JOE SNAPER'S reply was immediate. He kicked viciously at the bandaged ankle. Timothy screamed, fell from the chair. He lay there, writhing, his face twisted with pain.
"It's an act," Snaper scowled. "Rip off that bandage, Bert. Take a look at
it."
Hooley nodded. While Snaper watched the doorway to make sure that no one had heard Timothy's cry of pain, his partner unwound the bandage with brutal haste.
The flesh was exposed. Hooley cursed as he looked at it. Snaper muttered a
disappointed snarl. There was no farce about the lawyer's alibi. The skin was stretched tight over the pink, swollen flesh of Timothy's foot and ankle. It was obvious, even to the suspicious crooks, that he had spoken the truth.
Hooley said, harshly, "Okay, wise guy. You win! Lucky for you, too!"
His bald head jutted threateningly at the moaning victim.
"If you want to go on living, pal, keep your mouth shut about all this.
We
made a mistake, so let it go at that. The guy we want is Arnold Dixon himself.
He musta hired the lad in the brown beard."
"You're mad!" Timothy gasped. "Arnold Dixon would never deliberately connive at murder. You're making a horrible mistake!"
The two crooks backed cautiously from the sunlit room. They moved like ghosts, without sound. Timothy lay on the rug where he had fallen, afraid to move or to cry out.
After a long time, he managed to get back into the chair. The fear on his face ebbed away. Color came back into his cheeks. His jaw hardened.
With a quick gesture, he reached for the near-by telephone. He called the number of his personal physician, said he needed immediate treatment for his leg, that he must get on his feet again as soon as possible.
Tenderly, he moved the aching foot. He gritted his teeth and bit off the groan the motion caused him.
"Very well," he said grimly to himself. "We'll see, Snaper and Hooley, whether you're going to get away with this or not. My guess is that you're not!"
CHAPTER VII
CHEMICAL FIREFLIES
ARNOLD DIXON was standing alone in the front hallway of his mansion, fully
dressed in overcoat and hat. He was reading a note, and the expression on his face was ghastly. The note was in red ink; printed in sprawling capitals, it was unsigned.
It was a peremptory demand that the millionaire come alone to a certain road in Pelham that led to a rocky and deserted part of Long Island Sound. His orders were to drive until he came to a deserted house with blue shutters. The house would be further identified by a white handkerchief tied to the doorknob.
That was all the note said. Arnold Dixon shivered. He guessed who had sent
it and he was afraid.
A step in the dim hallway caused Dixon to turn his back hastily and shove the paper into his overcoat pocket. The figure was Charles, the butler. He was just in time to see the note vanish. He stared at the overcoat and hat.
"Are you going out, sir? It's rather late."
"Yes, I know. Bring the small car around to the front."
"Are you sure Mr. Bruce would like that, sir? He told me to be sure not to
allow you to go out alone after nightfall. Believe me, sir, I don't wish to be impertinent, but -"
"You are impertinent," Dixon replied, shortly. "Where is Bruce? In town?"
"Yes, sir. He's at the apartment of Miss Edith Allen. I believe he has an appointment to take her to the theater to-night."
"Well, keep this to yourself. I don't want Bruce bothered. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Charles replied, quietly. He watched Dixon draw a handkerchief
from his overcoat pocket and dab nervously at his perspiring forehead. A scrap of paper fell to the floor under the console table, but in his excitement the old man didn't notice his loss.
"Your coat, sir?" Charles said, eagerly. "It's all awry. Let me help you adjust it."
He stepped behind his employer, pretended to be busily engaged in helping him with his collar and muffler. But his body bent as he tugged at the bottom hem of the coat. His deft fingers closed over the note that lay on the floor.
Charles's smile was tight with cunning triumph, as he said, "I'll get the small car at once."
FIVE minutes later, Arnold Dixon was driving down the winding gravel road and out the gate of his estate. He drove with unaccustomed speed. His worry seemed to communicate itself to the machine. In twenty minutes, he had reached the turn indicated in the directions in the note. He took the shore road and presently the black darkness of Long Island Sound came into view.
Arnold shuddered. Something about the cold inky water filled him with forebodings of death.
The road ran along the edge of rocky shore for a quarter mile or so, then curved inward through a desolate region of stunted pine and spruce. Suddenly, Dixon saw the house. It was impossible to miss it. Blue shutters, a handkerchief tied to the knob of the front door. The place looked old and tenantless.
Arnold Dixon turned the knob, discovered that the door was unlocked. He opened it and peered in. A kerosene lamp was standing on the bare floor of the entry. It cast a weird yellow light that threw Arnold's shadow on the dirty plaster of the wall like a gaunt bird.
"Okay, pal," a voice said dryly from an inner room. "Shut that door and get in here!"
The voice was Bert Hooley's. Slowly, Dixon obeyed.
He found himself in an empty, musty room, lighted with a kerosene lamp also. Joe Snaper was there, too. He moved behind Dixon, blocking his escape.
Hooley advanced grimly toward the frightened caller.
"What - what do these threats mean?" Dixon faltered. "I've tried to play fair with you. I've paid you a thousand dollars twice a month and I'm willing to continue to pay. Yet you've threatened me with death. Why?"
"Because you're a dirty double-crosser!" Snaper snarled, jamming the muzzle of his gun into Dixon's flinching stomach.
"Lemme handle this," Hooley said.
His hands tightened themselves on Dixon's throat. He squeezed remorselessly until the millionaire's tongue jutted from his wide-open mouth.
Then he threw the millionaire staggering away with a contemptuous shove.
"Make the rat talk!" Snaper suggested.
"Don't worry." Hooley's paw darted out again. He held Dixon stiffly while his ugly eyes probed him.
"Why did you try to have us killed, pal?"
"I didn't!"
"You lie! We're gonna give you the works - unless you tell us the right answers!"
"I'll tell you anything I know," Dixon moaned.
"You know a guy named Paul Rodney, don't you?"
"I never heard of him. Who is he?"
"He's a guy with a brown beard. One of your stooges. He tried to burn us down outside your library window the night you stole your check back from me.
We got away from that okay. And we got away from his sulphur candle in the hotel room. But you ain't getting away from us until you let us in on what the big secret is!"
"Secret?" Dixon faltered.
"JOE and me think," Hooley told Dixon slowly, his hand still clutching him
with a grip of steel, "that maybe we've been suckers takin' your lousy two grand
a month! We think there's something big in the wind that we've been missing.
Something that might bring us in some real dough!
"We've been doin' a little sleuthin' ourselves, see? We've found that the lad in the brown beard is a guy named Paul Rodney. He's tied up with a tough little killer named Squint. That much we know. What's Rodney's angle, pal?"
"I don't know," Dixon repeated, monotonously. He pressed his lips together
as if afraid more words might spurt out to betray him.
"So you don't know no Paul Rodney, huh?" Snaper grinned.
"No!"
"And you ain't got no big secret? I mean, outside of the little blackmail graft all three of us know?"
"I - I have nothing to say. I won't t
alk!"
In desperation, Dixon tried to aim a blow at Snaper's jaw, but his fist was caught in a smothering grip. His arm was wrenched over his head with a force that made the arm twist in his shoulder socket.
"Take off his shoes and socks, Joe," Hooley whispered.
Snaper leered. This was stuff he understood. In a moment Arnold Dixon was sitting helplessly on the floor, his back jammed hard against the plastered wall, his bare feet extended in front of him.
"Lemme do the burnin'," Snaper begged, his eyes slitted with anticipation.
"Okay. Try him with a match flame first. If that don't work, we'll get really busy with him."
The match made a sputtering sound against the bare wood of the floor. The yellow flame flared. Snaper bent forward, enjoying the terror in the distended eyes of the old man. Hooley kept the squirming Dixon from kicking out with his bare feet.
The flame of the match approached closer to the flesh of Dixon's bare sole. He could feel the heat of it, then the sharp agonized prickle from the tip of the flame itself. Hooley's hand over his mouth restrained the scream that gargled behind Dixon's lips.
His cry went unheard. But another sound echoed in the bare room with startling suddenness.
It was a harsh, sibilant laugh. It seemed to fill every nook and cranny of
the cottage. And it came from the crumbling red-brick interior of the ancient fireplace!
SNAPER whirled as he heard it. His jaw dropped with superstitious terror.
But, Hooley was made of bolder stuff. The gun in his hairy hand pointed toward the chimney opening. He began to squeeze the trigger.
A single harsh command made him abandon his purpose.
"Drop it!"
Twin gun muzzles were trained on both crooks from the darkness of the fireplace.
For a second, there was hesitation on Hooley's pasty countenance. Then the
weapon slipped from his hand to the floor. Snaper, too, dropped his weapon.
Arnold Dixon, half fainting, shrank back as he saw the figure that was emerging slowly from the brick recess of the chimney.
Black from head to foot, the figure stepped with measured slowness into the room. Nothing was visible about it except for the nose and the restless, deep-socketed eyes. They were like twin pin points of flame under the drooping brim of a black slouch hat.
The Shadow!
He had evidently climbed to the roof and entered the bare room below by way of the ancient chimney. Yet no sound had betrayed his miraculous descent.
Nor did his feet seem to make sound as he moved across the creaking boards of the door.
His two heavy guns jerked sideways in black gloved hands. Snaper and Hooley backed slowly against the wall beside the chimney.
The Shadow was measuring them as if debating what to do, when he heard a tiny sound from the shade-drawn window. It brought him whirling about with the swiftness of a black panther. The noise had come from the shade. It had crackled slightly under the push of a cautious finger. Through the bottom of the opened window a face was peering into the room.
Flame spat from a pistol, as The Shadow leaped aside. A bullet whizzed through the crown of his slouch hat and thudded into the plastered wail. Again the gun at the window flamed.
The room became instantly an inferno of confusion. Not once did The Shadow
attempt to return the fire. He was aware that Snaper and Hooley were rushing from the room and out the front door. Flat on the floor, The Shadow's gloved hand darted outward. He caught the lamp, drew it close, blew out the light with
a quick puff of his thin lips.
Darkness flowed instantly over the room.
The Shadow needed darkness. He wanted not to kill, but to vanish. He had recognized the pale, desperate face outside the window. It was the millionaire's own son! Bruce Dixon!
THE voice of Bruce was clearly audible now in the murky room. He came rushing in through the front door, his feet thumping noisily.
"Dad! Are you all right? Where's the lamp?"
"I'm all right, son. Strike a match - quick!"
A match flared and light flowed back into the room. The lamp was lit.
Arnold and Bruce Dixon stared at each other.
"Where are Snaper and Hooley?" the old man gasped.
"They were too fast for me. They got away in a car." Bruce's voice crackled warningly. "Where did that other crook go - the man in black?"
Arnold Dixon pointed toward the silent brick maw of the chimney. His son tiptoed closer, peered cautiously upward. He could see nothing but the empty expanse of the flue with a square patch of darkness at the top. He fired his gun upward. Nothing happened. The square at the top remained unchanged.
Bruce turned abruptly and ran from the house. He stared up at the sloping roof. There was no sign of The Shadow. No possible place where a man might cling and remain unobserved.
Bruce's car was still standing where he had left it. He cried a husky warning to his father, as the latter hurried from the cottage.
"Take your own car. I'll drive mine. We don't want any one coming here to investigate the shooting and finding either of our cars here. Drive slowly and keep just ahead of me."
In a moment, both automobiles vanished up the road. They were headed for the Dixon mansion.
So was The Shadow. He had managed to haul himself aloft into the overhanging branch of an oak tree from the roof of the cottage a scant second before Bruce had fired up the chimney. From the tree, The Shadow had seen the two blackmailers flee. They had gone in the same direction that the Dixons were
now taking.
The Shadow laughed as he followed the trail.
He found Hooley's car hidden close to the stone wall of the Dixon estate.
The Shadow intended to deal himself another hand in this swiftly changing game of intrigue and treachery. He paused only long enough to do a very peculiar and interesting thing.
He unscrewed the cap of the gas tank at the rear of Bert Hooley's car.
From beneath his black robe he took a tiny bottle. The contents of the bottle were colorless like water, but heavier; it dripped like a sticky flow of castor
oil as he poured it out. He poured every bit of it into the gas tank.
Then he screwed back the cover and took something else from under his robe. This was a shining instrument, a long, pointed tool. With it, The Shadow attacked the under side of the tank, working carefully so as not to make too large a hole. When he was finished he stood waiting. After almost thirty seconds, a drop of gasoline fell to the leaves that covered the ground. It was a most peculiar kind of gasoline drop. It seemed to glow like a tiny firefly.
Another measured wait - then another drop fell, phosphorescent like the first.
The Shadow dug a little pocket in the leaves, so that the tiny firefly specks would not be noticed by the returning crooks. It would take a long time for enough drops to fall to be noticeable. The cunningly interlaced leaves above the small pit The Shadow had dug would keep them covered from sight.
This
was necessary, because The Shadow knew the chemical he had used would retain its
glow for a long time.
He moved like a black streak toward the stone wall of the estate. He was up and over it like a creature of the night. Stealthily, The Shadow began to approach the besieged mansion of Arnold Dixon.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CUP OF CONFUCIUS
"ARNOLD, you've got to talk! You must confide in us and allow us to help you."
William Timothy's voice cracked with angry exasperation.
The lawyer ceased his slow, hobbling up and down the room, leaning heavily
on the thick cane he was forced to use because of his ailing foot. He stared at
Dixon. Bruce was there, too, his handsome face set in anxious lines.
"Father - please! This horrible thing that's threatening you must be stopped at once! It can't go on any longer!"
Arnold Dixon's face was pale. He knew that the fai
thful Charles had found the note he had dropped in the hall from his overcoat pocket. Charles had phoned Bruce at Edith Allen's apartment in New York, catching him just before he left for the theater with the girl. That was how Bruce had be able to arrive
so miraculously at the cottage with the blue shutters.
Timothy also had told his story. He recounted his recent narrow escape from death at the hands of Snaper and Hooley.
Arnold Dixon had remained silent.
Now he changed his mind. He began to talk to them in a low, barely audible
voice. William Timothy listened as rigidly as a statue. Bruce leaned forward, as
if afraid to miss a single word.
There was another listener interested in the millionaire's halting confession. The heavy curtains at the window behind Dixon were parted slightly.
The Shadow's deep set eyes peered through, as he listened to Dixon's story.
THE story explained Dixon's fear of Snaper and Hooley. It made clear why he had been willing to pay the crooked pair two thousand dollars a month as the
price of their silence.
Blackmail!
It was a sorry story of crime that went back through the years, to Dixon's
younger manhood. He had been broke, desperate. He had joined a gang of four criminals. Together with them he had robbed a country bank. The robbery had unexpectedly turned into murder. Pete Spargo, the ugliest of the five, had killed the unfortunate cashier. All five, including Arnold Dixon, had escaped.
But all except Dixon were captured.
Spargo and a man named "Trigger" Trimble were convicted of murder and executed. Snaper and Hooley were sentenced to long prison terms. But Dixon, who
had used an alias with the gang, managed to get away.
Frightened and repentant at the deadly outcome of his first attempt at crime, he reformed and went straight. He married, prospered, became wealthy and
finally a millionaire.
This was the situation that confronted Snaper and Hooley when they were released from prison. By grapevine information they knew that Arnold Dixon was now wealthy and respected. They recognized his picture in a newspaper. They kept silent about him. When they were released they called on him and demanded money to keep their mouths shut.
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