The Shadow - Death's Bright Finger Part 14

Silence and darkness--that was all Clyde was conscious of when he reached the island. The house was like a tomb. The windows showed no speck of light. The only light came from the revolving beam of a distant lighthouse across the Sound on the rocky Connecticut sh.o.r.e.

Every minute or so, the lighthouse beam swept the island. Clyde flung himself flat and motionless until it pa.s.sed. He crept carefully toward the spot where he had seen the flashlight signal.

He found no trace of The Shadow. But he noticed something else as he lay close to the dark gra.s.s.

Someone had pa.s.sed this spot recently. There was a narrow trail visible where the feet of a man had trod down the tall, unkempt gra.s.s. The trail led toward the front of the silent house, the part that faced Long Island Sound.

Presently, Clyde was close enough to halt cautiously. An instant later, he was glad he had. His gaze was turned toward the front corner of the house. A figure was crouched there, peering around the corner toward the front.

The unknown man was watching so intently that he failed to notice the circling approach of the lighthouse beam. He leaped aside an instant too late. The beam of moving light revealed his ident.i.ty.

The man was Carl Trevor!

CLYDE stiffened. He had expected to contact The Shadow. The sight of the dapper orchestra leader from the Club Penguin surprised him. How had Trevor reached the island in spite of the electrified fence?

Had he been there all along, ever since he had vanished from his usual Broadway haunts?

Was Carl Trevor--the Light?

Clyde's jaw clenched. He began to creep swiftly toward the angle of the house. When he reached the spot, he found only nothingness. Trevor had vanished.

Nor was he hidden between the front of the house and the edge of the island. The lighthouse beam, circling monotonously, showed nothing.

Trevor could only have vanished in one direction--inside the house itself!

Luck helped Clyde. Observation, too. He noticed that there was a bare patch of earth close to the wall of the house. Damp salt air from the Sound made the patch of earth soft and spongy. In the center of it was a circular metal plate much like a manhole cover. It looked like the lid of an underground garbage can.

Alongside this metal cover, however, was something less innocent-looking. It was the muddy print of a man's shoe. The print was freshly made. Only one possible person could have left it: Carl Trevor!

Clyde lifted the metal cover. It was, as he suspected, a cunning camouflage to a secret entrance through the earth. A wooden ladder led downward to the bottom of a deep pit. There was a skim of fresh mud on the ladder rungs.

Very gently, Clyde lowered the metal cover of the pit over his head.

He descended in complete darkness. At the bottom, he waited--and discovered that a horizontal tunnel led toward the house from the bottom of the pit.

He could see no sign of a light ahead. No sound came to his strained ears.

With his light drawn, Clyde sent a quick flash ahead of him. He shut the beam off almost as soon as he had clicked it on.

Nothing! No sign of the sly Carl Trevor. The long horizontal tunnel ahead was empty.

Clyde advanced cautiously through the darkness. The earth smelled clammy and damp. He guessed that the tunnel pa.s.sed beneath the cellar of the house. Somewhere ahead must be another vertical pit, that would lead upward into the home of Crane Worthington.

Clyde's hunch was correct. Soon his outstretched hands felt the rungs of another ladder. He climbed it noiselessly, feeling carefully for the invisible rungs. Again his palm touched fresh mud. He was ready for trouble as he pushed up a hinged trapdoor above his head. His gun was in his hand, now.

But no sign of trouble greeted Clyde as he emerged into the room above. Quite the opposite.

The room was softly lighted by a frosted globe in the ceiling. There were expensive-looking scatter rugs on the floor. Bookcases partly lined the walls. One or two excellent paintings hung on the paneled walls, above the bookcases. A Chinese screen, beautifully decorated, partially hid a carved walnut table on which stood a telephone.

Except for Clyde, the room seemed to be empty. It looked like a reception room.

Suddenly the Chinese screen moved slightly. Clyde's gun swung instantly with the movement. For a split-second he hesitated, not sure whether to fire or not. Then he heard a familiar sound: a whisper of sibilant laughter.

A black-robed figure revealed itself dimly in the dark corner where the Chinese screen stood.

The Shadow!

CLYDE remained quiet. So did The Shadow. Then a black-gloved hand pointed in a warning gesture.

An armchair stood in the opposite corner, partly hidden from the rest of the room by the projection of a sofa. The Shadow's gesture ordered Clyde to sit in the chair.

Clyde obeyed.

Then suddenly he tried to utter a scream. It was useless. The whiplash of an electrical current stiffened Clyde's body into an agonized knot. The cords of his throat tightened. He was completely paralyzed, unable to make either sound or movement.

Magnetized steel bands had clamped over his hands on the arms of the chair. He stared in helpless terror at the fake Shadow who had tricked him so neatly.

The black-robed figure was laughing. This time, the sound of his mirth was different. There was devilish triumph in it. It rang in the room like an echo of death.

The black robe was swiftly flung aside. Clyde's captor was revealed. His face seemed strangely blurred.

It was hard to see anything clear. Something like a film of grease was smeared over his skin. It caused a peculiar optical effect. It was like a picture out of focus. Clyde seemed to see two noses, a double mouth, a strangely blurred pair of eyes.

Too late to move a finger or even a muscle, Clyde realized the ident.i.ty of his captor.

The Light!

"You are first, it seems," the master criminal chuckled. His gloating voice sounded thick. "After you-- The Shadow! The real Shadow! The Shadow who is doomed to die!"

He leaned forward.

"Would you care to listen to a little hint of what is going to happen to you and The Shadow? You are both going to be shot from a new kind of gun. An amusing kind of gun. No powder flame, no explosion.

There will be no corpse either--although, strangely enough, you will be still alive after you have felt the muzzle." Clyde felt the blind terror. He tried vainly to move.

It was the chair that moved! It tilted forward without warning. As it did so, a trapdoor opened in the floor directly in front. The magnetized steel bands that held Clyde a prisoner released as the chair tilted. The paralyzing current of electricity no longer coursed through him.

He fell headlong through the opening in the floor.

Darkness swallowed him. Then he felt a crashing impact. The fall of his body against a stone floor knocked the breath out of him. Pain shot through his brain.

That was the last Clyde Burke knew for a while-- When he recovered, he could hear faint groans. At first, he thought the groaning came from his own lips.

Then he realized that there was another prisoner in the pit into which he had fallen.

He rolled over weakly to face the sound of those moans. He could see dimly, because there was a queer, diffused light in the underground chamber One glance at his fellow victim, and Clyde recognized him.

It was George Stoker, the criminal lawyer!

Stoker was bound hand and foot. He tried to roll toward Clyde, but his feeble movements didn't help him much. Clyde was just as badly off. Someone had done a neat job of tying him up while he had lain unconscious. Tight cords bit into him like steel. His body ached from the agonizing pressure.

Dazed, he wondered why no gag had been crammed into his mouth. He tried to talk, but only a faint gurgle came from his throat.

Then, without warning, the underground chamber lapsed into complete blackness. Clyde heard the soft, pantherlike rush of unseen feet. He heard a faint cry of terror from the invisible figure of Stoker. He tried to yell himself.

The next instant, rough hands clutched at him. He could hear the snarling grunt of one of the Light's henchmen. He was picked up and carried across the black room. An unseen panel opened in a wall.

Clyde Burke was hurled through headlong. The invisible panel closed again.

Clyde had been tossed into a small dungeon, to wait. To wait for what? There was only one answer to that: the capture of The Shadow! Clyde lay tightly bound in a small dungeon cell. In another cell close by lay the helpless body of George Stoker.

The Shadow would complete the trio.

After that--a gun that shot living victims into what the Light had described as a very amusing sort of death!

Writhing, Clyde fought with heaving muscles and sweaty body to free himself from the tight pressure of his bonds.

His exertions were in vain. He realized that, after a while, and slumped wearily. Caught like a rat in a trap! No way to get out.

Worse than that.

No chance on earth to warn The Shadow!

CHAPTER XV. A FINAL RECKONING.

THE SHADOW stood perfectly still. He was listening to a warning. That warning voice was in his own brain. It told him that the circular metal plate at which he was staring was the entrance to a trap.

It looked like the top to a buried garbage-disposal can. But The Shadow rejected that thought. The metal cover was far too large. A man might disappear down the opening beneath the lid with the greatest of ease.

The Shadow divined the existence of a secret tunnel leading beneath the house. He made no attempt to lift the metal cover. The Shadow intended to enter the trap prepared for him by the Light; but not as yet.

Flat against the ground, The Shadow crept toward the irregular sh.o.r.e of the island. This was the side that faced Long Island Sound. The Shadow was checking possibilities. A boat might be easily concealed on this irregular sh.o.r.e.

The Shadow peered over the dark edge. The bank was fairly high, with no beach. Tiny wavelets sloshed against it. It was hard to see much because the bank cut inward. The Shadow found no sign of a boat.

But he found a revealing clue in the water itself.

At a point where the bank bulged considerably, there was no sound of sloshing water. The bank cut inward very deeply at this point. Perhaps deep enough to make a hidden little inlet for a boat.

The Shadow lowered himself from the bank. A few strokes carried him out of sight. His intuition had been correct. In a moment, his dripping hand touched the sleek hull of a small motorboat.

Climbing aboard, The Shadow examined the hidden craft with a flashlight.

It was a luxury craft in spite of its smallness. Its normal use was to act as a tender for an express cruiser.

The Shadow could probably have identified it from this fact alone. As Lamont Cranston, he was a veteran yachtsman. But the proof of ownership was inscribed unmistakably in the name of the craft and its marine registry number.

The boat belonged to Peter Bascom!

The Shadow swam back to the sh.o.r.e again. He stared at the unkempt gra.s.s. He could see the trail he had made. He saw another trail, too. Bascom had landed from the concealed boat. He had crept toward the house of Crane Worthington.

Examining the front of the house, The Shadow noticed that every window was closed, every shade drawn. He decided to enter this house at once. In his own way.

He selected a pair of windows that looked as if they might give access to a master bedroom, and began to climb the steep front of the house.

It was difficult, but far from impossible. The Shadow used a rope. He also used a small-handled implement that looked like a double hammer. It was tipped with hard rubber, so as to make little noise when The Shadow drove home some sharp-pointed little spikes, as footholds, into the cement binder between the solid chunks of masonry.

Inch by inch, he moved upward. The running noose at the end of his rope tightened over projecting bits of architecture above him. The other end was knotted securely beneath his armpits.

Presently, he reached the sill of the bedroom window he had marked as his goal. He used a gla.s.s cutter to remove a small circle from the pane of gla.s.s. He reached through the hole and unfastened the window catch.

THE SHADOW didn't turn on his flashlight until he had searched the room in complete darkness. By the time he released a tiny ray of light, he was aware that the bedroom was empty.

His torch showed in detail everything that his sensitive fingers had already touched. It centered finally on a closet door.

The closet held interest for The Shadow. It seemed unusually large, even for a wardrobe closet. The garments in it were dusty. They showed no signs of recent wear.

Were they hung there as camouflage, to make a peculiar closet seem like a normal one?

Soft laughter whispered with sudden understanding. There was a crack across the closet floor just inside the threshold. The Shadow's torch showed only deep emptiness beneath that crack.

The closet was a camouflaged elevator!

Hunting for hidden controls, The Shadow found what he was after behind a section of hollow wooden beading. The entire closet descended smoothly through the depths of the house.

When it halted, The Shadow estimated that he had dropped to a point below the level of the cellar. He stepped out into a horizontal pa.s.sage. Electric bulbs glowed along the ceiling. Evidently the Light expected no enemies through this private route from the master bedroom upstairs.

Gliding silently ahead, The Shadow approached a door. No sound came from within. With twin .45s ready for action, The Shadow opened the barrier.

Again he found an empty room. But this time, the room itself held grim significance for The Shadow. It was the workroom of a scientist. It looked like a chemical-and-electrical laboratory. Shelves held gla.s.s retorts and bottles of chemicals. There was a distilling apparatus in one corner. In another was a small electric motor and a larger dynamo.

A name came into The Shadow's mind: Crane Worthington! If the inventor was not a figment of imagination--and The Shadow had never thought of Worthington except as a victim of the Light--here was where he had conducted his chemical and electrical experiments. A moment later, the voice of The Shadow uttered a quick sound of comprehension. He was staring at a metal rack in a shallow alcove at one corner of the underground laboratory. On that rack were suspended five ugly objects. Aluminum tanks, but queerly different in shape from any tank The Shadow had ever examined.

They were not the usual cylindrical shape. They looked more like knapsacks fashioned in metal. The inner side of each tank was concave, as if to make it easy to fit on a man's back between his shoulder blades. Worn under a coat, they would be hard to conceal. They would give to any man who carried one the appearance of a hunchback.

The Shadow's eyes gleamed. He had discovered the ugly secret of the Light!

He was certain when he saw the flexible rubber tubes that projected from each of these lethal tanks.

Each tube was long enough to run through the sleeve of a tall man. Each tube ended in a tiny nozzle, no larger in diameter than a thin lead pencil. There was a flesh-colored band to fasten the nozzle underneath a pointing forefinger. The nozzle, too, was flesh-colored.

If any further proof were needed, it was plain enough in the appearance of one of those death tanks. Itwas pierced by two bullet holes from a .45.