GYPSY VENGEANCE
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," August 15, 1934
Strongest of all things is the loyalty of a Gypsy to his master - but there
is nothing more determined than Gypsy Vengeance. Servant against master; tribe
against tribe; crooks over all - and The Shadow to bring about justice.
CHAPTER I
IN THE MORGUE
"A SPANIARD."
Detective Joe Cardona made the statement as he studied the body on the
slab. Ace detective of the New York headquarters, Cardona was an expert at
classifying members of the various nationalities found in cosmopolitan
Manhattan.
The ace was standing in the city morgue. The body which he surveyed was not
a pleasant sight. It was the puffy, water-logged form of a dark-skinned man - a
trophy which the police had that afternoon reclaimed from the sullen waters of
the Hudson River.
Cardona's statement of the drowned man's nationality was recorded by two
persons standing by. These were newspaper reporters: one was Clyde Burke, a
frail but wiry fellow who worked on the New York Classic. The other, a scrawny
chap who blinked through tortoise shell spectacles, was Tommy Holson, of the New
York Sphere.
Along with these stood Detective Sergeant Markham. He was the headquarters
man in charge of the case. It was Markham who had sent for Joe Cardona.
"I knew you could spot what he was, Joe," declared the detective sergeant.
"I thought maybe he was a Spaniard, but I wasn't sure. I figured he might be a
Portugee - or a Mex - or some kind of South American -"
"You can tell a Jap from a Chink, can't you?" returned Cardona. "Or a
Filipino from either of them? Well - its the same story. Portuguese and Spanish
are different. As for South Americans, or Mexicans - that's a different form of
reasoning.
"There's pure blooded Spaniards in Mexico and South America - and they look
Spanish enough. But you won't find many of them in New York - and if you do,
they'll be living at the Ritz, not floating around in the river. This fellow" -
Cardona was stooping above the body - "is a Spaniard of a low class. His clothes
are proof of that."
So speaking, Cardona gripped the lapel of the dead man's water soaked coat
and thumbed the material more like a tailor than a detective.
"Maybe these clothes were put on him," volunteered Markham. "There's a big
gash on the back of his head - looks like he got it when they dumped him in the
river -"
"If they'd dressed him up in a cheap suit," returned Cardona, "they'd
probably have used American clothes. This suit fits the fellow too well. It
