The Shadow - The Golden Dog Murders Part 12

I'm sitting pretty!"

"Sam, why don't you quit?"

"Quit?" He laughed as he turned to face Flo. He pointed to the exquisite nightgown that shadowed the gorgeous figure of his dancer wife. "The job pays too well, dope! That cute little Paris number you're wearing right now, cost me a hundred and fifty bucks. We don't have to live on rye bread, kid, and that's the answer!"

He was beginning to get angry under her questioning. Flo didn't say any more.

Sam Baron finished shaving. He dressed hurriedly, not telling his wife the real reason for his haste. He had an appointment with Otto Muller. An important one!

He restored Flo to good humor with a kiss and a hug that almost cracked her ribs. Then he left the apartment.

Uneasiness returned to Flo, after he had gone. She had a strange feeling of impending disaster. She shivered as she stepped carefully out of the fragile black net of her expensive garment. Even the hot splash of the shower failed to warm the nervous chill in Flo's blood. Her hand shook as she dusted herself from head to foot with powder that cost a dollar an ounce.

Her face in the mirror was paler than the sheen of her body. She began to sob.

THE fourth man who was so vitally interested in the death of Andrew Shafter, saw no newspaper headlines.

In fact, he could see nothing!

He was in utter darkness. He lay on a hard wooden bunk inside a sealed room. He sat up with a groan, and there was a faint metallic rattle in the dark. There were more rattling clanks as he dragged himself painfully to his feet. The man was chained.

But the chain that fettered him was long enough for him to move a few feet inside his black chamber. His feet dragged across a stone floor. He stared upward at a tiny window.

He knew the window was there because he could see dimly a faint grayish square in the wall, protected by four iron bars set close together. A heavy shutter outside the window kept out all light.

To squeeze through those narrow bars was an impossible task. Only a child or a dwarf could have done so. And what good if he had? The shutter outside was heavy steel!

But the man stretched instinctively on tiptoe. He tried to lift his chained hands to the sill above his head. Hopeless!

As he turned away, he whispered harshly: "d.a.m.n them!"

Isabel Pyne would have recognized the voice of that chained prisoner. He was Rodney Mason!

He began to feel his way back to the hard surface of the wooden bunk in the wall. Suddenly, he stopped. He had heard a low, rumbling sound that seemed to penetrate the soles of his feet as well as his eardrums. The sound died away. It was followed by a coughing grunt.

Rodney Mason sniffed. He could smell faintly the fetid odor of an animal.

A wild beast!

He shivered in the earthly darkness of his prison. The sound he had just heard was the coughing snarl of a tiger!

FIVE men, all of them moving under the steady tug of the strings of fate.

Moving, all of them, to a strange and b.l.o.o.d.y climax of crime.

The last of these five men was The Shadow!

He was in his sanctum. Light from a single spot of electricity cast a pool of clear brilliance on the polished surface of the desk at which The Shadow sat.

His hands lay in that small circle of light like disembodied objects. On one of the tapering fingers, a glitter of changing color sent stabs of brilliance outward as the hands moved.

The gleams came from The Shadow's girasol, the priceless fire opal that he always wore. It changed rapidly from deep crimson to a cold yellow. The yellow became icy blue, then green, and back with startling suddenness to crimson again.

There was a small pile of doc.u.ments, papers, reports and neat clippings from a dozen newspapers under the restless hands of The Shadow. He had read and digested all these papers. Some of them he examined again; but he had no real need to do so.

The Shadow had learned much from Cliff Marsland. Harry Vincent's reports had told him more. Studied separately, there were gaps in the information that made judgment difficult. But coordinated by the brain of The Shadow, those ill-sorted pieces of knowledge began to suggest a completed whole.

It was like a jigsaw puzzle arranged by many hands separately, and then handed to an expert for the final a.s.semblage.

The Shadow was ready to strike.

Through his mind pa.s.sed the figures of five men and two women: Ortega - Frick - Sam Baron - Rodney Mason - Otto Muller. The two women he considered so carefully were both blondes, both dazzlingly beautiful: Isabel Pyne and Flo Baron, wife of the mob's chief trigger-man.

The Shadow was aware of a grim rendezvous of this gang headed by OttoMuller. He knew when and where the rendezvous would be. He suspected the ident.i.ty of the most unusual criminal he had fought against in his entire career. Tonight would prove the answer.

The Shadow had issued orders through Burbank, his contact man. Harry Vincent knew exactly what was expected of him. Inspector Joe Cardona was also aware of things to be done. He was puzzled, but he would cooperate with Vincent. Cardona always did.

The Shadow's sibilant laugh filled the darkness of his sanctum. He was content. Cardona and Vincent would begin the attack this very night.

The rest was up to The Shadow!

CHAPTER XV.

THE SHADOW'S STONE.

Two men crouched alertly in the thick foliage that lined one side of a country road. The road was dark, the gloom only broken at intervals by arc lights along the road. There was a high stone wall on the other side, a light visible from behind a steel-barred gate that cut the wall at a spot almost directly opposite where the two men watched.

One of these observers was Inspector Joe Cardona. The other was Harry Vincent. The spot that drew their watchful gaze was the lower hinge at the left side of that steel gate.

Harry Vincent was wearing rubber gloves. He knew that the gate was electrified. So were the sharp spikes of a metal fence that topped the stone wall. A single touch would bring a jagged spurt of electricity ripping through the body of an unfortunate trespa.s.ser.

Cardona tested that unseen flow of death with a tire tool which he obtained from his automobile, parked deep in the bushes. He hurled the tool so that it fell against the lower edge of the gate. As it struck, one end touched the metal gate, the other was grounded against the earth. Instantly - craaaaak!

- a writhing jet of purple leaped from the electrified barrier.

Flame danced along the tire tool as it fell to the ground.

"Ready?" Cardona growled under his breath.

"Wait!" Harry Vincent said.

He was staring alertly at the radium-painted dial of his watch. It was still too early to move toward the hinge of the gate. The Shadow had specified the exact time in the message that had come to Vincent through the unseen lips of Burbank.

The spot where Vincent and Cardona stood was a considerable distance from New York. They were in the central portion of Long Island, in the midst of what was commonly known as the "scrub oak country". To the north and south were smooth motor roads. On the south, the highways led toward Southampton and Montauk Point; on the north, to Greenport and the populous spots along Peconic Bay.

But the central portion was wooded and poorly developed. The sandy roads were narrow and unpaved. Traffic was almost nonexistent.

The walled estate had been built in this desolate part of Long Island for a necessary business reason. Up to within a year a go, it had been owned by the combined McMurtrie-Bagley Big Show - the "Greatest Circus on Earth!" It had been built as one of several winter quarters for the famous circus.

Deep inside these guarded walls were cages and dens where wild beasts spent the winter, awaiting the annual spring trek across country in the gaily painted motor caravan of the McMurtrie-Bagley Big Show. A year ago, however, the land had been sold. The circus had moved its wild animals to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where its main headquarters was located.

At least, such had been Cardona's belief. Now, he wasn't sure. For, from the deep blackness within the walled grounds, he had heard a sinister echo.

The throbbing roar of a wild beast!

VINCENT'S face was pale as he stared at Joe.

"I thought you said the circus sold this place last year?"

"They did."

"Who was the purchaser?"

"I don't know," Joe whispered. "I did my best to find out and failed. The transaction was handled by a dummy real-estate corporation. Whoever bought the land had plenty of money - and plenty of shrewdness."

For a moment, both men were silent. Then Cardona whispered again.

"What time is it now? I think we can -"

He was cut short by Vincent's warning hiss. Harry's hand drew Cardona downward. Hidden by the overhang of shrubbery, they watched the road. Someone was cautiously approaching the lighted area outside the steel gate in the wall!

The faint squeak of shoe leather was the only clue to that unseen figure.

Whoever he was, he had evidently parked his car at the lonely crossroad a mile or so up the dirt lane. He was advancing slowly on foot.

Suddenly, a figure became visible. Cardona's hand tightened on Vincent's arm. He restrained an amazed cry with difficulty. He had recognized the face of the stealthy visitor.

It was Julius Hankey!

Thunderstruck, Cardona stared at the aristocratic face of Fifth Avenue's most sw.a.n.ky jeweler. What was the socially correct Julius Hankey doing in so wild and remote a spot on Long Island? Why was he sneaking so furtively to what had once been the walled headquarters of a circus?

Cardona received an answer almost immediately. It was a strange and utterly unexpected one. Hankey had moved past the lighted gate into the shadow of the stone wall. He hunched his shoulders for a moment or two. Then - He became another man!

The glimmer of light that streamed through the steel bars of the gate fell on a totally different face. It was covered by a clipped brown beard. Crafty eyes gleamed. Julius Hankey had changed to - Otto Muller!

CARDONA's heart began to pound excitedly against his ribs. He had suspected Muller for a long time of being a criminal fence for the biggest mob of jewel thieves in New York. But Joe had been unable to prove his suspicions.

He had refrained from raiding the delicatessen in Washington Heights, because he didn't want to tip his hand to the gang by a premature move.

Now he had startling proof that Otto Muller and the suave Julius Hankey were the same man!

He watched Muller peer backward along the dark road. The man's whole att.i.tude was one of watchful caution. He was waiting for someone.

Presently, a faint whistle sounded up the road. The whistle was repeated by Muller. From the darkness, a second figure emerged.

Senor Ramon Ortega! The dark-skinned visitor to New York, who was concealing under a Spanish incognito the fact that he was His Highness Ali Singh, Maharajah of Rajk.u.mana!

The two men conferred in whispers that were inaudible to Vincent and Cardona in their leafy covert across the road. "Excellent!" Muller chuckled.

He leaned cautiously toward the deadly steel bars of the electrified gate.

He seemed about to pa.s.s a signal to someone within the walled grounds. But the signal was interrupted. Ortega was responsible for the delay.

He had whirled suddenly, and was staring up the road, dark at this point.

His sharp ears had caught a faint sound in the silence. Cardona had heard it, too: the crackle of a snapped twig.

Ortega darted away. His ears and his sense of direction must have been as keen as an animal's. He went plunging into an unseen clump of bushes. There was a quick, desperate struggle, a shrill cry that was throttled into silence the instant it was uttered, then Ortega came slowly back along the road, dragging a prisoner with him.

Ortega's palm was crushed over the mouth of his captive. Cardona and Vincent could see the sheen of blond hair, the bulging fright in lovely blue eyes.

It was a girl! Hankey's own niece: Isabel Pyne!

She fought furiously, but she was no match for the strength of her two captors. In a twinkling, Isabel's hands were twisted behind her back. A gun muzzle pressed itself against her spine.

"One scream and you'll die!" Muller snarled in a hoa.r.s.e, disguised voice.

Isabel gave no sign of horror that would indicate if she knew Muller and her uncle were the same man. Ortega's palm lifted from her mouth.

"How did you find this place?"

Isabel didn't answer.

"What are you doing here? How much do you know?"

Again the girl was silent.

Ortega began to twist savagely at the girl's pinioned arms. Muller stopped him.

"Not here, fool! Inside!"

He jerked a flashlight from his pocket. The quick pressures of his thumb on the b.u.t.ton of the flash signaled a code message through the barred gate. An answering glow was faintly visible in the darkness of the grounds.

A man approached the inside of the barrier. It was Squint, the narrow-eyed henchman of Sam Baron. Squint approached a small metal box inside the wall, threw a lever. Evidently, he had cut off the deadly current that pulsed through the metal of the gate, for a moment later Squint had no hesitancy in opening the gate with his bare hands.

Muller and Ortega dragged Isabel Pyne inside. She fought fiercely, but her efforts were vain. The gate slammed. Squint darted to the metal box.

Once more, thousands of volts of high-tension current began to leap invisibly through the charged metal.

VINCENT and Cardona had made no effort to rescue the girl. The mysterious orders of The Shadow had warned them to keep their presence a secret until they were inside the grounds. The lower left hinge of the gate was to be their pa.s.sword and key to this mysterious estate.

Gritting their teeth, they remained invisible in their hiding place. They watched Isabel Pyne being dragged along a pebbled driveway into blackness.