The Shadow (7 page)

The man who had been masquerading as Lamont Cranston on and off for the past ten years was asleep in a crashed-velvet chair in the mansion’s principal drawing room. An embroidered pillow rested in his lap, and in his dangling right hand was cradled a fluted crystal snifter. Only a small amount of brandy remained in the glass. Cranston’s bow tie was loosened, and his tuxedo jacket was tossed over a nearby setee. A fire blazed in the marble fireplace, which was flanked by large urns containing long, feathery grasses snatched from some marshy environment. While he slept, a butler made a quiet entrance to fetch an empty plate from the table next to the chair and left just as quietly.

The real name of the man who had appropriated Lamont Cranston’s life and was the black-clad crime-fighter the press had named The Shadow was Kent Allard.

Allard had been an aviator during the Great War, the war to end all wars, and it was in Europe that he first encountered Cranston, a man he so resembled that the two were constantly being mistaken for each other. Cranston was everything Allard wasn’t: privileged, pampered, opportunistic. Allard had been horrified by the savagery of trench warfare and aerial combat; more so by his own barbaric fascination for violence and mayhem, a fascination that had been with him for as long as he could remember.

The sanctioned violence of the war had been meant to exorcise his bloodlust, but instead it had only loosed the beast within him. He grew more and more skillful at the art of war, and when deprived of it he had nowhere to turn but to the equally savage world of drag running. In Istanbul there had been another encounter with Lamont Cranston, who was himself involved in smuggling. Then an offer to partake of the opium trade had sent him to Asia and landed him ultimately in Tibet, where his fields had supplied markets in China, Europe, and South America, and where his experiences during the war had enabled him to vanquish any would-be rivals in the trade.

By then he was using the name Lamont Cranston, in the belief that his and Cranston’s paths would never again cross. As for ace aviator Kent Allard, he was believed to have died in the subtropical jungles of the southern Yucatán Peninsula, during a reconnaissance flight over a newly discovered Mayan ruin.

It was only after his abduction and forced apprenticeship with Marpa Tulku that the faux-Cranston returned to the United States, changed for the good, redeemed, or so it seemed; fated to assume the form of The Shadow in his new mission to lay waste to crime. Aware that the real Cranston—celebrated explorer, big-game hunter, Industrialist and man-about-town—was frequently out of the country, Allard made use of their resemblance to insinuate himself into social circles that ordinarily would have been closed to him, hobnobbing with financiers and politicians, with police commissioners and dealers in rare art. Allard had sometimes worn other guises as well; that of Henry Arnaud, to name but one.

But there occurred an incident several years earlier that had since allowed Allard to go on being Cranston without fear of exposure. The real Lamont Cranston had returned from a trip to South America to discover that people were claiming to have run into him, at the Cobalt Club and elsewhere, even though he had been deep in the forested heart of Amazonia at the time. Alone in his bedroom in the mansion one night, and beginning to doubt his sanity, Cranston—no stranger to dark secrets—had been visited by his frequent impostor, The Shadow, and the mystery had been solved. Cranston had been so horrified by The Shadow’s explanation that he had immediately agreed to go on lending his identity, as much to distance himself from the maniacal Kent Allard as anything else.

From that night on, for all intents and purposes, Cranston, Allard, and The Shadow were the same person.

The New York City manse was only one of Cranston’s haunts; there were also the New Jersey estate—not far from Rahway; the Caribbean island facility, ran by the criminologist, Slade Farrow; and a second place in New York, in a downtown apartment building, the rooftop of which was occasionally used as a landing pad for The Shadow’s autogiro. A combination of Allard and Cranston money funded The Shadow’s ongoing research into the deviant workings of the criminal mind, in addition to financing the implementation of the most up-to-date investigative techniques: the purchasing of information; the subsidizing of informants; the use of cipher codes; and the designing and installing of a byzantine communication system that allowed The Shadow to remain in close contact with his legion of field agents.

Just now, however, it wasn’t Lamont Cranston who was dreaming but Allard himself, his eyes shifting wildly under closed lids.

Had the butler been a few minutes late in the performance of his duties, he would have been present to hear a low rumble fill the drawing room, to see the brandy snifter vibrate in sympathy, to watch the flames in the fireplace quicken and belch a swirling fireball into the room, swaying curtains and chandeliers, and to watch amazed as the brandy ignited, exploding the snifter . . .

Cranston’s eyes popped open, and he sat bolt upright in the chair. In what may have been no more than a vivid dream fashioned to safeguard his sleep, he had glimpsed the fireball, which should have torched the room, but instead had formed itself into a face of leering severity. A face born in the mysterious depths of Asia, that seemed capable of looking right through a person.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the face vanished, sucked back into the fireplace as if in reverse time-lapse motion, leaving Cranston to wonder at it.

Not since his dream in the palace on the night of his abduction had he experienced such raw, psychic power.

“Someone’s coming,” he heard himself whisper.

I
n its eagerness to drum up business, the New York Museum of Art and Antiquity, on Central Park West, was featuring two attention-grabbing exhibits: “The Dawn of Time” and “The Art of Flight,” both advertised by bright banners festooned from the museum’s ornate façade. A blockish five-story affair that sat directly on the street, the building’s northeast and southeast corners were ornamented with towering, monolithic headpieces depicting the three Fates.

Inside, just now, Issac Newboldt, tenured curator of Asian sculpture and folk art, was scurrying through the museum’s Hall of Dinosaurs—no match for the Natural History’s collection, but well represented just the same. Newboldt was white-haired, sixty-two, tall and distinguished-looking, with a somewhat pointed nose and a grizzled mustache. His customary attire was a blue, three-piece suit and striped necktie. That he was still in the museum at eleven
P.M.
owed to paperwork that failed to diminish no matter how much effort he applied to it. And to make matters worse, Berger had phoned from receiving, requesting his immediate presence over some matter that had yet to be clarified. Newboldt checked his fobbed pocket watch as he hurried through the darkened display rooms and marble corridors.

Receiving was located on the ground floor in the rear of the building, just past the offices where staffers and aides tagged and catalogued items bound for display cases or the museum’s vast, treasure-laden basement storerooms.

Pushing his way through double doors with pebbled glass panels, Newboldt entered a long and musty-smelling room, whose exterior brick wall was interrupted by three loading bays, sealed by roll-up doors. Off to one side of the room were a half-dozen full-size figures costumed in medieval Asian and European armor, and beyond them a squat, Egyptian mummy case. Elsewhere was a collection of grimacing wooden masks from Polynesia and the highlands of New Guinea. As ordered by Accounting, the lights were dimmed and, what with the dark corners and the murky shadows cast by the costumed figures, the place felt like a dungeon.

Berger was pacing anxiously in the center of a cement floor strew with packing straw and excelsior. At the receiving desk sat Nelson, an armed security guard, who frequently gave the impression of being afraid of his
own
shadow.

“What’s so important that it couldn’t have waited until morning?” Newboldt asked. His nasally voice reverberated in the room.

Berger gestured to an immense, slat-sided crate standing opposite the middle bay door. The crate was all of eight feet high and at least four feet wide and as many deep. Nested like an Easter egg in its packing, the rounded top of an elaborately carved coffin showed where a section of the crating had been removed.

“That’s just it, sir,” Berger said. “I don’t know what it is. I’d have labeled it a mummy case, coming from Tibet, as it does, but—”

“A mummy case from Tibet,” Newboldt said, in a patronizing tone. “Well, that’s very interesting.”

Berger nodded. A slightly built man with thinning hair, he wore a bow tie and wire-rim glasses. “Exactly what I thought. But this one seems to be metal. So I decided that it was more of a sarcophagus—”

“Oh, a
sarcophagus
from Tibet. That’s a horse of a different color.” Newboldt showed the younger man a disapproving look and took a step toward the crate. “Pay close attention, Mr. Berger, you’re about to be educated.”

Accustomed to the curator’s condescension, Berger conjured an attentive look. Alongside him, with his mouth slightly ajar and his uniform cap crooked on his head, stood Nelson, small and baby-faced.

“In Tibet, burial in the ground is reserved for criminals and people who die of contagious diseases,” Newboldt began. “Beggars, widows, widowers, and the very poor are usually surrendered to rivers, as is done in the subcontinent. Tibet’s scholar-monks are usually cremated, though Dalai and Panchen Lamas are often immured in stupas or chortens. For everyone else, the preferred method is celestial burial. The dead are wrapped in white cloth and kept for five days, then the body is transported to a high promontory, where it is hacked to pieces—bones and all—and fed to vultures. The birds are summoned by fires built from pine and cypress woods, and
tsampa.”
Newboldt cut his eyes to Berger. “Now, what does our lesson suggest to you regarding this coffin or sarcophagus, as you say?”

“That it’s probably not from Tibet?” Berger said sheepishly.

“Precisely.” Newboldt glanced at Nelson. “Where are the men who delivered it?”

The guard shrugged. “Gone. They took off.”

“Well, what does the shipping invoice state?”

Berger pulled the slip from his jacket pocket. “It says here that the shipment originated in Tibet. The delivery was made by the Integrity Transfer Company.”

Newboldt snatched the invoice and read it for himself. “Obviously there’s been a mistake. We’re not expecting anything from Tibet—and certainly not some counterfeit sarcophagus. I’ll have Acquisitions contact the customs broker to sort this out. In the meantime, let’s just see what we have here.”

Newboldt moved to the crate. The burnished surface of the coffin had an almost molten look, and the lid was actually made up of two full-length doors, hinged along both sides and secured where they met by five baroque latches, carved to suggest intertwined dragon’s claws.

“Whatever its provenance,” Newboldt commented, “it’s exquisite.” He ran a hand over one of the doors, then rapped his knuckles against it. “It’s solid silver!” He turned to Nelson. “Give us a hand getting the sides off.”

The crowbar Nelson had used to pry off the upper section of crating was still hanging from the lower portion, and Nelson used it to strip away the side slats and what remained of the front. Newboldt brushed the straw away and used his handkerchief to clean what looked to be a cartouche engraved into the right-hand door. Nelson appeared with the reading lamp from the desk.

“What’s it say?” Berger asked.

“The writing is in Latin and what seems to be Arabic.” Newboldt studied the letters intently for a moment. “No, I’m mistaken. It’s in Latin and Uighur script.”

Berger and Nelson traded ignorant looks.

“An alphabet borrowed from the Sogdians—an East Iranian people from Samarkand and Bukhara—” Newboldt stopped himself and inhaled sharply. “ ‘The Kha Khan,’ ” he said, deciphering the engraving. “ ‘The Great Ruler. The Power of Heaven, the One God, Tengri, on Earth. The Seal of the Emperor of Mankind, Ruler of All Tribes Living in Felt Tents.’ ” He looked at Berger and Nelson in undisguised astonishment. “Temüjin! This is the coffin of Temüjin!”

Berger had his mouth opened to respond when Newboldt continued.

“The man we’ve come to know as Genghis Khan—twelfth-century conqueror of half the world. Eldest son of Yesugei. Named after the slain tartar chief, Temüjin. The name approximates ‘Smith.’ The meaning of ‘genghis’ isn’t known, but—”

Again, he glanced at the two men. “But this is impossible. Genghis Khan’s burial site has never been found, much less his . . . his
coffin.
The body is thought to have been carried to Mongolia for burial on the sacred mountain, Burqan Qaldun, or perhaps along the upper reaches of the Onon. Forty women and forty horses were sacrificed, then the gravesite was trampled by hundreds of horses.”

“So what’s it mean, professor?” Nelson asked, breaking a brief silence.

Newboldt regarded him absently. “What’s the address of the shipper?”

“The crate labeling only has the company name and the country of origin. No address for Integrity Transfer.” Plainly agitated, the curator checked his pocket watch. “I must make a phone call.” He turned and started for the doors.

Berger looked at the coffin, then at Nelson, and said, “I’ll, uh, help you, Mr. Newboldt.”

“Nelson,” Newboldt added, without bothering to turn around. “Whatever you do, don’t open it!”

Right, Nelson thought as Newboldt and Berger were disappearing through the doors. Like I’d open the thing.

Favoring his right foot, he shuffled back to his desk and propped himself on the stool, turning his back to Genghis Khan’s coffin. Glancing at a newspaper, he began to sing softly to himself.

“Come on along and listen to, the lullaby—”

A strange, clicking sound interrupted him, but he was unable to locate the source. Shrugging, he went on with his reading and his song. ‘The lullaby of—”