The Shadow - Foxhound Part 7

The fingers of the blonde were twisted in Madge's hair.

She gave the hair a vicious jerk that drew a faint groan from her captive's pale lips.

"Where's the painting, beautiful? Come on - talk!"

"Kelsea has it. His agent stole it from me."

"You lie! Why should Kelsea steal it?"

"Because he's - Foxhound."

"You mean Hanson is!"

Madge uttered a shrill, unbelieving cry. "He's not! And even if he were, I'd never -"

The blonde's palm slapped her on the mouth.

"Let her alone, Helene," Stoner growled. "I'll make her talk!" THERE was a bright glitter in Stoner's staring eyes. His muddy face was flushed. The scar on his chin stood out like a dead-white crescent against the darker hue of his skin. He drew with lingering enjoyment a thin-bladed knife from an inner pocket of his coat.

The knife was a surgeon's scalpel.

Madge writhed, but Helene caught her and held her helpless. The knife began to descend slowly toward the taut line of the girl's ivory throat.

"It's going to hurt like the very devil," Stoner promised, grimly.

"First, I'll just nick your skin a little, let you feel the drip of warm blood. Like this."

The point of the knife made a tiny movement. A thread of crimson appeared on Madge's throat, trickled slowly toward the cleft of her arched bosom.

The Shadow's gloved palms pressed unnoticed on the edge of the stone pool.

He was on the point of rising from the murky water when a sudden sound from the upper story of the boathouse caused him to wait.

Stoner and the blonde heard the noise, too. It was the slam of a heavy door, followed by the swift rush of a man's feet. Stoner dropped the knife and pivoted toward the stairs that led to the floor above. A heavy gun jerked into his hand from a concealed armpit holster.

Helene, too, had drawn a pistol. Her crimson lips were parted with a fierce excitement.

She screamed and swerved aside as a pistol roared from the top of the stairs. The bullet hit the stone pavement of the cellar floor and ricocheted against the wall. The prompt explosion of Stoner's gun made a vicious echo.

Helene fired, her slim wrist jerking with the recoil.

The Shadow saw the grim face of their a.s.sailant at the head of the stairs.

He was Alonzo Kelsea, and he was advancing with suicidal stubbornness. The Shadow understood why when he saw one of Helene's bullets flatten on the lawyer's chest, staggering him for an instant, but not stopping him. Kelsea was wearing body armor under his clothing.

Madge Payne was crawling on hands and knees toward the concrete lip of the pool, but neither Helene nor Stoner saw her. They were firing at the advancing Kelsea.

AS Madge reached the edge of the pool, she recoiled. She saw a grim face half submerged in black water. Before she could draw back, a wet hand seized her ankle in a grip of steel, tumbled her overboard. The noise of her splash was drowned by the thunder of spitting guns.

The Shadow had seen Madge's mouth fly open as he grasped her. He counted on the fact that her involuntary gasp of terror would fill her expanding lungs with air. He dived as her falling body broke the surface, and his tight grip drew the girl relentlessly after him.

Down, down - The lower edge of the wooden barrier that closed off the water entrance from the lake sc.r.a.ped The Shadow's spine as he yanked the girl along. He could see her eyes wide open. Bubbles sprang from her nostrils and the corners of her mouth. She was exhaling; she hadn't breathed deeply enough!

In a moment the agony of empty lungs would force her to inhale black, choking water.

But they were both rising now, impelled by the powerful thrusts of The Shadow's legs. Their heads broke the surface of Cedar Lake in a plume of spray.Madge gasped, coughed, drew a deep, shuddering breath.

The Shadow forced her on her back, towed her with swift strokes through the darkness toward the squat, concrete shape of the canoe landing. She lay there, breathless, inert, while the cloaked figure of her rescuer bent like a dripping wraith and slid a canoe into the water.

He lifted the girl and deposited her in the canoe. A gloved hand thrust a paddle into hers. The Shadow's voice, curt, masterful, was ordering her to escape across the lake.

Madge shook her head. She sat immovable in the floating canoe, the paddle held stiffly in her hand. She was refusing to leave without Bruce Hanson.

Hanson himself ended the grim stalemate. There was a slight splash near the landing and the doctor's body rose from behind a pointed slab of rock. A gun pointed at the heart of The Shadow.

"Get back, whoever you are," he ordered, in a carefully lowered voice, "or I'll blow you apart!"

The Shadow remained where he was, without word or motion.

"Don't shoot!" Madge pleaded. "He's our friend! He saved my life!"

Hanson hesitated. Then, with a quick leap, he was along the sh.o.r.e and into the canoe. He seized the paddle from Madge's nerveless hand. He dipped it deep into black water. The handle bent under his grim pressure.

The canoe shot arrowlike into the darkness that shrouded the lake. It disappeared as though in a dream, leaving behind it only a swift-spinning swirl of bubbles to mark where it had gone. A moment later, the ripples faded and the surface became blank and gla.s.sy.

A LAUGH came from the compressed lips of The Shadow. He turned, ran with a squis.h.i.+ng sound up the slope toward the rear of the boathouse. He crossed a small clearing and glided out of sight among tangled bushes.

He was just in time. There was an excited jumble of voices, then the upper boathouse door opened - and The Shadow, hidden in his covert, was again given a surprise.

Three people emerged. Helene, Stoner and Kelsea. It was evident that there no longer was enmity between them. Kelsea's placating whisper explained why.

"Why didn't you yell when I fired?" the lawyer breathed. "I thought you were The Shadow."

"Next time, use your eyes," Stoner snarled, his sallow face still flushed.

"Where did you leave Hanson?"

"I don't know where he is. He got suspicious when Madge didn't return, slugged me and ran down toward the boathouse."

"Forget him," Helene shrilled. "It's Madge we want! She knows where the painting is. And The Shadow has her! He must have taken her through the pool.

We've got to search the lake!"

But Kelsea instantly demurred.

"They'd never try the lake. They've sneaked back to the house to locate the painting. If we close in from front and rear, we've got them. Quick!"

He ran toward the steep wooden steps that led aloft through the darkness.

Helene followed.

The Shadow heard Stoner cry: "What about the cliff? That's how he got down here in the first place. I think you're both crazy!" THE SHADOW began to retreat swiftly. He hurried in the direction of the cliff. He knew that every minute now was precious. Ripping his way through tangled vines, tripping over moss-covered rocks, he reached the foot of the dangerous ascent that led aloft to the private road.

He climbed faster than he had descended. He was barely ten feet from the top when he heard a dim yell, far below his feet.

A gun roared with echoing thunder. Six inches to the left of The Shadow's head a spurt of dust bounced away from the cliff. Again a bullet struck, this time a foot or more to the left. A glance downward showed The Shadow his enemy.

Stoner. The fellow was firing wildly, agonized at the thought that his victim was wriggling at the edge of safety.

He emptied his gun in a desperate fusillade. But The Shadow had already crawled over the lip of the cliff and was racing up the private road toward where he had left his hidden car.

He found it, sprang in. The car made a black streak along the winding road, pausing only for a brief second to make the turn into the main highway.

It roared down smooth asphalt, gathering impetus at every revolution of the spinning tires. The Shadow had ascertained all he wished to know for the present. He was satisfied that the missing Colette painting was not in Kelsea's house.

In the mind of The Shadow, the sly Jimmy Dawson loomed as the probable explanation for this phenomenon. Dawson was playing a shrewd double-crossing game. The Shadow had to find him. The high-powered car sped along the highway leading toward Manhattan. The Shadow's grim gaze raced endlessly ahead of the brilliant headlights.

CHAPTER XII.

A ROOM AND A PORTRAIT.

CHARLES MALONE was staring inquiringly at Joe Cardona. He had been summoned by Joe to police headquarters. Cardona felt sorry for Malone; he was looking seedy and disheartened these days. The private detective he had hired to avenge his brother's murder had so far, Malone admitted glumly, accomplished nothing at all. Jimmy Dawson had disappeared. The whole case seemed to have run into a blank, hopeless wall.

Cardona nodded.

"Speaking of Dawson," he said, "a funny thing happened yesterday. I had a telephone call telling me where to find him. I went there and found the call was a fake. Made the superintendent unlock the apartment with a pa.s.s key - but there was no Jimmy Dawson."

"Who made the call?" Malone asked.

"Search me. Some guy we couldn't trace. The apartment belongs to a sw.a.n.ky doctor named Hanson."

Joe inspected the tip of a cigar he was smoking.

"By the way, you never did tell me the name of the private detective you hired."

"Stoner. David Stoner."

"I see."

A glint came into Cardona's eyes. Joe had received, not one, but two mysterious telephone calls from the unknown being who called himself The Shadow. The Dawson fiasco had Joe frankly puzzled. But the second message was adescription of a man and woman he had been advised to investigate - and here he was on surer ground.

He described to his visitor a scar-chinned man and a blond woman with agate-blue eyes. Charles Malone straightened with a cry of astonishment.

"Why, that's Stoner himself! The private detective I hired!"

"And the blonde?"

"Helene Carfax. She's Stoner's a.s.sistant. She handles his office business.

Stoner spends all his time outside. I only met him once."

"You sure about the scar on his chin?"

"Of course. It's like a small, white crescent. Are you implying that he's not really a detective?"

"He holds an agency license, if that's what you mean," Cardona said, grimly. "But he's the kind of 'detective' I'd like to toss into a cell, if I could get the proof on him. Why didn't you tell me his name, long ago?"

"You never asked me," Malone said, his voice troubled.

"How did you come to hire him? Was he recommended?"

"No. He telephoned me at my hotel the same night Dawson was acquitted of my brother's murder on the pier. He said he was certain he could solve the case, if I cared to spend the money for investigation."

Cardona threw his cigar away.

"Looks like you've been given a sweet runaround," he said, slowly.

He jammed his derby on the back of his head, rose from his creaky swivel chair. "I think it might be a h.e.l.l of a good idea to make a call on this David Stoner and find out where he's been lately."

"Right!" Malone said. His face reflected Cardona's anger.

The two men hurried downstairs to the street and caught a taxi.

DAVID STONER'S detective agency was located in a sw.a.n.ky office building on lower Madison Avenue. Stoner's office itself was a tiny, not-very-prosperous looking affair.

It was on the nineteenth floor, and it consisted of two boxlike rooms: a tiny outer office, and an inner room for clients. The door to the inner room was wide open. Except for a few sticks of cheap furniture, it was empty. The outer room contained a typewriter, several filing cabinets and a hard-faced blonde.

She gave Cardona a brief, lidded glance, then she smiled at his companion.

"How do you do, Mr. Malone?"

"Is Mr. Stoner in?"

"No. He's in Detroit today."

"On Malone's case?" Cardona asked, blandly.

"No." It was a crisp monosyllable. Her tone said unmistakably: "Who the devil are you, and what business is it of yours where Stoner is?"

Charles Malone intervened with an embarra.s.sed smile.

"Miss Carfax, let me introduce you to Acting Inspector Cardona, of the police department."