Death in the Stars s-197

by Maxwell Grant

  In a game like this, it was best to attack the weak links first. Once they were gone, the stronger ones would fall through their own sheer weight. That was why The Shadow kept to Barcla's trail.

  Audible through the darkness, Barcla was easily followed by his stumbles. The puzzling thing was the length of the trail. The cellar seemed to be an absolute labyrinth, an almost endless maze, until The Shadow suddenly realized the ludicrous truth.

  He had spent nearly ten minutes following Barcla in and out of passages, simply because the fellow had lost himself in the blackness!

  It was no use lagging after that. Pressing forward, The Shadow closed in upon his prey. With shouts and roaring sounds coming from the floor above, Barcla was madly anxious to be out of the cellar that had become his self-made trap. The Shadow decided to conduct him out-at the point of an automatic!

  There was another stumble, followed by a sprawl. Barcla had come across a flight of steps, leading upward. The Shadow was almost upon him, when Barcla, through sheer desperation, decided to take his newly-found route, wherever it might lead. He started upward with the speed of a scared rabbit.

  Moving swiftly, The Shadow was right behind him at the top. Barcla didn't have time to yank open the door that he thumped against; but The Shadow, in his turn, lacked time to seize Barcla.

  The door was ripped from the other side while Barcla was grabbing for the knob. Off balance, Barcla pitched out into the hall, scrambled madly past two men who were starting down into the cellar.

  They were a pair of guests, coming to get fire extinguishers from the cellar. Though the flickers from the living room were guiding them, they failed to see Barcla because of the thick, swirling smoke. But they found The Shadow, when Barcla tripped them.

  Headlong, the pair plunged down the steps, lurching squarely against Barcla's pursuer. From then on, it was a three-man tumble, with The Shadow beating off the flay of arms. Other faces appeared in the clearing smoke above the stairs, but the darkness of the cellar offset the fading light from the alcove fire.

  New arrivals could only hear the shouts of the tumblers, claiming that they had grabbed one of the jewel thieves. More men came pounding down the stairs, toward crashes that they heard below.

  The Shadow had used his attackers as buffers at the finish of the sprawl. Both still showing fight, he flung one foe into a wood bin; the other into an open closet. The clatter of tumbling logs, the smash of shelves loaded with preserves, were aftermaths of The Shadow's rapid action.

  But The Shadow's route was blocked.

  ILL LUCK had brought the attack in The Shadow's direction, instead of Barcla's. Half a dozen men were leaping down the stairs, intent to capture the unknown marauder. Against the last flickers of the fading fire, The Shadow saw their faces, Harry's among them. From darkness, The Shadow delivered a weird laugh.

  The mirth carried no challenge, nor did it voice triumph. It was a ghostly laugh; one that would have fitted well in Scorpio's séances. There was a double purpose behind the trailing tone. The Shadow wanted to mystify these ardent, but misguided, attackers-with one exception; namely, Harry Vincent.

  He knew that Harry would recognize the laugh, despite its disguise, and act accordingly. Harry did. As the others sprang for The Shadow in the darkness, Harry was with them. In blundering fashion, he began to trip his companions. His co-operation helped.

  Grasping hands missed The Shadow's cloak, as it whisked off into the darkness. Stumbling, they heard a swish; then the laugh again, from another section of the cellar. They were spreading, hence Harry could be of no further aid, but it did not. matter. Once away, The Shadow was too elusive to be captured.

  Even his uncanny laugh was vague, misleading. It seemed to echo in from different directions. Choosing his own path in the darkness, The Shadow had better luck than Barcla. Finding a window in a far corner of the cellar, The Shadow ripped it open and hauled himself through.

  By then, someone had found the main switch. Dim lights came on; men spied the open window and started for it. Ordinarily, they would have had no chance of overtaking The Shadow, once he was away; but it happened that the cloaked fighter had met with opposition.

  Through the window The Shadow had spotted a moving flashlight, bobbing hastily through a grove of huge pines. Knowing that the light meant Barcla, The Shadow was rising to follow, when a man intercepted him.

  The fellow was stocky and brawny. He lunged in from the corner of the house. He had a weapon, in the shape of a heavy hammer, which he swung at The Shadow's head.

  A quick hand whipped up from cloak folds, bringing a gun with it. The Shadow hadn't time to find the trigger of the automatic; he was using the gun for a cross parry. His darting hand slithered the weapon between his dodging head and the descending hammer, just in time to deflect the blow.

  Overbalanced by his swing, the squatty man struck the house wall, shoulder first. Thrusting the gun away, The Shadow caught the fellow with a jujitsu hold; flung him, like a human battering-ram, against the first men who were coming through the cellar window. Sprawled back through the outlet, they lost their chance of pursuing The Shadow.

  Again their prey had become a living ghost, the only token of his departure a creepy, elusive taunt, as spooky as the wail of an invisible banshee.

  Delay was costly, none the less. Barcla had profited from it, as had The Shadow. The fugitive crook had managed to elude his cloaked pursuer, as The Shadow learned, after covering a hundred yards through the pine trees.

  There were no further signs of Barcla's flashlight; no crackling sounds of a person moving through the underbrush. Similarly, there was no glow from the hacienda, nor any roar of fire. The flames had been extinguished, the building saved.

  Having crossed a knoll, The Shadow could not see the windows of the building, which now shone with the restored electric lights.

  WITH Barcla's trail lost somewhere in the woods, The Shadow decided to skirt to the lake front, where he could appear as Cranston and join in the hunt for the missing jewel thieves.

  Others had already started on that mission. Harry Vincent found himself with Howard Carradon, who was pointing a light along a narrow path to the left. From the right, they could hear the sheriff bellowing that there was no one at the dock.

  "This way!" Carradon plucked at Harry's arm. "To the old boathouse! That's where they might be hidden."

  Carradon started to the left. Harry paused, realizing that it might be more than a two-man job. He yelled for the sheriff to head to the old boathouse, and finally received an answer. By then, Carradon and his light were out of sight. Blundering along the path, Harry saw other lights closer to the water. He yelled and a return call came from Niles Rundon.

  "Find Carradon!" shouted Harry. "At the old boathouse. He's alone! He may get into trouble-"

  An interruption came, from Carradon himself. His yell was triumphant; with it, Harry heard a splintering sound, like an old door being ripped from its hinges.

  "Here they are! In the boathouse! Hurry up you fellows, before they can get away!"

  Rundon's light cut a swath through darkness. It revealed the abandoned boathouse, the door wide open.

  Carradon came bounding into sight, his own flashlight in one hand, a broken canoe paddle in the other.

  He swung the improvised weapon at a pair of thuggish men who lunged for him from the boathouse.

  The men were grappling with Carradon, when Rundon reached them. Harry had less than a hundred feet to go, but the ground was dark and rocky. He figured, though, that Carradon and Rundon could keep up the fight during the dozen seconds that he would require to reach them. But things went awry in that short space of time.

  One thug yanked the paddle from Carradon. Harry saw it swing in the light, and Rundon took a long sprawl. His flashlight sailed from his hand and struck the ground. Harry had a fleeting glimpse of the rough-looking men shoving Carradon through the boathouse door. From the way Carradon was swept from sight, it was plain that other hands had re
ceived him.

  So far, Harry hadn't used the automatic that he carried. This was the time to bring it into play. Rundon had rolled somewhere on the ground; Carradon was safe inside the boathouse. Hoping to bag the two crooks that he had seen, Harry yanked his gun and opened fire.

  Instantly, a searchlight sliced a brilliant path from above the boathouse door. Harry was trapped in the beam; he was shooting blindly against men who had him as a target. Though the ground was uneven, stones were too small to offer shelter.

  Flattening, Harry heard bullets whine past and crackle the turf of the slope behind him. From the closeness of those slugs, he could guess that the next few would find him, if his own shots did not score.

  Then, from off a flank, came the fire of another gun. Its stabs were visible among the trees; with the tattoo of shots came the challenge of a mocking laugh, The Shadow's. The first bullet knocked the searchlight askew; the next shattered it.

  Rolling along the ground, Harry was doubly safe. Foemen had lost his position in the darkness; they couldn't find it from Harry's next shots, for he had none left. Besides, they were busy blasting at The Shadow, the worst policy they could have chosen.

  THE SHADOW was shifting as he fired: the spurts of his gun were useless as targets. But the crooks couldn't shift; they had dropped below the level of the boathouse door and were cramped there. They thought their shelter was sufficient; but it proved otherwise.

  Picking their position, The Shadow provided accurate shots. A howl told that he had clipped one of the marksmen. Then, at a muffled call from somewhere in the boathouse, the crooks withdrew from the door. On his feet again, Harry stumbled forward; he was sure that he heard splashes as he neared the boathouse.

  The Shadow's fire ended. Harry was met by the sheriff and others, who had dashed along the shore.

  Men were pulling Rundon to his feet. One hand clapped to his head, Rundon pointed dazedly to the boathouse.

  "They slugged me!" he gulped. "They've got Carradon... in there! Help him-"

  Harry was already at the boathouse, beckoning. Half a dozen men, with a variety of weapons, from golf clubs to empty fire extinguishers, joined him. They surged through the broken door and stopped short, staring at a blank stretch of water.

  The boathouse was nothing but a wharf with a shed over it. There wasn't a place where a person could hide, not even under the planking, for it showed large gaps where old boards had been torn away.

  Carradon was gone; so were his captors, as surprisingly as if they had not been there at all.

  From the shattered searchlight, wires ran to a storage battery that rested on the planking. The arrangement had been rigged from old equipment left in the boathouse, and it was the only tangible evidence that any persons had been around the place.

  Why the thieves had abducted Howard Carradon was one riddle: how they had managed it, was another.

  Like all mysteries, the problem of the departing crooks could be answered: but not by Harry Vincent, nor the others who had arrived after the fray. They had all come from one direction; Carradon's abductors had wisely gone the other way. One person had anticipated their route: The Shadow.

  Instead of coming to the boathouse, he had made for the shore a hundred yards beyond, and to the left, intending to intercept his enemies. But they had fled by water instead of land, At the water's edge, The Shadow noticed the faint swash of ripples that others could not hear.

  Looking out into the lake, he detected a dim phosphorescence, moving away at rapid speed. It was out of gun range, and shots would have spurred it, rather than stop its escape. Watching the course of that thin-foamed wake, The Shadow made out a flattish shape that vaguely resembled a large porpoise finning through the water.

  It answered the description of the mysterious lake monster mentioned by Professor Scorpio. Like all the professor's statements, this one was subject to amendment.

  The thing that The Shadow saw was making too timely a trip to he some finny creature of the lake. It was a man-made contrivance, carrying away Carradon, along with his captors, the men who had gained the stolen jewels.

  His eyes fixed on the whitish flecks, The Shadow traced the path of the strange, noiseless craft far out into the lake. He took bearings on a mountain peak that made a jagged dent into the starlit sky.

  Pacing to the boathouse, where Harry and the rest had finished their search, The Shadow placed his cloak and hat beneath a convenient plank, to be regained later.

  Once more in the guise of Lamont Cranston, The Shadow started up the slope to the hacienda, to rejoin the guests of Paula Lodi and hear their conflicting versions of how crime had occurred.

  CHAPTER VII. PROFESSOR SCORPIO APOLOGIZES.

  CLAD in spotless linen, Professor Scorpio sat in a deep-cushioned chair, his head swathed in white. He wasn't wearing a turban; his headdress consisted of bandages. Despite his black beard, the professor looked very pale, as though still suffering from injuries incurred the night before.

  Scorpio was in the reception room of the bizarre house that he called his Castle. He was receiving a committee of wealthy neighbors, who had come to express their indignation over the theft of Paula Lodi's jewels and the abduction of her husband. They were finding, to their surprise, that Scorpio was quite as indignant as they were.

  There were three men on the committee: Henry Denwood, Niles Rundon, and a man named Hugo Grendale. Denwood had been chosen, because he was generally liked by everyone in the colony.

  Rundon represented the group who wanted action; he was known to be a go-getter, and was the one man who had actually managed to put up a struggle with Carradon's abductors.

  As for Grendale, he was one of the wealthiest members of the Calada colony; therefore much esteemed in a community where money held the greatest sway. Moreover, Grendale had a domineering manner, that went with his big-jowled, beetle-browed face. He was the very sort to deal with a faker like Scorpio.

  The committee had brought two others with them. One was Lamont Cranston, invited by Denwood, who felt that a newcomer's opinion might produce a fresh viewpoint. The other was Sheriff Kirk, summoned by Grendale, who wanted to show Scorpio that the law was on the side of the committee.

  "No one can regret last night's events more than I," spoke Scorpio in a silky tone. "Miss Lodi was one of my most valued clients. It grieves me that she should have suffered financial loss."

  "I think I understand," boomed Grendale, thrusting his heavy face forward. "You don't like your clients to lose money, or any other valuables that they might hand over to you."

  "Exactly!" returned Scorpio, with a weary grin. "Paula Lodi was one of my best patrons. Does it occur to you"-he tilted his head, wisely-"that she might have given me her jewels, eventually, as payment for my séances?"

  "Tommyrot!"

  Before Grendale's booming tone had faded, Scorpio was gesturing about the room. The place was decorated with valuable tapestries, jeweled lamps, carvings of jade and ivory. Even the floor was covered with rare Oriental rugs, so thick that they overlapped.

  "All these," declared Scorpio, blandly, "are the gifts of those who believe in the stars, and word from the spirits who dwell in the beyond."

  "Which brands you as a swindler!" thundered Grendale. "I'll drive you and all your sort out of this colony!"

  "Begin with your own committee, then." suggested Scorpio. "You have quite a reputation as a financier, Mr. Grendale. I happen to know the inside of that story; how you bought up worthless lands, and then swung irrigation projects your own direction."

  "If you feel that I swindle the rich, I can only reply that you have swindled the poor. As for you, Rundon"-Scorpio swung to the square-jawed man-"you are quite young to possess a fortune, considering that you did not inherit one. I understand that you are a promoter who puts new inventions on the market.

  You have found it a very profitable business, haven't you?"

  "Yes. I have," returned Rundon, hotly, "because I do my best to give full value to the stockholder
s in every new company that I form."

  "But some of those companies have faded-"

  "Because no one can guarantee the success of a new invention," retorted Rundon. "Since promotion is my business, I have to consider my own profit. But I can't pick sure things always."

  Professor Scorpio clapped his hands. Two darkish men appeared; both were tall and very thin, and clad in white like their master. They had the look of Hindus.

  "Serve the refreshments, Chandra." ordered Scorpio. "Go to my study, Agbar, and bring me one of the astrological charts under the sign of Gemini."

  CHANDRA brought drinks, which Grendale and Rundon accepted gingerly, as though they suspected poison. Even Denwood was a bit apprehensive, until he saw Cranston smile and raise his glass. By that time, Agbar arrived with the astrological chart, which proved to be a large, handsomely printed sheet.

  "For you, Rundon," announced Scorpio, extending the chart with a slight bow. "Your birthday happens to be on June 7th, which is under the sign of Gemini, or the Twins. The chart reveals that you have great ability as a speculator. Your danger lies in undertaking too many enterprises at the same time.

  "Gemini people are clever"-Scorpio's eyes narrowed toward Rundon-"and highly aggressive. But they think too much of their own opinions. When they meddle with the affairs of others"-the professor's tone lowered to it's sepulchral pitch-"they are apt to bring disaster to themselves."

  Rundon's anger rose.

  "If this is a threat, Scorpio," he began, "I warn you-"

  "No warning is necessary," interposed Scorpio, smoothly. "I have simply quoted the chart that you hold in your hand. It was prepared long before I ever met you, Rundon. Remember, the stars never fail."

  Rundon's next action actually backed Scorpio's claim that the Gemini nature was twofold. Settling suddenly in his chair, Rundon forgot his anger and decided to treat the whole thing as a jest.