The Shadow - Xitli, God Of Fire Part 6

It gradually dawned on her that she hadn't bothered to look at her watch; when she did, she found that it was still early. She began to feel quite foolish at coming home so soon.

Andy had said something about looking up some friends in town. They were all in Yvonne's set, and were probably having a party somewhere. Andy had mentioned it before his visit to the waterfront; probably he would remember the invitation, if reminded.

Yvonne decided to make a call to Andy's hotel, so she slipped from bed and went to the telephone in the hall.

Cautiously, she called Andy's hotel, but found he wasn't there. She asked if he happened to be in Hedwin's room, and learned that the professor had left word that he wasn't to be disturbed.

Yvonne was debating whether to get dressed and go out, or to return to bed and try to sleep, when her uncle's door opened on the other side of the hall.

Glaring at his nightgowned niece, Carland demanded to know whom she had called. Very sweetly, Yvonne replied that she had heard the telephone bell ring, but that no one was on the wire when she answered.

"Perhaps it was Cranston!" exclaimed Carland. Then, shaking his head: "No; he only had my old address.

Bah! What a fool I was to move to this place!"

"I like Frenchtown," replied Yvonne demurely. "It has become quite fashionable to live here, uncle."

"Not when people know you're broke," snapped Carland. "Which I wouldn't be, if I hadn't sunk so much money into that museum. The nerve of that crowd, expecting me to fork over a hundred thousand more after my oil concessions were lost. By the way" - his eyes went sharp - "who brought you home, Yvonne?"

"Your friend, Mr. Brendle," the girl replied. "And if you don't mind, I'm going back to bed and get some sleep."

Again in bed, more wide awake than ever, Yvonne tried to forget the distant music that floated into the courtyard on which the second-story apartment opened. Her system was to concentrate on closer sounds, and she began to hear them, but not in a pleasant fashion.

There were creaks in the hall, strange whispers that Yvonne could not define. Sometimes her uncle pacedthe hall, muttering to himself, but these sounds were less noticeable. So stealthy, in fact, that Yvonne would not have heard them if her ears had not been more than usually alert.

They were sounds that she finally cla.s.sed as imaginary, but she still wanted to satisfy her mind about them. She felt that by merely opening the door of the bedroom and glancing into the hall, she could put her worries at rest.

Opening the door, Yvonne looked toward the end of the hall, where a window opened on a little balcony. The window had ornamental bars, and as Yvonne gazed she saw two objects that looked like snake heads come up to the grille. They made a twisting motion, then were gone, so suddenly that Yvonne believed she had imagined it.

She was scared, none the less, and when she stood behind the door that she had automatically closed, she listened intently for further sounds. None came, and the silence terrified her.

She opened the door again; seeing the window vacant, she stole toward it. When she arrived there she gave a horrified gasp.

The things that she had seen were hands, powerful ones. Though they had gone, they had left the evidence of their work. The window bars were lying on the balcony, twisted into pretzel shape. Any hands that could so silently have made a hash of wrought iron must be possessed of terrific strength.

TURNING about, Yvonne saw that her uncle's door was ajar, a dim light coming from it. She felt he ought to know what had happened; that he might be able to do something about it. Still, it wasn't wise to call him; judgment told her to approach his room cautiously.

Not having bothered to put on slippers, Yvonne was able to reach the door very silently. But the moment that she peered through the opening, a total horror froze her.

She saw the same darkish hands that she had viewed before, but this time they were dealing with an object more pliable than iron bars. Those hands were tight-clenched upon a human neck, bringing a face into the light.

Whatever horror Yvonne felt was written tenfold upon the features above those gripping hands. The face belonged to James Carland; it was petrified in death.

The killer's pressure had seemingly bulged Carland's eyes and forced his tongue to its full extension. As Yvonne swayed, the movement enabled her to see the murderer's coppery face, as well as his tawny hands. It was a stony face, yet its very mold seemed one of venom. The man was relishing his evil handiwork as only a savage could.

Memories of her museum visit swept through Yvonne's brain. This man was an Aztec, a member of the Xitli cult that Professor Hedwin had likened to the thugs of India. He was a strangler, whose weapons were his fingers; a fiend inhuman, who served an ancient fire G.o.d. Those thoughts came almost in a single flash, and Yvonne's mind was too crowded to think of anything else.

Her scream therefore was involuntary, and louder than any she would have normally given. It must have carried through the outer courtyard and off into the alleyways beyond. Her own vocal effort even startled Yvonne from her lethargy before the Aztec could spring about.

The girl was dashing frantically along the hallway while the killer was still reaching for the stone-headed knife that he wore in his belt. Yvonne's one hope was to reach the balcony before she could be overtaken. She managed it so well that she was scrambling through the window before her pursuer reached the hall.

But on the balcony she encountered a new menace.

A figure came over the rail, another of the squatly Aztecs, his hatchet already in his hand. Sight of the frail, cringing girl slowed the would-be killer, but only because of his contempt. He was choosing the side of Yvonne's neck, above her shuddering shoulder, as a target for his weapon. The girl's eyes went shut, her lips were gaspless, as she saw the hatchet begin its swinging curve.

The roar that came from the courtyard was indefinable to Yvonne. It was the burst of a gun, accompanied by echoes from the walls about. To Yvonne it sounded as a blast of doom; which it was, but not for her. A whir of air went by her cheek; a lunging body struck the balcony rail beside her.

Opening her eyes, Yvonne saw the floundering Aztec; as she turned her head, she struck against the stone ax, buried deep in the window frame. Then, from the courtyard, she heard a strange laugh that awoke new quivers from the surrounding walls. Yvonne saw her rescuer - a marksman cloaked in black who held a smoking automatic.

Guided by Yvonne's first shriek, The Shadow had arrived in time to turn the course of the Aztec's ax by planting a bullet between the savage's shoulders.

Danger wasn't past. Yvonne remembered the killer inside the apartment. Coming up to the balcony rail, she beckoned frantically to The Shadow. At the same time she saw a ladder extending up from the courtyard, the route that the Aztecs had used for the invasion.

The Shadow was reaching the ladder with rapid strides, but Yvonne feared that he could not possibly arrive in time.

With both hands, the girl grabbed the hatchet in the window frame and tried to tug it free. It came loose and she sprawled backward, half across the rail. She was facing the window, and there she saw her uncle's murderer.

The Aztec saw Yvonne, too, and seemed to gloat at her helpless plight. Off balance, her arms flung apart, Yvonne was so posed that the killer had her heart as a target for his ax.

Again the downward swing of a stone hatchet was beaten by the upward stab of a gun. The Shadow had actually leaped half up the ladder, to thrust the point of his gun between the iron posts below the balcony rail.

The impact of the bullet from his .45 jolted the st.u.r.dy Aztec, sending the tawny knife-hand high. Again a stone weapon whirled past Yvonne, this time skimming just above her upturned face.

The Shadow was across the rail. Plucking Yvonne from her resting place, he swept her through the window, where she landed, breathless, upon the hallway floor. The stone ax was gone from her hand; she had dropped it over the balcony rail into the courtyard.

She didn't need a weapon while The Shadow was at hand. Still, she could not understand why this black-clad fighter had flung her to safety when the danger was all over.

Then Yvonne saw that danger was not ended.

THE crippled Aztecs were on their feet, both clutching at the cloaked foe who had downed them. A single bullet couldn't finish those stony fighters unless planted in their hearts. Their hatchets gone, they were battling The Shadow barehanded, but their wounds had given them a frenzied power. The Shadow's gun swings couldn't dent the thick skulls of the stony men, nor was he able to work his muzzle past their warding hands. Hopelessly, Yvonne saw them bend The Shadow half across the rail and thought that no power could save him.

He sagged, then came up with a whip action that quivered his entire form. The snap, to Yvonne's amazement, catapulted one Aztec over the rail. Twisting away from the other's lunge, The Shadow made a cross swing with his gun, hooking the killer underneath the chin.

This leverage sent the Aztec backward, and The Shadow's other arm did the rest. Sweeping up, it lifted the Aztec's legs and tilted the wounded fighter over the rail, where he plunged to join his companion. It was a timely disposal of a troublesome foe, for The Shadow had more by that time.

A third member of the murderous tribe was coming over the rail to the balcony, and Yvonne saw a fourth slanted face on the ladder below. These fighters had their axes, which made The Shadow's chances look slim until he gave them battle. Then he proved that the swing of a stone ax was more to his liking than the clutch of tawny hands.

The Shadow sledged one knife hand with his gun and stabbed the other with a bullet. Borne toward the rail by the man on the balcony, he twisted as he met the one from the ladder, letting one Aztec bear the brunt of the other's drive.

Each was grabbing, one-handed, for The Shadow, and he was wrenching from their combined grasp in a style that this time indicated easy victory.

The fault lay with the balcony rail. It couldn't stand the strain of triple weight. It broke, and the fighters fell from Yvonne's sight, carrying the ladder with them. Like the enemies that he had conquered, The Shadow had gone to the stone courtyard a dozen feet below!

On the balcony again, Yvonne saw The Shadow. He was on his feet, miraculously intact, but he was reeling as he stabbed wild shots, not at four savages, but more than twice that number.

Fortunately, the servers of Xitli had tasted enough of The Shadow's bullets, and supposed that his shots were taking effect. Moreover, they had their crippled companions to look after.

Yvonne saw the Aztecs, making off through a pa.s.sage on the other side of the courtyard, dragging their wounded with them. The Shadow was staggering after them, blundering into walls and doorways, but still blasting shots that hurried the fugitives along their way.

Dazed from the ordeal, Yvonne regained her senses to find herself back in bed. Andy Ames was standing beside her, waving back police who wanted to question her.

Mechanically, Yvonne told her hazy story of savage fighters beaten off by a foeman cloaked in black - a tale so fantastic that all listeners except Andy believed it the result of Yvonne's strained imagination.

Even Andy had his doubts. He, too, had been rescued by The Shadow, but he couldn't understand about the Aztecs. Grimly, Andy kept his silence, wondering how well The Shadow had fared at the finish of the fray.

Yvonne's final description of The Shadow's staggery departure made it seem that the victor's plight might be worse than that of his conquered foemen.

CHAPTER XII. CRIME'S SEQUEL.

LATE the next afternoon, Andy Ames stopped at the Mayan Museum to talk to Fitzhugh Salter. He feltthat the curator was the one man who might be able to link events that seemed divided between Mexico and Louisiana.

Andy's suggestion that the men who murdered James Carland might have been Aztecs produced a smile from Salter. The curator summed up the case quite simply.

"You have spent too much time with Professor Hedwin," he told Andy. "Unconsciously, you have absorbed some of his strange notions. His talk of the Xitli cult is quite convincing, of course, and I noticed last night that such men as Talborn and Brendle were impressed by it. Probably the same applied to Yvonne Carland.

"She was distraught by her uncle's death, and her imagination became overworked. Until we have proof that an Xitli cult exists - and I a.s.sure you that I shall give the possibility a thorough and impartial study - we must accept the opinion of the police; namely, that James Carland was murdered by local a.s.sa.s.sins."

Leaving the museum, Andy wondered if he should have told Salter all that he knew. Andy was in a serious dilemma, for he felt that he had put the law on a wrong trail. It went back to last night, when Andy had spiked the testimony of the captured Cajun regarding strange men from the Amazonia.

Should he reverse his own statements, Andy would put himself in a serious position, one that might involve actual suspicion on the part of the police, who were not inclined to accept Yvonne's description of the men who had slain her uncle.

It would be better not to talk about the stone hatchet that Andy had thrown into the river, though Yvonne, too, had mentioned such weapons. None of the primitive hatchets had been found in the courtyard outside the Carland apartment, which meant that the invaders must have carried them away.

In fact, Andy himself was doubtful of Yvonne's testimony; not regarding the actual presence of the squatly men, but as to their actual number.

From certain facts, Andy was trying to size the whole situation. He knew that The Shadow was in New Orleans; that the cloaked fighter had helpers who looked like Aztecs, but were not. a.s.suming that the squatly man on the Amazonia was one of The Shadow's Xincas, Andy naturally presumed that Yvonne had seen men of the same type at the time of her uncle's death.

She could have mistaken them for the killers, and supposed that they were the men The Shadow battled later. But she talked of many, not a mere few, which rather puzzled Andy. He didn't want to fall into the same error as the police, that of regarding Yvonne's story as sheer imagination. But he found himself taking a halfway view of it.

It never occurred to Andy that The Shadow might not have brought his Xincas to New Orleans at all.

But Andy Ames did strike upon the theory that the Xincas themselves might be worshippers of Xitli, who had suddenly revolted against their proper chief, The Shadow.

The idea gave Andy qualms, for it brought back the question of last night: how had The Shadow fared after staggering off into the night, as Yvonne had described?

FROM the window of his office in the Mayan Museum, Fitzhugh Salter was watching Andy Ames stroll slowly along the street. The smug curator evidently guessed that Andy was in a quandary, for his smile had broadened by the time Andy was out of sight.

Returning to his desk, Salter began to thumb through a sheaf of typewritten sheets that pertained to the ancient Mayan language. These were revisions of an earlier ma.n.u.script that the museum had already published. The work engrossed Salter so completely that it was dark when he again looked toward the window. It was time to close the museum, so Salter went out and locked the door, but did not leave. Instead, he returned to his office and drew the window shades down.

To all appearances the museum was closed for the night. Deep dusk was settling when a taxicab stopped at the nearest corner and a man alighted from it. As soon as the cab had left, the man walked toward the museum and stopped to gaze at the great pyramid. There was still enough light to show his face; it was the withery countenance of Professor Darius Hedwin.

Like probing gimlets, the professor's sharp eyes picked out a tiny crack of light that issued past one of the drawn shades in Salter's office. For a short while Hedwin rubbed his chin; then, giving a cackly laugh, the professor sidled away in stoop-shouldered fashion off into the increasing darkness.

This was a cloudy evening. Tonight the shrubbery was invisible. Only the museum itself could be seen - like ghostly steps, moving up toward the blackened sky. A perfect night for an outsider to approach unseen. Once inside the museum, anyone could prowl at will.

Thus it was not surprising that things occurred, a short while later, on the top floor of the pyramid.

As on the previous night, the flame-robed, green-masked figure of Xitli made a sudden appearance from the room that held the costumes. His casting of a chemical flare was the signal that brought a horde of Aztecs from their hiding places to greet their feathered chief.

This time the door of the throne room stood wide. When Xitli entered and took to his throne, the Aztecs followed at the fire G.o.d's beckon.

Xitli questioned them with brief, hissed words. They gave their story of the night before. Xitli sat silent, his eyes glistening through the inlaid jet that formed the eye slits of his mask. The Aztecs waited fearfully, until his hissed voice came again, telling them that what they had done was good.

Evidently Xitli was pleased because of Carland's death; enough so to excuse his followers for their failure to slay Yvonne and their inability to overwhelm The Shadow. Then, in his same forced tone, the fire G.o.d spoke new instructions, which the crouching Aztecs accepted as absolute. A fling of Xitli's hand produced a glare that dazzled them; then Xitli was gone.

Stealthily, the Aztecs stole down the stairs, to find the exit that took them out into the night. Later there was a rumble of the elevator which signified that Xitli, too, had come down from the top-most floor. But the thick darkness outside the museum was too deep to reveal any departure by those who had a.s.sembled in the throne room.

The gleam of street lamps a block away did show a pair of squatly men moving from the direction of the Mayan Museum. It was fortunate that Andy Ames was not on hand to view that pair. He would have believed that his doubtful theories were actually correct. For the two who pa.s.sed that light were not Aztecs; they were The Shadow's Xinca servants, mysteriously arrived in New Orleans!

WHILE strange events were occurring near the Mayan Museum, Andy Ames was dining with Yvonne Carland in a private room of the second floor of a French restaurant. They were avoiding discussion of the night before; rather, their talk concerned the future as a relief from the horrible past.

Though Yvonne regretted her uncle's death, Andy knew quite well that she held no sentiment for James Carland. Yvonne's own parents were dead, and it had been Carland's duty to administer the small fund that they had left their daughter. Yvonne had been living with her uncle not just as a measure of economy, but because she knew that she would have to watch her money as long as he held control of it.

All that was ended; from now on Yvonne could handle her own affairs. She was to inherit Carland's money; too; but his estate consisted largely of debts. They were not the sort that Yvonne would ever have to pay; still, they worried her.

"When Mr. Talborn arrives," declared Yvonne, "I am going to tell him that whatever money is left will go to the museum fund toward the pledge that my uncle did not keep."

"Talborn will be glad to hear it," returned Andy, "if he ever gets here. I wonder what's keeping him? I called him right after I left the museum, and he said he would join us within an hour. But it's been more than that -"

There was an interrupting knock, followed by Talborn himself. Smiling apologetically, the affable exporter explained his delay. There had been some mix-up in a cotton shipment which had forced him to remain at his office. Seating himself at the table, Talborn ordered dinner. His smile faded suddenly when Yvonne began: "There is something I must tell you, Mr. Talborn. It concerns my uncle and the money he pledged to the museum -"

"One moment, Yvonne," Talborn interrupted. "I think that we should consider that particular subject as closed. None of the men who took over his pledges - that is, persons like myself - felt any animosity toward James Carland. I, for one, could not possibly have been responsible for his death."

Talborn's manner rather shocked Yvonne, particularly as she had not intended to blame him. Knowing what was in Yvonne's mind, Andy promptly intervened by questioning Talborn very bluntly: "Who do you think might be responsible?"

"I don't know," returned Talborn, "but there were persons whose plans were badly hampered when Carland failed to supply the promised funds."

Andy went hot beneath his collar. One such person might be Fitzhugh Salter, whose job as curator had depended on the completion of the Mayan Museum. Another happened to be Professor Hedwin, who had faced the problem of a stranded expedition in Yucatan. But Andy himself had been with the expedition and could take Talborn's thrust as a personal one.

It was Yvonne who tactfully veered the discussion to safer ground. Quite coolly, she said: "I was starting to tell you, Mr. Talborn, that I intend to pay my uncle's pledge, in part, at least, from whatever funds his estate provides."

Immediately Talborn became his affable self, but his head-shake was a doubtful one.

"A generous offer," he said, "but I doubt that Carland's debts will be covered. You must remember that he owed fifty thousand dollars to Eugene Brendle, in return for which he gave the worthless marshland."

Yvonne's lips tightened. She had to agree that the so-called rice fields were worthless. Too often she had heard her uncle boast of the shrewd deal that he had made when he borrowed the cash from Brendle. He said that if he failed to promote the rice fields, he would let Brendle keep the swampland.

"Mr. Brendle will come first," a.s.sured Yvonne. "When I see him I shall tell him so." YVONNE hadn't long to wait. At that moment Brendle made an unexpected entrance. The stocky contractor was quite excited and greatly pleased to see Yvonne. He pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to the girl.

"For your uncle," said Brendle. "They sent it over to my office. It's from Jonathan Dorn, the man who was going to finance the rice fields. I've been looking all over town for you, Yvonne."

The telegram stated that Dorn was arriving on his yacht that evening and would expect Carland to meet him. The yacht was to dock on Lake Pontchartrain, in the northern section of New Orleans. Quite obviously, Dorn had not heard of Carland's death.