The Shadow - Crime Rides The Sea Part 5

"Tell me the whole story," then suggested The Shadow, calmly. "Everything about Jerome Trebble."

The account wasn't as bad as The Shadow had antic.i.p.ated. Though Trebble was dead, he hadn't been murdered. It had all started in Havana, where some of the crew had gone ash.o.r.e and gotten themselves into trouble.

They had been jailed, and Trebble, testy because of ill health, had refused to help them. He had followed the advice of a very friendly gentleman named Mr. Trame, who had obligingly found new seamen for the Marmora.

By the time the yacht left Havana, others of the old crew had quit, leaving only a few of the original personnel, Hartley being one.

"Trame hoped to swindle Mr. Trebble," declared Hartley, "but he never got to it. Two weeks after we left Havana, Mr. Trebble had a heart attack, and died. At least" - the steward spoke chokily - "he had his last wish. He was buried at sea.

"That was done secretly, by Trame. Instead of continuing to be a guest, he took Mr. Trebble's place. I was the only one of the old crew allowed to see him.

My eyes are weak, and I must confess that I was deceived, at first. Only -"

"There was something that puzzled you," interposed The Shadow. "You wondered what had become of Trame."

"Yes, sir," rejoined Hartley. "I talked with the others who had been with Mr. Trebble. We figured it all out, found the truth but we have kept very quiet since. I always pretend that I think Trame is Mr. Trebble. But we're ready, sir, the four of us. We've hidden guns that Trame doesn't know about. Let one man start it, we'll fight!"

Cranston's hand clapped encouragement upon Hartley's shoulder. Reaching above the berth, Cranston turned off the light. Hartley understood the reason a few second later, when shuffly footsteps went past the cabin door.

By that time, there was a swish in the darkness. The Shadow was putting on his cloak and hat. A tiny flashlight came on, focused toward the floor. It flicked red, changed to green, then went white again.

"Stay here," came Cranston's low voice, "and watch for the light. Move back if you see it red; come out when it turns green. Then go to your quarters, and say nothing. Your visit here must not be known."

Drawing Hartley toward the door, The Shadow left him there and glided out to the deck. Clutching the rail, he took a look in both directions. Suddenly, from the folds of his cloak, The Shadow flashed a red light. Hartley saw it, closed the cabin door.

The Shadow had spotted someone coming along the deck. The fellow hadn't seen the guarded gleam, but he was brandishing a flashlight of his own. A twist of his hand turned it slightly upward. The Shadow saw the sinuous lips and ugly eyes of Raydorf. THERE was a gloat upon the forger's face, as though he antic.i.p.ated something pleasant, which, in Raydorf's case, would mean evil work. He stopped at Cranston's door and listened. His flashlight, tilted under his arm, gave a view of his displeased scowl.

Raydorf wasn't wearing his spectacles. Like Trame, he used gla.s.ses only for show. His eyes were sharp, as keen as his ears, and he was disappointed because his suspicions were not proven. Raydorf had evidently stopped at Hartley's bunk room. Not finding the steward, he had guessed that he might be with Cranston. Raydorf, however, could hear no voices.

He turned to leave the cabin. The yacht gave one of its unexpected pitches. Flung across the deck, grabbing the flashlight so he wouldn't lose it, Raydorf came into unexpected luck. He hit the rail, jounced about, and found his flashlight glaring directly upon a black-clad shape that was standing with one arm crooked about a deck post.

Tilted almost beneath The Shadow's hat brim, Raydorf's torch reflected the glint of burning eyes, revealed the profile of a hawk-faced countenance that was Cranston's, but which had a different effect when seen above the upturned collar of a jet-black cloak. Raydorf, a crook by trade, couldn't be mistaken by that sight.

His snarl told that he had recognized The Shadow.

As the Marmora smacked hard between the waves, two forms were precipitated together, partly by the yacht's pitch, partly by their own endeavor.

Out from The Shadow's cloak whipped a hand that gripped an automatic.

Slashing that fist aside with his flashlight, Raydorf yanked a long knife from a sheaf beneath his coat.

Reeling back and forth along the deck, the two engaged in a ferocious grapple; perhaps the hardest duel that The Shadow had ever fought with a single opponent.

A crook long banished to the tropics, Raydorf had learned many native tricks with a knife, the sort of weapon that suited his own savagery. His handling of the dirk's point prevented The Shadow from bringing in the gun muzzle the way the cloaked fighter wanted.

Suddenly, The Shadow took the upper hand. He had picked the very chance he awaited. A shove of his fist drove Raydorf back, prodded by the gun point. His own hand twisted half in back of him, the crook couldn't bring up the knife.

A wayward lurch of the Marmora came to Raydorf's aid. The Shadow was hurled back, striking shoulder-first upon the deck, with Raydorf plunging toward him. The forger tried a long stab with his knife, but The Shadow rolled in under it. Hitting hard, Raydorf sprawled against the rail.

As The Shadow came to hands and knees, his fingers touched his own little flashlight. It had dropped from beneath his cloak. A glance at Raydorf, who was moving very groggily, indicated an intermission too good to waste.

The Shadow flicked the flashlight green, then extinguished it. He turned to subdue any last struggle that Raydorf might intend.

Scooting from the little cabin, Hartley answered the "go" signal that The Shadow had given him. In a glance, the steward saw the cloaked fighter looming above Raydorf. Thinking himself unneeded, Hartley hurried along the deck to the pa.s.sage that led to his tiny bunk room. Reaching the pa.s.sage, he stopped; he couldn't resist a look backward.

Moonlight, struggling through an opening cloud bank, showed Hartley asight that he had not expected.

THE SHADOW had hauled Raydorf to his feet, was starting the fellow toward the cabin. But the crook still had the elements of fight.

With a spasm so vicious that it seemed a demon's fury, Raydorf flung himself upon his cloaked captor and battered The Shadow against the rail.

Clever as a madman, he s.n.a.t.c.hed away the knife that The Shadow had taken from him.

A downward dip of the yacht gave Hartley a less complete view of the startling sequel. He saw Raydorf's arm swing wide clear over the rail, then inward. The knife slashed The Shadow's cloak from shoulder to hip. The yacht bobbed upward; the figures tangled against the moonlight, the cloak drooping like a toga.

Bodies shoved together; Hartley heard the m.u.f.fled report of a gun, barely audible amid the roaring of the foam.

What he heard, did not match what he saw.

Raydorf's hand still moved. It stabbed its knife deep, close by the rail, where The Shadow was trapped. Tossed by the yacht's next lift, both figures twisted; as the rail went downward, they stretched across it.

The steward saw a hand swing inward, to toss the knife across the deck.

Then, as The Shadow's cloak flipped loosely from the shoulders that wore it, one fighter gave a heave that sent the other plunging into the ocean.

Hartley saw the victor stoop, pick up the knife and wipe it on the cloak.

Frantically, the steward ducked for his bunk room when he heard footsteps come toward the companionway. Crouched inside, he trembled when a hand rapped on his door.

"Who is it?" gulped Hartley.

No words replied. All that Hartley heard was a chuckle, a snarling gloat that bespoke a vicious triumph. That tone was Raydorf's. Its only tinge of disappointment seemed due to the fact that Hartley was in his cabin, where he belonged.

Raydorf lacked evidence that would connect Hartley with The Shadow.

The footsteps went away. Hartley groaned a regret that he had not been close enough to aid The Shadow in those last moments of combat. Weakly, he opened the bunk room's tiny porthole for a breath of fresh air.

As the Marmora slid upward to a wave's high crest, Hartley saw a flickering, distant light that seemed to bob and vanish. The moon was gone now; but again, the steward caught glimpses of that tiny beacon.

Perhaps that glimmer meant the coast! Miles away, but within a strong swimmer's range. The Shadow might reach that sh.o.r.e despite the heavy sea, provided that he was not too badly crippled by Raydorf's knife thrust.

Feeble though the hope, it was all that Hartley could give.

CHAPTER X.

IN NEW YORK.

IT was noon the next day, and Harry Vincent stood glumly beside the window of his hotel room, in New York. It seemed a day made for gloom.

The weather was dismal, rainy, and it was the thirteenth of the month, but those weren't the factors that bothered Harry. He was thinking of The Shadow, wondering what had happened to his chief.

When last heard from, The Shadow, as Lamont Cranston, had made a forced landing in a pleasure plane, miles out at sea. The New York newspapers hadcarried stories of that adventure; had also announced the later news, that Cranston was a guest of Jerome Trebble, whose yacht had fortunately been on hand to rescue him. Lamont Cranston, it seemed, was at present very safe indeed.

That was precisely what bothered Harry Vincent.

He knew that there had been a purpose in The Shadow's air excursion from Atlantic City. If things had actually gone wrong, and he had met the Marmora by chance, The Shadow was where he didn't want to be.

That seemed very likely, for the Marmora, of all ships cruising the Atlantic, was the last place that Harry could imagine as headquarters for Pointer Trame.

However, Harry had long ago learned to accept the unlikely as the plausible. It was possible, he admitted to himself, that the Marmora had been The Shadow's actual objective. That would be poor comfort for it made matters even more serious.

The crux of the whole thing was that The Shadow's agents were at a standstill.

They had followed certain orders from Burbank, The Shadow's contact man, but those had obviously been prearranged. Harry's job had been to visit certain wholesale districts, Cliff Marsland's, to look up crooks who had been aboard the Ozark.

Neither had accomplished anything. Both had reported to Burbank, but had received no new instructions. The cold fact must be that Burbank had heard nothing more from The Shadow.

Harry Vincent finished his soliloquy with the very correct conclusion that something serious must have happened on the yacht Marmora. He wondered how that would govern matters off the Jersey coast.

There, the newspapers said, strong winds had lessened. With the sea calming, there would be results from salvage operations on the Hercules, the ship that had anch.o.r.ed beside the sunken Ozark.

By that time, Harry was sure, The Shadow would be needed.

The jangle of the telephone brought Harry from the window. It was Burbank, speaking in a methodical tone that he always used. He was giving instructions, a string of them, the very sort that Harry needed!

Harry listed three names: Brighton Supply Co.

Eclipse Garage Maritime Cafe IT was after lunch when Harry arrived at the place first listed. The Brighton Supply Co. was located on the East Side, below Fourteenth Street, and it was not a pretentious place. It dealt chiefly in gas and electric fixtures, with an a.s.sortment of other objects that looked like junk.

A baldish, pudgy man named Casher was summoned when Harry inquired for machinery, without specifying the kind that he wanted.

"What sort of machinery?" asked Casher in a croaky voice, tilting his head as he spoke. "We've got power generators, if you want to install your own electric-light plant. But that's about all we carry."

Harry wasn't interested. He was seeking such equipment as hydraulic speed gears, gyrocompa.s.ses, and other high-priced items that should have puzzled Mr.Casher at mere mention of their names. They were the sort of machinery that Barvale & Co. exported, although Harry didn't add that fact.

He simply ran through the list in confidential fashion, bringing a succession of sideward nods from Casher's tilted head.

"Come into the office," suggested the baldish man. "We can talk better there."

Once in the office, Casher produced a typewritten list that practically duplicated Harry's verbal line-up.

"We aren't sending this out to everybody," informed Casher. "In fact, we've been holding it back, expecting people to come here, like you did. Give us your order - we'll fill it. At about ten per cent less than any other firm will."

"You have all these items in stock?" inquired Harry.

"We can't keep them here," returned Casher. "We only handle cheap fixtures. We haven't got protection against burglary. To tell you the truth, Mr. Vincent, we're only handling these items on a commission basis. So we don't keep them."

"How soon can you make delivery?"

"Within twenty-four hours; maybe less."

"What are they - factory shipments?"

Casher shrugged at Harry's question. Frankly, he didn't know. That, at least, was his story, and it sounded plausible. Rather than arouse Casher's suspicions, Harry left without acquiring further information.

Taking a subway uptown, Harry walked a few blocks through the drizzle and reached a street that was lined with battered brownstone houses. Some buildings had vanished from the row, to be replaced with newer structures, although even these looked old. One was the Eclipse Garage.

It was squatly, scarcely more than a single story in height. Evidently its owner had found business very poor in this locality, for the place was closed.

That didn't quite satisfy Harry.

With Manhattan motorists clamoring for parking s.p.a.ce, any garage should show a worth-while profit, even if it only took an overflow of cars from other places. The Eclipse Garage was near enough to traffic areas to have stayed in business.

Another feature was the way in which the garage was boarded up.

Ordinarily a locked door would seem sufficient to keep prowlers out of a vacant garage; but this place was fitted as if it expected a foreign invasion. Its front was barred by a metal-sheeted door, and the tiny windows just above had thick steel bars.

Finding a pa.s.sage beside the garage's solid brick wall, Harry went through to the rear. He saw the back door; it was of steel and had a formidable lock.

There were two windows in the rear wall, and they were completely shuttered.

The door was a small one, used only by persons, not as a rear exit for cars; hence Harry decided that it must be the usual route by which the garage was entered.

There was only one other possible method; that would be to use the roof.

It could be reached from an empty house on the other side of the garage, for there the two walls joined.

WHEN Harry turned toward the front street, he saw a head pull back from the front corner of the garage. Evidently there were persons in this neighborhood who kept a watch over the place. It wouldn't be good policy, therefore, to stroll out by the pa.s.sage. Harry decided to go through to theother street.

Directly in back of the garage was a large house, most pretentious of any in its row. The place was well-kept, and still had the look of a fashionable residence. Its owner must have disliked crowding, for the house boasted open pa.s.sages on each side. Harry took the nearer of those alleyways, and arrived at the next street. He looked out to see a limousine standing in the drizzle-swept street, directly in front of the mansion.

The chauffeur must have stepped into the house, for the car was empty.

Harry sauntered past it, looking for initials on the car's door. He saw them, "H.L.B.," and discarding the middle initial, Harry made a guess at the name.

So good a guess, he fancied it, that he stopped just past a flight of brownstone steps, to look back and see who came from the house. It wasn't long before a tall man of heavy build came out to the car. He was wearing a gray overcoat, a derby hat, and he swung a large cane so sweepingly that the uniformed chauffeur behind him was warily keeping out of range.

Harry saw the face beneath the derby hat. It was stern and dignified, despite the heavy jowls. Harry had seen that face before, in a photograph, and the picture in question hadn't erred in identifying one person; namely, Edna Barvale.

This time, Harry's recollection of the photograph fitted the girl's father. The first and last initials of H.L.B. stood for Hugh Barvale. It was he who had just come out of the pretentious residence.

When the limousine pulled away, Harry was already in a taxi at the corner, but he didn't order the driver to follow the big car. Where Barvale was going didn't particularly matter. Again, Harry had acquired more than enough information; and this time, he had scored a double hit.