THE BANSHEE MURDERS
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 1946.
A seance, a vanishing blonde, and a nymph-like creature involved The
Shadow with a desperate band of adventurers, a kidnapping, and hidden treasure.
Can the Master of Darkness pierce the shroud of his most baffling case?
CHAPTER I
ALL was pitch-black in the seance room. That blackness was weird, like an
invisible jelly that held all present in gluey imprisonment.
Only the moans of Madame Mathilda filtered through that gloom. Madame
Mathilda was the medium and when she moaned, it meant that a materialization
was likely to occur.
Hence the sitters in the seance room were tense, with one exception.
Lamont Cranston was unperturbed. Cranston liked darkness - the blacker the
better. When blackness became absolute, it saved him the inconvenience of
wearing the black cloak and slouch hat that ordinarily enabled him to blend
with dusk or gloom.
Which, in two words, meant that Lamont Cranston was none other than The
Shadow.
Now Madame Mathilda was moaning louder, with accompanying tremolos that
produced a ventriloquial effect in the darkness. Gasps sounded here and there
among the sitters; they thought they were hearing spirit voices.
Space, direction, sense of proportions, were apt to fade from a person's
mind during a seance held in total darkness, but not in Cranston's case.
To Cranston, this was just an overstuffed parlor on a side street a few
doors east of Central Park. It contained the usual quota of about a dozen
clients who came here in hope of witnessing spirit manifestations; plus a few
strangers of whom Cranston was one.
The other strangers included Police Commissioner Ralph Weston and
Inspector Joe Cardona. Cranston knew their exact location in the darkness,
particularly that of Cardona.
Parked on the other side of the medium, Cardona was supposed to grab a
ghost if one arrived and Cranston was expected to do the same from his flank.
Turning on the lights was to be the province of Commissioner Weston, who was
stationed near the door.
Except that there wouldn't be any ghost to grab. Knowing that fact,
Cranston was a trifle bored.
Madame Mathilda dealt in "clairvoyant and clairaudient materializations,"
a high sounding definition which caused the commissioner to think a lot was due
to happen. The police had received a lot of complaints lately about wealthy
people investing large sums in questionable ventures due to spirit guidance.
Therefore to grab a phoney ghost in a much advertised medium's parlor would be
a fine starting point toward cracking up a growing racket.
But those terms "clairvoyant and clairaudient" were a hitch that Weston
didn't recognize. They meant simply that Madame Mathilda saw and heard things
to which ordinary eyes and ears were not sensitive. All she had to do would be
describe spirits and relay what they said; that would satisfy the regular
customers and with it disappoint the strangers.
Right now, Madame Mathilda was coming to that phase and Cranston was
settling back in his chair hoping it would soon be over, when he saw the
glimmer.
It was a dot of light, an uncanny thing that might have come from outer
space. It blinked like some strange eye, nervous and untraceable.
Yet not untraceable to Cranston.
Before the seance began, Cranston had taken in every detail of the room.
He had noted a loose-hanging corner at the top of an old blackout curtain that
Madame Mathilda had drawn across a high window opening into a courtyard. Since
the court itself was very dark, that gap had not admitted any light until now.
Only Cranston and the medium could see it, for they were the only two
faced in that direction. Cranston studied the phenomenon calmly, analyzing the
blinks as something distant from outdoors. The effect upon Madame Mathilda was
electrifying.
The medium's trill-sprinkled moans culminated in a stupendous shriek.
"Canhywllah Cyrth!" she shrilled. "Canhywllah Cyrth!"
Whatever those words mean, they were echoed by another woman's voice,
close by Cranston's elbow.
"Canhywllah Cyrth!" This woman's tone was a gasp. "I see it too! It will
bring the Gwrach y Rhibyn!"
"She is materializing there upon the rock!" Madame Mathilda was shrieking
anew, but her words were coherent. "She has raven tresses and her arms are
ivory, she is reaching for the branch of lilac above the crystal pool!"
Apparently this referred to the Gwrach y Rhibyn, whoever she was, for the
glimmers of light were no longer twinkling through the corner space of the
blackout curtain. Calmly, Cranston waited to hear more. It came.
"In her other hand she holds a dirk!" There was hysteria in the medium's
high-pitched voice. "In one hand life, in the other death! Which is to be, you
must ask her, for only she can answer!"
"Yes - yes -" Cranston could hear the words panted by the other woman. "I
must ask her -"
"But you must wait!" screamed Madame Mathilda. "She is waving her hands,
this woodland spirit, in token of farewell. The vision fades, all but the
hands, now they are going into mist, but she is flinging tokens of this
visitation. Here they are!"
The medium gurgled that last utterance. Something brushed past Cranston's
face and from the center of the room there came a clatter across the hardwood
floor. Then those sounds were drowned by the hard, violent thud of the medium's
body landing on the floor, echoed by the crash of an overturning chair.
Other screams punctured the darkness, voiced by sitters who imagined that
they too had seen the singular vision hysterically described by Madame Mathilda.
Strange how a cramped space, pitch-dark, could turn crazed shrieks into
reality through the power of suggestion!
Except that Officer Reilly wasn't cramped, nor was it pitch-dark about
him. Just starting his nightly patrol, Reilly had all the open space of Central
Park in which to amble and already the moonlight was silvering that vast expanse
of green.
It was the moon that attracted Reilly's notice. It was taking up a whole
side street, over there to the east of the park, as if all the traffic lights
in Manhattan had been rolled into one big yellow ball and hung there, saying
"Caution."
It wouldn't have surprised Reilly if the moon had switched to red or
green, the way all traffic lights did, after hovering on yellow. For Reilly had
a strong dash of imagination and therefore liked to believe that the impossible
could happen.
Of course if people told you of something that they'd really seen, that
was different. It might be that they were right. For instance, Patrolman Reilly
remembered his old aunt who had once sworn that she had seen a banshee.
Therefore people found it unwholesome to argue against banshees with Reilly,
because it might cast doubt upon his old aunt.
Therefore banshees came into the "seeing is believing" category where
Reilly was concerned and that was why Reilly now stood stock-still.
Reilly was staring squarely at a banshee!
Outlined against the moon, the weird creature fitted banshee
specifications and more. From above her shoulders streamed flowing long hair;
her outstretched arms were sweeping as if her hands were casting curses upon
everything within a wide enough range to include Reilly.
She was atop a rock, beyond a shrub-clustered slope that was skirted by a
stony path. Below, hidden beyond the rock, lay a sizeable pool that had its
outlet under a rustic bridge that Reilly crossed when covering his beat.
The path was the shortest route to the rock and Reilly would have taken it
at once, except that his dread of banshees somewhat stilled his urge toward
duty; but as Reilly stared, he began to wonder if this creature could be a
banshee after all.
According to some authorities, Reilly's aunt for one, banshees were
fearsome hags who wore garments resembling tattered coffin shrouds. This sylvan
sprite was slender and shapely, while at this distance and in the uncertain
moonlight, her raiment seemed to consist solely of her flowing hair.
What broke the spell was the breaking of the bough. As Reilly stared, he
saw the banshee's arms complete their sweep by grasping the branch of an
overhanging tree and breaking it away. That was against the rules of Central
Park and banshees were no exception. Furthermore, a physical act by a spirit
creature struck Reilly as against the rules governing banshees.
The lithe creature of the rock was snapping a smaller branch from the
broken large one when Reilly, duty prevailing, began a dash up by the path
which carried him briefly away from where he could see the rock. It was during
that trifling interlude that Reilly proved himself a man of determination,
unwilling to abandon whatever course he had begun.
For from the crag that overhung the pool, the spot that Reilly could not
see, yet could locate by the direction of the sound, there came the certifying
token of the banshee, a weird, rising wail that ended in a harrowing scream.
Hardly had the cry ended before the hurrying patrolman was above the
slope, blowing his whistle as he arrived. Shouts came from across the pool as
persons reached the rustic bridge and pointed excitedly to the overhanging rock
in proof that they, too, had heard the unearthly wail.
Then Reilly was stock-still again, still trilling the alarm and beckoning
to other persons who appeared along paths well down the flanks of the slope.
Cars were stopping on a drive below, even two riders on a distant bridle path
halted their quivering horses, as the steeds whinnied terrified answers to the
trailing scream.
From further away came the rising siren of a patrol car, responding to
Reilly's call, but it seemed like something from another world. For the world
in which Officer Reilly now stood could well be termed unearthly in itself.
Reilly was on the very crag where he had seen the beauteous maiden with
the flowing hair; on every side were witnesses who could not only testify that
they too had glimpsed the ethereal creature, but were placed where they could
cut off all parts of escape.
Yet like the banshee that she represented, the spectral visitant was gone.
The only proof that such a creature could have been here was a broken branch
from a lilac tree that rustled lightly overhead.
Though Reilly did not notice it at this moment, that lilac branch was not
intact. It lacked a twig that had been snapped from it as rudely as the branch
itself had been wrested from the tree!
CHAPTER II
MADAME MATHILDA responded well to the aromatic spirits of ammonia. In fact
they were the only spirits that had actually appeared in the seance room.
Nevertheless the scene was not without a trace of mystery.
Just before she had passed out with a horrible wail, the medium had
shrieked something about objects representing life and death. Those items were
on exhibit in the light that now filled the parlor. They were lying in the very
middle of the room, the things that Madame Mathilda had named: a sprig of lilac
and a dagger.
Commissioner Weston took the case in hand. That was, he took Madame
Mathilda in hand, by planting a hard hand upon her shoulder and shaking her to
her feet despite the protests of the faithful clients who surrounded their poor
medium.
Announcing himself in a tone of final authority, the commissioner started
to declare that the medium was under arrest for producing fraudulent
materializations, only to find himself interrupted by a timid-looking client
who suddenly became vociferous.
"Those aren't materializations!" the man argued. "They are apports. You
have no case against this medium, commissioner."
The term "apports" rather stumped Weston until Cranston intervened in his
calm style.
"This gentleman is right, commissioner," declared Cranston. "A
materialization is the partial or complete production of an actual spirit form.
The mere arrival of an object in a seance room is called an apport, particularly
when the object is inanimate."
The distinction didn't quite satisfy Weston.
"These things were materialized," stormed the commissioner, gesturing to
the knife and the sprig of lilac. "Of course the medium faked it, but she
claims the objects came from the spirit land."
It was Madame Mathilda now who was interrupting with emphatic headshakes.
Somehow she couldn't find the voice which had been so rampant only recently.
"You are wrong, commissioner," continued Cranston, patiently. "These are
obviously material objects which can be traced to a natural source. The twig
for instance has been broken from a lilac tree quite recently; we may discover
that the dagger belongs in some museum.
"True the medium may claim that they were brought here by spirit forces" -
Cranston was glancing at Madame Mathilda, who halted her head shake and began to
nod - "which certain scientists might decide to be evidence of some fourth
dimensional activities. Outright skeptics might class the whole matter as a
fraud, but it was not the sort that you came here to uncover, commissioner. You
hoped to witness a materialization, but you saw none."
Before Weston could reply, another person entered the argument. This was
another of the medium's clients, a gray-haired woman whose very vigor belied
the term elderly. She was the person who had gasped the strange words when the
medium talked of seeing a figure on a rock.
"Perhaps you have heard of me, commissioner." The woman spoke with a
hauteur that suited her tall and somewhat portly stature. "I am Sylvia Selmore,
one of the very people whose affairs you are trying to protect by meddling into
them!"
Weston acknowledged the introduction with a bow. He had often heard of
Sylvia Selmore, former lecturer, writer, champion of peace and reform, as well
as being generally eccentric and wealthy enough to continue so.
"There was a materialization," Miss Selmore insisted. "I witnessed it
along with the medium!"
At that, Madame Mathilda sank back with an unhappy gasp that called for
more spirits of ammonia. To give the medium air, Cranston tugged away the
blackout curtain covering the courtyard window, then opened the window itself.
The darkness of the court was complete, with no trace of that distant light
which had blinked the curious signal.
Yet at that moment, Cranston wouldn't have wanted the blinks to recur.
Thanks to the darkness, Cranston was viewing something closer and better.
The blackness of the window pane gave it the quality of a mirror in which he
observed Madame Mathilda. All eyes had turned toward Cranston, therefore the
medium relaxed in unguarded style.
Reflected by the lights of the room, Mathilda's face revealed not only the
opening of her shrewd eyes, but the satisfied smile that crept across her lips.
Sole witness of the medium's minor triumph, Cranston recognized the reason for
it. Madame Mathilda was erroneously assuming that the clue of the dangling
curtain now was gone. She didn't guess that it remained in the memory of the
very person who had destroyed it, Lamont Cranston, otherwise The Shadow!
Now attention was back upon Mathilda, so her eyes were closed again.
Moaning feebly, the medium began to recuperate in slow, well-rehearsed style.
Coming completely from her fake trance, she stared wonderingly at the faces
about her, as though to ask what had happened.
Portly Miss Sylvia Selmore rallied to the medium's aid.
"Poor dear," expressed Sylvia, referring to Mathilda, "she can't remember
a thing that happened. She was in a trance you know and everything she saw was
a clairvoyant phenomenon."
Angrily, Weston drew himself up to say something, then switched to a
brusque-mannered silence, his broad face glowering to a degree that seemed to
bristle his short-clipped military mustache.
"She heard things too," continued Sylvia, "because she is clairaudient.
Then the spirit itself controlled her and spoke through the medium's voice."
Miss Sylvia nodded as though she knew all about such phenomena, but her
theory didn't help solve the question as to whether or not there had been an
actual materialization, the thing that the law wanted to witness.
It was Inspector Joe Cardona, a swarthy, stocky individual who brought up
that point. So far Cardona had been a good listener; now he proved himself a
good talker. Facing Miss Sylvia, Cardona put a blunt query:
"Tell me, Miss Selmore, you saw these things that the medium talked about,
didn't you?"
"Partly," acknowledged Sylvia. "I am sure I saw the Canhywllah Cyrth."
Cardona repeated Sylvia's pronunciation of a term he never could have
spelled.
"Canhywllah Cyrth," said Joe. "What does it mean?"
"The English call it a corpse candle," explained Sylvia. "Canhywllah Cyrth
is the Welsh term. I am Welsh, you know. My family dates back to early
Pennsylvania, shortly after its settlement. The Canhywllah Cyrth is a strange,
tiny light that announces the arrival of the Gwrach y Rhibyn."
Weston gave a despairing gesture at hearing this second name repeated, but
Cardona was persistent.
"What is the Gwrach y Rhibyn?"
"A family spirit," explained Sylvia. "Some call its appearance a bad omen,
but not those who understand. More often than not, the Gwrach y Rhibyn brings a
fair warning. I didn't see the Gwrach y Rhibyn, but Madame Mathilda did, which
proves she must have materialized somewhere."
"Who materialized?" put in Weston, briskly. "Madame Mathilda?"
"No," retorted Sylvia. "The Gwrach y Rhibyn. I have seen her myself, when
death threatened the family. She appeared as a hideous old hag -"
"I get it," interrupted Cardona. "A banshee."
The comment stiffened Sylvia's hauteur.
"A banshee indeed!" The portly lady was indignant. "Banshees are wayward
creatures that howl around the walls of Irish castles for any and all to see.
In Wales our family spirits are more particular. They manifest themselves in
ancient halls or beside sylvan pools."
"That's what Madame Mathilda saw!" Sylvia was becoming eager now. "She saw
my family spirit materialized beside some forest pool. As a token, the Gwrach y
Rhibyn sent this" - Sylvia picked up the sprig of lilac from the floor - "But
with it there was a warning." Pausing, the portly lady pointed stiffly at the
dagger. "A warning that might mean death," Sylvia continued. "No wonder the
Gwrach y Rhibyn vanished with a wail!"
Sylvia finished that statement with a shudder and in a moment, most
members of the group were quaking too. For from outside the house there came a
rising wail that at this instant carried everything unearthly in its hideous
cry.
Lamont Cranston wasn't one who shuddered, but he had to press a reassuring
hand upon the shoulder of a scared girl who was standing beside him. She was
Margo Lane, who accompanied Cranston on many of his milder adventurers. Margo
had thought it a lark to attend a spirit seance, but this one hadn't proven the
mild affair she'd anticipated.
In fact, despite Cranston's steadying clasp, Margo would have let out a
wild scream of her own, if she hadn't suddenly recognized what the wail was - a
thing which Cranston had caught upon the instant.
Neither human nor supernatural, the howl was purely a mechanical utterance
from the siren of a police car wheeling past the house in the direction of
Central Park.
Immediately alert, Weston and Cardona exchanged glances that were promptly
answered by the jangle of the telephone. Cardona took the call in official
fashion; then hung up and turned to Weston.
"Headquarters," stated Cardona. "They knew you were here, commissioner.
That's why they called. All available patrol cars have been ordered to Central
Park."
Staring a moment, Weston demanded:
"A murder?"
Shaking his head, Cardona turned to Miss Sylvia.
"This thing you talked about, Miss Selmore," said Cardona. "The family
spook with a Welsh name. You're sure it isn't the same thing as a banshee?"
Again, Miss Sylvia exhibited her full dignity.
"Positively not!"
"Then you're due for an argument, with an officer named Reilly," announced
Cardona. Plucking the lilac sprig from Sylvia's hand, he added: "Right at the
time Madame Mathilda was describing something, Reilly saw it. A beautiful
creature over by a pool in Central Park, breaking off a bough from a lilac
tree, which is against all regulations."
Bringing two handkerchiefs from his pockets, Cardona laid the lilac twig
in one, then picked up the dagger with the other, to wrap both items together.
Then, to make the act official, the inspector furnished this addendum:
"Officer Reilly says the creature was a banshee," declared Cardona, "and a
banshee it is until we find out different!"
CHAPTER III
HUNTING a banshee in Central Park was a shivery sport, even on a warm
night. At least Margo Lane found it so, despite the presence of police in
plentitude. In fact it was the prevalence of uniformed searchers that made the
situation so uncanny. Only a banshee or its equivalent could have eluded the
sizeable cordon established around the rock-rimmed pool.
On the jutting rock where Reilly had seen the banshee, there was evidence
to support the officer's testimony. That evidence was a lilac bough which
anybody might have wrenched from the tree, but it bore a distinctive mark
linking Reilly's banshee with Sylvia's Gwrach y Rhibyn.
There was a jagged mark where a portion of the branch had been ripped away
and when Cardona fitted the twig that he had brought from the seance room, it
corresponded exactly!
Certainly this made it seem that Madame Mathilda had viewed the actual
scene upon the cliff above the pool and that in departure, the phantom had
projected a souvenir of the occasion into Mathilda's parlor.
To emphasize his testimony, Reilly led the investigators back to the spot
from which he had first seen the banshee. Pointing to the rock, he declaimed:
"'Twas there she stood, reaching for the branch, which as any eye can see,
was a good bit above her head. What she was wearing I wouldn't know, after
seeing her from this distance only, but 'twas scanty. The moon is higher now,
but right then it was bucking traffic over from across the park and against it
I could see the banshee's hair, all waving with the black glisten of a raven's
wings.
"Only half way there I was, when she gave the banshee screech and
vanished. Mind you, there is nowhere else she could have gone except into
nowhere, as others here will testify. Some saw her from the bridge, others
heard her from the bridle path and the drive. It's their word, not mine that
you can take, though nobody lives that has ever questioned the word of a
Reilly."
At Weston's suggestion, they went around to the bridge and studied the
rock from there, only to find the mystery even tighter. Though the top of the
rock was dim because of the overhanging tree, the front surface caught the full
glisten of the moonlight.
Except for slight crevices and the tough, stunted bushes that grew from
them, the rock was almost sheer until it reached the water's edge. It certainly
couldn't have hidden a random figure, but Weston's doubts concerned the brow of
the rock. With a cautious look at Reilly, to make sure that the patrolman
wouldn't feel that his own testimony was being criticized, Weston spoke to
persons who had been on the bridge.
"Regarding the woman on the rock," said the commissioner. "Are you sure
you really saw her there? It's dark up there from this angle. You didn't have
as good a view as Reilly."
"There was moonlight then," returned one of the witnesses. "It was shining
straight at the rock top. The lower part was darker at that time."
Another witness corroborated this statement. In addition there were some
who had arrived when they heard the wild departing shriek of the creature that
was more and more assuming the proportions of a banshee. Some had heard the
crackling of the lilac bough; others had glimpsed the sylphlike figure that had
flung the tree branch. All admitted that their view was vague, but that the
shape was real until the moment that it dwindled, as if swallowed by the rock
itself.
One witness gave a novel bit of testimony. She was a middle-aged woman
attired in an out-of-date riding habit and her face was as long in expression
and as solemn as that of the horse that stood beside her.
"I did not see the rock, nor the person on it," this woman declared. "What
attracted my attention was the light that blinked very strangely, off yonder."
The woman stabbed a long finger in a direction at an angle to the rock and
on a level a trifle above the trees. Following her point, others saw only the
silhouetted outline of a tall apartment building to the west of Central Park.
"That light," suggested Cardona, suddenly. "Was it like a candle, floating
through the air?"
The long-faced woman thought a while, then nodded so vehemently that her
horse followed suit.
"The corpse candle," said Cardona to Weston, "or whatever they call it in
Wales. The thing Miss Selmore said she saw, commissioner."
The commissioner wasn't impressed. He eyed the long-faced woman dubiously
as though wondering if she had played the banshee and then skipped off to
acquire her riding habit and her horse. But after a brief appraisal, Weston
decided that this witness couldn't have come up to the specifications of the
woodland sprite who had been described in captivating terms.
It was time to tighten the cordon and bring in the banshee. So the
commissioner dismissed class and went about his business, which left Margo on
the bridge by moonlight, thinking she'd have a few quiet words with Lamont. But
when Margo looked around, she found herself alone and realized only too suddenly
that she hadn't seen Lamont Cranston during the past ten minutes.
Somehow this setting was becoming a trifle too spooky. The ripple of the
water beneath the bridge, the added tumult where it tumbled into a series of
cascades down the lower slope, were sounds that threatened to drown anything
less than a banshee's wail. If such a howl should again disturb the night,
Margo didn't care to be the only person to hear it.
Looking for somewhere else to go, Margo happened to glance beyond the
westward trees. A moment later she was riveted by a sight she didn't want. It
was starting again, that blinky light that Madame Mathilda and Miss Selmore had
called the Canhywllah Cyrth!
Oddly, the sight stiffened Margo's nerve. At least this was one mystery
that she might solve in her small way. So she started in the direction of the
intermittent light, even though it led around to the other side of the rocky
pool which was unexplored territory to Margo.
The light was like a will-o-the-wisp, but it served as a beacon even
though it might not be leading anywhere. Suddenly its flickers ceased and only
then did Margo realize that her path had been guided by the light itself. Now
she was suddenly worried, for she was past the pool and practically among the
searchers who were clinging around it. If she ran into any of them, Margo might
be arrested on suspicion of having impersonated a banshee, which would mean a
lot of troublesome explanations.
That thought impelled Margo to undertake a detour further around the pool
and the immediate result was grief. The turf gave suddenly and along with a
deluge of spilling stones, Margo was precipitated down into a narrow gully
which was completely hidden under the spread of overhanging trees.
Though startling, the slide proved brief. As for the gully, it furnished
exactly what Margo wanted, an outlet past the cordon. As she crept along,
moving away from the direction of the pool, Margo realized that at intervals
this narrow passage actually burrowed under solid ground where drives and
bridle paths crossed it. By the time the gully leveled off, the crowd of
circling searchers was far behind.
Still, the ground was still high here, for as Margo ventured past some
large boulders, she saw a downward slope and beyond it some rapid moving lights
that flitted a reflection from among the tree roots. She realized then that she
had reached a transverse, one of the speedways that cross Central Park below
the level of the driveways.
Those were the lights of automobiles, rolling along the underpass. Since
there was no way to cross the cut, Margo was about to turn and look for a
pathway, when she saw a figure come stealthily from behind a tree near the
transverse.
It was a singular figure, lean anal stoopish that could hardly be termed
more than an outline of something human, though with a trifling stretch of the
imagination it might have been mistaken for an orangutan escaped from the
Central Park Zoo. If the thing hadn't turned in Margo's direction, she probably
wouldn't have attracted its attention, but it did turn.
Sight of an ugly, darkish face leering into the moonlight brought a
half-scream from Margo and that was not only enough, but too much. The figure
wheeled, unlimbered to full height, and whipped its arm back to throw.
Right then an avalanche struck Margo.
That avalanche came in the form of human blackness, launched from the
darkness of a large rock that Margo had just skirted. Spilled by the drive,
Margo sprawled headlong, hardly realizing that her rescuer was The Shadow. For
rescuer he was, as testified by a whirring sound that whipped past the spot
where Margo had just been, to end with a thud against a stout tree.
From her sprawl, Margo saw a sight that really dazed her. As The Shadow
lunged toward the embankment, the stooped man who had thrown the knife made
another of his unlimbering motions, but with a complete turnabout. It seemed
that he literally scooped himself from The Shadow's grasp and vanished into the
darkness above the transverse which at that moment, fortunately for the
fugitive, was devoid of passing cars and their tell-tale lights.
It was The Shadow's voice that hissed the warning that Margo heeded.
Scrambling up past the rocks, the girl found a driveway and ran along it toward
where she knew a cab was waiting for Cranston. Finding the cab, Margo popped
into it and felt safe at last, for she knew the driver. His name was Shrevvy
and his cab was always at Cranston's service, especially on nights like this.
Five minutes later, Cranston arrived back at the cab to report that the
police hunt was still under way and accomplishing nothing. In fact, Cranston
seemed rather bored with the whole business until the cab had rolled from
Central Park and was swinging along a lighted avenue.
Then, turning to Margo, Cranston queried:
"Remember that mysterious apport business over at Madame Mathilda's?"
"Of course." Margo found her voice with a forced laugh. "You mean the
sprig of lilac that they found there. But there was plenty more lilac out in
the park."
"And that was only half of it," reminded Cranston. "There was a dagger
that landed on the floor of the seance room. There seems to be plenty more of
such out in the park too. I found this as a sample."
In the light of the passing street lamps, Cranston exhibited the object
which Margo realized was the whirring thing that had sped past her and planted
itself in the trunk of a tree.
Glistening in Cranston's hand was the exact twin of the dirk that had
arrived so mysteriously in Madame Mathilda's parlor!
CHAPTER IV
CENTRAL PARK was anything but sinister when seen in the pleasant light of
afternoon. It was a melody in green, tempered by streaks of rocky gray, broken
with the sheen of blue pools and ponds, plus a few spots where pleasant streams
came into sight.
Of course there were paths and drives, along with occasional buildings.
People were everywhere. Margo wondered how long they would stay around after
dark, particularly if they thought in terms of a banshee's wail.
Probably everyone was thinking in such terms, for the newspapers were full
of the banshee business. Nothing quite like it had come along since the days of
the famed Jersey Devil or the more recent Mattoon Madman.
Rather fun, having such a mystery right in your own front yard, which was
what Central Park was to all Manhattan. Only the police had placed strong
restrictions upon anyone trampling around in search of the vanished sprite. In
fact, Commissioner Weston had issued an edict to the effect that officially the
banshee did not exist.
Central Park did look like a huge front yard from where Margo viewed it
and that was why the trees, people and everything else looked proportionately
small. Margo's vantage point was the top story of the sizeable Chateau
Parkview, a huge apartment-hotel that towered from the lower side of Central
Park South, once called Fifty-ninth Street.
This apartment belonged to Niles Ronjan and Margo had come here before
with Lamont Cranston. The place was so curious that despite herself, Margo
began to forget Central Park and its mystery of last night.
If the place was curious, so was Ronjan.
Here was a man with the genius of an inventor, the urge of an adventurer,
and the air of a fanatic. He was sallow, quick of eye, and with shaggy, unkempt
hair that fluttered on any provocation. Ronjan gave it plenty of provocation,
the way he bobbed around the room.
Ronjan had to hop around because the room was large and the whole center
was occupied by a large tank the size of a billiard table and similarly mounted
on heavy legs. The tank was full of water, and the metal bottom was shaped
irregularly, as though representing part of the ocean bottom, which it did.
Not only did Ronjan sail boats in this tank, he sank them. At present one
was under water, hanging to a submerged ledge, while another was floating
nearby. The two boats were connected by a curious piece of metal hose which was
made in joined sections.
"There you are, Cranston." Ronjan shook his shaggy hair and spread his
arms deprecatingly. "The Good Wind sunk off Skipper's Rock, with our salvage
boat moored above. The treasure is there, the link is completed" - another
shrug from Ronjan - "and now we must begin all over."
Cranston's eyes denoted query.
"We approached from the wrong side," explained Ronjan. "We took the lee
side, thinking that the sand would have piled from windward. We were wrong, as
Yuble will tell you."
Ronjan gave a gesture toward a corner of the room and Margo furnished a
half-gasp from the window. Margo knew who Yuble was, but she hadn't realized
that the man was here at all. On the few occasions that she had previously seen
Dom Yuble, he had at least been conspicuous.
Now Yuble was rising from the corner chair where he had been a silent
witness to proceedings. Whether he'd been here all along or had come in
silently later, Margo couldn't guess. However Cranston didn't appear perturbed,
probably because he was used to silent tactics himself.
Dom Yuble, sometimes called Captain Yuble, looked like something washed up
from the Spanish Main after having been lost there a long, long time. He
couldn't be termed a chunk of human wreckage because he had stood the test of
time. Rather he was stout timber that had hardened into iron.
Solid of build, taller than he looked because of his brawny proportions
gave him extra width, Yuble had a face that was a study in itself. That face
looked like something that had been molded soft by an apprentice, who had not
done his job too well; then, discouraged, the moulder had left the job alone
and it had set like cooling metal.
Not that Yuble's features were permanently fixed; that applied only to two
scars, one across his cheek, the other a jagged line at the side of his
forehead. Yuble's face was usually stolid simply because he had no reason to
make it otherwise. When he wished, he smiled by parting his straight lips and
showing the gleam of white teeth, but the smile had no particular expression
and might have been interpreted in a dozen ways.
As for Yuble's complexion, it too fitted the hardened softness of the man.
Yuble was dark, or had been once, but his face had become so weather-beaten that
its color was reduced to a peculiar tawn that almost matched an olive drab.
In a way, Yuble seemed the tropical equivalent of a New England fishing
skipper whose face had become as rugged as the rocks of his own shore. In
Yuble's case, his features had taken on something of the look and contour of a
coral reef.
As Yuble stepped forward, his face caught the gleam of sunlight from the
window and his ear-lobes showed large, with round, pierced holes showing in
them. In his native habitat, Yuble evidently wore ear-rings, of a large and
heavy variety. Those lobes had been stretched to double size and they were the
only part of Yuble's ears that showed. The rest was hidden by the mass of
Yuble's curly hair, which was so dark and glossy that Margo wondered why it
wasn't slick instead of curly.
When he spoke, Dom Yuble supplied an apologetic tone that was chiefly
mannerism, though in this case there was cause for it, since he was ready to
take part blame for Ronjan's failure.
"There was sand," agreed Yuble. "Much sand. More sand than would pile on
reefs in the West Indies. But I should have thought to expect sand."
"That's why we need more money, Cranston," asserted Ronjan. "We shall
require new units for the articulated tube when we operate from windward."
Carefully, Ronjan shifted the position of the floating boat and altered
the miniature pipe line accordingly. It came short of the sunken model and
because of the contour of the ocean bed, it was obvious that the new segments
of pipe would have to be inserted at specific intervals along the line.
Cranston accepted this with an understanding nod; then queried calmly:
"What about Craig Farnsworth?"
"He has promised us more money," returned Ronjan, frankly, "but so far he
has not provided it. Perhaps if you talked to him, Cranston -"
With that Ronjan paused, his eyes so canny that Margo suspected that there
was craft behind them. Ronjan was waiting for a response that came. Cranston
nodded again.
With that, Ronjan started eagerly for the door, as though to speed
Cranston to his coming conference with Farnsworth. Cranston followed and Margo
did the same, with Ronjan talking all the while.
"It's a sure investment, Cranston - no need for extra shares in the
enterprise - merely a loan to be paid at interest - perhaps a special bonus for
the investors - the basic arrangement should be the same -"
Repeating such running patter, Ronjan stepped into the elevator when it
arrived and rode down to the ground floor, continuing his statements in a
confidential tone close to Cranston's ear. Out through the spacious lobby,
clear to the street, Ronjan accompanied his parting guests, all the while
emphasizing the very things that he had said before.
Standing by while Ronjan completed his repetitious discourse with
Cranston, Margo stared across at Central Park, now deepening with dusk. As she
asked herself the same old question of whether banshees did exist, Margo had a
sudden start.
Something loomed into the glow of the early street lamps opposite. It
wasn't the exotic figure of some sylvan creature, but a shape even more
unexpected.
For the moment, Margo thought she saw The Shadow!
Then the illusion ended. It was only some peculiar bird that had fluttered
from the gloom, its wings giving the curious effect of a cloaked silhouette,
magnified against the light.
Turning, Margo thought she saw the creature flying upward; then all sight
of it was lost against the front of the tall hotel, though Margo had a vague
impression that the bird had come to roost up beneath the long-eaved roof of
the Chateau Parkview.
A taxicab horn interrupted Margo's train of thought. Having finally shaken
hands with Ronjan, Cranston had hailed the cab and it was waiting to take him
and Margo to their interview with Craig Farnsworth.
"Yes, Margo," said Cranston, "that's Ronjan's apartment up where you see
the top floor lights. He's gone back up there, so we can talk about other
matters."
Margo responded with a surprised smile as she stepped into the cab. If
Lamont wanted to play at reading her thoughts, it would be just as well to let
him think that he was right. No use mentioning the odd bird that had given such
a brief but startling imitation of The Shadow.
If Cranston's guess was wrong, so was Margo's conclusion as was later to
be proved!
CHAPTER V
MINUTES mean much in Manhattan. They produce surprising meetings, curious
situations that often seem like something designed by fate's hand. Yet for all
the remarkable coincidences that occur, there are many more that miss. People
who haven't met for years may pass within a block of one another, or just
around the corner, without ever realizing it.
Similarly, for every singular occurrence that a person may witness by
chance, a dozen other similar incidents may remain unobserved because of the
same freak. Usually though, there is a direct cause; this time it was a taxicab.
If Shrevvy's cab hadn't been at Cranston's call, things would have taken a
different turn. The slight delay that Cranston avoided by having the cab handy,
caused him to miss a bit of luck that fate would otherwise have tossed right in
his lap.
Another cab stopped in front of the Chateau Parkview just after Cranston's
pulled away. From it stepped a girl, an attractive blonde dressed in blue, which
made her floral decoration seem rather drab and therefore conspicuous in a
negative way.
The blonde was wearing a bunch of lilacs.
Looking about, the girl frowned rather prettily, then entered the lobby
and stared at the people there. Her eyes returned to the door, then roved the
lobby again, missing the young man who entered at that moment.
He was a rugged type, this young man, and his stolid expression made him
look older than he was. He had a slight limp, but he wasn't tired when he
paused just inside the doorway. The reason that he paused was because he
expected someone to be looking for him, which was evidenced by the way he took
a stance well in the open of the lobby.
Against the dark brown of his suit, the flower that the young man wore in
his lapel stood out very sharply, except that it wasn't exactly a flower.
It was a tiny sprig of lilac.
At about that moment, the girl in blue decided that she too should be
letting someone look for her, instead of the other way around. Relaxing, she
turned toward the doorway and her gaze met that of the man in brown. She
noticed a contrast instantly; the young man's face looked very pale, but that
was because his hair matched the color of his suit. A slight pallor would
naturally be exaggerated in such a setting.
The young man smiled, both slightly and nicely, then took a few steps
forward. Realizing that she was about to be accosted, the girl was worried, but
only briefly. The man's face was frank and he obviously intended to be polite.
The girl started to smile in return, hesitated, then let the smile arrive.
She had seen the sprig of lilac.
"I'm Philip Harley," the young man stated. "You expected me of course."
The girl nodded. Then:
"And I'm Arlene Forster," she declared. "Of course I knew that you would
expect me, but I wasn't quite sure -"
"Quite sure that I'd be here?"
"No, no." Arlene spoke hastily. "I was certain that someone would meet me,
but I wasn't positive when it would be."
"But the time was specified. Seven o'clock on the evening of the
fifteenth."
"That's what I wasn't sure about, whether you said the fifteenth or the
sixteenth. It was you who phoned me, wasn't it, Mr. Harley?"
A striking change came over the young man's face. Phil Harley was puzzled,
which was why his expression tightened. As quickly the expression faded, before
Arlene Forster noticed it. The girl at that moment was answering her own
question in a reminiscent tone and her violet eyes had a reflective stare.
"No, it couldn't have been you, Mr. Harley," Arlene mused. "The voice was
different. Whoever called said the fifteenth, then changed the day to the
sixteenth. I was sure of it at the time, yet afterward -"
Pausing, Arlene nodded.
"Well, this is the fifteenth," she decided brightly. Her eyes sparkled as
they again met Phil's gaze. "Anyway, we were supposed to meet, and here we are.
We know we're the right people, because we're both wearing a bit of lilac. It's
rather unusual, lilac as a flower, isn't it?"
Phil agreed that it was. Now his expression was very steady. He wondered
if this girl was trying to trick him, or whether she simply wanted him to
declare himself. Since Phil had nothing to declare, the only alternative was to
profess ignorance, which was something else he didn't care to do.
Fortunately, the girl herself provided an opportunity for Phil to parry
longer. She glanced across the lobby toward a pretentious restaurant; then
remarked:
"One thing I remember from that long distance call. The date included
dinner. Am I right this time?"
"You are," assured Phil, "so let's go."
Though various things might puzzle Phil Harley, he had cultivated one
faculty, that of sensing when something odd was occurring nearby. Right now,
Phil was sure that somewhere in the lobby someone had observed his meeting with
the blonde who answered to the name of Arlene Forster.
Phil could almost feel a stir among the patrons of the place, whether they
lived here or merely intended to dine in the swanky cafe that flanked the lobby
of the Chateau Parkview. Locating that stir or the invisible eyes it
represented was a problem in itself, but Phil felt sure that something would
happen to solve it.
Something did happen.
A bell-boy emerged suddenly from behind a pillar, included Arlene with a
quizzical look and called:
"Paging Miss Forster - paging Miss Forster -"
The blonde interrupted the process and announced herself as Miss Forster.
The bell-hop gestured to a deep alcove around past a newsstand.
"Phone call for you," he told Arlene. "You'll find it in the phone booth
where the receiver is off the hook."
Phil tipped the bell-boy a quarter and followed Arlene. To be polite, he
paused at the newsstand while the blonde entered the booth. As Arlene closed
the door, Phil gave her a final glance.
She was very charming. Her profile was shapely and the flowing fluff of
her hair showed beautifully against the background of the booth, though it lost
its blonde effect in the semi-darkness.
What interrupted Phil's stare was the query of the man behind the
newsstand, asking if he wanted anything. Phil decided to buy some cigarettes,
so he named his brand and while the man was finding them, Phil glanced at the
headlines of some newspapers lying on the stand.
Funny headlines, these, all about a banshee in Central Park. There wasn't
any picture of the banshee, but she was described as something very sprightly
and beautiful. Apparently the banshee liked lilacs, for there was a picture of
a lilac tree with inserts showing a broken bough and loose sprig that fitted it.
That cluster of lilac blossoms depicted in the photograph was oddly like
Arlene's corsage!
Eyes narrowing, a flush sweeping his pale face, Phil swung toward the
phone booth. Another oddity impressed him now; he couldn't see Arlene through
the glass of the closed door. There were times when Phil Harley could become
impulsive and this was one of them.
Striding to the phone booth, Phil thrust the door open on its inward
hinges, intending to interrupt Arlene and ask her what the lilac was all about.
That was simply the beginning of a real surprise. Arlene Forster wasn't in
the phone booth. It was entirely empty!
This was something that just couldn't happen - or could it? If Phil's
senses were right, and he prided himself on their accuracy, he certainly should
have been aware of Arlene sneaking past him, if she'd chosen that course. Phil
glared accusingly at the newsstand man, who stared back blankly.
"You saw the girl, didn't you?" demanded Phil. "Where did she go?"
The man seemed to remember the girl vaguely; then, piecing events, he took
the obvious that Phil rejected.
"Guess she went out to the lobby." The newsstand man gestured in that
direction. "I was getting cigarettes; when I turned around, you were reading
the paper. No wonder neither of us saw her leave."
The logic of it made Phil smile.
"I was reading about banshees," he acknowledged. "I suppose I was in a
mood to think somebody vanished."
With that, Phil started to the lobby to seek Arlene, but he couldn't
subdue the belief that he wasn't going to find her. The lobby was large and by
Phil's calculations, Arlene would have had to do some fast footwork to reach
the street door before he saw her. Still, she wasn't in sight, which was just
what Phil expected.
An elevator was standing open; the dials of the others showed them around
the higher floors. The only stairway, a rather grand affair, was as distant as
the street door. That left only the restaurant as the one place near enough for
Arlene to reach. But when Phil reached the entrance to the cafe and surveyed its
expanse of tables, he still couldn't locate the missing blonde.
The cafe was only about half-filled and spotting Arlene should have been
easy, provided she was there, although the place had some pillars that partly
obscured Phil's view. More puzzled than ever, Phil turned toward the lobby
again and stared right at a girl who met him with a smile.
The newcomer wasn't Arlene. To even presume that she might he would mark
the transformation as the fastest and most convincing quick-change on record.
This girl was a brunette, with sleek, black hair, a complexion that was clear,
yet in a sense darkish because of its slight olive tint. Her dark eyes seemed
wondering and gave the same effect to her smile, yet with it there was
something strangely exotic in the brunette's demeanor.
Those dark eyes fixed on the tiny bit of lilac that embellished Phil's
lapel. The girl inquired:
"You are Mr. Phil Harley?"
That was what she said, but it didn't sound the way it spelled. There was
something musical about the girl's accent that made the words sound better when
she mispronounced them. Staring hard, to make sure this girl wouldn't vanish,
too, Phil acknowledged his identity with a nod.
"Very good," the brunette declared. "I was told to meet you here. We are
to have dinner together. Shall we?"
Blonde or brunette, name or no name, Phil Harley decided that it made no
difference, provided there were no more vanishes. At least from this girl, he
might learn something of the situation as it concerned Arlene Forster.
Phil Harley felt he was on the verge of a mystery. He was wrong. He was
right in the middle of one!
CHAPTER VI
FROM the terrace apartment where Craig Farnsworth lived, Central Park
appeared now as a vast patch of black velvet, studded with jewels of light. It
seemed odd, as Margo Lane considered it, how great a change a few hours could
produce in that setting.
Even more odd what a few minutes had done back at the Chateau Parkview,
where a peculiar drama had developed involving Phil Harley and Arlene Forster,
two persons whose connection with an existing mystery had begun too late for
Lamont Cranston to learn about it!
While Margo studied the darkened park and also the distant line of
buildings to the south of it, Cranston listened to Farnsworth's discourse on
the subject of Ronjan's treasure quest.
Craig Farnsworth was a big man and emphatic in proportion to his size. He
was also a big money man, or he couldn't have afforded this fancy apartment in
a high-priced neighborhood on the upper East Side. But having made his money,
Farnsworth wasn't the man to part with it too quickly.
"Ronjan's proposal is very simple," summed Farnsworth, in a scoffing tone.
"We're to put up the extra money, but he is to gain the big share of the
treasure. How does that proposition strike you?"
"As a very minor shareholder," returned Cranston, "I would prefer to hear
your opinion, Farnsworth."
"Quite naturally." A smile spread over Farnsworth's broad, ruddy face.
"You would only have to contribute pro rata to the loan. If I risked much, you
would be willing to risk little. Is that it?"
"That is it."
"Very well then," Farnsworth decided. "I shall advance Ronjan all the
money he needs" - there was a pause while Farnsworth watched Cranston raise his
eyebrows as an expression of surprise - "provided he puts up suitable bond."
This brought an actual smile from Cranston.
"If Ronjan could post a bond," he stated, "he wouldn't need to borrow the
money."
"I said a suitable bond," defined Farnsworth. "By that I mean that Ronjan
should give over ownership in his articulated under-water tube provided he
fails to deliver."
"But failure would prove the tube worthless."
"Not to my mind, Cranston. I believe the device is thoroughly practical.
It may not be suited to present conditions and that is the chance that I am
taking. I want Ronjan to share the hazard."
Cranston understood. Full ownership of the diving tunnel would mean that
Farnsworth and any associates could use it for other projects if this one
failed. However, Farnsworth still had confidence in the present enterprise.
"We've double-checked the story of that treasure off Skipper's Rock,"
declared Farnsworth. "It belonged to Master Glanvil, who owned the brig Good
Wind, which was chartered under a letter-of-marque. Unfortunately Master
Glanvil turned pirate himself, while he was supposed to be preying on corsairs,
much like Captain Kidd did.
"It was on account of what happened to Kidd that Glanvil wouldn't come
into port. Meanwhile, the men who had backed him as a privateer, an Association
of Adventurers, they called themselves, saw their investment dwindling away if
Glanvil skipped."
Margo was listening now from the terrace rail, forgetful of Central Park
and its mysterious charm, in view of this thrilling tale.
"The Association of Adventurers had their rights of course," continued
Farnsworth. "The treasure was declared legally theirs, the question of
Glanvil's status being another matter. However they unloaded their shares cheap
and the whole was bought out by a hard-headed old Dutchman named Thales Van
Woort."
As Farnsworth paused, Cranston put in an appropriate comment.
"A good example, Farnsworth," said Cranston. "Why don't you buy out all
other shares in the missing treasure the way Van Woort did?"
"Because a fool and his money are soon parted," returned Farnsworth. "Not
being a fool, I prefer to part with my money slowly. Still, if Ronjan wants to
sell out entirely, I am willing to buy. But getting back to history -"
Pausing long enough to pour a round of drinks, Farnsworth proceeded.
"Old Van Woort hired a smuggler named Caleb Albersham to go out and urge
Master Glanvil to come into port. It was a smart move, for Albersham was close
to a pirate in his own right. Maybe the fact that Albersham was still at large
was supposed to influence Glanvil, but it didn't.
"After a few trips, made secretly of course, so the authorities wouldn't
interfere, Albersham went out again and this time he was supposed to have
papers on him guaranteeing a safe-conduct to Glanvil. I suppose Van Woort paid
for them too, through the proper official channels.
"Anyway, it was too late. A storm was coming up and Albersham's sloop, the
Rover, which left openly that trip, headed square into trouble that the Good
Wind had already met. It was a bad wind for the Good Wind, because she went
down off Skipper's Rock and the Rover failed to outride the storm.
"Wreckage from the Good Wind was found on Skipper's Rock and chunks of the
Rover washed ashore out toward Montauk Point, where she was carried by the
hurricane. So here's to the Good Wind and the Rover" - Farnsworth raised his
glass - "and salt your drink with a few tears for old Thales Van Woort whose
fortune lies off Skipper's Rock."
It was the first time that Margo had heard the detailed story of the
missing treasure, but she wasn't crying over Van Woort's loss. She was thinking
of a legend she'd heard once: how mermaids were supposed to hover around sunken
treasure, and the connection made her think of the Central Park banshee.
The ringing of the telephone was summoning Farnsworth into his living room
and with the conversation lulled, Margo glanced toward the deep gloom of the
park, only to hear Cranston's calm and accurate query:
"Thinking about banshees, Margo?"
"Why, yes." Momentarily surprised, Margo laughed it off. "I suppose a lot
of other people are, too."
"Miss Sylvia Selmore for one," informed Cranston. "I forgot to tell you
that she postponed her trip to Florida today."
Still staring at the darkness, Margo asked why.
"Sylvia wants to attend more seances," explained Cranston. "She hopes for
another manifestation of the Gwrach y Rhibyn."
Remembering the tense scene in the seance parlor, Margo wasn't inclined to
laugh.
"Of course the Canhywllah Cryth must appear first," assured Cranston. "We
saw it again in the park last night. Remember?"
Margo did remember. She shuddered; then asked in hollow tone:
"That creature near the transverse. Did it - did it really materialize
when those lights appeared - over there?"
Staring straight across the park, Margo was looking toward the dimly
outlined tower of a building, the same one she had noted the night before.
"The right place," declared Cranston. "In fact the only place the blinks
could have come from. That tower is on a direct line with the rear window of
the parlor in Madame Mathilda's house."
Margo turned, surprised:
"How soon did you learn that?"
"Before we left Mathilda's," declared Cranston. "I took a good look from
that window after I ripped away the blackout curtain."
"Then why didn't you send someone over there?"
"I did. Shrevvy took Hawkeye there to find if the way was clear. Harry
Vincent and Cliff Marsland followed."
"But the blinks occurred again -"
"Because Harry and Cliff sent them," interposed Cranston, "to assure me
that the roost was empty. It worried the lurker in the park. He was stationed
where he was to cover the banshee's trail."
"But how could she slip through the cordon?"
"Very easily. A slide down the rock, slowed by the scrubby shrubs she
encountered; then around to the gully."
Margo shook her head.
"I don't think it could be done, Lamont. She would have been seen from the
bridge."
"I'm looking up the proof tomorrow," assured Cranston, "and until then -"
A change came into Cranston's eyes. Following their direction, Margo saw
something that riveted her, then added a freezing touch. From far across the
park, at a new angle, there came another set of mysterious blinks, like those
of the night before.
At last, Margo laughed.
"That's carrying it too far, Lamont. Sending our friends to play the
blinker just to frighten me."
"Except it's not Harry and Cliff," declared Cranston. "I would know their
signals. Besides, they are watching the park itself tonight." Cranston's arm
steadied Margo and turned her toward the living room. "Stay here" - the words
were an undertone - "and talk with Farnsworth. Tell him I want complete details
on the business of the treasure. Take them in shorthand."
As Margo nodded, Cranston left. Farnsworth was still busy on the
telephone, his voice came booming from the next room as he argued with his
lawyer over the tax exemptions that were legally permissible on money invested
in a treasure hunt.
Despite herself, Margo was back at the terrace rail a few minutes later,
but she wasn't looking for the tiny twinkles that still continued. Margo's eyes
were gazing downward toward this subdued sector of Fifth Avenue.
Imagination maybe, but Margo Lane could have sworn that she saw a cloaked
figure glide across the avenue and blend into the foliage of Central Park. This
time at least, the illusion wasn't caused by the chance flit of a passing bird.
The Shadow had appointed himself a one man Association of Adventurers to
find out what wasn't right in Central Park!
CHAPTER VII
THE name of the sleek-haired brunette was Thara Lamoyne, which went with
her exotic appearance, at least in Phil Harley's opinion. During dinner she had
proven reasonably talkative, always with that unusual accent which Phil couldn't
quite trace back to its origin.
She thought strange things were ludicrous, this Thara.
"How very funny!" Thara exclaimed, reverting to a topic of the dinner.
"You meet a blonde lady and pouf she vanishes! Then you meet Thara. But tell
me" - Thara leaned across the table in a fashion most intriguing - "the name of
this blonde girl. You still remember it?"
Phil nodded and said:
"Her name was Arlene Forster."
Annoyed, Thara leaned back.
"By now you should have forgotten it!" she asserted. "Tell me, why do you
still think of this other girl, who disappears like - like" - Thara couldn't
find the word at first - "like that thing they talk about, the banshee."
That opened Phil's eyes really wide.
"Say, maybe that was it!" he exclaimed. Then, with a laugh, Phil added.
"No, that couldn't be. According to the descriptions of the banshee, Arlene
would have left her clothes in the telephone booth if she evaporated in person."
Thara took that statement seriously, or in another sense, she was serious
enough to think that Phil was gullible.
"You believe that nonsense?" she queried. "It is very foolish if you do.
Maybe the moonlight played some tricks with people's eyes, as in the country
where I have lived so long. Or perhaps some girl wearing a bathing suit was
going swimming in the pool, just because it was not allowed there."
"She wasn't wearing a bathing cap," reminded Phil. "The newspapers spoke
of her long, flowing hair, like Arlene's, except that it was dark."
"You mean the night was dark," argued Thara, "except for the moonlight,
which plays so many tricks. But if you wish to find out more, go to the park -
in daytime."
"Why in daytime?" parried Phil. "Are the banshees liable to catch me?"
"The banshees? No! The police! You read the newspapers and you will find
out they have put many of them there. Too many police - no banshee. You see!"
With that, Thara laughed in her really musical style; then, resting her
elbows on the table, her chin between her hands, she gave Phil all that serious
glow of her dark, breathtaking eyes and came back to prosaic matters.
"It is a friend of mine who asked that I should meet you," said Thara.
"Just a business friend" - seemingly she added this so that Phil would lose no
budding thoughts of romance - "but it is better it should be that way, because
the business should be good for you."
Phil gave an approving nod.
"You were in the army," stated Thara. "You were with what they call the
engineers, doing special work?"
Another nod from Phil.
"The job will be one hundred dollars a week," asserted Thara. "It is to
study some papers that they call patents and give reports if they are
practical."
"Sounds great," enthused Phil. "Whose office do I work in?"
"Some office?" queried Thara. "No, that would be too much expense. The
hotel room is reserved for you, along the street here, at the Sans Souci."
"The Sans Souci," repeated Phil. "That sounds expensive in itself. Still,
since I'm starting at one hundred a week -"
"None of the expense is yours. The hotel room; it will be paid for each
week in advance, by the person who will wish the work done with the patents."
If money had come floating through the air, Phil Harley couldn't have been
more amazed. Still, he'd heard of fabulous business dealings in New York, and
getting off to a quick start like this was probably the type of break that
occurred every day.
They were rising from the table, Phil and Thara, the girl awaiting the
decision that she was to take back to her unknown friend. Phil wasn't long in
rendering it.
"I'll take the job," he said, "and gladly. Maybe we should go out and
celebrate right now."
"Not now," reproved Thara, as they crossed the lobby. "Later, when you
have the money. To get to the Sans Souci, you walk to the east, two blocks.
Good-night."
Thara was turning away when she spoke and Phil turned too, hoping that the
girl hadn't vanished like Arlene. Momentarily, Phil saw an elevator with its
door open, but Thara hadn't stepped into it; the only darkish face that he saw
belonged to a stolid, brawny man who looked as wide as the door itself, and his
features were tawny, compared to Thara's delicate olive.
Odd people, these New Yorkers; perhaps Phil was right in that supposition,
but he shouldn't have included Dom Yuble in that category. The Caribbean sea
captain was purely a portion of Manhattan's passing show.
Then, as the elevator door clanged shut, Phil saw Thara over by the
newsstand, giving him a parting smile so thoroughly alluring that he hoped she
wouldn't vanish.
Which reverted Phil's thoughts to Arlene as he went out the street door.
Wondering if anybody chanced to remember the missing blonde, Phil glanced to
his left and saw a most amazing thing.
Drawn up to the curb was an old-fashioned hansom cab, its driver
half-asleep on the high box. As Phil approached and paused, the man opened one
eye beneath his old plug hat and looked down. Figuring that from such an
elevation the hansom driver should have witnessed much. Phil called up:
"See anything of a girl about an hour ago? A blonde, wearing lilacs - like
this?"
Plucking the blossom from his buttonhole, Phil showed it, then tossed the
wilted flower away. The hackie waved his whip toward a doorway at his right;
then wagged it across the street toward the border of the park.
"She came out and somebody called a victoria for her," stated the hansom
driver. "She was kind of breathless, like she needed fresh air. This hansom was
too cramped for her; that's why she took an open carriage."
"Where did she go?"
The man gave Phil a stare, then gestured with his whip.
"For a ride in the park," the man stated. "Where else would she want to
take a carriage?"
Nodding to prove he'd learned something, Phil started along Central Park
South. Impressed with the very sudden notion that Arlene might really be the
banshee, Phil thought of turning back and asking the hansom driver what else
the girl had been wearing besides lilacs. It struck Phil then that Arlene
certainly wouldn't take to sylvan costumery until she reached her favorite pool.
Wondering about that pool and its allure, Phil went west instead of east.
Failing to see the name of the Hotel Sans Souci, he paused to make inquiry.
Phil was right in front of a hotel called the Parkside House, when he witnessed
what seemed a trifling incident.
A man with a large suitcase was coming from the doorway brushing away a
bell-boy who offered to carry the bag to a waiting cab. Poor policy on the
man's part, for of a sudden, his burden became too heavy, and he sagged toward
the sidewalk. Phil caught him as the bag clattered, steadied the fellow and
looked at his thin, peaked face.
"Very sorry," the man muttered. He gave Phil a look with gray eyes that
were watery, but appealing. "I guess - guess I was just a bit dizzy."
"Blind staggers," diagnosed Phil. "Ease your head back. I'll get you into
the cab."
There was something about the man's long face that was vaguely familiar to
Phil. Drawn though they were, those features had a trace of the aristocratic. As
Phil helped the fellow to the cab, the man fumbled in his pocket and a wallet
fell out, spilling some loose papers. Phil recovered them and in the light of
the marquee, saw both a calling card and an addressed envelope that bore the
man's name.
That name was Winslow Ames.
The door man now was giving Phil a hand with Mr. Ames. In his turn, Ames
put away the wallet and its papers, to bring out a smaller envelope that
contained a railroad ticket.
"Penn Station," he muttered. "Going to Boston."
"Boston?" queried the door man. "You want Grand Central."
"Couldn't get a ticket on the regular train," argued Ames, apparently
recuperated. "Have to take the car that gets picked up at Penn by the through
train from Washington. Pennsylvania Station" - this was to the driver - "and
take it slowly. I'll feel better if you do."
The cab pulled away and another drew up. Muttering to himself, the door
man opened the cab door, thinking Phil wanted it.
"Oughtn't to have let him go," the door man was saying, referring to Ames.
"He may be wrong about that sleeper. Somebody ought to have gone along with him."
That gave Phil an idea of his own. He took the cab and told the driver to
follow the one ahead. Rather than have it seem that he was trailing somebody,
Phil explained:
"A friend of mine. He isn't feeling well, but he wouldn't hear of my going
to the station with him. I'm going anyway."
It wasn't just a good deed on Phil's part. He wanted to see some of New
York anyway. It happened that he was going to have that wish fulfilled. Both
cabs did a lot of turning around corners and finally wheeled through a gateway
composed of two great stone pillars.
"Your friend must be going to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street,"
announced Phil's driver, gesturing ahead, "considering that his cab is going
through the park. That's the only station, the way he's headed."
Odd, thought Phil, that this should happen. Intrigued as well as puzzled,
Phil kept his gaze glued to the cab ahead and therefore didn't notice that a
third such vehicle had fallen into the procession.
Except for its driver, the last cab seemed empty, but it wasn't. Riding in
it was a figure cloaked entirely in black.
That passenger could only be The Shadow!
CHAPTER VIII
CENTRAL PARK boasts perhaps a dozen miles of driveways which form what has
been termed an informal pattern.
If Phil Harley had heard the term "informal" thus applied, he could well
have regarded it a synonym for "confusing" because the pattern became exactly
such.
All the drives were winding affairs that had a habit of being one-way,
though they seemed too broad for that. Hence cars were passing one another in a
puzzling and unorthodox fashion, at least from the stranger's viewpoint.
There were traffic lights at places where none seemed needed; these were
to let pedestrians or horse-back riders cross the drives, though Phil didn't
realize it. Mixed with the stream of automobiles were occasional carriages or
hacks, forming part of the general procession.
Keeping track of direction was impossible, particularly at night. The
passing scene was frequently blacked out by slopes, even cliffs that flanked
the drive, with plenty of attendant trees. Emerging after a long curve, Phil
could not tell on what side of the park the various tall buildings were located
when he saw them again.
Not only the lights in Central Park, but those around it became a
kaleidoscopic whirl and as for tracing things by watching the crossings of the
driveways, that was impossible too. Many of the drives forked apart or flowed
into one another and they crossed the underpasses on bridges that couldn't be
distinguished in the dark.
One thing, however, was certain.
Phil's cab was getting the runaround.
"That friend of yours," the driver growled. "He can't seem to make up his
mind. Where is he going - to the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street Station,
or back to Grand Central?"
"Neither," replied Phil. "He said he was going to the Pennsylvania
Station."
"He's more likely to wind up at the Jersey Central Ferry," the driver
decided. "Unless" - Phil could see narrowed eyes in the front seat mirror -
"unless maybe he doesn't want you to tag along."
Before Phil could answer that one, the cab ahead took an unexpected spurt.
It was gone around the next curve like a whippet and if Phil's driver hadn't
answered the challenge automatically, he would have been left far behind. As it
was, the pickup of Phil's cab was a trifle too late, or would have been, but for
an added factor.
As they took the bend, Phil saw an odd thing ahead. The cab containing
Ames was performing badly on an S-turn, as though its speed had thrown it out
of the driver's control. It looked as though it had careened clear from the
road on to a slant of hard-baked open ground, only to come ricocheting back to
the driveway.
The cab was completing its gyration when Phil spotted it and that would
have ended the episode, but for the added factor. Whizzing up beside Phil's cab
and passing it came The Shadow's speed-built job with Shrevvy at the wheel. The
Shadow too wanted to see what was happening beyond the bend and in passing
Phil's cab, Shrevvy revealed an added item of the scene.
Shrevvy's headlights slanted across the sun-baked terrace and momentarily
picked out a ghost cab that practically evaporated under the glow!
Phil would have considered it an optical illusion produced by a peculiar
reflection of Shrevvy's headlamps. The Shadow, however, did not think in those
terms, even though the sight was fleeting. He spoke an order to Shrevvy, who
promptly cut across the path of Phil's cab and hit the hardest soil.
Shrevvy calculated that swerve down to a matter of inches. If Phil's
driver had gauged as well, he would have kept straight ahead, clearing
Shrevvy's rear bumper cleanly. Only Phil's driver didn't see it that way, so he
did the instinctive thing. Cutting his wheel he swerved hard, letting the
cross-clipping cab drive him from the road, so that side by side the two
vehicles went lurching over the hardened ground like a scene from an ancient
chariot race.
Thus began a series of complications.
It happened that The Shadow was aiming after the ghost cab. By rights,
Phil should have continued the chase of the cab that had gyrated and then
continued along the driveway, whether it still contained Ames or not.
As a matter of fact, it didn't contain Ames, because it wasn't his cab at
all. Ames was in the cab that had disappeared across the terrace, namely the
ghost cab. The other was a substitute cab that had purposely scooted from some
lurking spot to replace the original and carry on a blank trail.
But Phil didn't believe in ghosts, particularly when they took the shape
of cabs. He presumed that Shrevvy had run him off the road just so he couldn't
keep after Ames. Thus, as Phil's cab halted at a clump of trees right beside
The Shadow's, Phil was not only ready, but literally aching for action.
Not knowing that Shrevvy's cab contained a passenger, Phil sprang out to
grab the only person that he saw, the driver. Even Shrevvy, a quick, darty chap
by nature, wasn't able to get clear of Phil's clutching hands. With the expert
precision of his army training, Phil hauled Shrevvy out from behind the wheel
and would have started choking information from him if something hadn't
intervened.
The something was solid blackness that came with the speed of a whirlwind,
the impact of a battering-ram. Phil Harley had met The Shadow.
When Phil rubbed his head, his own cabby was propping him and speaking
across his shoulder.
"You must've run into a tree or something," the fellow said. "You just
kinda bounced right back."
Looking around, Phil saw that the other cab had pulled back to the drive
and was starting away. Phil's own cabby decided to do the same and invited Phil
to get inside. Phil would have, if the cabby hadn't dropped a remark.
"This place reminds me of that banshee talk," the cabby said. "Only when a
taxicab does banshee stuff, I'm not the guy to believe it."
"What taxicab?" demanded Phil.
"The one that was rolling in here ahead of both of us," the man explained.
"The blackness sorta swallowed it up and when we got here to the trees, it was
gone. I still don't believe it, but the thing was spooky."
Phil still couldn't swear that it hadn't been an optical illusion but this
testimony, coupled with his own recollection, made him decide the thing was
real. Stepping half into the cab, he hopped out again and slammed the door as
the driver was backing to the drive.
Then, with his own cab departing by the same route as Shrevvy's, both far
behind the trail that a third cab had taken on the one-way drive, Phil stole
back toward the darkness of those thick-clumped trees. He moved rapidly but
cautiously for he didn't want to run into the living figure of blackness that
had sprawled him not long before.
Maybe he'd have to fight that invisible foe again, but first Phil wanted
to find what he erroneously supposed The Shadow was protecting, namely the
thing that Phil had first mistaken for a ghost cab.
For now Phil Harley was confident that the wayward cab was real; that it
was actually the one that he had seen leave the Parkside House; that most
important of all, a missing man named Winslow Ames had been spirited away in
that very vehicle!
CHAPTER IX
MYSTERY cleared itself, at least in part, as Phil Harley reached the
trees. There he found a gap among them and realized, as he came into the midst
of the clump, that he was following what could have been once a narrow road.
Moreover, the narrow clearing ended in a style that established the fact.
It stopped at a broad brick building, which had a large, sliding door. Looking
up, Phil distinguished by the trickly moonlight that the building was of brick;
from its cupola, he judged it to be an old fashioned stable, now deserted.
Phil tried the door and it rattled freely, but proved to be fastened on
the inside. Off to the left and far below, Phil caught a passing glitter of
light and decided to learn what it meant. If he'd known Central Park, he
wouldn't have been puzzled.
The stable was built atop a transverse; what Phil saw was the passing
light of a car down in the deep underpass. Other lights sped by in the same
fashion, indicating that traffic was as usual down there, despite the mystery
of the ghostly phenomena above.
Except that it wasn't ghostly any more.
To Phil, the explanation was quite palpable. The missing cab, with Ames in
it, must have rolled right into the old stable. After that, somebody had
barricaded the door. But when Phil peered through the small-paned windows of
the old stable door, he didn't see a cab inside.
That meant it would be a good idea to look around. The way to look was to
the left, where the lights were slithering through the transverse, which Phil
didn't know as yet was just a roadway. Phil thought that those lights indicated
some strange subterranean manifestations. He could have soon corrected that
impression, but he didn't.
Something else intervened.
Just as Phil was about to start around the left side of the building, he
heard the music. Considering that Phil's head was still ringing from his brief
but jolty encounter with The Shadow, he began to think that his ears deceived
him.
But the music persisted, though muted, and it came from the right of the
building, not the left. So Phil started in that direction.
Just around the corner of the building, something slithered across Phil's
path and tripped him. The thing had the swift, crawly touch of a snake, which
by its size must have been something resembling a boa constrictor. So when Phil
sprawled, he rolled over twice, to get away from the reptilian hazard and his
roll carried him into a cluster of shrubs.
Rising gingerly on hands and knees, Phil disentangled himself from the
bushes. He could still hear that muffled music, somewhere to the right, while
from behind him came the slicking sound that he classified as a passing snake.
Central Park was quite a place in Phil's present opinion, which only proved
that he had no idea of what the future might hold in store.
The crawly sound dwindled off in the direction of the music, which
suddenly ceased. Then, from the right side of the building came the clatter of
an opening door. Dropping behind the bushes, Phil saw some huddled figures
emerge from the building; the door that they used was smaller than the one in
front, too small in fact to accommodate the missing taxicab.
From the way the figures were hunched, Phil was certain that they carried
a burden, which in turn made him think of Winslow Ames!
As soon as the procession passed, Phil followed in its wake. The huddled
men took what seemed to be a winding path, veering in among trees and bushes.
They passed a circular building not far from the old stable, then continued
deeper into the wilds of Central Park, until their course took a sharp turn.
All this while, Phil was thinking in terms of the invisible fighter that
he had met before. Somehow he classed that mysterious being as part and parcel
of this strange procession.
In brief, Phil was sizing The Shadow wrongly; hence he was making a bad
beginning something worse. For the Shadow, too, was on that very trail.
Behind Phil, visible only at moments when a clearing allowed a strong glow
of moonlight, stalked a cloaked shape that had come from the left side of the
old stable, attracted by the muffled music that had drawn Phil's attention.
Two things occurred at once. Phil lost the trail of that hunched crew
ahead and at the same time stumbled upon a dirt road that happened to be a
bridle path. Figuring the direction that the men must have taken, Phil tried to
find them in the dark.
Phil succeeded, but in a delayed fashion.
Off above a hedge that flanked the bridle path, Phil saw some quick
flickers of light that could only have come from a high building. Those blinks
struck him as a signal, but when they finished Phil was unable to interpret
them. Looking toward the hedge, which was thick, like a line of shrubbery, Phil
saw a signal blink below and heard a rumble that accompanied it.
This was a truck, coming beneath an underpass over which the bridle path
ran on a hedge-flanked bridge, but Phil didn't recognize it. What impressed him
was a stir amid the hedge, an indication that the men he was following were
still on the move. That was quite enough to end Phil's urge for caution.
With a fierce lunge, Phil started to fling himself into the unknown band,
when he saw another figure flanking in from the moonlight. It was black, that
shape, but with a flowing effect that gave the impression of a cloak. His
instinct at a fever pitch, Phil took it that this must be his opponent of a
while before.
Phil was right; this was The Shadow. But Phil was wrong in considering the
cloaked interloper an enemy. Vengefully, Phil hurled himself upon The Shadow and
a moment later they were reeling in a clinch, crashing half through the hedge.
From below came the roar of the truck as it disappeared beneath the
bridge. Then, Phil was hovering over a brink that showed him the roadway below.
The Shadow, knowing this terrain, had turned the grapple into a disaster where
Phil was concerned; but as Phil forgot the clinch in order to grab for safety,
The Shadow responded by hauling him back to safe ground.
Figures were scrambling in the opposite direction, starting a mad getaway
through the hedge in order to reach the bridle path. After them went a laugh,
fierce and sinister: the challenge of The Shadow. It was the sort of mirth that
rankled men of crime and Phil, being of quite the opposite stripe, knew then
that The Shadow was a friend.
What the fugitives had done with Ames was a matter for further
speculation. Right now, the job was to round up that crew, and as Phil heard
The Shadow's laugh trail after them, he decided to follow. Thus began a pursuit
that was to end in startling surprises.
So fast did The Shadow travel that Phil soon realized his own job would be
to deal with stragglers. They were across the bridge and spreading pell-mell
down through a slope of thinly wooded land. Off to one side, Phil was certain
that he saw a figure drop into a crouch, so he drove in that direction.
Up came the figure with a snarl, out into the full moonlight. To his
amazement, Phil saw a spotted leopard, springing at him with all the fury that
a maddened beast would display. Instinct called for a quick change of course,
but it was too late by then.
Meeting the leopard head on, Phil found that it wasn't a leopard after
all. The swing that he made for the creature's jaws met a face that was
rubbery, but human. The speed of Phil's punch reduced its value, for he
literally knocked his antagonist some twenty feet down the slope and before
Phil could go after the leopard-man, the fellow was away.
Chasing a man who wore a leopard skin was just about as crazy as hunting a
banshee, but this was Central Park, where anything could happen. For one thing,
the man in the leopard costume didn't vanish, perhaps because he was carrying
more weight than the girl who had played the banshee the night before. What was
more, he had an objective.
Coming to a long flight of stone steps, Phil took them almost headlong in
pursuit of the fake leopard. Phil caught himself by grabbing at some tall bars
that he passed and was greeted by a protesting roar from something huge and
white, which he realized was a polar bear. Kiting away from that hazard, Phil
rounded the fenced area that formed the bear's cage and overtook the creature
he was after.
Except that it wasn't the same creature.
This time the snarl was genuine; the beast likewise. A real leopard,
vividly spotted in the moonlight, popped right up from the path to bar Phil's
way. In no mood for an argument, Phil took to another flight of steps, which
led upward, and thus avoided an encounter with the bona fide jungle prowler.
From somewhere came a long shrill whistle like a cat-call. The leopard
turned and ran among some buildings that were backed with extensive cages, for
this was the Central Park Zoo. Then all was silent, all sounds of the strange
drama blotted.
A whispered laugh sounded from above the steps that Phil had first
navigated. Again, The Shadow was visible against the moonlight. The first
fugitives had gained too great a head start; The Shadow, like Phil, had
diverted his attention to stragglers, but now none of them were to be found.
The Shadow simply saw the leopard scooting one direction, Phil traveling in the
other.
With that, The Shadow decided that this episode was over.
Perhaps The Shadow was right, where he personally was concerned, but Phil
Harley, who had blundered into about every type of experience, was due for one
more.
Enough commotion had occurred to produce the blare of police whistles and
the answering sirens of patrol cars, for Central Park was heavy with the law
tonight. The Shadow could easily pass through a forming cordon, but not Phil
Harley.
Racing madly through a tunnel formed by a foot-path, Phil took to the
bushes and clambered up a rocky slope which brought him to an upper drive. The
excitement hadn't reached this higher elevation and Phil saw exactly what he
wanted for a restful getaway. An open carriage with two seats that faced each
other, was coming along the drive at only a fair gait. Popping from a clump of
brush, Phil pulled himself on board.
The plug-hatted driver was half asleep, so Phil's arrival scarcely stirred
him. But what stirred Phil was the sight of a passenger already in the carriage.
The moonlight showed a girl in the opposite seat of the victoria; she was
resting back, with her head tilted upward, her eyes closed.
A girl in blue, but lacking the lilac bouquet that she had worn earlier:
Arlene Forster!
As the hack emerged from one of the park gateways, Arlene stirred. Lifting
her head, she stared at Phil, then drew up the sleeve of her dress to cover a
bare shoulder. Drawing her hand across her throat, Arlene stared at Phil as
though she had never seen him before.
Then, gradually, the blonde's memory seemed to return.
"I - I was dizzy," she stammered. "I must have gone out for some air. Nice
of you - thanks a lot - for the drive through the park. I - I feel a lot better
already."
The carriage hauled up in front of a hotel that bore the name Plaza
Central. With a smile, Arlene alighted, scarcely needing Phil's steadying hand.
"This is where I live," said Arlene with a smile. "Good-night. I shall see
you again, I'm sure."
The victoria was on the move again, its horse acting as though the swank
line of hotels were a regular milk route. The next in order happened to be the
Sans Souci, so Phil stepped to the sidewalk when the carriage stopped. Before
Phil could question the driver, even on the point if anything was owing for the
trip, the fellow flicked the horse with his whip and the hack continued on its
way.
People strolling along Central Park South saw Phil Harley staring dumbly
across the thoroughfare as though he expected Central Park to speak for itself
and explain the enigmas that it harbored.
CHAPTER X
THE newspapers were loaded with a story of a man named Winslow Ames who
had disappeared most peculiarly and Lamont Cranston was reading all about it,
much to the annoyance of Margo Lane, who had other things to talk about. At
last Lamont laid the newspaper aside.
"It's time you apologized for last night," broached Margo. "I thought we
were going to a night-club. Instead, you left me parked at Farnsworth's."
"Sorry, Margo," Cranston returned. "I was detained longer than I
anticipated."
"In Central Park?"
"In Central Park."
Eyeing Cranston as though she didn't believe him, Margo gave the reason.
"It wasn't so very long before all those blinks ended," the girl declared.
"Nor was it long after that, when I heard the whistles and the sirens and saw a
lot of lights that must have meant police cars because they went so fast. So
you couldn't have been banshee hunting very long" - Margo's gaze narrowed -
"unless perhaps you found the banshee."
"No banshee," said Cranston, with the slightest of smiles. "I was checking
on the lights. They came from different places."
Margo nodded.
"I know," she admitted. "I saw them from Farnsworth's terrace."
"Some were messages," Cranston analyzed, "while others were just signals.
Whoever is delegated to send them is working it cutely. One batch from one
place; then he goes somewhere else. They must have learned that I sent men to
track down the lights, the first night."
Margo began to realize that Lamont could have been quite busy hunting
clues to the lights, without wasting any time around the banshee pool. Besides,
there were no reports today of any gorgeous femininity having created a new stir
among the lilacs, the night before.
"But how do they get away with it?" queried Margo. "People just can't go
up to the top of apartment buildings and start flashing lights."
"Can't they?" queried Cranston. "Have you ever tried it?"
Margo shook her head.
"It's easy," assured Cranston, "when you have a mile or more of buildings
to pick from. Lots of them have open roofs where the tenants go in hot weather
and their friends come up to visit them. Some buildings have service elevators
and there are all sorts of excuses such as delivering packages, that would
allow a trip to the top floor.
"Besides, those flashes weren't all from top floors; a lot of them were
just high up. They didn't have to come from apartments; but from corridor
windows that opened in the right direction. So you can be quite sure that none
of those lights really represented the Canhywllah Cyrth."
"Particularly since the banshee didn't reappear," agreed Margo. "But you
said some of the blinks were messages. How did you know?"
"I worked at decoding some that flashed the other night," Cranston
explained. "The first glimmers that showed this evening fitted with the code.
It said something about the Parkside House and there was another word, rather
hard to make out."
"Have you any idea what it was?"
"I have now. The word was a name. It spelled Ames."
Margo's eyes widened.
"You mean the disappearance of Winslow Ames was ordered by those signals,
Lamont?"
"It was. I was lucky enough to pick up the trail of two cabs outside the
Parkside House. Their actions were suspicious, so I had Shrevvy follow them."
"And one contained Ames!"
"Very probably. Its route was a throw-off. It doubled around a few blocks
and then back to Central Park. The police haven't yet supposed that a trail
would go back to where it started from" - Cranston gestured to the newspaper -
"so they are still trying to trace Ames to Penn Station."
All this left Margo rather amazed and with it brought the situation back
to its starting point. Where last night was concerned, Cranston had a complaint
of his own, so he introduced it in timely fashion.
"Up at Farnsworth's, recalled Cranston. "I left you there for a purpose,
Margo. You were supposed to gather a detailed report regarding the treasure
hunt off Skipper's Rock."
That threw Margo on the immediate defensive.
"Why, I did -"
"Did what?" put in Cranston. "Moon at Central Park over Farnsworth's
terrace? Maybe Reilly saw your beaming face shining down from above and blew
his whistle as a matter of routine."
Margo's face was roundish, like the moon's, but that was only because she
was trying to glare. From her purse, she produced a notebook and planked it
down hard.
"There's the report," she announced, "all in shorthand. Mr. Farnsworth
dictated it between telephone calls. I didn't want to be impolite, so I went
out on the terrace when he talked to people. Shall I read the notes?"
"A good idea," decided Cranston, blandly, "but let's proceed in a
leisurely manner. Suppose we go over to the park and hire ourselves a barouche
or whatever they call those open carriages. You can read the report while we
take a drive."
Fifteen minutes later, the clatter of a horse's hoofs formed the obligato
to Margo's monotone rendition of the shorthand notes.
The details were pretty much as Cranston knew them, particularly as
Farnsworth's summary was honest and impartial. Condensed, it ran as follows:
The history of the Good Wind, sunk off Skipper's rock with the treasure
brought back by Master Glanvil, pirate pro tem, was well authenticated, in fact
verified by the records that concerned the visits of the sloop Rover, owner
Caleb Albersham, to the moored brig.
Perennially, treasure seekers had visited Skipper's Rock in hope of
reclaiming the sunken wealth that should have been the property of Thales Van
Woort, last and only member of the Association of Adventurers. If the treasure
had ever been brought ashore, it would have become Van Woort's, or a legacy to
his heirs; but sunk at sea, it belonged to anyone who could execute a
successful salvage.
No one could, because the Good Wind was sunk too deep.
Thus the treasure situation had remained static while the world progressed
until Niles Ronjan, an inventor of peculiar genius, had devised his articulated
tube, a water-tight tube that could descend to submarine depths and allow
access to sunken vessels.
It sounded simple, this business of shoving a pliable pipe-line down to
the bottom of the sea, but the actual process produced complications. Money was
needed to finance the undertaking; this, Craig Farnsworth had provided.
In so doing, Farnsworth had invited others to share in the undertaking;
Farnsworth's reason was that he wanted to be sure the project was a sound one.
At the same time, economy was the watchword and Ronjan had agreed to abide by
it. When the sectional tube neared its goal, Ronjan had hired Dom Yuble, an
accomplished Caribbean diver, to go down and steer the creeping tunnel into
place.
Dom Yuble should have been hired earlier.
The diver's report showed that sand had buried the Good Wind. To get at
the sunken vessel a new attempt was necessary from the other side. From that
point, Farnsworth's notes became queries.
Would the project be worthwhile?
Could it be that sand had buried the Good Wind completely, making Ronjan's
invention useless?
Was Ronjan entitled to a larger share because of the increased investment,
or should the added cost be charged against him because he had failed to hire
Dom Yuble earlier?
Farnsworth had answered those questions. In his opinion, he should still
receive the major share. Apparently, Ronjan was agreed, but if so, Farnsworth
felt that Ronjan himself should defray the added cost.
This brought up another question: Why not let Ronjan pay it? From that
came a further query: Did Ronjan have the money?
Farnsworth claimed yes to both.
Then why hadn't Ronjan undertaken the entire project on his own?
Easily answered, that question. In Farnsworth's opinion, Ronjan had wanted
others to bear the freight in case of failure. It was time that Ronjan admitted
the fault and until he did, Farnsworth wouldn't put up another penny. That was
final and it ended the report.
Amid the clatter of the horse's hoofs, Margo looked up from her notes and
said:
"Do you know what Farnsworth really thinks?"
"I'm interested," replied Cranston. "So tell me."
"Farnsworth thinks that he can outlast Ronjan," declared Margo.
"Farnsworth has to pay rent anyway, up at that de luxe apartment of his. But
Ronjan can't live forever at the Chateau Parkview; he's staying there only
while the treasure hunt is on. So Farnsworth thinks that Ronjan will have to
come around begging sooner or later - and probably sooner."
It pleased Margo when she saw that Cranston was responding with a nod.
Getting Lamont to admit anything was quite a feather for Margo's cap, except
that she wasn't wearing a cap and therefore couldn't put feathers in it.
Cranston proved that when he countered:
"Do you know what I think?"
Margo shook her head.
"I think," decided Cranston; "that it would be a lot of fun to take a ride
on a merry-go-round. We'll stop right here and try it." He gestured to the
driver indicating that he wanted the carriage to stop. "I'm sure it would clear
our minds of a lot of problems, Margo."
Right then, Margo Lane decided that she'd like to have her mind cleared of
one specific problem, by name Lamont Cranston, whose idea of fun was something
Margo didn't think was funny.
CHAPTER XI
THE merry-go-round was some distance away, across a stretch of hard-baked
ground and it proved to be a very dilapidated affair. Despite herself, Margo
was intrigued by the fact that Cranston had discovered a forgotten carrousel,
off here in Central Park.
"Why, it's terribly old!" exclaimed Margo. "Probably nobody has used it
for years!"
"Better say hours," suggested Cranston. "The same applies to that old
stable over there."
Looking among the trees, Margo saw the stable. It was a brick building
oddly constructed. Up here they were on the level with the stable's second
story, because the first floor - which might have been termed a basement -
extended down into a stone wall flanking a deep transverse.
This was rather interesting, but Margo was more impressed by the
merry-go-round. She knew that one was in operation in Central Park, but this
wasn't it. This one had apparently been forgotten for years, but it was due for
revival. The interior was freshly painted; so were the wooden animals, what
there were of them.
Most of the carved animals were gone, but the dozen on display were
spick-and-span, fresh from the paint shop where the rest were probably
undergoing treatment. Lions, tigers, even a miniature giraffe gained Margo's
fascinating stare, until Cranston interrupted:
"What would you say of a merry-go-round that had a boa constrictor, Margo?"
The very thought shuddered Margo. Apparently serious, Cranston gestured
toward the stable and as they walked in that direction, Margo saw traces of the
very creature suggested. Cleaving its way through the dusty topsoil was a broad
streak that looked exactly like a snake's trail!
Small wonder that Margo's shudders increased as they neared the stable,
but Cranston promptly reassured her.
"It wasn't a snake," he stated. "It was a rope. It came out through there."
By "there" Cranston referred to a space beneath a side door of the stable
and the door itself was unusual. It looked like a door for horses, except that
it was so small a horse would have had to crawl through on its knees. The door
was locked, but Cranston opened it with a skeleton key and bowed Margo inside.
Right near the little door were some old stalls of miniature size, which
answered Margo's mental query.
"They must have kept ponies here, Lamont!"
"Wrong," replied Cranston. "They kept goats. It was quite fun, years ago,
for children to go riding in little wagons drawn by goats. You should delve
into the history of Central Park, Margo."
There were larger stalls on the other side of the stable, near the big
door, while in a corner Cranston indicated a platform set in the stone floor.
"They kept horses in those big stalls," he explained, "and there were a
lot more downstairs. That platform is an elevator that was used to haul hay up
from below."
The wooden platform rattled when Cranston stepped upon it, but it bore his
weight quite easily.
"This elevator was used last night," declared Cranston in a tone that
seemed more than mere conjecture. "A taxicab was hauled up from the floor below
and sent out through the big door. Another cab came in and was lowered to the
transverse level. After that the elevator was brought up again."
Margo suddenly shook her head.
"Couldn't be," she insisted. "The elevator may be strong enough, but
there's no motive power to haul up anything as heavy as a taxicab."
"I told you about the rope," reminded Cranston. "It was hooked to the
elevator."
"But who pulled it? A dozen men?"
"The merry-go-round pulled it. That's where the rope was attached. The
rope is under the merry-go-round now, all wound around."
With that statement, Lamont Cranston was explaining the muffed music that
Phil Harley had heard the night before. Margo knew nothing about that, but she
realized the importance of the cab switch.
"You mean that's how Winslow Ames was abducted?" Margo asked.
"It's how the job was covered up," returned Cranston. "I think that Ames
was taken along past the merry-go-round and later dropped from a bridge over
the transverse into a passing truck."
"What would the police think of that story?"
"If you would like to know," responded Cranston, blandly, "suppose we go
and find out."
They rode in the old hack to Central Park South and there took a cab to
the swank Cobalt Club where Commissioner Weston was often found late in the
afternoon. The commissioner was present and Inspector Cardona with him, but
when Cranston suggested his theory, it registered a total blank.
"I was thinking about the Ames case," began Cranston. "If his cab had gone
to Central Park -"
"I suppose the banshee would have gotten him," interrupted Weston. "Only
it didn't, because there isn't any banshee and Ames didn't go to Central Park."
Cardona added an opinion.
"We're covering the park like a blanket," the inspector claimed. "The only
cab that gave us any trouble was a fellow with a flat at the entrance to a
transverse. He fixed the flat and went through."
Cranston nodded.
"Eastbound, of course."
"That's right," rejoined Cardona. "When he came out the east side, he
stopped to report to an officer stationed there" - Joe paused - "say what made
you think he went from west to east? Do they get more flat tires on the West
Side?"
"It was just a guess," replied Cranston. "At what time was this reported?"
"The fellow started to fix the flat just before Ames left the hotel," said
Cardona, referring to a long list of reports, "so he couldn't have had anything
to do with the case. Central Park is out."
Thus discouraged, Cranston naturally couldn't be expected to press his
theory regarding Central Park. It was after they left the Cobalt Club that
Margo asked him:
"How did you know that the cab went from west to east?"
"I told Cardona why," replied Cranston. "It was just a guess. It really
didn't matter which way the cab was headed. It happens though that there were
two cabs, not just one."
Margo's slow nod meant that she understood more or less, so Cranston
decided she should understand more.
"Two identical cabs," Cranston explained, "even to a duplication of the
license plates. The idea was to establish an alibi for both."
"For both?"
"Of course. One was checked at the west entrance to the transverse while
its driver was faking a flat tire. The time element proved that it couldn't be
the cab that took Ames from the hotel. However, that cab never completed its
trip through the transverse. It swung into the old stable, was hoisted in the
elevator, and went its way along the upper drive."
"And the other cab came out below!"
"Correct. It was the cab that abducted Ames. Its driver completed the
alibi that the first man had begun. His cab was brought down by the elevator to
continue through the transverse."
"Then that's why the driver reported to the officer at the east exit!"
exclaimed Margo. "He wanted to be recognized later, if necessary!"
Cranston nodded. Then:
"Above all," he added, "the purpose was to draw all suspicion from Central
Park, the place where a lot has happened and a lot more will. Well, Margo" -
Cranston was glancing at his watch - "I'll need what's left of the afternoon.
I'm going down to the Graceland Memorial Library."
"To that mausoleum?" queried Margo. "Why?"
Cranston's reply could have been termed a trifle cryptic.
"To acquire a few more facts concerning old New York," Cranston announced,
"and in particular that portion of Manhattan Island now known as Central Park."
CHAPTER XII
LIKE Lamont Cranston, Phil Harley could have told the police his theory
regarding Winslow Ames; but Phil also doubted that he would be believed.
What was more important, Phil felt that he had gained certain leads, which
if right would enable him to track down crime; but if wrong, would only give
away all he knew, should any of the facts be made public.
There again, Phil's situation resembled that of The Shadow, except that
they were concerned with different persons. It would have been well if Phil and
The Shadow could cooperate with each other, but so far they hadn't gotten along
at all; nor was there any way that they could reach each other.
Of course Phil's main lead was Arline Forster, who struck him as much more
of a mystery girl than Thara Lamoyne. Phil knew where to reach Arlene; namely at
the Plaza Central. At least he hoped he could reach her there, but so far none
of his phone calls to her room had been answered.
Phil was thinking this over as he watched the seals disport in the oblong
pool at the Central Park Zoo. He'd thought that going over last night's ground
would help some, but it hadn't. Now that it was getting dark, Phil decided to
go to his own hotel, with a stop-off at the Plaza Central.
The route led past the buildings where the jungle animals were housed. The
cages there were arranged to open indoors as well as out, so several sizeable
beasts were on voluntary outdoor display, including a rather intelligent
leopard.
Each outdoor cage had a barred door, out of reach across a low picket
fence. The doors were fastened with formidable padlocks and evidently the
handsome leopard rated high among the animals because his cage had a shiny new
padlock. The leopard looked at Phil when Phil looked at it and then the leopard
yawned.
Only it wasn't just a yawn; the leopard gave a low growl. In leopard
language it was saying that it didn't like something and since Phil was about
the only thing in sight, he was probably what the leopard didn't like.
So Phil proceeded to the Plaza Central.
Just inside the door of that lavish hostelry, Phil was greeted by a
peculiar gasp that reminded him a trifle of the leopard's expression of
annoyance. Again, Phil was the object, but this time the annoyed party was a
girl.
And the girl was Arlene Forster.
"Good evening," announced Phil, politely; "and what have I done to be
rebuffed?"
"I'd rather not talk about it," returned Arlene. "I have an appointment.
Good-bye."
"Since you're going my way" - Phil supplied this as Arlene went out the
door and turned along the street - "you won't be sparing any precious minutes
if you give me the particulars."
"All right, then." Arlene tossed her blonde head haughtily. "I just don't
like your persuasive way. That business of arguing me into taking a carriage
ride around Central Park, for instance."
"But I didn't persuade you!"
"Then who did? I made a phone call and came out of the booth. Next you
were putting me into that broken-down chariot. How long we rode, I don't know,
but you were still in the carriage when we arrived back at my hotel."
They had passed Phil's hotel, the Sans Souci, but he didn't say he lived
there. Phil kept right on walking in order to clear the mystery.
"But I didn't put you in the hack!" Phil insisted. "You just disappeared.
When I saw you again, you were riding around like a zombie."
"Zombies don't disappear," argued Arlene, curtly, "but banshees do. Next,
you'll be calling me a banshee."
"Maybe," declared Phil indifferently. "It seems I've heard somewhere that
banshees have a weakness for lilacs."
It was well put, for Arlene was sporting a batch of lilac blossoms again
tonight. For a moment, Phil saw blue eyes sparkle angrily; then the girl calmed
down.
"I have an appointment," Arlene explained patiently. "At the Chateau
Parkview, where we met last night. So you sent me away in a hack and didn't go
along; all right, I'm willing to believe your story and you should know why."
"And why?"
"Because I realize now that you intended to meet someone else and didn't
want me to interfere. But since it's the other way around tonight, suppose you
don't interfere with my plans."
They were nearing the Chateau Parkview, so Phil decided to make the best
of a last few moments.
"You'd only arrived in New York when I met you," Phil reminded Arlene.
"How did you happen to stop at the Plaza Central?"
"Because you told me I had a reservation there," returned Arlene, "or if
you didn't, someone else did. I don't just remember."
"But why did you come here at all?"
"Suppose I ask you that same question?"
"Good enough," retorted Phil. "I came here because I was promised a good
job. I was in the army, you know, so I suppose I ought to have a job."
"And so should I," countered Arlene. "I was in the Waves."
Arlene looked ready to give Phil a wave right then, since they were
entering the Chateau Parkview. Expecting such a dismissal, Phil parried it.
"It won't matter if we chat a while," he said. "If some bashful party is
meeting you, he or she will probably wait. But there's one thing I almost
forgot" - Phil was looking at the lobby clock - "and that's a phone call I have
to make. Don't vanish again while I'm gone!"
When Phil went to the phone booth, Arlene crossed the lobby and took a
place out of his sight. Her lilacs immediately gained results, for a bellboy
approached with a message in an envelope, evidently singling out Arlene because
of her flowers.
Reading the message, Arlene took a quick look for Phil; not seeing him,
she circled to an elevator and rode up to the top floor, where she found the
door she wanted and knocked.
The door was promptly opened by a man with shaggy, unkempt hair, whose
eyes were quick but friendly. He stepped back and nodded as he gestured for the
girl to enter.
"So you're the young lady," the man acknowledged. "Miss -"
"Arlene Forster."
"I'm glad to meet you, Miss Forster." The shaggy head bowed again. "I am
Niles Ronjan. Now let me see: you are staying at the Plaza Central."
"That's right."
"A very nice place. Very well, the charts will be sent there. You are
familiar with coastal charts, of course."
"I am."
"Then that's all. Your job will be to check them when you receive them."
"At what salary?"
"Why, eighty dollars a week," responded Ronjan, as though Arlene should
know, "with hotel expenses in addition."
Arlene hardly knew what to gasp, so Ronjan saved her the trouble.
"Don't thank me," he expressed. "Thank Mr. Cranston; it was his idea. He
sent me word to interview you" - Ronjan's tone became confidential - "probably
because of Miss Lane."
Arlene took it that Miss Lane was probably the type to be jealous if she
knew that Mr. Cranston had offered a job to a former Wave. Perhaps her face
registered a trace of reluctance on the basis of possible complications, for
Ronjan immediately sought to reassure her.
"It's really very important," confided the shaggy-haired man. "Any word
from Mr. Cranston is important. He has influence with Craig Farnsworth, the man
who backed my great invention."
With that, Ronjan gestured to the big tank where the articulated tube was
on display. He didn't have to explain it to Arlene; she could tell that it was
a model of some sort of device used for reaching sunken ships.
"Our calculations were correct," declared Ronjan, "but perhaps Farnsworth
is not convinced of it. The work you do may furnish the proof he needs."
Noting that Arlene was interested in the tank and its contents, Ronjan let
her study the exhibit, though it was apparent that he was anxious to leave. In
fact, Ronjan seemed to be timing things by the occasional glances he gave at
his watch. Finally, Ronjan was about to gesture toward the door when a strange
thing happened.
It occurred when Arlene was on the far side of the tank, over toward the
window. As she turned, the girl was attracted by the scene from that window,
for outdoors the dusk had settled, bringing a typical Manhattan nightscape.
Central Park was gaining its velvety touch, lights were gleaming like gems, and
a soft glow, rising from the street was a natural magnet for Arlene's eyes.
Then all was blackened by a momentary horror. Arlene dropped back aghast
as the window clouded, almost blotting the scene with it.
The blotting shape had all the semblance of a cloaked figure with
outspread arms, looming straight up into the window, as though arrived on some
monstrous mission!
As suddenly as it appeared, the illusion vanished with a curious dwindling
effect. Suddenly bold, Arlene stared down from the window, thinking the intruder
had dropped away, but no one was in sight.
Ronjan, having turned to open the door, apparently had failed to view the
startling sight outside the window, so Arlene said nothing about it. Ronjan
bowed her out and then followed, locking the door behind him, as he muttered
something about an appointment.
They had reached the elevator when its door opened to emit a tawny-faced
man whose features were marred by two white scars. Bowing, Ronjan croaked an
introduction:
"Miss Forster, allow me to present Captain Dom Yuble from the Caribbean.
He has proven very helpful in my present enterprise."
Yuble's gleaming smile rather impressed Arlene. When Ronjan offered Dom
the key to the suite, the tawny man exhibited one of his own, then smiled again
as Arlene entered the elevator with Ronjan.
All the way down in the elevator, even after she parted with Ronjan in the
lobby, Arlene kept wondering about that fanciful occurrence upstairs. The more
she wondered, the more she believed that Ronjan had tried to divert her
attention from the window; indeed, had sought to have her leave before the
weird interloper made that momentary appearance.
In fact, Arlene was ready to drop her feud with Phil in order to gain
someone's reaction to her strange experience, but Phil wasn't around to hear
her story. Starting back to her own hotel, Arlene decided that Phil must have
gotten tired waiting for her, for which she couldn't blame him. Looking up
toward the towering roof of the Chateau Parkview, Arlene saw lights that
probably represented Ronjan's suite, tucked just beneath the eaves of the
peculiarly ornate roof.
It looked trivial, that scene high above, so trivial that Arlene was ready
to forget it. After all, when things seemed trifles, they couldn't matter much.
Arlene Forster was wrong. Trifling things could mean a great deal, whether
noticed or unnoticed. In the latter class could have been included the tiny
blinks that were beginning somewhere off in the distance.
They came from a building flanking Central Park, those twinkling gleams,
symbols that strange crime was again on the move!
CHAPTER XIII
BLINK - BLINK - blink - blink -
The flashes were guarded tonight and their code was changed, but that
didn't worry the man who watched them. He sat with his back away from a window,
so his face couldn't be seen at all, unless the distant blinks had eyes.
Because the code was new, its signals were repeated, which was a bad
mistake. It gave the watcher more time to operate a peculiar machine which
whirred after he pressed certain buttons. Various letters fell in line within
an illuminated dial, switched to other sets, until finally they made sense, at
which time this observer stopped the process.
Leaning slightly forward, the man attended a switchboard, without letting
his face come into the light. He had ear-phones on his head and when a voice
responded, he announced:
"Burbank speaking -"
That name defined him. Burbank was The Shadow's contact man who reached
the active agents. To vie with crime, The Shadow had posted Burbank at this
strategic spot from which the contact man could view the limits of Central Park.
Now Burbank was announcing what he had learned. His statement was concise:
"Watch Outlook Cafe - check on a man named Claude Older - watch for green
coupe -"
There were other details, which Burbank relayed as they arrived, together
with his crack-down of the code, as gained by means of The Shadow's mechanical
decoder. It was a neat machine, this, based on the fact that codes follow
patterns and ideal for quickly breaking up simple codes once they had been
changed.
As he repeated these things, Burbank was changing plugs in the
switchboard, to reach various persons and inform them. There was only one that
caused a brief delay; it was to the Graceland Memorial Library, which was
located rather far up Fifth Avenue. Distance wasn't what delayed it; time was
needed simply because a certain Mr. Cranston had to be informed that he was
wanted on the telephone.
Now The Shadow's agents were definitely on the move. The question was how
much they could accomplish even if they reached the Lookout Cafe in time to
operate.
The Lookout Cafe was a most popular place. Only a short distance inside
the park, it combined an old mansion with a garden to compose a fashionable
eating spot. The only hazard was the weather; if bad, it crowded the patrons
indoors, but that didn't apply tonight because although the sky was overcast,
there was no threat of rain.
Hence finding a man named Claude Older, particularly if you'd never met
him, was something very difficult, even more difficult than locating a blue
coupe among some fifty cars all parked in the darkness.
What helped was the loud-speaker which suddenly interrupted the orchestra
that was playing on the garden terrace. It announced:
"Mr. Older - Mr. Claude Older - your friend is here -"
A pause followed, during which a number of diners stirred at various
tables, but only because they were restless. Nobody answered to the name of
Claude Older.
Again the amplifier spoke:
"A friend waiting for Mr. Older - a friend waiting outside -"
Several people were rising to step to a larger table that a waiter had
prepared for them. Nobody noticed a man on the very fringe of the garden, who
sidled from his chair as if to light a cigarette away from the slight breeze.
He was a man with a high forehead and a baldish head that was compensated by a
bristly mustache.
This man kept on sidling out between the scrubby units of a hedgerow that
had been badly planted and therefore had not become the impassable affair which
it had been designed to be.
If this man happened to be Older, he wasn't expecting his friend to be
waiting in a car. Across the sward from the Lookout Cafe was a hansom cab,
halted just off a drive, as though to rent its horse. The man from the dining
terrace moved stealthily toward the hack, though stealth was hardly necessary.
It was very dark across the greensward, even at the spot where the hansom
was located. The tall vehicle showed only in silhouetted form, like a misshapen
haystack. From the cafe came the final amplified announcement:
"Mr. Older, your friend is waiting outside -"
Music took over and all was as before at the Lookout Cafe, at least within
the restaurant proper. Outside, however, figures were moving in from different
angles and a taxicab wheeled suddenly between two gates to haul over by the
parked cars.
There was a coupe waiting in front of the main building forming the cafe
and there was enough light to show the bright blue paint job that embellished
it. The driver was leaning out and he gave a friendly wave to a tall man whose
chin was muffled in an upturned raincoat.
The tall man was coming from the cafe and he was starting to put his hat
on. The bright light glistened on his bald head, showing it quite plainly. Then
he was in the coupe and it was driving away.
One of the arriving figures hopped into the taxicab and it followed the
blue coupe. As both vehicles crunched the gravel out between the gates, the
rest of the arriving figures met to hold a conference.
There were three, all agents of The Shadow. One was Harry Vincent, ace of
The Shadow's workers; another, Clyde Burke, a reporter for the New York Classic
during his off hours; the third was Hawkeye, a wizened little man who was second
only to The Shadow when it came to sticking to a trail.
Only Hawkeye had no trail on which to stick. Shrevvy had followed Older,
taking Cliff Marsland along in the cab. As the socko specialist of The Shadow's
staff, Cliff was a one-man crew; hence he hadn't wasted time in gathering up any
companions.
Nevertheless, that didn't mean the rest of the agents were off duty.
"We'd better do some checking around here," stated Harry Vincent. "What we
just saw may be simply a little smoke to cover up some real fire."
"No use going into the cafe," added Clyde. "We'd be busy sorting out
tourists until closing time. Let's spread around here."
"Yeah," concluded Hawkeye, "and I'll do any spotting while you fellows
keep checking on those glims. Maybe the next bunch of code will send us places."
All planned nicely, but it came too late.
The hansom cab was already starting along the drive, with the passenger
who had stolen out from the Lookout Cafe. It couldn't be seen at all from the
corners of the main building, where The Shadow's agents were coming into
gradual evidence.
It was Phil Harley who noticed the hansom.
Why Phil should be watching a hansom, he didn't know; in fact, why he
should be where he was, happened to be an additional problem. At the moment,
Phil couldn't exactly say where he was, for he seemed to be floating through
midair to the tune of horse's hoofs.
The hansom was just ahead, which was why Phil saw it, and it helped him
recognize his own status; that, plus the fact that the floating was becoming
gradually familiar. It reminded Phil of last night, or rather he thought it was
still last night, at the time when he had helped Arlene finish a ride in an open
carriage.
Only right now it was Phil who was coming out of a daze. He turned to
Arlene to explain his quandary.
"It's very funny," began Phil. "The last time I saw you, Arlene, you were
going into a phone booth -"
"That was last night," the girl interrupted. "Don't you remember?"
It wasn't Arlene's voice and it wasn't Arlene. Phil's eyes opened
gradually, but widely, as he fixed a slow-motion stare on Thara Lamoyne!
Those dark eyes of Thara's gave all this an exotic setting that seemed
like anywhere except Central Park, but the hoof-beats kept pounding home the
fact that Central Park it was. In the passing lights, Thara's eyes smiled, but
the illusion could have come from her lips, which were ever so slightly curved.
Then, imperceptibly, the olive features became solemn.
"This Arlene you speak about," said Thara. "A blonde, you said she was. It
is so strange that she should disappear again."
Thara's tone was very sympathetic, although her face floated like
something from a dream. That was explainable however by the fact that Thara was
wearing a light velvet cape that completely draped her shoulders and had the
same attractive gloss as her smooth, severe black hair.
"I guess I was the one who disappeared." Phil rubbed his head ruefully. "I
went into the phone booth. I had a call to make, but I must have been thinking
about Arlene. I was looking from the booth, when suddenly she stepped out of
sight -"
"Ah, I was right," put in Thara. "She vanished, pouf! Like before."
"Maybe she did," admitted Phil, "but frankly I don't remember it. Where
did I find you?"
"In the lobby; of course," replied Thara, "There at the Chateau Parkview.
You said very funny things" - Thara supplied a contralto laugh - "about
moonlight and a drive in the park. Of course there is no moonlight" - Thara
tilted her face upward - "but it was nice to take a drive. Provided one thing"
- her eyes were lowered toward Phil again - "provided that you did not mistake
me for this girl Arlene."
Phil shook his head.
"I don't think I could have, Thara."
"She is blonde," said Thara, "I am brunette. Is that the reason why you
could not mistake us until just a few minutes ago, because it was so very dark
here?"
"There's another reason," Phil admitted. "I had an argument with Arlene,
but so far I've had none with you, Thara. Maybe it makes a difference if you
argue -"
An argument was due right then. Up ahead, the hansom had increased its
speed and the changing pace of the horse caught Phil's ear. Rising in the open
carriage, Phil gained a chance view above some shrubs along the bend which the
hansom had just taken.
"That hack!" he exclaimed. "It's turning off the drive, the way the
taxicab did last night!"
Before Thara could stop him, Phil sprang from the carriage. Thara's hands
were encumbered by a candy box which she was holding in the folds of her cape
and in his haste Phil knocked the box to the floor as the girl tried to pluck
his arm.
Grabbing for the box, Thara caught it before it could fall from the
carriage, but lost Phil in the process. As he dashed past the bushes, Phil
heard Thara call after him:
"Wait, Phil! Don't go - not yet -"
It was good advice - if only Phil had heeded it!
CHAPTER XIV
GETTING lost in Central Park was easy. Phil Harley had done it before; he
did it again.
Within fifty yards, Phil needed to regain his sense of direction and
turned around to take bearings, only to find the scene quite muddled. Bushes,
trees, now intervened, so that the drive was no longer visible.
Looking where he thought Thara's carriage was, Phil could no longer locate
it. It was either out of sight beyond a bush clump or it had moved further
along. In either case it wouldn't help Phil find the fugitive hansom, so he
decided to look for the latter.
At that moment, something intervened.
That something manifested itself against the glow from a light which might
either represent the drive, a footpath, or anything else that was lighted around
Central Park. The thing was a shape of jet blackness, human in a weird sort of
way.
It looked like a person cloaked in black, with widespread, menacing arms.
It lunged up beyond a shrub clump, made an eccentric sidelong shift, then
performed a truly kaleidoscopic disappearance, because changes of color were
involved. One instant, the creature turned greenish; the next, it was dyed red.
Then it was gone with a fantastic swoop.
Phil suddenly realized the reason for all this. He'd seen the night
creature flit in front of a changing traffic light, which was why it took on
those fantastic hues. The red glow of the traffic light still persisted, but no
longer as a background for the fanciful monstrosity.
The light told where the drive was, but Phil didn't want the drive. He
wanted to find the mysterious hansom, so he blundered off in its probable
direction, at the same time preparing to meet the cloaked monster should it
cross his path.
Instinctively, Phil connected that creature with the invisible fighter
that he had encountered the night before. Since he didn't know that it also
paid clandestine visits to the top floor of the Chateau Parkview, Phil's data
on the monster subject was somewhat limited; but he felt right now that he
could cope with the creature if he met it.
First though, Phil was to meet the hansom cab.
It took a long, mad rush among trees, over rocks, and through underbrush,
before Phil finally came upon the missing vehicle, and then - quite curiously -
it was reaching the open. The hansom must have used its own network of bridle
paths and unlisted routes to reach this open stretch of flat, smooth ground
which was crossed by a paved footpath, wide enough for the hack to use as a
road.
This open area was an almost-forgotten spot termed the Oval and ahead it
narrowed to a path with overhanging trees that was called the Willow Arch.
Beyond the Willow Arch lay a section of the Great Lawn, but the terms would
have meant nothing to Phil Harley, even if he had heard them.
Phil wanted to find out who was in the hansom and it was coming to a halt
just in front of the Willow Arch, the tall bulk of this giraffe among vehicles
threatening to tangle with the willow boughs should its driver attempt to take
it through.
That was a break for Phil, or so he thought. Starting full tilt across the
Oval, Phil found that the ground was level but heavy with thick grass, so he
switched to the footpath for more speed, which proved a tactical error.
Before Phil could quite reach the halted hack, men lunged out to block
him, attracted by the clatter of his running footsteps. In the dull glow that
the city cast against the sullen sky, Phil recognized his assailants. They were
chunky men that he had met the night before and they were garbed in outfits
resembling leopard skins.
Leopards in agility they were as well, but instead of claws they had
knives, long blades that flashed at Phil like great-toothed fangs!
He was a tough fighter, Phil, but battling off a tribe like this was
almost as difficult as a head-on encounter with The Shadow.
Thinking of the hansom as a refuge, Phil made an effort to enter it, but
without success. Getting into a hansom was troublesome; you had to enter it
from the front and Phil didn't know the system. Besides, the driver was
flicking down with his whip, shouting something at both Phil and the leopard
men.
It was all the driver could do to restrain the horse by means of the long
reins that ran clear over the top and to the driver's box above and at the
back. The hansom seemed to be squirming on its two wheels and next it heeled
over to the right as though something had been shoved from it.
Phil wasn't there to see. He'd dived away to escape the leopard men. His
best course seemed a mad race back across the Oval, so he started that way,
hoping these jungleers weren't good knife throwers.
They didn't have to be.
Amid the rough turf Phil found an old tree root that he didn't want and
took a spill to the heavy sward. His pursuers were after him like rabbits, but
were something much more murderous with their knives. Twisting around to ward
off stabs, Phil saw blades poised above as if ready to strike in concert.
With the blades were glaring, darkish faces that looked venomous, but
however ugly their spite, it was to be postponed.
Into that same dull glow from the heavy sky came the weird creature that
Phil had seen before, the thing that swooped like a mammoth bat, only to
evaporate. This time however, it turned the trick about.
The thing blotted all else from Phil's sight as it struck right into the
midst of the savage men in leopard skins. Instead of dwindling to nothingness,
it had grown to the proportions of a life-sized rescuer.
The Shadow!
On hands and knees Phil saw the men in leopard skins scatter among the
willows. Ahead of them went the hansom, jouncing from right to left, as though
relieved of its burden. The driver was gone; he couldn't risk the lacing he
would have taken from willow branches.
As for Phil, he would have tried to help his friend The Shadow, if
gun-shots hadn't indicated that The Shadow was doing all right for himself. So
Phil waited where he was, feeling both bewildered and shaky until a hand
gripped him and hauled him to his feet.
The face that Phil saw was an honest one; it belonged to Harry Vincent,
who had arrived with The Shadow's other guests. Harry didn't declare that fact;
he simply acted as though he and Phil were persons who had run into the same
peck of trouble.
"Come along," suggested Harry. "I know a way out of here."
Clyde and Hawkeye were sliding out of sight among the willows through
which The Shadow had chased the leopard tribe. They didn't want to complicate
matters for Harry by letting Phil know that more than one stranger was around.
Matters however were due for other complications.
The way that Harry took was by a rough-hewn path up from the Oval. At
times it became almost a sheer cliff and when they reached the top, it showed
gradual slopes in all directions. They were long slopes and in the foreground
Phil could see a dim vista with the gray lines of crossing paths and drives,
along with the light-reflecting sparkle of ponds and pools that otherwise were
dark.
Instead of introducing himself, Harry Vincent explained where they were.
"They call this the Knoll," said Harry. "You can see most of the park from
here. People gravitate to it in an upward direction. From here we can pick
wherever we want to go, except back where we came from."
Phil Harley was inclined to agree with his new friend. By way of
appreciation he introduced himself, whereupon Harry Vincent did the same. Since
Phil still took it that Harry was a chance New Yorker who had blundered in among
the leopard men, it wasn't necessary to go into the details that had produced
Phil's own predicament.
Looking around the Knoll, Phil saw benches and a few bicycles parked
alongside of some go-carts. Apparently people who trudged up here became too
tired to take such odds and ends along with them. At least it was nice to know
that there was one place in New York where belongings could be left and found
again.
This, however, did not apply to Phil and Harry.
While Phil was philosophizing, Harry was looking off toward a distant
building where lights had begun to flicker. There was an order coming through
in the new code that The Shadow's machine had cracked. At first Harry didn't
get it, but when the signal was repeated, he caught the message.
Turning to Phil, Harry gave the quick word:
"Keep a sharp lookout! That same crowd may be moving up here to trap us!"
Such was the gist of the message. It was telling the wrong people to
surround the Knoll. A logical move, should Phil's general whereabouts be known.
There was more to the message. It kept repeating that one term: "The
Knoll."
Phil wasn't watching the lights. He was following Harry's instructions and
with results. Down the slope shrubs stirred and it wasn't wind that swayed them.
Furtive shapes began crossing the gray winding path; they had the spotty look of
the leopard disguises.
"They're after us!" Phil told Harry, hoarsely. "No use to go down the path
by the rocks; they'll have that covered sure! Maybe we'd better cut off the
slope -"
With Phil's very gesture, that route proved blocked, for from it came the
tiny twinkles of a flashlight. It was Harry who again absorbed the message, but
this time the code was The Shadow's own.
Out of the night The Shadow was telling how to nullify the closing trap
that he too had learned about by reading the more distant blinks.
Harry swung to Phil with the statement:
"Let's go!"
How they were to go, Harry showed. He snatched up the nearest bicycle and
swung himself upon it, whereupon Phil did the same with another of the handy
vehicles. Then, with Harry setting the pace, they were off upon the maddest
flight that the imagination could have wanted.
The path down from the Knoll was as twisty as it was steep. All you had to
do with a bike was let it ride and keep steering while you gave the brakes. In
this case the braking wasn't advisable until the danger zone had been passed
and there was no telling how soon that would be.
Up from the darkness the curving path flowed like a tangled ribbon
unraveling itself beneath the wheels of Harry's borrowed bicycle. It did the
same with Phil's, for he was keeping close behind this guide who apparently
knew the route.
Things happened all the way down. As they whipped beneath some thick
trees, knives came from the dark and planked hard into tree trunks. As they
skewered around a huge rock, writhing, spotted figures flung themselves down at
the intrepid riders and missed.
Greased lightning would have described those whizzing bicycles except at
the places where the wheels screeched under the hard-jammed brakes, but even
then, the speed was lessened just enough to make the turns.
Guns were barking from far above and now they seemed strangely remote to
Phil. This trip had been so fast, so furious, that he hadn't found a chance to
breathe the air that came whining past. And now, with the menace of the leopard
men banished, a new disaster threatened.
The path ended at a huge rock, down deep in the dell. Rather, it ran into
a cross path, but the rock blocked the way. Harry took a swerve that a trick
bicycle rider would have envied and went to the left of the rock. He missed the
path of course, but jounced the bike across the ground beyond.
Phil thought that Harry had taken the hard way. The turn to the right
looked easier. Phil chose it and scaled out through space. His bicycle left him
and he landed with a smacking splash in a broad pond that he hadn't even guessed
was there.
Far around the other side of the pond, Harry Vincent halted his ride and
turned to look for his companion. He saw men hauling Phil from the water and
the glare of flashlights showed who they were. Not leopard men, but a squad in
blue uniforms, representing the police.
Perhaps Phil could explain his wild nocturnal ride, but in a sense it
didn't matter. Harry's job was done.
From here on The Shadow could take over!
CHAPTER XV
COMMISSIONER RALPH WESTON was in a very grumpy mood.
"It's nonsense, Cranston!" the commissioner insisted. "Claude Older
couldn't have disappeared in Central Park, any more than Winslow Ames! Both men
left the vicinity of Central Park instead of going there!"
To prove his point, the commissioner thumbed through the report sheets
that Inspector Cardona provided with a corroborating nod.
The report sheets proved all that Weston claimed, but largely because he
so interpreted them.
First: Winslow Ames.
The man had made inquiries regarding his Pullman reservation at Penn
Station. He had been seen to board the Boston car. After that he had vanished.
"What do you say to that, Cranston?" queried Weston.
"Mistaken identity," returned Cranston. "A ticket agent and a Pullman
porter wouldn't notice a passenger closely enough to know if somebody else
happened to be doubling for him."
With a snort, Weston tossed over the other report. It concerned Claude
Older and stated that he had been met by a very reliable business acquaintance
outside the Lookout Cafe. Said business acquaintance had driven Older to Grand
Central Station, so he could take a suburban train to visit friends in the
country. Older hadn't been seen since.
"A business acquaintance doesn't know a man too well," declared Cranston,
"particularly in the dark. I would say that somebody else came out of the cafe
and took the ride to Grand Central in the blue coupe."
Cardona shot a query:
"How did you know it was a blue coupe?"
"Most coupes are," rejoined Cranston. "A roadster would be flashy, a sedan
somber. A coupe is generally between."
It reminded Cardona of flat tires being more common on the West Side than
the East Side. Nevertheless, Joe had to admit that Cranston was right. That
applied to minor matters only, for Cardona was still in accord with Weston on
the matter of Central Park.
"A hansom cab runs away," gruffed Weston, "and a man on a bicycle steers
himself into a pond. We've checked both matters and they concern neither
Winslow nor Older."
That was Cranston's cue to bow out politely from Weston's office. At the
door, he paused to toss back a query.
"About those missing men, commissioner," asked Cranston. "What did you say
their occupations were?"
"Winslow was buying commercial plastics," called the commissioner. "Older
was studying the South American market for synthetic rubber. If you want to
know what the chap who fell in the pond was doing, ask him. He's waiting
outside and you may as well tell him he can go. We're not holding him."
Thus it was that Lamont Cranston met Phil Harley, except that he didn't
tell Phil that he was no longer wanted. Instead, Cranston invited Phil to ride
up town, adding that it was by order of the police commissioner.
Instead of Shrevvy's cab, Cranston was using his limousine today and Phil
was duly impressed, though strictly silent. It was Cranston who broke the ice
with the calm-toned question:
"And just what is your alleged occupation, Mr. Harley?"
Phil's eyes narrowed at the query.
"Ames was buying commercial plastics," remarked Cranston, "although there
happen to be none available on the market. Older was arranging synthetic rubber
shipments to South America which happens to have an oversupply of the natural
material. I thought there might be a third connection."
Steady eyes fixed straight on Phil and this time drew a reply.
"All right," snapped Phil. "My job is to read over patent reports. Any
objection?"
"None at all," assured Cranston. "How are you progressing?"
"Not so well," Phil admitted frankly. "They haven't delivered enough of
them at my hotel."
"So you spend your time looking out the window at Central Park."
"That's right. I live at the Sans Souci -"
Phil caught himself and sharply.
"Say!" Phil's exclamation was heartfelt. "Why did you make that guess
about Central Park?"
"It wasn't precisely a guess," corrected Cranston. "I was thinking of
Winslow and Ames. They seemed to prefer the same neighborhood."
Phil's stare became steady as the limousine stopped.
"I'm dropping off here," stated Cranston. "This is the Cobalt Club. You
can reach me here if you wish. My chauffeur will take you to your hotel. It has
a nice name, the Sans Souci."
"It's French," explained Phil. "It means 'without worry' -"
"I know," interposed Cranston. "What's more, I hope you're living up to
it."
Entering the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston found Harry Vincent waiting with
Margo Lane. Promptly, Cranston gave Harry some vital information.
"I've started Harley thinking," Cranston told Harry. "If he doesn't phone
me, he'll probably talk to you."
Harry nodded while Margo wondered.
"Our problem is not entirely why or where people have disappeared,"
continued Cranston. "It is who is going to disappear next. Harley may be on the
list."
"But they could have taken him last night," began Margo. "Instead they
tried to murder him."
"It wasn't his turn to vanish," explained Cranston. "He was just an
outsider where the leopard crew was concerned."
"But if Phil Harley is to be next -"
"He may not be the next," considered Cranston. "I am listing him purely
because he is one more person who has no real business in New York. I would
like to learn the names of some others. Meanwhile" - Cranston emphasized this
to Margo - "I want you to stay quite close to old Sylvia Selmore."
"But Miss Selmore belongs in New York -"
"She lives here," conceded Cranston, "but at present she doesn't belong.
She postponed her trip after that seance which Madame Mathilda gave. Remember?"
Margo nodded to prove that she remembered.
"The banshee business stopped her," summed Cranston, "and it marked the
beginning of these disappearances. I've checked Madame Mathilda; she admits she
sprang the spook stuff because she received a phone call promising her some
cash, but she doesn't know who phoned."
With that, Cranston arose. Seeing that he was about to leave, Margo
questioned coyly:
"Where next, Lamont? Back to the Graceland Memorial Library?"
"Of course," replied Cranston blandly. "I've learned a lot there, Margo.
That banshee pool, for instance. It used to be called the Bowl."
"The Bowl? Why?"
"Because it was just a rounded gully with an overhanging ledge called
Indian Leap. They dammed it by the bridge so that the stream that ran through
would form a pool."
Remembering how the stream cascaded down below the bridge, Margo could
visualize the old Bowl and more.
"Why, the big rock must be the ledge!" she exclaimed. "I can see it now!
The banshee slid beneath what was the old ledge and worked around to the
nearest gully, the one I stumbled into later!"
"Very good," approved Cranston. "There's a great deal to be learned about
Central Park. All its natural ravines were not turned into pools. There would
have been too many."
Cranston showed his interest in Central Park after he left the Cobalt
Club. Soon he was walking through the transverse where the truck had gobbled
Winslow Ames, only to carry him along another leg of his strange disappearance.
Not far along the transverse, Cranston came to a gate. It opened into a
narrow path that followed a defile, then rose gradually. Meeting another
footpath, Cranston went along it and crossed a burbling stream by a little
rustic bridge.
The bridge was artificial, so was the stream's present course. It had been
diverted from the natural channel that marked the path to the transverse.
Letting his eye rove up the stream, Cranston saw where it came from.
This rivulet had long ago been put underground. The bank which it flowed
from rose high above it, forming a great mass of earth which was flanked by
jutting rocks, high above.
Not as high as the Knoll, those rocks, though they were like small
foothills leading toward it.
At the spot where the stream issued, there was a heavy iron grating set
deep into a rock formation that formed the foundation of the grassy embankment.
Cranston didn't follow the stream, because his path lay off to the right of it.
So he continued his stroll by that route until he reached the Graceland
Memorial Library.
A polite attendant started to show Cranston to the room that contained old
maps and volumes dealing with the history of early New York, but Cranston shook
his head. There was another room that interested him more today. It bore a sign:
MANHATTAN GENEALOGY
It didn't take Cranston long to find the volume that he wanted, since it
was practically at the head of the row, among those bearing the letter A. In
opening the book, Cranston practically skimmed through the early pages, proving
that he was more interested in more modern data.
As he found what he wanted, Cranston gave a strangely subdued laugh, which
by its very tone belonged to his other self, The Shadow!
CHAPTER XVI
IT was dusk when Lamont Cranston stopped around to see Craig Farnsworth.
The evening was balmy so they went out on the high terrace that overlooked the
park.
"It's very strange, Cranston," stated Farnsworth, "the things that have
been happening in the park of late."
Cranston nodded.
"You mean those disappearances. What were the names of the two chaps?
Wait, I have them: Ames and Older."
Farnsworth gave a puzzled stare.
"I didn't know they disappeared in Central Park, Cranston. Who gave you
that idea?"
"You did, Farnsworth, when you mentioned strange things."
"I meant about the animals getting loose. Several people have claimed that
they saw some prowling leopards. But the zoo keepers haven't discovered any
missing."
Cranston shrugged.
The result of that banshee talk, he decided. "After the things that Miss
Selmore and Officer Reilly imagined, people might cook up anything. But getting
around to business, have you heard from Ronjan lately?"
Farnsworth's rugged face turned worried.
"I haven't," he admitted. "I suppose Ronjan intends to wait me out. Why
not?" Farnsworth gave an annoyed laugh. "He has my money all tied up."
"Our money," Cranston reminded.
"I know," nodded Farnsworth. "Well, throwing good after bad is a wrong
policy, but by next week, I'll be doing it. I don't know how you feel,
Cranston, but -"
A servant arrived to explain a ringing telephone that Cranston had been
hearing. The call was for Cranston, so he went into the apartment to take it.
Farnsworth called after him:
"Invite Miss Lane up here if she'd like to come."
The call wasn't from Margo. Instead, Phil Harley was on the wire and he
was very earnest, with a trace of tension in his voice.
"You spoke about phony jobs, Mr. Cranston," stated Phil across the wire,
"and the people who take them. What about the people who hand them out - would
you like to know who they are?"
"It would be very interesting."
"Then talk to yourself," announced Phil, "unless you'd rather have me tell
Miss Lane that you hired a certain girl for a rather useless task."
"You haven't called Miss Lane, have you?"
"Not yet."
"Then you should," suggested Cranston. "Unless you'd prefer to give me
more details first."
"As if you didn't know," snapped Phil. "All right, the girl's name is
Arlene Forster. She's getting paid for checking coastal charts, only she's seen
less of them than I have seen of patent papers."
"I'm beginning to think that Margo really would be interested."
"A nice bluff," complimented Phil. "I guess you figure you have that old
fool fixed."
"I wouldn't call him a fool."
"I'll find out if he is," retorted Phil. "I'm going up to see Niles Ronjan
right now!"
The receiver clanked heartily at the other end and Cranston stepped away
from the phone with a shrug, to meet Farnsworth, who had just come indoors.
"Miss Lane is coming up here, Cranston?"
"I hope not," replied Cranston. "Some smart dealer wants to sell her a
mink coat cheap because it's summer. But a mink coat is never cheap. I said I
wouldn't call him a fool for trying to make the sale, but I meant it
differently than he took it."
With that, Cranston glanced at his watch and added:
"The real fool would be Margo, if she made such a buy. I'd better go hunt
for her before she receives a call."
While Cranston spoke, Farnsworth was dialing the telephone, trying to get
Ronjan's number. Receiving no response, Farnsworth followed Cranston to the
door and said in parting:
"Not that mink coats aren't important, Cranston, but Ronjan has me
worried. There's only one place where he could have gone."
Cranston made a half-jesting inquiry while half way through the door.
"Somewhere out in Central Park?"
"Be serious, Cranston," returned Farnsworth. "I think Ronjan may be
digging up some new investors. He may intend to drop the Good Wind job and go
hunting treasure elsewhere. There's one place he would take such investors."
"Out to Skipper's Rock?"
"That's right. To see the full-sized articulated subsea tunnel. I'm going
down the Battery and hire a boat myself to go out there. Call me at midnight;
that's about the soonest I can hope to be back."
Cranston gave a nod and closed the door behind him. As he came out on the
avenue, a taxicab swung around the corner only to be disappointed when a
limousine pulled in front of it to pick up the gentleman in evening clothes.
Having just lighted a thin cigar, Cranston was drawing on it idly while
his chauffeur was opening the limousine door. As a result, the lighted end of
the cigar gave tiny glows that delivered a coded message.
Therefore the cab driver wasn't disappointed; he happened to be Shrevvy
and he already had a passenger huddled in the back seat, namely Hawkeye. There
would be work for the speedy cab driver and the ace of spotters tonight.
Since Farnsworth's apartment house was situated well up the avenue,
Cranston had some distance to travel before reaching Central Park South. Lights
were already beginning a mysterious series of blinks before Cranston's needed
minutes had ended.
Particularly mysterious tonight, those lights. They cleaved the lush
darkness that belonged to Central Park but it was difficult to tell which flank
they came from. Indeed, the blinks seemed to come from within the park itself,
which was puzzling, since they were from a considerably high level.
Phil Harley didn't know about the lights and perhaps he wouldn't have
cared. Phil was coming from a phone booth in the lobby of the Chateau Parkview
after a heated talk with Arlene Forster. It seemed that Arlene was about to
leave her hotel and wouldn't tell Phil where she intended to go. There wasn't
time for Phil to race as far as the Plaza Central to flag the blonde before she
started.
So irked was Phil that he didn't realize he'd done a very odd thing.
Stepping from a phone booth in the Chateau Parkview was a novelty. You usually
walked into them and wound up somewhere else. So Arlene had claimed and Phil
vaguely remembered a similar experience.
Right now, Phil was wondering if Thara Lamoyne was around. She was a
person who might answer some pointed questions, if Phil could only find her.
Not seeing Thara, Phil had another idea. He'd go up and call on old Niles
Ronjan, who seemingly had some remote connection with matters involving Arlene.
At least the blonde had mentioned Ronjan as a go-between where Cranston was
concerned.
Phil caught an elevator too soon. If he'd waited for the next car, he'd
have met Thara Lamoyne coming out of it. As it was, the cars passed and when
Thara did appear in the lobby, she looked relieved when she didn't see Phil
there. However, Thara didn't leave the lobby; she merely went to make a phone
call in one of the alcove booths.
By then, Phil was knocking at Ronjan's door.
The man who opened the door was Dom Yuble. The captain from the Caribbean
shook his head when Phil asked for Ronjan, whereupon Phil became persistent.
Thrusting himself into the room despite Yuble, Phil looked around as though
expecting to find Ronjan hiding somewhere.
Yuble's scars turned very white. It was a bad sign if Phil had noticed it,
for it meant that Yuble's face was purpling invisibly under his peculiar tan,
the scars staying white because they weren't included in the process.
Yet Yuble's tone was still a purr, polite and persuasive.
"Mr. Ronjan has gone out to Skipper's Rock," Yuble informed. "If you wish
to know why - look there!"
By "there" Yuble didn't mean the Rock. He was gesturing to the huge tank
in the center of Ronjan's main room. For the first time Phil saw the model
ships and the peculiar articulated tunnel, formed in miniature, that was
designed to give safe passage to a treasure hunter.
"It is very interesting," purred Yuble from beside Phil's shoulder. "You
may study it closely if you wish."
Phil's training as an engineer was coming to the fore. He leaned to take a
better look at the device. In turn Yuble leaned forward and made a gesture as if
to point out certain features of the invention. Only Yuble's hand didn't stop.
With a hard downward thwack, Yuble's flattened palm struck the water with
the violence of a beaver's tail, hoisting a regular geyser right into Phil's
face. Before Phil could recover, Yuble gave him an arm clamp that somersaulted
Phil over the tank, clear beyond the water and across the other side to a hard
landing on the floor beside the window.
Yuble didn't pause. Like a pirate boarding a merchant ship he clambered
onto the tank, sprang across it and landed at Phil's side with a drawn and
lifted knife, like those that Phil had seen in the fists of the leopard men.
But Phil, leaned back against the tank, was too groggy to attempt any warding
of the stroke that was to come.
It didn't come quite yet.
With a leer, Yuble gestured to the window, outside which the distant
blinks had ceased.
"Maybe you have understood the first message?" The scarred man sneered.
"If so, what should matter? You have not yet found out the important thing."
Yuble paused, as though hoping Phil would revive enough to comprehend. "You
have not learned it, fool! You have not guessed that I, Dom Yuble, can receive
a special message at any time."
Turning to the window, Yuble let his eyes betray an expectant glitter.
"Look!" Yuble gloated. "I shall let you live long enough to see how a
confidential message arrives!"
Maybe it was Phil's swimming head, but he was sure he saw blackness loom
suddenly up into the window. No longer sheer fancy, that blackness became a
growing creature with great, outspread arms that looked like webbed extensions
of its body.
Yuble's manner was a greeting, as he waved a hand as if to gesture the
creature upward, so it would dwindle from the light; then, so suddenly that
Phil was jolted out of his mental whirl, Yuble gave a piercing scream of horror.
Instead of melting, that creature from the great outside flung its arms
around Dom Yuble as though enveloping him in the folds of a death-delivering
cloak.
To Phil Harley, the action of Yuble's unknown foe symbolized The Shadow!
CHAPTER XVII
FOR the next few minutes, the fantastic ruled. To Phil Harley, what he saw
was unbelievable, or at least half so. Yuble's antagonist made it that way.
As Yuble reeled in front of the window trying to shake off his dread
attacker, the changing position of the light produced remarkable tricks. At
times, Yuble seemed overwhelmed by a huge, shadowy antagonist; there were
moments when the attacker disappeared, leaving only Yuble, gasping, jabbing his
knife wildly into thin air.
Half rising, Phil gained the impression that he saw flowing blood, which
didn't make sense, since Yuble, the man with the knife, wasn't managing to
carve anything. Then, before Phil could gain his feet, Yuble took a heavy
sprawl, rolled over and lay still.
A moment later, something stirred from beside Yuble's body; a patch of
blackness flung itself up into the light, cut off the glow and became that
same, gripping monster that had just done with Yuble and was in thirst of a new
victim, Phil Harley!
Out of the blackness, Phil saw tiny, demoniac eyes and caught the glitter
of sharp white teeth. He heard a sound that was like a high-pitched war shriek
as he fell back, flinging his arms to ward off the unknown terror.
It was then that Phil was sprawled by an arm that swung from beside him.
Landing backward, looking up toward the half-blotted light, Phil saw the
literally incredible.
There were two of these monsters. One was making a furious downward swoop,
as if from the wing while the other was lunging upward. For the moment, both
seemed fantastically human. The swooping figure blocked the glow and therefore
looked all out of proportion to its size, which didn't apply to the shape that
came up to meet it.
The illusion faded with a gun blast, delivered by the form that made the
upward surge. With that, there were two Shadows no longer, but only one.
In fact one was all there ever had been.
The creature that had zoomed into the window was the thing that The Shadow
had blasted in mid-air, an enormous vampire bat, a killer imported from the
tropics!
A killer indeed, for it had slain Dom Yuble. How near it had come to doing
the same to Phil was enough to send his head swimming. Relaxing, Phil went limp
and felt the sweep of total blackness which gradually disseminated when hands
shook his shoulder and splashed water lightly in his face.
Instead of The Shadow, Lamont Cranston was helping Phil into a chair.
Revived, Phil stared at the body of Dom Yuble, its throat gory from the
vampire's deadly work. Near Yuble lay the killer, also dead, of huge size for a
bat, but lacking the mammoth proportions that it had seemed to gain when cutting
off the light.
Then Phil, his own throat tingling, even though untouched, was voicing
hoarse details of all that had occurred, hoping that Cranston could interpret
the rest.
"I saw the thing last night," stated Phil, "or maybe something like it.
Only Yuble couldn't have been expecting this. He thought he was going to get a
message, a confidential message."
Sounds like little "eeks" attracted Cranston to the window. He beckoned
Phil there and together they looked up beneath the eaves. Hanging there was a
row of tiny bats which couldn't compare in size to the vampire killer. In fact
the little bats were frightened by the oversized visitor; hence their complaint.
"Carrier bats," stated Cranston, very calmly. "It's not uncommon for bats
to have the homing sense. At short distances they are perfect message bearers,
particularly at night, since it is impossible to see them except against the
light."
Both Margo and Arlene could have testified to that last-named fact along
with Phil. As for Cranston, he was learning something that he had sought while
playing the role of The Shadow; how strange prowlers in the park had managed to
get back word to the person who maneuvered them. Here was the answer, these
carrier bats that Dom Yuble received and from the messages they bore was able
to pass the word along.
"I get it," armed Phil, tersely. "When Ronjan is out, he can send word
back to Yuble. Tonight Ronjan must have seen me coming up here. He figured I
was wise, so he sent the killer bat, hoping it would get me -"
Cranston interposed with a headshake.
"You were not expected," he told Phil. "Yuble was intended as the victim."
"But why?"
"Because he knew too much about a certain treasure long sought on a sunken
brig called the Good Wind."
From his pocket Cranston brought a sheaf of photostats and spread them for
Phil to see. As he went over them, Cranston kept glancing from the window,
watching for distant twinkles from somewhere in Central Park.
"The Good Wind treasure rightfully belonged to a man named Thales Van
Woort," explained Cranston. "He sent a smuggler named Caleb Albersham out to
bring in the treasure. Unfortunately, Albersham's sloop, the Rover, was lost in
the same storm that sank the Good Wind."
Phil nodded. He had heard the treasure story.
"I've been tracking down the records of the Albersham family," explained
Cranston, "in hope that I might find some important data. Oddly, they seem to
feel that their old ancestor Caleb was a hero, not a rascal.
"Here's a picture taken in the early days of Central Park. It shows the
slab marking Caleb's grave. A lot of those markers still remain, particularly
in the Oval, near the Willow Arch."
Those terms struck home to Phil, but he was more interested in deciphering
the picture. About all he could see inscribed on the stone were the words:
HERE LIES
CALEB ALBERSHAM
ADVENTURER & MARINER
ESTEEMED BY HIS
FAMILY & DESCENDANTS
Cranston was bringing out some other items, which he laid on the table.
"I checked on the Van Woort family too," he explained. "They go further
back than the Albershams. There was an old hunting shack owned by Thales'
grandfather Doorn. It was tucked right under two cliffs."
Phil studied the crude drawing that showed the rude cabin. He nodded
approvingly.
"A nice safe place."
"It was until the Indians dropped down on it," declared Cranston. "Right
here on Manhattan Island. That was the end of Doorn. After that, the family
wished they'd lived in a cave."
"Why didn't they?"
"Because they moved down to New Amsterdam proper, where land was more
expensive but safer. Of course they still made expeditions way up into the wild
lands which are now Central Park."
"What happened to their old location?"
"Gone, long ago. It's difficult to trace old landmarks in Central Park.
The whole area was landscaped back in the Eighteen-fifties, a tremendous
project for that day. Of course it followed the contour of the land, wherever
possible."
Pausing, Cranston studied some twinkles that appeared from the darkness of
the park. Then, bringing an envelope from his pocket, he handed it to Phil.
"Getting down to date," stated Cranston, "look those over Harley. They're
some photographs I managed to acquire. One may be Ames, another Older. Tell me
if you recognize anybody else."
The photos were rather poor prints, but one man did look like Ames, as
Phil recalled him. There were other pictures, one of which brought a smile to
Phil because it reminded him of an old uncle he remembered from childhood. Then:
"Why, this looks like Arlene Forster!" Phil exclaimed. "The girl I told
you about. By the way" - Phil's tone became apologetic - "I'm sorry I kicked up
such a fuss about Arlene. Since she knew Ronjan, I'm beginning to think she was
the girl who worked the banshee hoax."
Cranston gave a slight nod from the telephone that he was using. He
pointed to another picture.
"Look at that one."
Phil studied a crude photo of a haughty old lady while Cranston was
completing the call. Then:
"Who is she?" he asked. "Say - I have it! I've seen this face in the
newspapers. It belongs to old Sylvia Selmore!"
At that moment, Cranston repeated the same name:
"Sylvia Selmore!"
With those words, Cranston ended the call, gave another look out into the
dark, where twinkles no longer were visible. Then:
"I've just heard something," declared Cranston, "that means tonight will
be the big pay-off. Our business will be to make it pay the way it should!"
CHAPTER XVIII
LAMONT CRANSTON had just heard from Margo Lane and she had told him some
amazing news.
Old Sylvia Selmore was taking a sincere group out to Central Park to await
the appearance of the banshee, which in her language was spelled Gwrach y Rhibyn.
When Cranston told this to Phil, the latter didn't believe it.
"The police would be crazy to allow it!" exclaimed Phil.
"On the contrary, they think otherwise," expressed Cranston. "I just
talked to the commissioner."
Phil's eyes went nervous as they looked toward Yuble's body.
"I didn't mention what happened here," stated Cranston. "The commissioner
was too busy. He's letting Miss Sylvia have her fling on the chance the banshee
will appear. The police will have a cordon formed about the place."
Phil began to grasp the idea. Then:
"What gave Miss Sylvia her present notion?"
"She went to another medium," Cranston explained. He was picking up the
telephone as he spoke. "The result was what they term a direct voice message,
telling Sylvia to visit the banshee haunt and take her friends."
"Somebody bribed the medium to pipe that yarn?"
"Very probably," acknowledged Cranston. "It seems to be the custom. All
done anonymously, though."
A voice was answering from the number that Cranston had dialed and the
voice belonged to Margo Lane. Glad that Lamont had called, Margo gave a
breathless report which Cranston then relayed to Phil.
"A friend of yours is going along," said Cranston. "Arlene Forster.
Somebody phoned her and gave my name, inviting her to join the party. She
phoned Sylvia and Margo was there to learn about it."
"So that's the stunt!" exclaimed Phil. "It will give Arlene her chance to
work the banshee game. I get it now; somebody is after old Sylvia's money!"
"That's what the police think," agreed Cranston. "The commissioner is so
keyed up that he's forgotten Ames and Older. He just won't believe they're
linked with Central Park."
"It's Ronjan's work!" expressed Phil. "I'm going out to that banshee pool
myself -"
"You're going along with your friend Vincent," interposed Cranston. "He
dropped by to see me today and told me how he'd helped you out last night. A
capable chap, Vincent."
Forced to agree, Phil gave a nod meaning that a team-up with Vincent would
suit him.
Cranston was making another phone call, this time to an old carriage
factory, to ask them if they'd finished a repair job on an old hansom that had
been sent there. Learning that they had, Cranston ordered the vehicle sent to
the Chateau Parkview.
Going out with Phil, Cranston locked the door of Ronjan's suite leaving it
for the police to find Yuble's body in due course. Downstairs, however, Cranston
scorned the usual lobby door. Instead, he guided Phil to a telephone booth in
the alcove.
"From things that you and Arlene mentioned," said Cranston, "I thought it
a good idea to check on this. Watch."
Stepping into the booth, Cranston vanished. Unable to believe his eyes,
Phil came alert, tugged at the door and found the booth quite empty. Crowding
in for a better look, Phil heard the door jar behind him. There was a sharp
click and Phil was reeling through the wall, into an empty corridor of a narrow
building next door to the hotel.
It was Harry Vincent who stopped Phil's stagger. Finding that Phil was
quite undamaged, Harry nodded and said:
"The gas load wasn't there tonight."
"You mean that's what happened the other time I came through?" queried
Phil. "Why I was so groggy and didn't wake up until I was out in the park
somewhere?"
"That's right."
"Smart of Arlene," decided Phil, with a grim nod. "She faked the stunt the
night before. Just a buildup so when the thing happened to me, I'd look back and
think she had the same experience. Say - do you think Ames and Older each got a
whiff of that stuff?"
"One in a taxi," stated Harry, "the other in a hansom. Let's start out and
see if we can find them."
"Where do we begin?"
"At the old Watch Tower, up about the middle of Central Park. That's where
the flashes came from tonight. They thought they had us licked; that we'd go
moving all around the park, thinking the glimmer was from one side or the
other. But we did some quick triangulation and located the source. Maybe the
big shot is there in person tonight."
Eager to go, Phil followed Harry out through a door that opened on the
street, but had no outside knob. He realized then how easily someone had shoved
him in a waiting carriage for there were several along this curb.
Phil was thinking too of Thara and how she had tried to help him. Perhaps
that was why he didn't notice the hansom cab that was right now pulling away
from the curb. In that hansom was Lamont Cranston, lighting another of those
long thin cigars.
Other eyes though must have noted Cranston, for it wasn't long before
signals blinked, away out in the park, in answer to some relayed message.
Meanwhile the hansom was proceeding deep into the park, its driver
lounging sleepily in the high box, where he couldn't see what was going on
within. Prowlers among the bushes were following the hansom's slow curve.
Lamont Cranston leaned forward, looked out and blew some clouds of cigar smoke.
Then, leaning back into the hansom, he became The Shadow.
Therewith, The Shadow vanished.
Great speculation existed about The Shadow's vanishing methods. Men of
crime had seen him disappear from their very midst. People like Madame Mathilda
claimed that The Shadow had the faculty of literally dematerializing himself. Of
course there were times and occasions when The Shadow could cloud men's minds,
as was done in Tibet where he had learned hypnotic methods from the Lamas, but
in usual practice, The Shadow's way was to simply blend with blackness.
He had blackness in plenty, here within the hansom, and now being fully
cloaked, The Shadow was capable of using it. But that brought up another moot
point. If Cranston became The Shadow and then vanished as such, would anything
that typified Cranston vanish with him?
Of course it would, when enveloped within the cloak that merged so fully
with the dark, but the rule could hardly apply to one of those very fine
panatella cigars that were Cranston's favorite smoke, even when he was The
Shadow.
To the question of whether the cigar would vanish with him, the answer was
it didn't.
Like a tiny beacon, the tell-tale cigar showed its glows from within the
hansom. As the hack went between the two halves of a low embankment, moving
figures saw the light which told them that The Shadow was still there. Four of
them, two abreast from each flank, came headlong through the air, like leaping
leopards, which they indeed resembled, thanks to the spotted costumes that they
wore.
The cigar glowed a greeting as they arrived in a cluster that shook the
hansom deep down to its springs. A moment later they were clawing, knifing for
the man at the end of the cigar, only to find the end of a curved metal pipe
instead!
The Shadow was gone and completely, but from behind the cab came the sharp
outside click of a bolt closing a special trap door, which the carriage shop had
built into the seat. Up on the high box, Burbank, his face hidden beneath a hack
driver's plug hat, gave a tug at what looked like a brake lever.
Down from the top of the hansom's open front rolled a blind that looked
like a rain curtain, but wasn't. This was a steel curtain that locked solidly
when it hit the bottom. At the same time, Burbank removed a pipe stem from his
mouth, along with the length of rubber hose that he had been drawing through,
to complete the illusion of a smoker inside the hansom.
Burbank simply plugged the pipe stem into a little tank resting in the
driver's box and turned the knob that released a hissing flow of compressed
gas. Four tight-packed leopard men took the full benefit of that knock-out
vapor, inside what was now an airtight cell.
A weird laugh stirred the darkness from behind the hansom. From where he
had dropped through the self-acting trap, The Shadow came erect and moved into
the moonlight, packing away the automatics that he hadn't needed.
Burbank would take that leopard crew into some port where the police would
duly find them. Having extracted four fangs from the very jaws of crime, The
Shadow was bound elsewhere, with other work to do!
CHAPTER XIX
UP where the lilacs grew, Miss Sylvia Selmore, attired in shimmering
white, was acting as the high-priestess of a fanciful woodland cult that was
the product of her own deluded brain. Surrounding Sylvia were cult members who
included fanatics like herself, plus a few who weren't.
Margo Lane belonged to the normal contingent as did Arlene Forster.
Perhaps that was why they studied each other so askance. In fact their mutual
suspicion was so great that neither noticed another girl, who wore a long dark
cape as black as her glossy hair. Thara Lamoyne was very capable at making
herself inconspicuous when she wanted.
From far away, tiny twinkles of light appeared through the lilacs above
the gray rock which formed the stepping off place to the pool below. The cult
members were here, in the little glen that sloped gently down behind the rock.
A happy shriek escaped Sylvia:
"Canhywllah Cyrth! Canhywllah Cyrth!"
Everybody crowded forward, especially some portly mediums who wanted to
claim a share in the uncanny manifestation. Margo and Arlene were both elbowed
well apart. Thara however expected the forward shove. She was already edging
away, stooping as she started a circuit through the trees.
Thara was clever. As she neared the last low shrub that flanked the
moonlit rock, she lowered her head and gave her hair a forward sweep that sent
it in a shaggy mass across her face. A downward motion of her hands slipped the
cape from her shoulders; then, as the cape hooked the shrubbery, Thara's hands
rose to sweep her hair into a temporary fluff. Drawing the cloak like a
curtain, Thara let it fly back with the branches that gripped it, as she made a
pirouette upon the rock above the pool.
"Gwrach y Rhibyn! Gwrach y Rhibyn!"
Miss Sylvia shrilled the happy news while others stood amazed. So cleverly
had Thara worked her arrival, it seemed that she had really sprung up out of the
rock, or had materialized herself from among the floating moonbeams.
She lived up to Reilly's descriptions, this shimmering, lithe creature
from nowhere. In the moonlight, her olive hue could not be distinguished; the
glow, coming through her hair, gave it a blonde effect rather than brunette. No
ancient goddess, materializing before mortal eyes, could have appeared more
amazingly.
The cult crowd weren't the only ones to be amazed. From the rustic bridge
below the pool, Commissioner Weston and Inspector Cardona were learning
first-hand that no Reilly was ever a liar and Officer Reilly was there in
person to witness the proof.
"'Tis the banshee," confirmed Reilly, "and whatever she is wearing, 'tis
scantier than regulations allow."
Neither Weston nor Cardona was worrying whether Thara had encased herself
in one of the skin-tight bathing suits that used to feature the diving acts at
the old Hippodrome. This was a question of banshee or no banshee. If a spirit
form, Thara couldn't be arrested; if mortal, she could have introduced herself
in pantalettes and hoop-skirt and still be liable to arrest on a charge of
conspiracy to defraud.
The worthies of the law wanted to break up the cult racket in Central Park
and then head elsewhere to solve the still unexplained disappearances of Messrs.
Ames and Older. Rather hasty, Weston and Cardona, considering that they were to
witness an even more remarkable evanishment before their very eyes.
Finishing a tantalizing twirl, the amazing Thara finished a long sweep of
her lovely arms, swerved toward the pool and tilted her head forward so that
her hair flung downward like a curtain as she doubled her figure to the rock,
arriving there gently on her knees. Then, her crouched form performed a
somersaulting motion that carried it in a doubled-up tumble down into the pool.
That was what Weston and Cardona saw, with Reilly there as witness. But it
was only an illusion of the moonlight. What went across the brink was a loose
clump of stone, just Thara's size, that she had set in motion with her knees
and sped with a further shove of her hands.
As the men on the bridge let their eyes follow what they thought was the
tumbling form of a humanized banshee, the cult members in the glen were treated
to another phase of Thara's neatly timed disappearance. The girl simply let
herself follow into the cavity that the chunk of stone had left; there she
twisted sideward and upward, into the shelter of the bush where her cape was
hanging. Enveloping herself in the garment with a single motion, Thara stepped
into her slippers and was skirting back around the lilacs while she slicked her
hair close against her head.
Thara's trip was shortened by the fact that everybody, Margo and Arlene
included, had crowded up to the brink where the Gwrach y Rhibyn had vanished.
Whistles were blaring from the bridge and police were appearing from all
angles in response to the call. Weston's shouts sounded still louder:
"She's under the ledge! That's where she ducked! Stop her when she comes
out of the pool!"
Margo was groping madly among the cult members, to come face to face with
Arlene, at whom Margo gave an almost accusing stare, which the other girl
returned.
"I thought -"
Both said it at once, then laughed. "Let's hunt the banshee together,"
suggested Margo. "But we'd better get started while the cops are still coming
from the copse."
"Have you any idea who she is?"
Margo thought that Arlene asked the question and began to nod, only to see
Arlene do the same. Then they were both looking into the face that wore the Mona
Lisa smile above the severe cape, the face of Thara Lamoyne.
"If you know who she is," reprimanded Thara, "you should tell the police.
If you have any idea where she has gone, you should certainly try to find her."
The banshee couldn't be Thara, the girl who at that moment rated as Public
Banshee Number One in the estimate of both Margo and Arlene. For Thara to return
here so immediately without arriving dripping wet, cleared her of suspicion and
completely. There was only one fair thing to do; that was to invite Thara on
the search, which Margo promptly did.
It was Margo who set the pace, straight to the gully into which she had
slipped that first night when she'd gone banshee hunting. Once you reached the
gully you were in the groove because there was no getting out of it until the
other end.
Finding no banshee, Margo decided they were ahead of schedule. Coming up
from the gully, she saw Arlene close beside her, but Thara had dropped behind.
Then from the underbrush came an elephantine plodding and Thara arrived,
bringing Miss Sylvia, who was responsible for the pachydermic crushing of the
shrubbery.
"I brought Miss Selmore," explained Thara, in a cool contralto. "I thought
she ought to be the first to discover the banshee."
"If you mean the Gwrach y Rhibyn," protested Sylvia, "I am convinced that
she is a genuine sprite. However, if science demands an investigation, I am
willing to comply."
It would have taken science to hoist Miss Sylvia across the transverse,
even if a rope had been handy. However, Margo was sure the banshee wouldn't
take that route tonight. Close by hulked an old building that Margo recognized
as the disused goat stable; beyond was the partly renovated merry-go-round.
There would be the place to wait and watch, so Margo waved the way. With
Thara bringing Miss Sylvia along they reached the carrousel and saw its partial
stock of painted wooden animals huddled in the moonlight.
Only some were neither painted nor wooden.
They came to life, four of them, all crouching leopards. With one quick
swoop they pounced upon the search party and took them prisoners, all except
Thara, who happened to be in on the deal.
The Shadow had done well, capturing a crew of leopard men tonight, but
that was only half of it. These reserves were making up for the shortcomings of
the others. Knowing it would be useless to struggle, Margo let her leopard
captor drag her along. Looking back at the blackness of the slope, Margo could
only hope that The Shadow was in it.
Things, though, no longer seemed to be shaping as The Shadow planned. At
that very moment, a party of his agents, numbering Phil Harley as an extra man,
had just reached the old Watch Tower on the middle hill, only to find it
deserted!
CHAPTER XX
OUT of darkness that ended when they heard a clang behind them, Margo Lane
and the other prisoners found themselves in a most curious place. It looked like
the interior of a Dutch oven, but on a much larger scale.
They were in a peculiar subterranean grotto here in Central Park, but the
place showed that it had been artificially constructed and long ago.
Phil Harley might have recognized that spot. The peculiar taper of its
walls was the clue. This was the defile where Doorn Van Woort had once been
unwise enough to plant a crude cabin beneath two overhanging cliffs.
Doorn's grandson Thales had done better by the place. Above was crude
masonry wedged between the rocky brows, transforming the defile into a cave.
The bridge thus made had been packed with earth above, so it served both as a
hiding place and a fortress.
Down through the grotto ran a burbling stream, that issued from among the
higher rocks. Below it flowed out through the antique grating that The Shadow
had once noticed. That grating had been lifted by the half-squad of leopard men
in order to bring the prisoners up through.
There was another route out from this man-made cavern that antedated the
landscaping of Central Park. The other route wound upward, by means of crude
stone steps. It went out of sight with no sign of its destination.
Other prisoners were already on exhibit. They consisted of two men who
answered to the descriptions of Winslow Ames and Claude Older. But they were
not the persons who attracted most attention. That honor belonged to one man
only, whose face brought a responsive gasp from Margo, the moment that she saw
it.
Craig Farnsworth!
The rugged man who had backed Ronjan's treasure hunt seemed very pleased
to find someone who appreciated his craft. When he spoke, Farnsworth seemed to
be addressing Margo Lane, as proxy for her friend Lamont Cranston.
"You are a stranger here," Farnsworth told Margo. "The others are the
same, so they think, but they are wrong. They have simply come to claim and
dispose of what belongs to them."
Farnsworth gestured to a pair of men who stood beside him, hard-faced
fellows who had served as cab drivers when Ames was abducted. One was baldish
and therefore could have passed for Older, the night when the other man had
driven a hansom to the Willow Arch.
The two men stepped aside to prove that they were not meant by
Farnsworth's gesture. Farnsworth was referring to the prisoners as persons who
had a claim they might not keep. But in stepping aside, Farnsworth's two
helpers revealed a huge coffer which they promptly opened.
The dull light of the grotto instantly gained a remarkable intensity from
the glitter of the coffer's contents. Gold and silver, lustrous though they
were, seemed but a background to the brilliance of massed jewels that sparkled
from the coffer's midst.
This was the treasure from the brig Good Wind!
Farnsworth's eye followed the circle of silent prisoners. His gaze finally
focussed on Sylvia Selmore.
"You were proud of your Welsh ancestry," Farnsworth told Sylvia. "You
would have done better to think in terms of Dutch. You might have learned that
you were a descendant of Thales Van Woort."
From there, Farnsworth's gaze took in Winslow Ames, Claude Older and
finally Arlene Forster, each in turn, signifying that the same applied to them.
"You resemble your ancestors, all of you," declared Farnsworth. "But none
of you recognized your heritage. You should thank me for finding it for you and
bringing you here to see it."
This explained the pictures that Cranston had shown Phil, all from the Van
Woort family album. Not the portraits of the persons present, but those of
relatives that they resembled. There had been an added picture, one that looked
like Phil's own uncle. It explained what Farnsworth said next.
"One heir is missing," Farnsworth declared. "I expect my other men to
bring him here shortly. If they fail, it does not matter. The police will
simply arrest Philip Harley for complicity in murder."
Farnsworth pronounced the word "murder" coldly, but did not specify the
victim. He postponed that information as his eyes met Thara's. With a broad
smile, Farnsworth bowed to the sleek-haired brunette.
"You were an excellent banshee," declared Farnsworth, "or whatever Miss
Sylvia would call you."
The dark cape quivered delicately from a shrug of Thara's shoulders.
"It was simple," explained Thara. "I often appeared as a spirit from
beyond when I helped Dom Yuble in the voodoo ceremonies. These men assisted in
those rites," - Thara nodded toward the leopard crew - "so give them credit
too."
"Voodoo rites," laughed Farnsworth. "Simple shams to impress tourists to
the Caribbean. It was much more amazing - and more profitable - to transfer the
game to Central Park."
Eyeing the leopard men, Farnsworth added a compliment for himself.
"It was simple to release a trained leopard from the zoo," he declared.
"You break one lock on a cage and supply another afterward. The keepers never
bothered to try those padlocks when they saw that they were locked. But with a
real leopard supposedly at large, the police were not impressed by accounts of
persons who saw my leopard men."
As Farnsworth paused the glitter of the treasure captured his attention.
His large smile spread in a manner that rendered it more ugly.
"It was Dom Yuble who discovered that the treasure was not in the Good
Wind," declared Farnsworth. "He saw that the brig had been blown open by a
powder explosion and he told Niles Ronjan, who promptly guessed the truth.
Master Glanvil of the Good Wind had transferred the treasure to the sloop Rover
and its owner the smuggler Caleb Albersham.
"Where else would Albersham take it, but to the forgotten cavern that was
still the property of the Van Woort family? Albersham wanted it for himself,
but if his secret trip had been discovered, he could have claimed that he was
acting in the interests of his employer, Thales Van Woort."
Gloating as if pleased that there had been double-crossers back in the
days of double-deckers, Farnsworth proceeded with his keen analysis.
"Albersham went back to the Good Wind," recounted Farnsworth. "He helped
Glanvil wreck the brig and together they left on the sloop Rover intending some
day to return and split the treasure that Van Woort never guessed was here. Only
the Rover was lost in the great storm that reputedly sank the Good Wind."
Another glance around the group and Farnsworth's stare changed. He was
coming back from the past to the present.
"When Yuble discovered that there was no treasure," stated Farnsworth
emphatically, "he told Niles Ronjan. In turn, Ronjan ordered Yuble to remain
silent rather than have investors demand a settlement. Pretending that the Good
Wind project had failed, Ronjan intended to get new backers and hunt for other
treasure.
"But Yuble was too clever." Farnsworth turned to Thara. "Yes, he was
clever, your friend Yuble. He told me all that had happened and I studied old
records which led me here" - he gestured toward the high stone stairs - "by the
route which leads from above. I disposed of all the records that might have left
a clue."
Dipping his chin into his hand, Farnsworth surveyed the prisoners coldly,
all except Margo, who no longer counted.
"To find the treasure here on land was best," declared Farnsworth, "since
it eliminated Ronjan's interest. Of course it raises the point that the wealth
really belongs to the Van Woort descendants. It was necessary to assemble them
of course.
"One was already here" - Farnsworth was looking at Miss Sylvia - "so I
planned the banshee hoax to encourage her to stay in New York. As for the
others, I coaxed them to New York by means of attractive financial offers that
required no great effort on their part.
"Now that you all are here except for young Harley, I shall ask you to
assign over your heritage to me. If you refuse" - Farnsworth gave a shrug -
"well, it would not be wise."
Glancing about, Farnsworth waited for someone to speak but no one did.
From far down the bubbling stream came the muffled clang of the old grating,
lifting and dropping back into place.
"The other crew," decided Farnsworth. "They are bringing Harley. Perhaps
he will speak for the rest of you."
Turning to look for the newcomer, Farnsworth frowned and his expression
graduated into a glare. For the man who suddenly appeared from among the lower
rocks was Niles Ronjan, a large revolver pointed ahead of him.
The term eccentric no longer applied to Ronjan. His was the fervor of a
fanatic.
"So you found this grotto!" cackled Ronjan. "You found it, never thinking
I was first! Tell me, Farnsworth, why did you think that I delayed the treasure
hunt after I found the Good Wind empty?
"Only because I planned to remove the treasure from here and plant it in
the sunken hulk of the old brig. Like a fool, I was willing to let you share,
should I be given time. Then I saw Yuble acting strangely and I knew that he
had sold out to you. But I never suspected that you had found the Good Wind
treasure too.
"Never until tonight, when I discovered Yuble murdered in my own
apartment. Then I realized the depths of your game, how you were trying to pin
all crime on me. I found the creature that murdered Yuble, the vampire bat from
the tropics -"
Farnsworth's interruption was a snarl, a signal for the leopard men to
pounce upon Ronjan. They were whipping out their knives so fast that the old
inventor's gun could not have coped with them except for Thara Lamoyne.
With a fierce cry for the leopard men to follow her example, Thara flung
herself upon Farnsworth. She had all the fury of a sleek, wild, jungle beast,
this maddened girl, as she thrust her arms and shoulders from within her
spreading cloak so that her hands could use their fingers as death-dealing
claws.
The word of Yuble's murder had turned Thara into a creature of mad
vengeance. As Farnsworth's other followers tried to haul this living fury from
their chief, the leopard men hesitated and momentarily, Ronjan seemed the
winner.
Then, at a mad howl from Farnsworth, the leopard crew decided that they
owned allegiance to a living master rather than a dead one. They swung to deal
with Ronjan, willing to take Farnsworth's orders now that Yuble was dead.
Ronjan was already springing at them, gun first, but the weight of numbers
would have flattened him, except for the sudden intervention of a factor
hitherto undeclared.
The whole grotto filled with the shivering, challenging, titanic laugh
that could only be The Shadow's!
As if from nowhere, a cloaked fighter sprang into the midst of the divided
fray. His gun-shots spilled the leopard men amid the whirl of their own
clattering knives. Clouts from the swinging automatics added Farnsworth's other
henchmen to the list of The Shadow's succumbing adversaries.
Finally, The Shadow flung Thara with a whirling spin into the arms of
Ronjan. Tangled in her draping cape, the former banshee buried her face in her
hands and wept pitifully, not because she felt herself a part of crime, but
because she had been frustrated in her attempt to wreak vengeance upon
Farnsworth for Yuble's death.
Men were coming down from the high steps that rose above the stream; they
were The Shadow's agents, Phil among them, coming by the same route that their
chief had used to reach this underground treasure haven. They took over custody
of Farnsworth, Thara, and even Ronjan, whose own deeds were on the doubtful side.
When Margo and Arlene looked for the cloaked rescuer who had so fully
turned the tide, The Shadow was gone. From high up the steps drifted back the
weird, strange laugh that spelled triumph in The Shadow's universal language.
The Shadow was to make a reappearance, but in another guise. This occurred
when Commissioner Weston was completing his grilling of a much cowered Craig
Farnsworth, down at headquarters, with Inspector Cardona helping in the quiz.
Lamont Cranston, casual as ever, arrived to witness the finish.
Briefly, Weston summed the evidence for Cranston's benefit. Then:
"There's one thing that even Farnsworth doesn't know," declared the
commissioner. "He can't figure how The Shadow discovered the upper entrance
down to the grotto. Farnsworth destroyed the documents that mentioned it."
Cranston raised his eyebrows quizzically.
"Where was that entrance, commissioner?"
"Under a big flat slab," explained Weston. "The marker covering the grave
of Caleb Albersham, the smuggler. It was the blind for the stone stairway
leading to the treasure cavern belonging to the Van Woort family."
A slow nod came from Cranston.
"I suppose that Albersham fixed it that way."
"Of course," retorted Weston, "but how did The Shadow guess it?"
"Because he knew the grave was empty," declared Cranston, quite calmly,
"and therefore he assumed it must serve some other purpose. There was a
peculiar marking on Albersham's slab, wasn't there, commissioner?"
"Nothing peculiar about it," snapped Weston. "Like most other tombstones,
it had an inscription that said: Here lies the body -"
"The body of Caleb Albersham?" put in Cranston, blandly. "The skipper of
the sloop Rover that was lost at sea with all on board?"
That was all, except that Cranston's smile, alight though it was, had what
might have been defined as a visual echo of The Shadow's parting laugh!
THE END