable. Then the unconscious condition of Gunner Macklin aroused the detective to action.
“Where’s that interne?” he demanded. “Ah!”—he saw a white-clad figure entering the door—”here he is.
Say, this patient’s passed out. You got another glassful of that stuff you just gave him?”
“That I just gave him?” queried the interne. “I haven’t been in here since you came.”
“Where’s the interne that was here?”
“I’m the only one.”
The interne looked at the form of Gunner Macklin. Then he turned to the two detectives.
“The man is dead,” he said solemnly, “and it looks to me as though he had been poisoned.”
ONCE again, The Shadow had failed to halt Palermo’s hand of death. Disguised as Jerry Haggerty, he had subtly urged Gunner Macklin into a confession.
But Palermo had foreseen the move. When he had heard from Thelda, he had come directly to the Uptown Hospital, knowing that any one injured near the Hoetzel home would be brought there by the police.