The Shadow - Death Ship Part 7

"Of course, Claudette knew about the Lamprey"-Prew's tone became bitter -"but I never thought that she would sell me out. You see, my first inkling of it came from Methron, when he began to receive those mysterious messages."

The Shadow nodded. Prew had been over that before, but it was well to let him repeat the story, in case he should recall some new detail.

"I had heard of Felix Sergon," declared Prew, "and when Methron told me that someone was trying to acquire the Barracuda through him, I warned him of the danger. That was why Methron took the apartment under the name of J. H. Wiggin.

"But Sergon found him, even there"-Prew's fists were clenching tightly- "and murdered him! It must have happened before the Barracuda was stolen. And there was only one person"-the commander's voice had become emphatic-"who could have revealed where Methron was. That person was Claudette Marchand!"

THERE was a long pause, while Prew's eyes stared far away. He was chewing on the end of a half-smoked cigar, not realizing that it was out until The Shadow's hand approached with a lighted match.

"Thank you; Mr. Cranston," said Prew, methodically. "It is time I came back to myself. You can understand my actions, since you accept the fact that there are two Z-boats, something that no one else would do. You see, I was worried about the Lamprey. That was why I stayed in Frisco, sending Claudette to see that all was well with the Barracuda.

"The two ships were in contact by submarine wireless-something which only Claudette knew. I intended to come here and receive her report, but I was expecting a telephone call from Methron at the club. Then I heard the news by radio.

"There were only a few men aboard the Barracuda. I knew that they must have been overpowered by Sergon. I tried to signal the Barracuda after I had hurried here, but there was no response. I began to realize my own dilemma, when I read of how Sergon had gone in for piracy. "I stayed here constantly, except when I went out to call Methron. There was never a response until you answered last night. I actually thought that you were Methron's servant; but today, I wondered, after I learned of Methron's death."

Prew's pause gave The Shadow a chance to put a question: "The murder of Methron was your first proof of Claudette's treachery?"

Prew nodded.

"It meant an end to all my plans," he said, his tone dejected. "I have been equipping the Lamprey for a sea trip, hoping to ferret out the Barracuda. I believe that Claudette might be able to restore communication between the two ships."

"What is the range limit of such communication?"

"About fifty miles. But that means nothing. As I said before, Claudette's aid is needed. And she is not a prisoner, as I believed. She is hand in glove with Sergon!"

It was The Shadow's turn to become meditative. Prew thought that he could catch the thoughts behind the masklike face of Cranston.

"Tell me more about the j.a.panese," suggested Prew. "This chap Soyoto interests me because he is obviously behind Sergon's game. All his smooth talk, the gift he sent you, are merely a sham."

"That can be considered later," returned The Shadow, quietly. "I was not thinking about Soyoto."

"About Sergon, then?"

"No. About you."

Prew looked surprised.

"You were the victim of circ.u.mstantial evidence," declared The Shadow. "Not just chance evidence, for much of it was designed. Sergon expected you to be questioned, to your embarra.s.sment. That was in case you should be found."

"But he hoped that I would disappear -"

"Yes. There were too many rumors to your discredit."

"I know." Prew was on his feet, pacing back and forth. "It began with those destroyer speed tests. I wanted to find out how fast they could really go, because I was already planning a speed submersible. But the intimation that I intended to keep my Z-boat for myself was an outrageous lie.

"You know the navy rule, Mr. Cranston-that any man, once an officer, shall always offer any new inventions to the government. Such has always been my code. I shall never depart from it. The implication hurt me-deeply. If -"

Someone was rapping at the door. The Shadow nodded. Prew stepped over to admit Salvo, who stated that Rusty had returned with the supplies.

"It does not matter," declared Prew. "I have only been keeping up the work because there was nothing else to do. I have found one friend, Salvo, and Mr. Cranston may influenceothers. I shall report to the authorities tomorrow."

"No, commander," interposed The Shadow. "Proceed with the equipping of the Lamprey.

Tell me; how soon can the work be completed?"

"Why... why"-Prew's stammer showed his amazement-"by tomorrow night! But we can never find the Barracuda -"

"I believe that we shall find her."

IN Cranston's style, The Shadow gestured for Prew to dismiss Salvo. The commander gave the order, adding that the crew was to proceed. Even when the door had closed, they could hear Salvo's excited voice giving the good news to the other members of the crew. Prew, when he turned about, still registered astonishment.

"I was thinking of you," reminded The Shadow, quietly. "How few facts were in your favor, yet how important they proved. First, why did you need Sergon, of all persons, as a go-between, if you intended to sell your new craft to the highest bidder? Again, if you had used Sergon, why was it necessary for you to disappear?

"Presuming, also, that you had murdered Methron, why should you have overlooked the envelope in his suitcase? Lastly, why should you have called his apartment and talked to a person pretending to be Methron's servant?

"I knew positively that if I found you hiding near the place from which you called, that you could not be Methron's murderer. That one point shattered, you became an innocent party, even though you were aboard a boat that would probably be identified as the Barracuda."

Prew nodded. He spoke thanks that he had expressed before. It was plain that he valued The Shadow's understanding. But the visitor who spoke so evenly had not yet finished.

"Consider Methron," suggested The Shadow. "What were the circ.u.mstances against him?"

"Why, none!" exclaimed Prew, indignantly. "He was honest from the start! He told me that he had been approached. He gave me clues to Sergon. He was forced to hiding; he was murdered for his loyalty!"

The smile on Cranston's lips was more than a faint one. It carried an expression of thoughts behind it, this time for Prew to understand; Prew's own lips trembled. He was horrified by the idea that gripped him.

"Again reverse the circ.u.mstantial case," suggested The Shadow. "Look at the facts the way you did not view them. Suppose that Sergon came to Methron and actually made a deal to acquire the Barracuda. What would Methron have done?"

"He would have tried to win me over," replied Prew, his voice hollow. "Yes, he would first have sounded me out -"

"Which is precisely what he did, and failed."

"But he practically identified Sergon -"

"To cover himself. Your fear for his safety forced him to take the apartment as Wiggin. That was to lull you, commander."

"But afterward -" Prew's thoughts halted his own sentence. The whole chain was linking up, once The Shadow had begun it. Prew pictured Methron again in conference with Sergon, telling him that no deal could be made; that theft was the only way to seize the Barracuda.

That call that Methron had promised to make to Prew at the club- it loomed with singular importance. It was Methron's subterfuge to keep Prew away from Sausalito, where he believed that the commander intended to go. Even had he lived, Methron would not have made that call.

Then into Prew's mental picture moved the insidious force that The Shadow had already divined: the crafty hand of Felix Sergon. He had dealt with Methron only because he believed that the shrewd promoter might dupe Commander Prew. Having failed, Methron left Sergon's list of a.s.sets and became a liability.

Sergon had made sure that Methron would not telephone to Prew. The arch-crook had murdered the promoter, with a double consequence. He had disposed of a man no longer needed, a fool who might weaken; he had seen to it that evidence on the scene of the crime would incriminate Commander Rodney Prew!

Simple in every detail, that scheme compounded into a master stroke of evil genius that stunned the very man whom it had victimized. As he stared at the face of Cranston, still with its fixed smile, Commander Prew sank to the chair beside his desk and uttered the longest gasp that he had ever delivered.

"IT hurt you," remarked The Shadow, quietly, "to know that Methron was a traitor."

Prew nodded. His face was very sober.

"That should not be the case," added The Shadow. "I had hoped that my deductions would please you."

"Please me?" Prew became suddenly indignant. "Carl Methron was my friend!"

"A false friend," returned The Shadow, "and by exposing our false friends, we sometimes recognize our true ones."

"You are my friend."

"I am not referring to myself."

Prew didn't understand. He couldn't. His brain was in a whirl. He stared blankly, so The Shadow supplied a verbal clue.

"Consider this," he said. "Felix Sergon disposed of one accomplice. Therefore, he had no need for another."

Still Prew did not catch the inference.

"Put it this way," suggested The Shadow. "Someone betrayed your plans to Felix Sergon. Is that clear?"

"Of course!" replied Prew. "You have made it plain that the man was Carl Methron."

"In that case," completed The Shadow, "we have eliminated Claudette Marchand."

At last, Prew understood. This was good news that The Shadow had supplied. There was remorse, though, in Prew's distant gaze, when he remembered his false accusations. Hiseyes blurred so, he could scarcely discern the face of Cranston. But he heard the steady words that drilled home to his ears.

"Like yourself," The Shadow told Prew, "Claudette Marchand was victimized by false circ.u.mstance. She went to Sausalito, as you told her. But when she reached the boathouse, she sensed that something was wrong. She thought the trouble lay outside, where the j.a.panese were watching.

"That was why she hid, to see if anyone entered. I was the one who came, and she challenged me. Sergon's men had already captured the Barracuda; they were covering the boathouse with their guns. They waited to see what happened.

"When I shifted, Claudette saw the gun muzzles for the first time. Realizing that she was also covered, she wavered. That was my chance to make a break. I saved Claudette's life with my own, but the intervention of the j.a.panese prevented her escape. She went aboard the Barracuda, but not of her own will. She was thrust aboard, a prisoner."

That revelation of Claudette's plight brought sudden alarm to Prew. He was thinking only of the girl's safety, hoping that some day he would be able to repay her for the loyalty that she had shown. Then a new thought struck him, so forcefully that it made him forget all else.

Claudette was more than loyal. She was clever. She knew much about the Barracuda that would make her useful to Felix Sergon. She would certainly pretend to side with Sergon, if such a deed would serve a useful purpose. Of a sudden, Prew realized just why The Shadow had ordered the Lamprey to make ready for a trip to sea.

With Claudette aboard the Barracuda the subsea contact could still be restored, if the Lamprey came within fifty miles of Sergon's pirate submarine!

One minute later, Lamont Cranston was alone in the control room listening to commands that came from far along the pa.s.sage, where Commander Prew was barking new instructions to his crew, hurrying their work of fitting out the Lamprey.

A long-fingered hand drew a thin cigar from between the lips of Cranston. The low-toned mirth that issued from those same lips was the laugh of The Shadow.

CHAPTER XIII. PAST GOLDEN GATE.

SPEEDED by The Shadow's a.s.surance that the Barracuda might still be found, the work on the Lamprey was completed by noon the next day. It was highly fortunate that such was the case, otherwise the Lamprey would have lacked the advantage of a much needed element; namely, fog.

The misty shroud was thinning all that forenoon. To most navigators, the lifting of a fog was necessary before they could clear port; but the case was quite the opposite with Commander Rodney Prew.

He agreed with The Shadow that the Lamprey could not risk pa.s.sage through the Golden Gate without some coverage. Once the fog was gone, she would have to wait for darkness, with the loss of many hours.

There was something weird in the way the Lamprey nosed out from beneath the waterlogged dock, to poke a periscope up through the fog-stilled waters of the harbor. Even that prying metal eye produced a wake that would have excited suspicion had it been seen.

Visibility was poor, yet sufficient to see the docks when more than a hundred feet fromsh.o.r.e. On that account, the Lamprey circled out into the harbor. Through the periscope, Prew kept lookout for any other craft.

The Z-boat was progressing at the rate of a few knots, when something bulked from the mist. Prew's hand thrust a lever; the response of horizontal rudders drove the Lamprey toward the bay bottom.

When she arose again, the danger had pa.s.sed. The bay was sloshing with the wake from a ponderous ferry that had plowed directly above the Z-boat's diving hull.

Thinner fog announced the Golden Gate. There, at Prew's suggestion, The Shadow looked through the periscope. Straight above, another ma.s.s was outlined in the haze. It was the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Shadow could glimpse the flicker of automobiles as they pa.s.sed across the mammoth structure. Those cars were two hundred feet above the level of the channel, proof that the fog had lessened at the Gate and probably would be entirely cleared when the ship was well out to sea.

Reaching the open ocean, Prew turned the course southward, keeping close to the coast.

He and his friend Cranston went into conference over a navigator's chart.

The Shadow had provided the subtle way to hunt the Barracuda. On the chart were colored pins that represented the positions of certain coastwise vessels, according to latest reports.

The thing to do was pick the one that the Barracuda was most likely to attack and scour that vicinity. The logical ship was the steamship Darien, of the Panorama Line.

The Darien was a modern liner that plied from New York to Fris...o...b.. way of the Panama Ca.n.a.l. Yesterday, she had been off Mazatlan, the Mexican port just east of the tip of the Lower California peninsula. She was bound northward, for Frisco, and her pa.s.senger list was large. By all estimates, the Darien should promise Sergon a larger haul than he had gotten from the Yukon.

His attack would have to come after nightfall, for the coast was still patrolled by destroyers and airplanes. Lack of such searchers anywhere near Frisco was proof that the navy also believed that the Darien was threatened by the pirate Barracuda.

With slight mist still clinging to the coastal waters, Commander Prew was able to show The Shadow all that the Lamprey could do. His demonstration explained why the Barracuda had proven herself so highly elusive.

Bringing the Lamprey to the surface, Prew increased her speed. The indicator crept slowly upward until it was recording forty knots, an unheard-of speed for a subsea ship. On the surface, the Lamprey rivaled a destroyer, perhaps could outdistance one, for Prew was not pressing the Z-boat to its maximum.

Then came the great test. Without use of the submerging tanks, Prew adjusted the horizontal rudders. Like the wings of a plane in air, they met the water and drove the Lamprey downward. The speedometer began to waver; its pointer moved to the left, then steadied.

More phenomenal than her forty-knot surface speed was the ship's underwater pace of thirty!

COMMANDER PREW had made practical a theory which he briefly retold. He had designed the Lamprey, and later the Barracuda, as speedy surface craft, based on his study of destroyers. He had also planned them so that they could be driven beneath surface,retaining a good portion of their speed.

Tanks for submerging and for ballast were auxiliary devices. The ships used them only for special purposes. The real value of the Z-boat was the power that Prew had just demonstrated, and as he kept the Lamprey beneath the water level. Again on even keel, The Shadow noticed that the ship was actually showing an increase in its remarkable subsea speed.

"In the air," declared Prew, "man has managed to outspeed the flight of birds. I could never grant that it would not be possible to equal the speed of fish. Such creatures as the shark dash through the water at approximately sixty land miles an hour."

"Not only the shark," came Cranston's reminder. "You could also mention the barracuda."

"I know." Prew's tone was bitter. "That was why I named my second ship the Barracuda. She is speedier than the Lamprey. I overlooked the fact that the barracuda is also a killer fish. I did not realize that the name was a prophecy regarding the future of my own Barracuda."

By later afternoon, the Lamprey had sighted smoke on the horizon. Prew drove her deep, and slackened speed. It was time to seek contact with the Barracuda. Taking The Shadow forward, Prew stopped at the spiral staircase that led up to his own cabin. He opened a panel that was hidden beneath the bottom steps.

There, they watched a dim but steady-burning bulb, in hope that the light would give some indication. Dragging minutes made Prew nervous. He was about to close the panel, when The Shadow stopped him with the calm suggestion: "Five minutes more."