The Shadow - Crime Rides The Sea Part 1

CRIME RIDES THE SEA.

by Maxwell Grant.

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 1, 1939.

The Shadow rides roughshod over criminals in another encounter with The Hand.

CHAPTER I.

SHADOW ABOARD.

BULKY, blackish in the thick night fog, the steamship Ozark loomed beside her North River pier, where busy stevedores were loading the last items of the freighter's cargo.

Feeble pier lights were kindly to the Ozark. Dimmed by the fog, their glow did not reveal the scratched, unpainted portions of the steamer's sides.

Moreover, they gave the illusion that the Ozark was a mammoth vessel, whereas she actually rated at only eight thousand tons.

Though a freighter, the Ozark carried pa.s.sengers, a dozen or so, who were bound on a vagabond cruise from New York. One of those pa.s.sengers was standing on a side deck, at a level with the roof of the pier shed. Elbows propped upon the rail, he was watching the scene below.

That pa.s.senger's name was Harry Vincent. Quiet-mannered, clean-cut in appearance, he seemed the very sort who would enjoy a voyage to foreign lands, making many friends along the way. But Harry was not thinking of the coming cruise. His thoughts had taken a drift, like the outward trend of the river's tide. A drift that carried him to a definite past.

The rail upon which he leaned; the fog that hovered about him; the dark water beneath - those were the elements that stirred his recollections.

Harry could remember a bridge rail, a fog that shrouded the deed that he had intended: a suicide leap into dank water that awaited him. But he had never taken that fatal plunge. Instead, a hand had clutched him and drawn him from the brink.

The hand of The Shadow!

Years ago, but unforgettable. More vivid in Harry's brain than the shouts and scuffles of the stevedores that came from the pier beside the Ozark. For, on that night, Harry Vincent had entered the service of The Shadow, never to leave it. (Note: See "The Living Shadow" Vol. I, No. 1.) A strange being, cloaked in black, whose hawklike face had eyes that burned through you, as they peered from beneath the brim of a slouch hat. Such was The Shadow, master of darkness, who battled men of crime to their destruction. Harry had met him often since that first night; yet, always, The Shadow's ways were unfathomable.

That very thought brought Harry to a rigid position beside the rail of the Ozark.

Again in the present, he was staring at a stack of empty packing cases on the pier. The boxes formed an angle from a large post that supported the pier shed, and against that dull background, Harry fancied that he saw a silhouetted figure. For a full minute, he watched, expecting some motion from the spot.

None came.

Harry decided that his imagination had tricked him. In thinking of TheShadow, Harry almost believed that he had seen his mysterious chief.

Footsteps pounded the gangplank, drawing Harry's eyes forward along the freighter's side. A ship's officer was coming on board; he glanced upward as he reached the gangway. That was when Harry noted the fellow's sallow face and recognized it. The man was Robert Pell, the third officer, and he had shown that suspicious-eyed att.i.tude from the time that Harry had first met him.

Perhaps Pell was by nature nervous and overwatchful; but his actions had aroused Harry's mistrust. Trouble was due aboard the Ozark; otherwise, The Shadow would not have ordered Harry to take pa.s.sage on the ship. If Harry's guess was correct, when trouble struck, Pell would be deep in it.

THERE were lighter footsteps from the gangplank. This time, Harry saw the last of the arriving pa.s.sengers, a girl who had just started to board the ship.

Harry knew her name, for he had seen the pa.s.senger list. She was Ruth Eldrey, from Chicago, but that listing had given Harry no idea regarding her appearance.

He was hoping that the girl would look up before she reached the gangway.

She did, when she had only a few steps to go. Peering over the rail, Harry caught a quick impression of an attractive face, with bright eyes topped by thin-streaked eyebrows that matched the girl's wealth of jet-black hair.

Unless her make-up was deceptive, Harry was willing to concede that Ruth Eldrey was one of the most attractive brunettes that he had ever seen. But with that concession, he wondered why a girl of her charm had chosen a lone voyage on so unattractive a ship as the Ozark.

This was not the time to consider that question. A heavy rumble from the pier announced an event that Harry had anxiously antic.i.p.ated. He turned to see an armored truck roll up beside the Ozark, flanked by four motorcycle police.

Dismounting, the officers stood with hands upon revolver hilts, while the rear of the truck was opened.

Moving on special rollers, a ma.s.sive strong box was warped slowly into sight. The thing almost filled the truck, and Harry estimated that it measured close to six feet in each dimension.

The front of the giant steel cube was formed by two large doors, with interior hinges that could not be reached. The doors had a large combination lock that would have suited a bank vault; and for added protection, it was girded with chains clamped by heavy padlocks.

Across the front of the double doors, Harry could read the gilded legend: HUGH BARVALE & CO.

Imports & Exports The strong box was halted before it was halfway out of the truck. A derrick was swung from the deck of the Ozark; workers began to hitch its hooks to the chains around the strong box. A bellowed objection came from the rail.

Looking forward, Harry saw Pell gesticulating for the work to stop.

The third officer's argument was that the derrick couldn't hoist a load heavier than three tons until equipped with a stronger chain. Despite his mistrust of Pell, Harry was forced to mental agreement. The old chain had broken a while before, when lifting a three-ton load. It was patched with a link that was certainly no stronger than the one that had broken.

It was important too, that nothing go wrong when the strong box was taken aboard. Like Pell, Harry knew what the great chest contained. It was filled with bars and ingots of gold and silver, to a total value of two million dollars. It would be a serious matter if such freight broke loose and splashed between the Ozark and the pier. Nevertheless, Harry still mistrusted Pell. He wondered why the third officer hadn't seen to the matter of the new chain earlier. It looked very much like a stall to keep the strong box on the pier and delay the steamship's departure. The cops apparently agreed with Harry, for they were tightening their hands upon their holstered guns.

The men from the truck settled the argument. They shouted up to Pell that the load didn't weigh over three tons; that they would take the blame if anything went wrong. They were as anxious to get the cargo aboard as Pell was to keep it off the ship. Fuming, Pell was forced to let them have their way.

THE derrick hoisted the great chest high above the deck, let it sink gently into the open hatchway to the ship's hold. Detached by men in the hold, the hooks came triumphantly up to sight again, clanking together like empty hands warming themselves in congratulation over a job well done.

Climbing onto their motorcycles, the four policemen waited for Pell to order the gangplank hauled aboard; Harry watched the third officer, expecting him to give the command. Instead, Pell's mouth gaped open, his eyes took on a bulging stare. Following the direction of the look, Harry saw the old packing cases that he had observed earlier.

Creeping in upon the s.p.a.ce beside the post were three rough-clad men who looked like dock-wallopers. They were trouble-makers who had stayed well in the offing, waiting for the police to leave. Something, however, had lured them to a sneaky advance, despite the risk of a fracas with the law.

Both Pell and Harry saw what it was; that darkened patch that looked like a human figure. It was still there; and this time, Harry knew that he had not imagined it. The black silhouette, grotesquely like the head and shoulders of a human being, had begun to stir!

It was drawing away from the advancing trio. They spotted it and threw aside their stealth. As one man whipped a long knife from his belt, the other two bounded forward. With expert swing, the knife wielder flung his blade between his driving pals, straight for the post that made a background for the fading figure.

The flight of that knife seemed endless to Harry. Then the blade arrived, point first, to dig deep into the post and hang there, quivering. The knife had found no human target, for such prey had vanished. Instead, it had come to a useless goal, a splintery ma.s.s of weather-beaten wood.

While the knife still trembled, the other huskies reached the packing cases. Their shouts told that they, at least, had found the foe they sought.

But the sequel was not the sort they expected. As they drove into the wooden boxes, gloved hands gun-sledged for their heads. Amid a clatter of overturning crates, the dock-wallopers went staggering, to finish with stumbly falls.

Guns began to bark from the inner end of the pier. Other thugs were coming up, to help the lone man who had thrown the knife and who was now trying to pull it from the post. Out from the scattered packing cases came answering tongues of fire from splitting shots of automatics - the same guns that had been used as cudgels to drop the first attackers.

The Shadow was in action. Harry knew it from the way that his foemen spilled, even though he could not see his chief among the boxes that served as The Shadow's improvised entrenchments.

Stopped short by The Shadow's sudden counterthrust, crooks were due for utter rout. Before they could scatter, motorcycles were roaring down uponthem.

The thugs became a medley of flying human forms, landing dazed and wounded. A few managed to jump from the pier, among them the fellow who had tried to reclaim his knife.

Harry Vincent saw all that. He knew that The Shadow had conquered foemen on the pier. But Harry spied danger from another quarter. Only fifty feet away, Pell was aiming a revolver in the direction of the packing cases. Before Harry could reach him, Pell had opened fire.

Fortunately, Harry did not have to show his own hand. After a few wild shots, Pell saw the ship's captain coming and pocketed his gun. He muttered something about "helping the police," to which the captain responded that they had taken care of matters on their own. He ordered the third officer to have the gangplank pulled in.

TURNING away to escape attention, Harry Vincent happened to glance toward that very gangplank. In so doing, he glimpsed something that no one else saw.

In those last moments of chaos along the pier, while the attention of persons on the Ozark was directed toward the police roundup of the vanquished crooks, an elusive figure glided up the gangplank.

It disappeared into the blackened gangway, a cloaked shape that even Harry would not have recognized, had he been other than an agent of The Shadow. A whispered laugh was audible to Harry's ears alone. It persisted in his memory, a full two minutes later, when the gangplank rattled as it was hauled aboard.

The laugh of The Shadow!

To Harry Vincent, that tone meant more than triumph. It signified that future crime, directed against the two-million-dollar shipment, would surely come to grief. Criminals, whoever they were, would find matters unpleasant on the Ozark.

The Shadow was aboard!

CHAPTER II.

THROUGH THE FOG.

DESPITE the fog, the Ozark was creeping slowly through the Lower Bay, with hope for better progress ahead. It had been bad in the North River. There, Harry Vincent had heard the strident screech of sirens at the ferry slips, invisible in the mist. Even the mighty torch of Liberty's statue had been a mere flicker when they pa.s.sed Bedloe's Island.

But the Ozark, at last, was nearing the open sea; and Harry had found his chance to go forward from the cramped quarters that housed the other pa.s.sengers. Close by a hatchway that led down into the hold, he awaited an important meeting.

A man sidled across the slippery deck. Harry recognized him, gave a low hiss. A few moments later, he and the arrival were crouched together exchanging comments on all that had occurred.

Harry's companion was Cliff Marsland, another of The Shadow's agents.

Husky of build, poker-faced in expression, Cliff had shipped as a member of the Ozark's crew. He hadn't seen the battle on the pier, for Cliff had been in the hold watching the delivery of the strong box. After hearing Harry's account, Cliff gave a low grunt.

"Pell looks fishy," he agreed. "But so does that fight. Those birdsdidn't have a chance to s.n.a.t.c.h the strong box."

"That sizes it," admitted Harry. "They'd have laid low, probably, if they hadn't seen The Shadow. But why were they around in the first place?"

"To bluff the cops," returned Cliff. "They wanted to cover the fact that the real mob is aboard this ship!"

Harry suppressed a low whistle. This was real information, from a sound source. Of all The Shadow's agents, Cliff Marsland was closest to affairs in the underworld. Placed among a group of crooks, he could invariably spot faces that he knew.

"There's plenty of gorillas in this crew," a.s.sured Cliff. "They can't grab that strong box, but they can sink this tub like they did those other packets that carried exports from Barvale & Co. With Hugh Barvale collecting insurance on every lost shipment, it looks like a hot racket."

"But how does Barvale manage it?" queried Harry. "He'd give himself away, dealing with a mob."

"He doesn't give the orders," returned Cliff. "Some big-shot is in back of it. Who he is, I haven't found out. But he's got to be reached before anything can be done about Barvale."

"It's funny that the underwriters still insure Barvale's shipments."

"They can't get around it. Nothing has been proven against Hugh Barvale.

Underwriters don't take stock in Jonahs, the way crews do. But I'm telling you, Harry, there are plenty of honest chaps in the fo'c's'le of this ship who believe she was jinxed from the moment when Barvale's strong box came aboard!"

Crew members were coming along the deck. It was time for Harry and Cliff to go their separate ways. As they parted, Cliff undertoned a final bit of information. Just below the hatchway where they huddled was a telephone that Cliff had wired to an unoccupied cabin. That instrument would serve both agents, when they made reports to The Shadow.

THE cabin that Cliff mentioned was no more than a square-walled box, the least desirable of all the cramped pa.s.senger accommodations aboard the Ozark.

At the moment when Cliff and Harry separated, to keep tabs on crew and pa.s.sengers respectively, that cabin was a ma.s.s of stuffy darkness.

Some minutes later, however, air stirred within those square walls, as though a door had been silently opened and shut again. A peculiar swish moved through the darkness. Then came the twinkle of a flashlight, tiny pointed against the surface of an old table. A hand adjusted a lamp shade that projected from the cabin wall. Fingers clicked a switch.

There was a focused glare upon the table's rough surface. Into it came long-fingered hands that moved like detached creatures. From the third finger of the left glimmered a strange gem that ran the gamut of myriad hues from deep crimson to scintillating violet. That jewel was The Shadow's girasol, a rare fire opal that identified its owner.

Keen eyes were peering from the darkness above, as the hands drew papers into the light. First, The Shadow methodically separated clippings that had to do with Hugh Barvale. Culled from many newspapers during the past few months, those items formed a definite sequence.

For years, the firm of Barvale & Co. had carried on a well-balanced trade in imports and exports. Some months ago, the imports had shown a heavy excess.

Rather than send cash abroad, Hugh Barvale had sold several lots of expensive machinery to foreign concerns.

Those shipments had totaled half a million dollars. In addition, Barvale had imported platinum valued at a quarter million, from Colombia, only to reship it to Europe at a small profit. But the platinum, like the machinery,had never reached its destination.

Every ship that carried one of Barvale's compact cargoes had gone to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Four boats in all had been lost - an unparalleled series of sea disasters.

They had sunk too far at sea to permit their salvage. Survivors from the lost freighters had told conflicting stories; and in every instance, there had been some element of mystery in the disaster.

Hugh Barvale had shown increased distress, as the clippings on The Shadow's table told. True, he had collected insurance money on his losses, but he contended that the sums did not come to two thirds of the full amount. He claimed that his business was almost ruined, and foreign creditors seemed to believe it, for they had raised a demand for prompt payment of all obligations.

Thanks to a provisional lifting of the gold embargo, Barvale was sending two million dollars to Mediterranean ports. How much gold was in his giant strong box, now tucked safely aboard the Ozark, no one knew exactly, because Barvale was satisfying some of his customers with silver payments. The strong box, however, was insured to the full value of its content: two million dollars.

Despite certain unproven doubts regarding Barvale's integrity, no one seemed to think that anything could happen to the cargo on the Ozark. It was possible that Barvale could have secretly profited through the loss of the machinery shipments; and even the platinum loss could have helped him, since the value of that metal had undergone heavy fluctuations.

But silver and gold were a different story. This time, the operations of Barvale & Co. seemed decidedly on the level.

One person had alone foreseen other possibilities. That person was The Shadow.

A whispered laugh crept through the tiny cabin. The Shadow had finished with the Barvale clippings. He laid them aside, reserving only one. It was a photograph, showing Hugh Barvale and his daughter Edna with a group of friends.

Portly, with a long face that hung with heavy jowls, Barvale had the solemn look of a man who expected ruin, although the picture was a year old.

Edna's face was a real contrast to her father's. She seemed a smiling, carefree girl, with stubby nose and determined chin. Her hair was blond and fluffy, her light-hued eyebrows barely discernible in the photograph.