The Shadow - Crime Rides The Sea Part 10

Near that pier was a modern hotel, the only structure of any size along the beach, and there were taxicabs beside it. Those cabs had come over from Atlantic City at a phone call, the supposition being that certain hotel guests were to take an early train out.

Instead of those imaginary guests, the cabs received The Shadow and his agents as unexpected pa.s.sengers. The taxi men were told to drive for the airport in terms that made them obey. Bradden and his crew had been left to go where they pleased.

At the airport, a transport plane was waiting. The hop to Newark took less than an hour. Then cabs again, into Manhattan ahead of the morning traffic.

Others had dropped off, but Harry had continued to the neighborhood of the Eclipse Garage.

Here he was now, in the old empty house alongside, keeping watch from a rear window. It was scarcely daylight in the courtyard. It strained Harry's eyes, when he studied the small door in back of the garage. Across the courtyard loomed the old house where Hugh Barvale lived, silent, sullen, as though all was deserted within it. Even Barvale's servants hadn't risen to begin their morning ch.o.r.es.

Harry's vigil was important.

He was to watch for anyone who might enter the old garage; to make a full report regarding all he saw. But he was not the only agent in this vicinity.

Two others were also on the job.

Cliff and Hawkeye were cruising about in a car, ready to trail any vehicle that might emerge from the front of the old garage.

Apparently, The Shadow didn't consider the Eclipse Garage to be as empty as its appearance indicated.

Harry was resigned to a long, monotonous watch. That did not lessen his ardor. He would have been willing to wait a week, if the result would help crack the final issue in the crime game manipulated by Pointer Trame.

He remembered very well, Harry did, that there were others mixed in this thing besides Pointer. Hugh Barvale was one; his daughter Edna was another. It was Edna, in particular, who interested Harry.

He'd been fooled once by the girl who could change from blonde to brunette with the speed of a chameleon. But he wouldn't be fooled again, not even if she showed up as a redhead!

While he was thinking thus, Harry saw something that brought his vigil to a much earlier finish than he had expected.

A figure was stealing up to the back door of the garage!

Where the person had come from, Harry couldn't guess, at first. Then, as elation gripped him, he was sure that the prowler had started from the Barvale mansion that stood so near at hand. For his steadying eyes had recognized the arrival.

It was Edna Barvale!

SHE was here as Ruth Eldrey, and Harry figured that she had adopted the disguise to simplify her prowl. Edna's fluffy blond hair would have been conspicuous in the courtyard, where daylight was beginning to show. The brunette wig, on the contrary, was scarcely visible.

There could be another reason, too.

In working with her father, helping him in his crooked plans, Edna would have to watch out for friends or servants who might not be in the game. It was very reasonable to suppose that there were certain times when Edna would want to be anyone but herself, while operating in this vicinity.

This was definitely one of those times. The Eclipse Garage wasn't the sort of place that a society girl would ordinarily visit.

Edna was making some sort of rapping signal against the door. At last it opened, and she slid inside. From above, Harry could hear the m.u.f.fled grate of rusted bolts.

The girl wasn't the only person in the garage. Perhaps the others might be quite as important. Possibly Edna had come here to meet Pointer Trame!

Harry had heard all about Pointer's flight from the Marmora, and The Shadow had not yet learned where Pointer had gone. If Harry could solve that mystery, he would score a double-barreled hit. Gripped with that hope, he hurried to a side room and took a look at the roof of the low garage.

As Harry had hoped, the roof had a trapdoor; it looked rather flimsy.

There would be no risk in trying it. The roof was easily reached from the window where Harry peered.

Huddling low after he dropped, Harry began to creep toward the trapdoor.

It was fastened, but had evidently been poorly inspected, for it gave as Harrywrenched it. Moreover, it made such little noise, that Harry was tempted to see what lay below.

Lifting the trapdoor, he looked into a little loft, saw a black spot in the corner that appeared to be some sort of opening. Harry dropped inside, closed the trapdoor above his head. He didn't fasten it again, for he might need to use it in a hurry.

The corner blackness was an opening, with a steel ladder going down from it. Everything was black below, and Harry didn't care to use a flashlight.

Nevertheless, he felt it safe to try a cautious descent. The downward journey brought new results before he had reached the cement floor of the garage.

Raspy voices were undertoning words, a dozen feet away. Harry could barely distinguish the shape of a big van planted in the very center of the garage, with boxes and other cratelike objects stacked near it. The talking men were beyond the boxes.

Feeling for the floor, Harry found it with his feet and began a new creep.

Soon, he was close enough to make out the words of the men beyond the boxes.

"We're ready to lam, ain't we?" questioned one. "All right, then why did we have to wait for the moll to show up?"

"Because the big-shot says to!" snapped another voice. "Ain't that enough reason?"

The first man muttered that he didn't like taking orders from a dame.

That brought an argument from the others - there were two of them - who didn't agree with him at all.

"This Eldrey dame's got guts," declared one. "She ain't dumb; maybe because she ain't a blonde. Anyway, she's showed what she can do."

"Sure thing!" chimed in the fellow who was in agreement with him. "Wasn't she on the Ozark? And with that cover-up crew last night, when they gave the cops the slip at the Maritime Pier? She's got more to brag about than we have!"

THAT brought on a new discussion. Among themselves, the talkers admitted that they hadn't done much to further crime, except to look after this garage.

They changed their tune, somewhat, when they boasted that it had been an important job, although it had involved no gunwork.

They finally came to the vital point, however, when they admitted that they hadn't shown the big-shot anything sensational.

"You can't blame the big-shot," was one speaker's verdict. "He never makes a move without having somebody responsible. He's trusting us to take the van where it's supposed to go, but he wants somebody to call him back and say it was done the way he ordered it. The moll's the only person he's got left."

Harry wasn't sure whether the term "big-shot" meant Hugh Barvale or Pointer Trame, until he heard references to the fact that these thugs had recently received a call from somewhere on Long Island, which indicated that it had been from Pointer Trame, who had arrived ash.o.r.e there after leaving the Marmora when she had been headed for New London, Connecticut.

In that call, the big-shot had told them that he intended to contact Ruth Eldrey; that she would give them further orders when she joined them.

Harry was wondering where the girl was at present. That question was answered, when one of the hoodlums remarked: "Say, the big-shot must be sweet on that Eldrey dame! That call she's making from here has taken her about ten minutes. He must be telling her a lot that we ain't going to hear." The jest brought guffaws, that ended when a flashlight appeared from another corner of the garage. It was Edna, coming from the little room where she had made the telephone call.

When she arrived, the girl spoke briskly. Harry could see her face in the glow of the flashlight. It was set firmly, and it impressed the thugs, as Harry could tell by the respectful looks on their rough faces.

"The big-shot says to start," declared Edna, "and to do it in a hurry.

I'm giving you" - she paused, to glance at her wrist watch - "just fifteen minutes."

"That won't be enough," put in the thug who had objected to a moll's supervision. "We ain't more than a quarter loaded."

"You're not going to load," snapped Edna. "You're going to unload!"

"But the big-shot said only to leave them boxes that was marked -"

"He's changed that order. You're to leave everything."

There were doubtful mutters, that had the tone of mutiny. Edna settled those objections in a firm-toned fashion.

"What I say goes" - her chin shoved out in a manner that suited her actual personality - "and the big-shot stands in back of it! What's more, you know it -.

all of you!"

The thugs exchanged shifty glances; they finally admitted that they did know it. Edna was mollified.

"Here's the dope," she said, indulgently. "The van is going out as decoy, that's all. Take it to wherever it's supposed to go, because you've got orders on that already. But things have been going bad, so the big-shot isn't taking chances. Once I report that you've moved out O.K., he'll send another truck in for the load."

THAT explained the matter. The toughs growled their appreciation, and added praise for the big-shot's brain work. Climbing into the van, they began to bring out boxes, adding them to the stack behind which Harry was hidden.

That made it better for Harry. So much better, that he resolved upon a measure of his own during the coming fifteen minutes. He could use that quarter hour to get to the telephone, here in this very garage, and put in a call to Burbank.

It was a clever move, and would have been perfect, if Harry had managed it. Unfortunately, bad luck was still at Harry's heels. He had scarcely started to sneak across the garage when a box, dropped accidentally from the van, took a bounce and cracked open. One of the thuggish truckers flicked a flashlight, to see if the damage had been bad.

Mere chance caught Harry in the glow of the swinging light. There was a sharp yell from the van, the sudden leap of men. Harry, swinging around to meet them, was downed by pounding fists before he could pull his gun.

Harry's head met the floor with a crack that finished any thought of his reporting to The Shadow.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PIT BELOW.

BRIEF minutes of unconsciousness ended when Harry Vincent heard voicesjust above him. He opened his eyes; blurred, they at first saw nothing but a lot of light flickering before them. At last, faces appeared in the glare.

The voices, too, were plain. The thugs were deciding the best fate for their prisoner. It was generally agreed that since the van was to travel unloaded, it would be a good vehicle in which to transport a corpse.

Three guns poked into the light. Each thug wanted the privilege of planting the first bullet in Harry's heart. They were running true to the example set by Pointer Trame, when he had fired at The Shadow, helpless on the stern of the Marmora.

For some curious reason, The Shadow had survived that situation. Harry, too, was to be in luck, when it came to escaping death. Before a killer could pull a trigger, Edna Barvale intervened.

There was no pity in her voice. She was merely applying cold logic to Harry's case. Logic that was very cold and very ugly.

"Why croak the guy?" she questioned. "There's a lot of better things could be done with him. The big-shot knows a few."

Thugs paused long enough to comment that dead men didn't talk; but that didn't fit with Edna's logic.

"I know they don't," she sneered, "and that's just it. Maybe this b.o.o.b is a d.i.c.k who's working for somebody we don't like. If he is, it's a cinch he won't ever get a chance to talk to the bird that hired him. But he might do some blabbing - for us!"

That was a real idea. The truckers volunteered to "put the heat" on the prisoner, just to see how it worked. By that time, Edna was tired of their suggestions.

"No wonder the big-shot stuck you away in this dump!" snapped the pretended brunette. "You boys are all right, but you don't use the bean. It's bad enough having a one-track mind, but when you've got one you ought to keep it where it belongs.

"Your job is to get that van out of here. I've already told you that it's a decoy, and that means you may have trouble with it. Suppose some smart cops stop you and want to take a squint inside - how would you feel then with a stiff laying in there?"

The "boys" didn't know just how they would feel under such circ.u.mstances.

About the only thing they did agree on, was that Edna was talking sense and that they were wasting time, for they had a long way to go. The decision was unanimous, without an objection from the hoodlum who had previously disliked taking orders from a moll.

They couldn't leave, though, without fixing matters so that Harry would give no trouble after their departure. They bound and gagged him and did a good job of it despite their haste. Edna suggested that they stow the prisoner in some place where he couldn't possibly make trouble.

"What this rat needs is a hole," she said, looking first at Harry, then around the dim garage. "You guys ought to have found one, all the while you've been around here!"

One of the toughs obligingly pointed his flashlight toward the side wall of the garage, where a large grating was fixed in the cement. Edna looked through and saw a good-sized pit beneath. The fact that it was carpeted with three inches of slimy muck seemed to please her immensely.

"Dump him," she said. "He oughtn't to complain" - her chuckle was harsh - "at the nice soft place we're giving him!"

THE crooks pried up the grating and dumped Harry through. As he lay sprawled in the ooze, he could see them stamping with their heels to wedge the grating back in place.

Footsteps and lights went away; Harry heard the sc.r.a.pes of final boxes being unloaded. Next came the starting of a motor, the screech of themetal-sheeted door that fronted the garage. The van rolled out into the street.

Harry hoped that the van crew would not wait to close the door. Since Edna had said that another truck was due later, it might be that they intended to let the old garage remain open. Such was not the case.

While he listened to the faint throb of a standing motor, Harry heard the door shove shut. Edna, herself, must have attended to the inside bolts, for there were sharp thumps when they went into place.

During the next half hour, Harry fumed over the folly that had brought him into this fix. There were moments, though, when he had hopeful thoughts. It might be that Burbank would wonder why he had made no report, particularly if Cliff and Hawkeye trailed the empty van and found a chance to send back word about it. If such occurred, Harry could count on aid from The Shadow.

More thought convinced him that the other agents must certainly have trailed the van; but from the way the truckers had talked, it was going on a very long trip, that might require many hours. Cliff and Hawkeye were therefore being dragged along a blind trail.

That was another tribute to the devilish cleverness of Edna Barvale. It gave Harry new cause for worry. Under the existing circ.u.mstances, his report was more necessary than ever; yet he was in a predicament that Edna had very well defined.

He was like a rat in a forgotten hole, and the place was more like a rat hole than any cell in which Harry had previously been confined.

More minutes pa.s.sed, many of them. So many that Harry gave up trying to count them. The only stir that he occasionally heard came from Edna's footsteps pacing the garage. Evidently, the girl was keeping lone watch over the place.

Maybe she wouldn't have long to wait before the big-shot arrived.

That thought wasn't very comfortable. Harry wasn't counting on pleasant proceedings when he met Pointer Trame.

Harry began to remember the trapdoor in the roof. He had left it open; that was fortunate. It would be found unlocked, if anyone investigated Harry's absence from the house next door.

True, the trap had been so loosely fixed that someone might reason that it had not been clamped at all. But if The Shadow came, Harry was confident that his chief would see some telltale trace.

Perhaps it was because Harry had his thoughts focused on The Shadow, that he fancied he heard a swish somewhere above the grating. Could that token from the darkness mean The Shadow?