The Shadow - Xitli, God Of Fire Part 4

"I was saying," returned Salter, crisply, "that the Xitli legend as yet remains unproven. This throne room is your whim, Hedwin, not mine."

Hedwin's scrawny hands came up, as though he intended to dig his clawish fingernails into Salter's throat.

With a shrug, the curator turned away. "Come, let us look at the other exhibits," he said. "Then we'll return downstairs, where a buffet supper has been prepared for us."

It was Andy who restrained old Hedwin, for he knew how to humor the professor. Blocking the door, Andy asked Hedwin to identify the various Xitli images in the niches, according to their inscriptions.

Yvonne Carland looked quite interested; so did Lamont Cranston. Finding that he had an audience, the professor roamed the room, picking out the various figurines and stating in what parts of Mexico he had uncovered them.

By the time Hedwin and his present companions rejoined the group downstairs, the old professor was beaming happily, his feud with Salter forgotten, like his outbursts against Carland and Dorn. In fact, Hedwin became deeply interested when he heard Salter tell about the thwarted robbery of a few nights before.

Both Talborn and Brendle supported Salter's description, and all seemed pleased when they saw Cranston nod his agreement to their account. Meanwhile, the guests were making inroads into the buffet supper, and when the story was finished, Professor Hedwin wagged an oyster fork about the group.

"Those robbers were after the Xitli relics, I warrant," declared the professor, solemnly. "But I tricked them. I didn't ship the Xitli remains; I brought them personally, instead. But I am glad, Salter, that you stopped the robbery. By doing so, you saved some very fine exhibits.

"Which reminds me, Andy" - Hedwin turned to his a.s.sistant - "another shipment is arriving tonight, on the Amazonia. It is the last shipment from Mexico. I think that you should be there when the boxes are unloaded."

"You want me to go right away, professor?"

"No, not right away." Hedwin threw a smile toward Yvonne. "I would say that an hour from now would be soon enough. They called me at the hotel, to tell me that the Amazonia had docked; but there is no hurry, Andy. No hurry at all."

Rather gratefully, Andy Ames accepted the professor's decision, because it allowed him another hour with Yvonne Carland. But there was one guest in the group who felt that the matter of the Amazonia demanded prompt attention: Lamont Cranston.

This was the first that The Shadow had heard of another shipment from Mexico. Its significance was plain.

Since crooks had stolen unlisted contents from boxes in the museum cellar, it was likely that they might intend to repeat the operation. But the museum was better protected than before, and this evening it was thronged with people. Which left the criminals one other choice: a robbery before the boxes were unloaded from the Amazonia.

Unnoticed by the chatting group, Cranston left the museum. Stepping into a car, he drove away, drawing a black cloak around his shoulders. Again, Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow, as was evidenced by his whispered laugh as he placed his slouch hat on his head.

The Shadow was bound for the waterfront ahead of schedule, to look up Pierre Laboutard. If he did not find the so-called pirate at the spot where he expected, there would still be another place to look: the wharf where the steamship Amazonia had docked!

CHAPTER VIII. ALONG THE WATERFRONT

BACK from the extensive line of wharves along the Mississippi, the huddled buildings of the waterfront seemed dwarfed and shrunken as they crouched behind the shelter of the levee, where loomed the steel sheds of the wharves.

There was life throughout that district, as mixed as a score of nationalities could make it, and at nightfall the bulking darkness of the sheds shrouded the menace of the district below, frequently hiding deeds as dark as the night itself.

Only the banana wharves presented activity by night; the chief danger in their vicinity was from tarantulas and tropical snakes that came in with banana shipments. But along the docks where coffee and cotton were unloaded, and near the mola.s.ses sheds, menace could exist in human form.

Picking his way past waterfront dives that emitted the babble of many tongues, The Shadow reached an old store front that made a forbidding portal. Windows close by betokened watchful eyes, ready to report the advent of any stranger; but no eye could have discerned the cloaked form of The Shadow in that gloom.

Working the door open, The Shadow glided through a pitch-black hallway, down a short flight of steps, to another door that signified a back room. The room was lighted; it contained a crew of rough-clad men, who felt too secure in these preserves to bother about placing a guard on the inner door.

The Shadow was looking in on Pierre Laboutard and his band of thugs. Smugglers, pirates, or mere cutthroats - any of the terms would have suited them. Laboutard, himself, was brawny, hard-faced, and sharp of eye. But the same description applied equally to the rest.

A few were Cajuns, members of the darkish, indefinable race found in the environs of New Orleans.

They considered themselves a chosen group, for one of their number was Laboutard's lone lieutenant.

Laboutard addressed the fellow as Jaro, and seemed to value his opinions. The rest of the band were largely ex-sailors, of various nationalities.

Laboutard was talking, when The Shadow viewed the meeting through the door crack. The leader's tone came in a forced purr that carried traces of a venomous hiss. Jaro, seated beside Laboutard, saw fit to put in brief comments of his own, supplementing some of the leader's statements.

"Tonight will be one more job," spoke Laboutard. "Like the others, but not at the museum. No. It will be more wise to go to the ship, the Amazonia. What matter if we make much trouble? This one will be the last time. A few can go to the ship more easily than many."

"With me," put in Jaro, tapping his chest. "I pick my men." He pointed to the Cajuns. "I take five."

"Then afterward," continued Laboutard, "after all is over, we come back here. I pay you all; maybe more than the price I promise. Then we wait, and do nothing."

Jaro offered an objection.

"First you say there was something more," he reminded. "Some more jobs, for special men, that would bring big money, Pierre."

"Ah, oui," recalled Laboutard. "But I have thought it over. I do not like it. To steal, it is easy, even if one have to kill. But to kill for nothing but the pay, is different. It is too foolish."

Jaro looked doubtful on that point, as did several of the others, but Laboutard remained unruffled. Hemerely made his point more plain.

"One man say steal," he declared, "in a way that n.o.body find out. We do it, and even with trouble like we have the other night, the police do not bother us. So we can steal more, the same way. Good, eh, Jaro?"

Jaro admitted that it was.

"But another man say kill," added Laboutard, "and when we do, what happen? There will be police everywhere. They ask questions that make trouble for a lot of you, even though they do not arrest for murder."

The ex-sailors caught the point. Some of them would be due for deportation if questioned too closely by the authorities, no matter what the subject.

"So we wait, after tonight," concluded Laboutard, shrewdly, "and then decide what is the best to do.

Maybe the man who wish the murder pay for something else. It may be that I know something that he would not like people to hear."

LABOUTARD had made it quite plain that he had two clients: one, who wanted robberies committed and was getting them; the other, a man who desired murder done. In typical fashion, Laboutard was planning a shakedown as an easier way of collecting cash from the second man in question.

The fact that Laboutard had been approached by two different schemers did not strike The Shadow as a coincidence. The simple fact was that Laboutard was the one man in New Orleans best equipped to handle specialized crime. He and his band were the clearing house for such operations.

"I send you, Jaro, to the ship," decided Laboutard. "Go, now, and we can follow. Through the alley will be best for you, while we go out the front. Because maybe you find trouble; but for us, maybe we only watch."

The Shadow took the route through the front door, while Jaro and his squad were sneaking from the back. The cloaked fighter was gone when Laboutard and his reserve crew came sauntering from the front door.

But The Shadow did not pick up Jaro's trail direct. Instead, he took a route of his own to the pier where the Amazonia was docked.

The Amazonia was an old freighter that often berthed in New Orleans. Her mixed cargo wasn't the sort that anyone would want to rifle, hence no pains were taken to protect the ship from boarders. Getting over the rail, The Shadow found a convenient lurking place behind a huge coil of rope, near a hatchway.

There, he waited for Jaro and the Cajun squad.

They came on board as stealthily as snakes. Crouching low, they wormed their way to the open hatchway and descended, one by one. When the last had gone, The Shadow moved forward from the rope coil and took a careful look toward the wharf, to make sure that Laboutard and the reserves were not too close at hand.

Then, two guns drawn, The Shadow turned to make his own descent, intending to surprise Jaro and his Cajuns at work in the hold below.

It was a bold plan, but a sure one, considering The Shadow's methods. He had trapped crooks before, below decks, and knew that they did not like it when boxed. Maybe some shooting would be necessary, but it would be in The Shadow's favor. His shots would alarm the ship's crew and bring them to take over the prisoners. That would leave The Shadow free to greet Laboutard and the reserves, when they made their delayed arrival.

As The Shadow foresaw it, the surprise would strike Jaro and the Cajuns, and there would be no way for them to reverse the situation.

But there was one factor not in The Shadow's calculations: the chance that Jaro and his men might receive a surprise before The Shadow reached them. Such was to happen, for things were happening below deck without The Shadow's knowledge.

Crouched above boxes which they had rapidly opened, the Cajuns were reaching for heavy burlap sacks that Jaro pointed out, when a stir came from deeper in the hold. Low voices seemed to mutter a chant that was anything but human.

Bounding up from a box, Jaro gave a snarl that showed actual fright, for his superst.i.tious nature was aroused. Then, contemptuously, he flung a light into the depths.

The beam showed a sight that froze the band of Cajuns. They were ready to battle man, beast, or reptile, but not the creatures that came clumping toward them. They were men, yes, those figures from the hold, but a sort that could have come from another world. In fact, they did belong to another period.

They were Aztecs, a dozen of them, lineal descendants of the bronze fighters who had ruled ancient Mexico. Chunky-built, with metallic faces topped by sharp-slanted foreheads, they were clad in dusky garb, the hides of jungle beasts.

For arms, they had stone hatchets, which they raised as they advanced. Then, when Jaro reached for a knife as a suitable weapon for a silent fray, the stony Aztecs lunged.

Jaro sprang away, his knife half drawn. The Cajuns followed their leader, frantically trying to get at weapons of their own. Pursued by the Aztecs, who were charging full force, Jaro and his squad went up through the hatchway at top speed, with an impetus that even a superhuman force could not halt.

The Shadow learned that when he tried to stop them. He greeted Jaro's swarming men with a challenging laugh so startling, coming from darkness, that it would ordinarily have made the superst.i.tious Cajuns falter.

Moreover, he was in among them with his guns, swinging to beat them down into the hatchway. But the terror that pursued the maddened tribe numbed their minds to any menace that might lie ahead.

HOISTED high by the ma.s.s of crazed men who erupted from the hatchway, The Shadow was swept back on the crest of a human tidal wave. A light from the ship's bridge showed darkish faces and gleaming knives.

Though too wild to recognize The Shadow as the fighter who had battled them in the museum, Jaro's men saw him as an obstacle to their path and tried to hew him down.

Flaying with his arms, The Shadow beat off the knife thrusts, but could do no more. The swirl carried him to the far rail of the ship, where he managed to disentangle himself, though slashing knives threatened to cut his cloak to ribbons. Spinning sideways, The Shadow brought up against a stanchion and landed on his hands and knees.

Jaro was going overboard, and his men were copying his example except for one who had stumbled short, staggered by a gun blow from The Shadow. The luckless Cajun was on his feet as soon as The Shadow, and seeing the cloaked fighter, the fellow came at him. Grappling, they reeled toward the rail,just as the Aztecs reached the deck.

The excitement on the Amazonia had been heard by Laboutard and his men, who were lurking far back in the darkness of a shed. Wondering what had happened to his shock troops, Laboutard started forward with the reserves. But another man had already reached the scene. Andy Ames had just come from the museum and was stepping on board the Amazonia.

Andy saw The Shadow half across the far rail, a man with a knife poised above him. Andy didn't notice that The Shadow had dropped one gun overboard and had caught the foeman's wrist. Andy was still carrying his revolver, and he used it. His shot clipped the Cajun. With a howl, the wounded man went over the rail, carrying The Shadow with him.

His gunshot echoed by a splash, Andy heard another sound that whizzed past his ear. Something landed with a choppy noise in a post just behind him. In the dim light of the deck, Andy spied the thrower, a squatly man who had come from a hatchway. Remembering the night at Cuicuilco, Andy mistook the Aztec for one of The Shadow's Xincas.

Rather than mistakenly battle a friend, Andy turned for the wharf. Stumbling against the post, he found the object that had driven into it: a stone-headed ax. Yanking the weapon from the post, Andy carried it with him. Hearing a snarly shout from the wharf shed, Andy cut away for cover just as guns began to shoot in his general direction.

Then Laboutard and his mixed reserves were surging on board the Amazonia, expecting to find The Shadow milling with Jaro's Cajuns. Instead, they discovered a deserted deck. Like Jaro's crew, The Shadow had gone overboard, and the Aztecs, too, had disappeared.

The strange men from Mexico had sought battle only to keep their presence unknown. Having cleared the deck, they had taken sh.o.r.e leave before the arrival of Laboutard and his reinforcements. So swiftly had they seized their opportunity that even The Shadow, busied with the Cajuns, had failed to see the Aztecs come and go!

CHAPTER IX. TRAIL DELAYED.

COMMOTION broke on the Amazonia as soon as Pierre Laboutard and his men boarded the ship.

Andy's gunshot had wakened members of the sleeping crew, and the volley that Laboutard's followers supplied completely aroused the sailors. But as soon as they poked themselves in sight, Laboutard ordered gunfire that drove the sailors back to cover.

Laboutard ordered half of his men below to complete the robbery that Jaro had begun. They scurried down the hatchway, and the man who remained on deck began exchanging sniping shots with the barricaded sailors.

All the while, Laboutard was fuming. He knew there would be trouble from the sh.o.r.e, and feared that time would prove too short to complete his purpose.

Things worked to Laboutard's advantage. His men were back in no time, bringing the burlap sacks.

Having found the boxes open, they had simply seized the swag. As soon as they arrived, Laboutard ordered a swift trip ash.o.r.e.

The burden carriers hurried ahead, while Laboutard and the gunners fired shots to keep the sailors of the Amazonia in their quarters. Attracted by the gunfire, two policemen had reached the wharf. They saw the stooped figures of the scurrying men who carried the bags of loot. Shouting for them to stop, the officers hurried forward, firing warning shots as they came.

It was a serious gesture, for they were unwittingly putting themselves in the path of Laboutard's gun squad, which was coming from the boat.

From the next wharf, where he had found shelter, Andy Ames saw the danger. Andy held two weapons: his revolver in one hand, the Aztec hatchet in the other.

He hesitated a mere moment, then flung the hatchet out into the river, where it landed with a choppy plunk, its stone head carrying it to the muddy bottom. Waving his revolver, Andy dashed toward the Amazonia, shouting a warning to the officers.

"Look out!" he called. "They're coming from the ship, a whole mob with guns!"

Andy didn't give the cops time to doubt. He fired at the gangway of the Amazonia, then dropped for the nearest shelter, easily ahead of the return volley that Laboutard's gunners supplied. But Andy's warning wasn't enough.

This was more than a ship-side quarrel, which the cops mistook it to be. Laboutard had just committed piracy in earnest, and intended to chop down any blockers who might hold him responsible for the deed.

His roustabouts were joined by Jaro and the Cajuns, who had swum around the ship like water rats, to come ash.o.r.e. Some were surging en ma.s.se, to overwhelm the two patrolmen, who by this time were rapidly retiring; while others, men with knives, were creeping in to wipe out Andy, who couldn't see them against the black side of the Amazonia.

Out of that ominous situation came the one challenge that could reverse matters: the laugh of The Shadow!

The black-cloaked fighter had not swum around the Amazonia. Instead, he had returned to the deck by way of the anchor chain. He was on the bridge, boldly placing himself where all could see him, confident that Laboutard's close-range fighters could not put up an accurate fire from the comparatively distant wharf.

Having regained the automatic that he had dropped on deck, The Shadow was proving that long range was his forte. His shots were either nicking Laboutard's followers or ricocheting from the concrete at their feet. With his second gun, The Shadow added side shots toward the knifers who were creeping toward Andy.

They were too close to the Amazonia to be picked off, but the shots were dangerously close. In scuffling to the wharf edge under the steamship's side, they gave themselves away, and Andy began to blast, glad that his experience at Cuicuilco had taught him to always carry extra ammunition for his revolver.

Laboutard's whole tribe took the quickest course that offered flight. It was every man for himself, with escape the only object, as they scattered everywhere. Laboutard himself was on the run, and Jaro with him, but when they reached the depths of the shed, the pirate chief and his lieutenants shouted for the tribe to rally.

By then it was too late.

The Shadow's timely demonstration had already brought a compact crew to action. The sailors on the Amazonia were taking over the vessel's deck, armed with a variety of weapons. They heard TheShadow's laugh, saw the pointing stabs of his flashing guns. They took to the land as readily as the Cajuns had gone for the water.

Crippled members of Laboutard's band tried to stop that surge, and the wharf became a general melee, with everything favoring the sailors from the Amazonia. Andy and the officers were coming in to aid, forgetful that Laboutard might rally his remaining men back from the waterfront.

IT was The Shadow who foresaw that complication. Down from the bridge, over the gangway, he was speeding across the wharf, a black-clad avenger whose streaking figure was actually invisible under the gloom of the sheltering shed.