Death in the Stars s-197

by Maxwell Grant

  Death in the Stars

  ( Shadow - 197 )

  Maxwell Grant

  Who Knows What Evil Lurks In the Hearts of Men?

  The Shadow Knows!

  Death in the Stars

  Maxwell Grant

  CHAPTER I. DEATH RIDES THE AIR.

  The silvery plane hung high above the Sierras, like a hovering dragonfly. It always seemed to poise above the mountain tops during this stage of the trip from Los Angeles to Lake Calada. Drury, the pilot, was picking up altitude before beginning his glide to the sparkling bowl of water that nestled amid the summits.

  There were three passengers in the plane. Like most visitors to Lake Calada, they had chosen the air taxi in preference to a day's trip of climbing roads that snaked through mountain passes. In fact, the air taxi was the one inducement that had made Lake Calada a popular resort.

  By air, the lake was within an hour's reach of Los Angeles; and the perpetual sunshine of California, plus the skill of Drury, assured a safe and comfortable journey.

  One of the passengers was a girl; the initials, "L. M.," on her handbag stood for Lois Melvin. At present, the handbag was open, and the mirror that Lois brought from it showed a very attractive face, which scarcely needed the make-up that the girl applied.

  Limpid brown eyes beneath thin-penciled brows; lips that had a natural ruddiness, along with their tantalizing smile; a background of jet-black hair-such were the features of Lois Melvin. They combined to form a face that most men admired; but, so far, the girl's charm had not dented the reserve of the other persons in the plane.

  Lois wasn't vain, but she was accustomed to admirers. She was puzzled, rather than angry, as she glanced toward the other passengers. Thinking it over, Lois was rather glad that the man across the aisle had not noticed her.

  Lois knew his name: Edward Barcla. He wasn't much liked at Lake Calada. Barcla was one of the interlopers who had somehow managed to buy a piece of property on a back lot near the exclusive Calada Colony. But Lois did not dislike him on that account. She wasn't a member of the wealthy set; her natural sympathies veered toward Barcla's group. But Barcla, as an individual, was another matter.

  He had a weasel face, with sharply sloping brow, scheming eyes, a mouth that showed oversized ugly teeth when he drew back his lips. Barcla's pasty complexion increased the unlovely picture. Lois had always disliked his looks; but on this trip, he had seemed uglier than ever.

  The reason was, that Barcla had spent the hour muttering to himself and indulging in grins that were very much like leers. If he had known how his facial contortions worked against him, he might have been more careful.

  His hands, too, were an index to a nasty character. The twitching of his ill-formed, sharp-nailed fingers reminded Lois of evil claws clutching at the throat of an imaginary victim.

  Yes, Lois was glad that Barcla had not tried to further an acquaintance during this air trip. But she would have liked much to talk with the passenger who sat one seat ahead.

  He was a man of dignity; his face, of hawkish contour, was so calm that it seemed almost mask-like. His eyes, when Lois glimpsed them, were steady, and she could fancy a piercing power behind their mildness. The hawk-faced man was a stranger; but Lois had learned his name when Drury addressed him, at the start of the trip.

  His name was Lamont Cranston; he had come in from Honolulu on the Clipper. He was visiting Lake Calada to be the guest of Henry Denwood, one of the wealthy residents.

  An odd contrast: Barcla, grimacing like an ape; Cranston, as immobile as a stone idol-yet each man wrapped in his own thoughts. Ignoring the two, Lois looked toward the front of the compact plane, saw Drury busy at the controls. The pilot's back was turned, but his actions indicated that they were near the landing field.

  Lois gazed from the cabin window. They were beyond the mountains. Below, the girl saw the sheen of Lake Calada, set like a sapphire in the wooded slopes. The center of the lake made a long, clear stretch, for it was very deep; but there were capes and islands at the fringes that produced coves and bays.

  It was difficult, from this altitude, to realize that the lake was several miles in length. But Lois had traveled it often, with Niles Rundon in his speedboat. The lake seemed to swing upward lazily as Drury banked the plane, and Lois viewed many landmarks.

  She saw the Lodi Lodge, which looked like a Mexican hacienda transferred to a woodland setting. Other places were visible, including Rundon's, which was farther up the lake. Lois recognized Indian Rock, which made a shelving bulwark at the inner end of Indian Cove. She spied the ruins of the Pioneer Mine along the shore of another bay.

  At the far end of the lake were the white buildings of the Community Center, where the landing field was located. It was fortunate that the shore had one stretch of flat ground; otherwise, it would be difficult to reach Lake Calada by air, since the altitude hampered seaplanes.

  Then, as the ship thrummed across the center of the lake, Lois smiled at sight of a stone-walled building resembling a medieval tower.

  People called the place the "Castle," and it was the residence of Professor Scorpio. Lois dipped her fingers into the handbag, brought out a folded sheet of paper. It was one of Scorpio's horoscopes, that he had given her before she left Lake Calada. She hadn't bothered to read it; perhaps a perusal would while away the last few minutes before Drury made his landing.

  Lois opened the paper. Her forehead wrinkled, as her eyes widened. She was scanning printed statements that actually astonished her. The chart said that her favorite color was olive-green, which happened to be true; that her lucky number was six, which also was correct, when she considered occurrences in which that number had figured.

  Then, in larger type, Lois read:

  "Be careful of your actions on the eleventh day of each month. On those days, make no hazardous journeys."

  A thought struck home to Lois. Today was the eleventh. A trip by plane could be regarded as a hazardous journey. Lois was actually worried, as she looked toward Drury; then her anxiety faded.

  About ready for his landing, the pilot had calmly taken a cigarette from a fresh pack he had just opened.

  Drury inserted the cigarette between his lips, ready to light it the moment the plane grounded and came to a stop. It was a daily ritual with him, this getting ready for a smoke.

  Drury certainly was not worried over the routine maneuver that was about to come. There was no reason for Lois to be alarmed.

  Again, the girl glanced from the window. She could see the landing field almost below, with little dots, representing people, near the veranda of the main community house.

  There were boats, toylike in size, drawn up at the dock. Again, the whole scene lifted, as the plane banked. Lois watched for it to straighten.

  Instead, came a sight that the girl had never before observed. The landscape took a sudden whirl. Hills, woods, lake, became a revolving jumble that made a daytime nightmare. Out of that blur of blue and green Lois could glimpse the jagged points of mountain tops and white streaks, as the buildings of the Community Center flashed before her vision.

  The truth seemed to shout itself at Lois. Instead of swooping down to a landing, the plane had gone into a spin. Drury, the ever-reliable pilot, had lost control of the ship!

  CLUTCHING the seat, Lois looked ahead. She saw Drury crouched over the controls. Whether or not his hand was frozen to the stick, she couldn't tell, for another man blocked full view. That man was Cranston; the hawk-faced passenger had lunged forward from his seat to grab Drury by the shoulders.

  Lois screamed. As if in answer to her call, another figure leaped toward the pilot's seat. It was Barcla; despite the ferocious snarl that the fellow gave. Lois was all in his favor. If Barcla c
ould only get Cranston away from Drury and let the pilot land the ship!

  Lake, land and sky were still engaged in their madcap whirl, as the spinning plane plummeted groundward. Half from the seat, Lois tumbled forward of her own weight, as Barcla locked with Cranston. With a fury that matched his apish manner, Barcla yanked Cranston away from Drury; but his success was short-lived. Lois, reeling in upon the pair, saw a fist jab with the force of a pile driver.

  The fist was Cranston's; its target, Barcla's chin. The blow crumpled Barcla; as he flattened, stunned, his weasel face took on a look of distorted surprise. Then Lois had replaced him; she was struggling with Cranston. Momentarily, she met blazing eyes from that masklike countenance; then, like Barcla, she was sprawling in the aisle.

  Cranston had simply flung the girl aside. He was doing the same with Drury. The pilot's form came tumbling upon Lois, as Cranston twisted into the seat behind the controls. Her head thrust backward under Drury's weight, Lois looked into the pilot's face.

  What she saw would have produced another scream, had her lips been able to supply one. Of all the horrors in those swift-moving seconds, that sight of Drury was the worst.

  The pilot's face wasn't human. It had a glare that made Barcla's weasel countenance seem benign.

  Drury's eyes were wide, goggly things that bulged like balls of glass. His features were frozen in a grotesque expression that would have suited a demon. His lips were partly open, his teeth tight-clenched; between the lips, like a touch of comedy relief, Lois saw the unlighted cigarette the pilot had put there a few moments before.

  Then, as the girl clawed wildly, Drury's body rolled away, its grinning face bobbing with a parting leer that Lois understood, too well. Drury was dead; stone-dead. He had died at the controls before Cranston could reach him.

  Cranston's purpose had been to take over the ship: Barcla had tried to stop him. To Lois came the sickening thought that she, like a fool, had tried to help the wrong man!

  Then, as the girl tried to find her feet, she thumped her head against a seat that had somehow come above her. She could feel the plane's dizzy spin, as she sank into a half-conscious state that promised to mercifully dull her senses before the coming crash.

  The plane was diving down, down, down, to a sure destruction; such was Lois' half-dazed thought. But there was something else, as strange as the plane's sudden spin, as weird as that view of Drury's distorted face.

  It was a sound that trailed along with Lois into a black and bottomless pit: a tone of sinister laughter, that seemed destined to accompany her into the hereafter.

  Mirth that could have come only from one pair of lips; those of Lamont Cranston. Had Lois Melvin ever heard that laugh before, she would have recognized its full significance.

  The laugh of The Shadow!

  CHAPTER II. THE STARS FORETELL.

  To the throng by the community house, sight of the spinning plane was enough to provoke horror. They knew the pilot, Drury, as a man of absolute reliability. Nothing could have induced Drury to stage a stunt act with his plane; yet it seemed equally impossible that the pilot could have lost control just before his landing.

  Of the two evils, most viewers accepted the lesser. They thought that Drury must have departed from his custom and decided to give them a thrill. A few actually chuckled while the spinning plane was glinting in the sunlight; then, suddenly, all sounds turned to groans.

  It was late afternoon; from the ground, the sun could not be seen beyond the mountain tops. Its spinning dive unchecked, the plane had passed the spot where the sun reached it. A mighty pall of semi-dusk caught it in a swallowing shroud that bespoke immediate destruction.

  Then, the miraculous happened. No one remembered the exact details of those thrilling split seconds, that seemed too short for any pilot to use to advantage. They could hear the roar of the motor that accompanied the juggernaut from the sky; they could see the spin widen as the hapless plane neared them.

  But the writhe that the ship gave was something beyond description. Its wing produced a flipping illusion; its veer became a swoop. There were persons who swore that they felt the graze of the propeller; others who testified that a canted wing stroked them as they flattened on the ground. Whatever the case, the doomed plane changed its status in a trice.

  Its dive turned into the first stage of a pancake landing; in immediate sequence, the ship made a climb. It blotted sight of the community house, toward which it headed; then, one wing lifting to clear the roof, the plane swung full about and rode the surface of the lake with its tilted wing. Rising, it stabilized, found itself, and came to a sensible landing before the awed spectators had really found their breath.

  First to reach the plane was a man of rugged build, whose well-matured face marked his age as in the early thirties. He yanked open the door, thrust his square jaw toward the aisle. Then his deep tone was soothing, as his strong arms gathered in a girl who came crawling toward them.

  The man was Niles Rundon. Other arrivals stood back as he helped Lois Melvin from the plane. They could see the sympathy in Rundon's eyes, the strained look on his face. They heard Lois sob, and caught the things she said. But the girl's words were incoherent. She was grateful to be alive; that was all.

  Near the door lay a groggy man, who was promptly pulled from the plane. People knew him, too, and had expected him as a passenger. But Edward Barcla was too stupefied to remember anything except his aching jaw. He looked around as if he expected to see a mule standing with a ready hoof.

  Others were in the plane, calling to the pilot. Some were angry at Drury; others were offering congratulations. All stopped, open-mouthed, when they saw that the pilot wasn't Drury. They drew back, quite puzzled, as a hawk-faced passenger stepped from the plane.

  They realized then, that he was the guest expected by Mr. Denwood. They waited while a young man stepped up to shake hands with the arrival. The young man was a likable-looking chap named Harry Vincent, at present one of Denwood's house guests.

  Listeners heard Vincent inquire:

  "You're Mr. Cranston?"

  There was a nod from the hawk-faced passenger who had landed the plane.

  "You had better see to the pilot," remarked Cranston calmly. "I'm afraid that he is dead."

  AMAZED onlookers brought Drury's body from the ship. They made way for a physician, one of the members of the Calada colony.

  The doctor examined the body, gave a solemn nod. He gave orders to call the county coroner. After people moved away, the physician studied Drury's face, then muttered something very softly.

  The case looked like murder, but the doctor wasn't entirely sure. He hadn't seen the cigarette that dropped from Drury's lips when people dragged the body from the plane.

  It happened that Lois was mentioning the cigarette to persons at the community house.

  "Drury couldn't have expected the heart attack," the girl was saying. "Why, he had thrust a cigarette between his lips one moment: then, when I looked again, he had sagged at the controls."

  "I didn't realize what had happened." Her tone was rueful, as she turned to Cranston. "When I saw you grabbing Drury, I thought he was still alive. But he couldn't have been! The plane had already started its spin."

  Lois' sincere tone brought an understanding smile from Cranston. Another man arose from a chair and came forward a bit unsteadily, his hand extended. The man was Edward Barcla.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Cranston," said Barcla. "I made the same mistake that Miss Melvin did. That's why I barged in the way I did. The punch you gave me hurt"-he was rubbing his jaw, as he gave a rueful grin-"but it was a lot better than the wallop we would have taken if you hadn't socked me."

  As the two men shook hands, Lois felt some sympathy for Barcla. The fellow's face looked pale, rather than pasty: his tone, though probably forced, was somewhat gentlemanly.

  But as she watched Barcla leave the community house, Lois experienced a renewal of her former mistrust. She turned to Rundon, who was standing beside her, a
nd spoke in a whisper.

  "I don't like that chap Barcla," she said. "Maybe its silly of me, Niles, but I was watching him in the plane-"

  Rundon gave a quick whisper for silence. Another man had entered the community house. He was tall, imposing in appearance, and clad in a suit of white linen. Topping the summer garb was a bearded face, dark, like the deep eyes that peered from it. Instead of an ordinary hat, the bearded man wore a white turban, glittering with a large ruby.

  The arrival was Professor Scorpio, the mystic who rated as one of the founders of the Calada colony. He had arrived in his motorboat, just after the plane landed.

  Professor Scorpio faced Lois Melvin.

  "I warned you," spoke Scorpio, in a sepulchral tone that seemed muffled by his thick black beard. "My horoscope told you that it would be unwise to travel on this date."

  "I know," admitted Lois. "But I did not read it until the plane had almost landed-"

  "Which would have been too late," interposed Scorpio. "Your star"-he raised a forefinger-"foretold death! I can only account for your good luck through the power of some intervening planet."

  Looking about the group, Scorpio found his impressive gaze met by eyes as steady as his own. Those eyes were Cranston's: they held the professor rigid. Then came Cranston's quiet tone.

  "Perhaps it was the influence of my lucky star," spoke Cranston solemnly. "I have been advised, by very good authorities, to always travel on the eleventh of the month."

  Some of the listeners smiled, sensing a jest at Scorpio's expense. But the bearded professor proved himself equal to the test.

  "Such things do happen," he affirmed. "I regard Drury's death as sufficient proof of my prophecy that danger would threaten Miss Melvin. All persons"-he threw a gaze around the group-"do well to heed the revelations of Professor Scorpio!"

  CRANSTON'S eyes were watching other faces when Professor Scorpio strode away. He noted that most of the people present did heed the words and wisdom of Professor Scorpio. It fitted precisely with rumors that concerned the colony on Lake Calada.