The Ghost Makers

It was like the laugh of a ghost. A mockery so grotesque that only a being from another world could utter it. An unearthly tone that even the cringing, faking medium believed had come from spirit lips. Like the laugh of a ghost it had come; like a ghost, it had returned. A man had vanished with it, as though he, too, belonged in some unknown realm of the universe.

Yet that laugh, ghostly though it had seemed, had come from human lips.

It was the laugh of The Shadow!

Chapter II — Spook or Shadow

Murdered by a ghost!

Of all the strange deaths that Detective Joe Cardona had investigated, the case of Herbert Harvey, stabbed to the heart with a keen-bladed knife, was the most mysterious.

To the ace of New York detectives, summoned to the seance room within half an hour after the murder, the situation presented baffling angles that afforded no tangible solution. After a night of witness quizzing, after an exhaustive search for clues, Cardona was back to the point from which he started.

In the morning, the detective was summoned to the office of Police Commissioner Ralph Weston. This, in itself, was sufficient to arouse Cardona's apprehensions. The police commissioner, despite his fastidious tastes, was a keen analyst of crime.

Weston relied on Cardona, but he had a habit of criticizing the detective's pet theories on those rare occasions when he and Cardona went into consultation.

Joe Cardona was a man inured to criticism; with most persons he was quick with a keen retort. But Weston played on the detective's weaknesses.

Now, as Cardona approached the office, he felt that he was due to encounter a barrage of well-founded disapproval.

Commissioner Weston, well-groomed and leisurely, smiled in friendly fashion when Cardona was ushered into the office. The detective knew that lulling smile. He was not deceived by it. He sat down on the opposite side of the glass-topped table, and watched Weston, while the commissioner studied a newspaper. Finally, Weston laid the journal aside and looked at Cardona.

"Well?" questioned Weston.

"I know what you want to know, commissioner," answered Cardona solemnly. "This Harvey case. Well" — he pointed to the newspaper with his thumb — "it's all there. For once, the tabloids have got it straight!"

An expression of amazement came over the commissioner's face. Cardona repressed a grim smile. He had dumfounded Commissioner Ralph Weston!

It was a full minute before the official recovered from his surprise. Then he thumped his fist on the newspaper and stared at Cardona defiantly.

"Do you mean to say," demanded Weston, "that this tommyrot about a killer ghost is all that you have discovered in this case? What has possessed you, Cardona?"

"Out of eleven persons present," declared Cardona, "ten bear witness to that fact. Only one offered a different theory."

"Ten fools!" exclaimed the commissioner. "Ten ignorant, stupid fools who—"

"Have you read their names, commissioner?" asked Cardona mildly.

"Yes," admitted Commissioner Weston reluctantly.

"I found those people very excited," said Cardona, in a quiet tone, "but I wouldn't like to say that any one of them was ignorant or stupid. They were very intelligent people, commissioner. People who have brains as well as money."

Weston folded his hands and sat back in his chair. He surveyed Cardona thoughtfully. He nodded slowly.

"Start with the beginning, Cardona," he requested. "I don't want to miss any portion of this case."

"The meeting was going on up at the Hotel Dalban," began Cardona. "That's where this Professor Raoul Jacques holds his seances, once a week, in a private room, off where they won't be disturbed.

"From what the witnesses say, most of the people were old customers. But they all didn't know everybody else the professor says he's glad to admit strangers. Claims he can get messages for any one.

"Well, last night, he was getting a contact for a new member of the ring. A Mrs. Henderson — she's in the list there, in the Daily Classic. Right in the middle of it, there was a lot of wild laughing. They got scared, and put on the lights. The professor claimed an evil spirit was jinxing the affair."

"Was that when the murder occurred?" questioned Weston.

"No," replied Cardona. "They started in again. The professor claims he called for a good influence to fight the bad. They saw a knife — a dagger— flashing in the air.

"Then came the laughs again. Someone yelled; they switched on the lights. There was Harvey, dead — and the laugh was still coming from somewhere. It stopped right after the lights went on."

"Is that where they evolved the ghost theory?"

"Yes. The professor says that two spirits were in conflict, the good and the bad. He claims that Harvey mixed in the mess, and got the worst of it."

"Preposterous!" exclaimed Weston. "A knife can't come out of nothingness, Cardona!"