The Shadow - The Golden Dog Murders Part 4

Either way, Mason will have to play ball with me. Well?"

Staring at Isabel's compressed lips, Frick knew she was going to be stubborn. He wasn't worried about that. He had come prepared.

He sprang at the girl with a pantherish leap. His left hand vised on her throat. Pocketing his gun, he produced a small bottle. Holding the throttled girl rigid in spite of her struggles, he uncorked the bottle with his teeth.

Then he jammed it into her panting mouth.

Isabel tried to spit out the liquid; but most of it disappeared down her throat, as she gulped convulsively. Frick held her with a grip of steel.

Suddenly, he saw her blue eyes film. Her body relaxed, and her face was like a pale mask. She stood perfectly quiet when Frick released her. He knew that she was under control of the subtle East Indian drug he had forced her to swallow. He tested her obedience with a low-toned murmur: "You will not utter a sound. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"You will obey whatever orders I give you."

"I will obey."

Her voice sounded drowsy, like a sleepwalker's. The drug she had swallowed was a distilled derivative of Indian hemp. It had robbed her of every atom of her will. She stood like a wax dummy in a blue satin robe.

Frick raced to the bedroom and brought back the girl's discarded garments.

He tossed them into the bathtub behind the shower curtain. At his harsh command, the girl stood facing the drawn curtain with her back to Frick.

"You are going to step behind that curtain and dress. You understand?"

"Yes."

Frick hesitated. He was still not wholly sure whether Isabel was completely under the influence of the drug, or whether she was cleverly faking.

Grimly, he tested her.

"You cannot dress until you remove your robe. Remove it!"

The girl's shoulder's moved sluggishly. The robe slid down her smooth back to the floor. Then, without turning, she stepped behind the shower curtain.

Frick could hear the faint rustle of garments as she dressed out of sight, obedient to his will.

"Tell me when you are ready," he whispered.

"I am ready." There was no flush on her pale face. She was conscious of nothing save the dry voice of Frick. He brought her cloak from the bedroom and she donned it over her evening gown. He walked her quietly to the kitchen.

Frick chuckled when he saw that the service door was double-locked on the inside. He drew back the bolt and loosened the chain.

"We're going to walk downstairs, my dear."

Grinning, he threw the door open.

Harry Vincent was standing outside, a gun leveled in his steady right hand.

"Put them up," Vincent snapped, "or I'll drop you!"

FRICK had no time to draw his gun. But he leaped behind Isabel with a wolfish bound. Using her body as a shield, he yanked her backward into the kitchen. His gun muzzle appeared ominously above her lax shoulder.

"Drop your rod, wise guy - or I'll blast you!"

Harry Vincent laughed at the threat. He knew that Frick dared not risk the explosive roar of gunfire in that quiet apartment. The noise would bring alarmed employees of the apartment house and cut off the kidnaper's escape.

Frick knew that, too. His voice rasped suddenly in Isabel's ear.

"Grab that guy! Choke him! Don't let him get away!"

The drugged girl obeyed the command. Her hands clutched at Vincent. She fought fiercely to keep him from following the fleeing Frick.

One look at Isabel's staring eyes and Vincent knew there was something dreadfully wrong with the girl. He tried not to hurt her, as he jerked at her clawing hands. By the time he had freed himself, Frick had vanished down the service staircase.

Vincent spun about to follow him. Then he halted. Isabel was on her feet, swaying. Her face was a horribly congested crimson. She clutched at her throat, moaning. Then she pitched to the floor.

Quickly, Vincent bent over her, sniffed at her parted lips. He could smell the strong reek of a powerful narcotic. His orders from The Shadow had been to protect Isabel Pyne, to save her life.

Vincent knew enough about drugs to recognize a powerful hashish derivative from the odor on the girl's stiffened lips. She had been forced to swallow a strong tincture of the dreaded East Indian bhang. The pupils of her eyes were like tiny pin points.

The Shadow's agent picked her up and raced with her to the bathroom. His eyes glanced over the shelves of the medicine cabinet. He selected a few things, ran back to the kitchen and got others. He made a whitish, flourlike mixture in a saucepan and thinned it with water. Then he made the girl swallow the stuff.

She didn't want to. She gasped, retched. That was exactly what Vincent had hoped for. He kept grimly at his work, until the girl lay sick and exhausted in his arms. But her stomach was now empty of the drug. Gradually, she was able to talk rationally.

Gently, Vincent questioned her. There wasn't much she could tell. She didn't remember anything that had happened after she had swallowed the drug.

She recalled walking in her robe to the bathroom, seeing a gray-faced man with a drawn gun. Then, somehow, she was fully dressed again, resting weakly in thearms of a man she had never seen before.

Harry Vincent shook his head gently at her puzzled questions. He didn't tell her who he was, or how he had happened to be on the service stairs outside her apartment. Actually, he had seen the lights go on in her bedroom and bath and knew she had returned. He had raced up the service stairs, driven by a queer presentiment of evil.

Isabel's body relaxed wearily in her bedroom. Harry covered her with a blanket and laid a finger across her pale lips.

"Go to sleep," he said. "I'll wait outside in the living room until morning, to make sure nothing else happens."

He stood staring down at her until she was asleep. He wondered if the drug would leave any memory of him when she awoke in the morning.

IT did. Isabel Pyne lay a long time when her blue eyes finally opened in the morning sunlight. Then, suddenly, her face paled. She sprang from the bed and hurried to the living room.

The couch where Harry Vincent had slept was rumpled, but Harry was gone.

Mechanically, the girl walked to the front door and took in her newspaper.

She was still dazed, hardly aware of what she was doing. But one glance at the black headlines of the newspaper whipped all drowsiness from her brain.

Murder!

A millionaire named Peter Randolph had been horribly and mysteriously slam the night before. His throat had been torn out by a ghostly dog. He had been found with an ill-fated stone in his dead hand - a sapphire with a fleck of blood in its center. The newspaper called it a "blood sapphire."

Isabel Pyne read those black, frightening headlines. She read about a necklace stolen from India; of a temple G.o.ddess whose nude golden body was surmounted by the head of a dog. The newspaper had sent a cable to its representative in India. The return cable was startling. The golden statue of the vengeful Dog G.o.ddess was missing from the altar of her temple!

Horror came into Isabel's eyes. But she was not thinking of a dead millionaire collector, or a vengeful ghost from a land of mystery. She was thinking of a sapphire with a fleck of blood in its azure depths. And of a good-looking young chemist who had shown her a dozen of those queer stones.

Rodney Mason!

He had not answered her telephone call last night. He had not been home.

Where had he been? And what - what had he done?

CHAPTER VI.

THE BLACK SEDAN.

JOE CARDONA was a logical man. He solved crimes with the orderly speed of a man driving along a straight road to a definite goal. But on this particular morning, Joe's brain wasn't traveling anywhere. He was grimly puzzled.

"It's d.a.m.ned silly nonsense!" he snapped. "The next fool reporter who mentions 'ghost dog' to me is going to get the seat of his pants kicked! There never was a ghost yet that could rip out a man's throat! What do you think, Mr.

Cranston?"

Lamont Cranston shrugged.

"I'm afraid my opinion isn't worth much," he said, gently. "I've had no experience in crime." He turned toward Senor Ortega. "Do you believe in ghosts?" Ortega smiled. He said nothing.

All three men were gathered in Cardona's office. Morning newspapers lay scattered on his desk. The papers were playing up the supernatural horror that seemed to be involved in the death of Peter Randolph.

A sapphire clutched in the dead man's hand had been identified as one of the rarest jewels on earth. It was recognized as a blood sapphire. The only blood sapphires in the world were those on the Necklace of Purity. And the Necklace of Purity was supposed to be thousands of miles away on a sacred altar in India!

The whole story of the Dog G.o.ddess was played up in sensational style.

The cabled news from India that the nude golden statue of the G.o.ddess was no longer on her altar, created a profound sensation.

Pictures of the statue - taken from the "Encyclopedia of Oriental Religions" - were on the front page of every sheet in town. The ghastly death of Peter Randolph was attributed to the vengeance of the G.o.ddess on a man who had had the temerity to purchase one of her stolen sapphires.

And the medical examiner's report sent a thrill of horror through New York. He stated definitely that Randolph's throat had been torn open by the fangs of a dog!

CARDONA's attempt to pin the murder on a burglar, was in vain. The sapphire had not been stolen. No fingerprints were found, except those of the dead man. And there was no trace whatever of the living presence of a dog.

"The job must have been done by Parker," Cardona said, harshly. "That butler is as guilty as h.e.l.l, or he wouldn't have fled! He won't get far! I've got a general alarm out for him. When I nab Parker, I'll show you your murderer."

Cranston watched Ortega. The man's swarthy face looked politely skeptical.

His smile twisted to a sneer as he turned toward Cardona, asked: "Have you tried to find out whether Peter Randolph ever actually owned a dog?"

Cardona shrugged helplessly "I've had detectives question every family in that block. Not one of them ever saw a dog. The tradesmen who delivered groceries never heard the sound of a bark. That's what puzzles me. I thought, at first, the dog might have been kept in Randolph's jewel safe. There was a queer row of holes drilled in the top of the safe. There's no purpose to those holes, that I could see, except to admit air to the interior of the safe."

Ortega's sneering smile deepened.

"a.s.suming that there was a dog, and that it was a living, breathing animal, why didn't its attack on Randolph arouse the neighborhood? Why didn't people hear its snarls and barking? And if it escaped from the mansion with bloodstained jaws, why didn't someone see it?"

"Parker will answer that riddle, when I arrest him," Cardona promised, harshly.

Lamont Cranston's quiet voice changed the subject.

"I notice that there was no report in the newspapers concerning your incognito presence in New York, your highness," he told Ortega. "Are we still bound to secrecy?"

The eyes of the Maharajah of Rajk.u.mana became suddenly cold.

"Both of you gentlemen have given me your pledged word to conceal my real ident.i.ty. I ask you to respect that confidence."

Something in the rasp of Ortega's voice made Cardona study him sharply.

Joe said: "You predicted death last night for the people who possess those stolen sapphires. Did you have any special reason for that prediction?"

"None, except my belief in the power of the Dog G.o.ddess," Ortega smiled.

"You see, I'm just a superst.i.tious Oriental."

"Where were you last night?"

"In my room at the Cobalt Club."

"You didn't leave it any time during the night?"

"How could I?" Ortega purred. "The employees of the club would surely have seen me."

"Your room has a window," Cardona pointed out. "That window opens on a narrow court. There's a roof opposite, that could be easily reached by the leap of a bold and active man. I'm sorry if I seem suspicious, but you did make death threats."

Again Lamont Cranston intervened.

I can testify that. Senor Ortega did not leave his room last night," he said quietly. "As it happened, I sat up most of the night, reading. From where I sat, I could see Ortega's window. He did not leave his room."

"Thank you," Ortega said. His polite voice hardened. "May I see the sapphire that was found in the dead man's hand?"

Cardona took the dazzling blue gem from a drawer in his desk. But he ignored Ortega's outstretched palm. He handed the gem to Lamont Cranston.

"You're a collector of jewels, Mr. Cranston," Cardona said. "That's why I asked you to come here this morning. Is that stone genuine?"

Cranston held the stone to the light. After some moments, he gave his answer.

"It is," Cranston said.

Ortega s.n.a.t.c.hed the jewel from him. His eyes were glittering with eagerness. He held the gem to the light and examined it. Then a savage change came over his face. He uttered an oath, hurled the sapphire to the floor.