The Shadow - Xitli, God Of Fire Part 3

They were the G.o.ds of the Aztecs: Xochipilli, G.o.ddess of flowers; Huitzilopochtli, the war G.o.d; his sister, Coyalxauhqui. Stopping to pick up a remarkable life-sized skull of crystal, Salter said that it represented Tezcatlipoca, chief of the Aztec G.o.ds. But when they had gone the entire length of the gallery, Salter had at no time mentioned any G.o.d of fire.

The answer came when the curator opened the door of a small room that bore a special combination lock, like the dial of a safe. The room was lined with carved slabs of stone; at the far end was a rough-hewn stone, that seemed part of the wall. At the sides of the room, The Shadow saw empty niches.

"The throne room of Xitli, the fire G.o.d," spoke Salter, with a smile. "That is, if such a G.o.d belonged in the Mayan pantheon. Professor Hedwin believes in such a legend, so to humor his whim, we allowed him to install this throne room. None of the exhibits have arrived, as Hedwin is bringing them in personally from Mexico.

"According to Hedwin" - Salter's tone carried the slight trace of a chuckle - "a strange cult used to gather in the throne room of Xitli. They were Mayas, and later Aztecs, who accepted a living leader as the incarnation of Xitli. Murder, torture, pillage were not crimes, when Xitli ordered them."

Salter locked the throne room and turned toward the elevators. Politely, he invited Cranston to come back on another day, when more relics would be on display. Many boxes, Salter said, had not yet been opened. Most of them were in the cellar of the museum.

At that moment, Salter was interrupted. He was standing by the door of the elevator, which he had opened, when all the group detected sc.r.a.ping sounds that seemed to filter through the museum. The noise was uncanny, for it was quite untraceable, at first. It was Cranston who explained the riddle.

"Probably from the elevator shaft," he said. "Which might indicate the cellar. You spoke of boxes down there, Mr. Salter."

Salter shook his head.

"It couldn't be the cellar. Do you think so, Mr. Talborn?"

Talborn decided with Salter, that the sounds came from a higher floor; but Brendle accepted The Shadow's theory, that the cellar was the source. It was The Shadow who suggested, in Cranston's easy style: "If we go down to the ground floor, we can trace the sounds from there." Salter took them to the ground floor in the elevator. As he stopped the car, they listened; the sounds still came from below. Stepping from the elevator, Salter beckoned the group toward his office.

There, he opened a desk drawer and took out two revolvers, after which, he pointed to some canes in the corner and a pair of spears crossed on the wall.

"There are four stairways to the cellar," he said, "each from a corner of the ground floor. I would suggest that we each take a separate stairway and converge on the intruders."

SALTER took a revolver, and so did Talborn. Brendle preferred one of the big spears, while The Shadow, quite indifferently, picked one of the canes. Softly, they started out into the corridor.

The Shadow let the others go ahead. Then, stepping back into the office, he replaced the cane where it belonged.

Opening a brief case that he had brought with him, the leisurely Mr. Cranston became a man of rapid action. Producing a slouch hat and a black cloak, he put on the garments, then packed a brace of automatics into holsters beneath his coat. By that rapid transformation, he became The Shadow.

Side-stepping from the office, The Shadow became a gliding shape along the dim corridor as he moved toward the outer door. Once he was outside the museum, he vanished. Blackness from the shrubbery blotted out his arriving form. Picking his way through the gloom, The Shadow paced the lower wall of the huge museum.

Somewhere, he expected to find an outside entrance to the cellar, as Salter had termed it, though actually it was a bas.e.m.e.nt, its floor only a trifle below ground level. The museum, according to report, had been built upon a solid square of concrete that served as a permanent foundation.

At the rear of the pyramid, The Shadow came upon the cellar entrance, which betrayed itself by a thin line of light from a sliding door that was not quite shut. Halting, the black-cloaked arrival drew back to a clump of shrubs, finding cover in the darkness, which was now complete except for the whiteness of the museum wall.

The door was sliding open; a man carrying a burlap sack moved outward, past where The Shadow stood. The burden was heavy, even for the husky man who hauled it. The Shadow could not see the man's face, for it was turned away, but his rough clothes and low-pulled cap gave him a thuggish appearance.

The fellow pa.s.sed the sack to someone in the darkness, then returned to the cellar. Hearing footsteps move away beyond the shrubs, The Shadow decided to look into the cellar first. The man who went inside had closed the door again, but The Shadow worked it open wide enough to wedge through.

A light was glowing in the cellar. Beneath its glare, three men were stooping above a large box, newly arrived from Mexico, working on its half-raised lid. One fist holding a drawn gun, The Shadow placed his other hand behind him and slid the door shut.

He began a slow advance, unnoticed by the stooping men, who failed even to see the stretch of elongated blackness that crept along the floor and into their midst.

A few steps more would have brought The Shadow squarely upon the trio of human rats who were obviously engaged in looting the boxes that Hedwin had sent from Mexico. But The Shadow's unseen command was suddenly broken by a sound from a corner of the cellar.

One of three other invaders, Salter, Talborn, or Brendle, had stumbled while coming down a stairway. Instantly, the three men by the boxes were up on their feet, one trying to learn which corner the sound had come from, another grabbing for the light, the third turning toward the very doorway through which The Shadow had entered.

All three were armed and when the third man saw The Shadow, his yell brought the other two about.

There were snarls as the light went out; then the sudden bark of revolvers.

Those shots were harmless, fired by men who were spinning, sprawling over boxes under the hard-sledged blows of a human whirlwind. The man who doused the light hadn't given his pals, nor himself, sufficient time to witness the speed of The Shadow's lunge.

Darkness was no handicap to The Shadow, especially when he knew that every figure he encountered was a foeman, deserving of prompt settlement.

The darkness, however, saved the bewildered crooks, as they scrambled for the corners of the cellar, two minus their guns, the third too anxious for flight to try pot shots against an invisible target.

The Shadow could not risk shots in their direction, because he heard other sounds beyond and knew that Salter, Talborn, and Brendle were coming into the fray, where they could receive stray bullets.

Only one of them had a flashlight: Salter. The curator used it, somewhat frantically, spreading a beam that he didn't hold in any one place. Each time his light uncovered a crook, Salter shed the glare somewhere else, and the thug went scuttling to cover.

The laugh of The Shadow reverberated through the cellar, bringing startling echoes from the stone-lined room. It told the robbers that surrender was their only course, and they were about to heed it, when new invaders entered. They came from the outer door, which they slid aside, a crew of them with flashlights.

Outlined in the glare, The Shadow furnished gun stabs that brought howls and scattered flashlights. Other guns were blazing from the door, but their shots were wide, spasmodic. In the confusion, the three thugs from the cellar were seeking escape, and blocking off the very marksmen who had helped them.

SUCH were not the only blunders. Salter and Talborn were shooting from their corners, aiming short of the door for fear that some enemies might be diving in upon them. With bullets ricocheting close at hand, The Shadow reversed his course, seeking to fire from a longer, but safer, range.

As he wheeled, the chance sweep of Salter's flashlight showed a bulky man driving in with a big spear. It was Brendle, hoping to head off some of the scattering crooks. The Shadow met him with a charge that sent Brendle backward, his spear clattering away. Seeing Brendle's fall, Salter charged in, shouting to Talborn to join him.

From the floor, Brendle was bellowing for them to stop; that they had made a bad mistake. Salter, by then, was feeling the weight of a fist that carried a gun. He sagged, clutching his jaw, and heard Brendle's shouts. He tried to yell at Talborn, too, but his jaw was too numbed to work.

Talborn was reeling away from The Shadow, when Salter and Brendle reached him. Gone berserk, Talborn began to battle his own friends and gave them a terrific grapple. He had lost his revolver under a slas.h.i.+ng blow that The Shadow had given him, and the fact that he was weaponless drove Talborn to greater frenzy.

While three men tumbled around the cellar, they heard The Shadow's laugh again, near the outer door, accompanied by staccato shots that he fired after fleeing crooks. Then the roar of auto motors from a block away told that crooks had maneuvered a departure, due to the chance mix-up that had r.e.t.a.r.dedThe Shadow.

The crazed fray in the cellar took a sudden end when another man strong-armed his way among the battlers. Spilled to the floor, Salter found his flashlight and turned it in the direction of grunts and groans.

He saw Talborn lying on the floor, quite subdued by a complacent man who was seated upon the p.r.o.ne fighter. The seated man had Brendle stymied, too. He had gripped Brendle's arm and was holding it behind him, so tightly that Brendle could not twist away.

Groggy though he was, Salter laughed. The man who had pitched him out of things, and separated Talborn and Brendle, too, was the unruffled Mr. Cranston. It seemed that Cranston must have stayed in his own corner, until he realized what turn the fight had taken. He had then proceeded to put his friends in their proper places.

Sheepishly, Talborn and Brendle thanked Cranston for putting them right. Salter, meanwhile, began to examine the boxes. He found them partly opened, and made a check-up of the contents.

The boxes were loosely packed, but none of the Mayan curios were missing, for Salter had a list that he consulted while he made the check-up.

"At least, we managed to get here in time," declared the curator. "Those crooks hadn't finished opening the boxes, when we disturbed them. They have fled, so we might as well go upstairs to my office and inform the police of the attempted robbery.

Lamont Cranston was the last to leave the cellar. He stood alone, with a flashlight of his own, as the others returned the stairs. With his probing light, The Shadow first studied the corner where he had left his cloak and hat in order to become Cranston again. The garments were out of sight, where he could pick them up at leisure.

Then the light glowed on the boxes. A soft laugh, only a whisper, issued from The Shadow's lips.

Fitzhugh Salter had a wrong surmise, as bad as Eugene Brendle's mistaken attack upon The Shadow, or the stumble that Graham Talborn had made, still earlier, while descending the corner stairway.

Intruders had not been opening the boxes when The Shadow found them. They had been closing those crates from Mexico. In fact, before entering the cellar, The Shadow had seen some sneaking away with the last load of goods that they had bagged.

Nothing was gone from the boxes, according to the list that Salter claimed had come from Professor Hedwin. But the fact still remained that the boxes, loosely packed, could have held a great deal more than the list stated; indeed, had actually held a great deal more.

The Shadow knew what the crooks had stolen. They had picked up Aztec treasure, which Panchez and his mestizos had been gathering all along the route while Hedwin and his expedition were traveling from Yucatan to Mexico City. The treasure had been s.h.i.+pped along with the bone-fide Mayan relics intended for the museum.

Who was behind the game, remained a riddle. Whether or not Professor Hedwin had secretly engineered the crooked s.h.i.+pment, was a question not yet answered. Conversely, it might be that Fitzhugh Salter was covering the deliveries. Yet, either or both might be innocent, not guilty.

The best way to solve the problem would be to find the men who had carried away the treasure tonight.

Such was The Shadow's coming problem, in New Orleans.

CHAPTER VII. CRIME'S NEW CHANCE

LAMONT CRANSTON sat at a writing desk, in his room at the Hotel Montebazan. Another night had come to New Orleans, the fourth since his arrival. From the windows of his corner room, The Shadow covered every angle that he wanted.

In one direction, he could see the city's center; off, far beyond, the white shape of the strange but sightly pyramid that housed the Mayan Museum. In another direction, The Shadow overlooked the French Quarter, otherwise the Vieux Carre, which carried the charm of old New Orleans and was a place where many problems might be answered.

A third outlook showed the Mississippi, with its long curved line of docks. There lay the waterfront, where East met West, with North and South to boot, and the law of human survival prevailed in its rawest form. No city in the United States had a more polyglot waterfront than New Orleans, and The Shadow was quite convinced that the men he wanted would be found there.

The New Orleans police had investigated the attempted robbery at the Mayan Museum, but the belief that the marauders had departed empty-handed made the case an empty one, as well. Hence, the law had practically dropped the matter, leaving intensive investigation solely to The Shadow.

On the writing desk lay a list of names, all of persons who might have been concerned. Gamblers, smugglers, petty racketeers, even former politicians, were on The Shadow's list. He had crossed off names, a dozen and more, until only one remained: Pierre Laboutard.

It was difficult to cla.s.s Pierre Laboutard. Some termed him a modern Jean Lafitte, a cross between a smuggler and a pirate, yet a heroic figure who would turn patriotic when occasion called. Such a description exaggerated Laboutard.

He had been a rum-runner in the old days, and later had tried to muscle in on the shrimp-fis.h.i.+ng industry, to the extent of taking over some fis.h.i.+ng shacks from their rightful owners. To save his hide, he had subsequently tipped off Federal authorities to the whereabouts of some gun runners who were s.h.i.+pping weapons to Central America.

Thus Laboutard, the smuggler-pirate who went patriotic, was, in short, a bootlegger and racketeer who had turned State's evidence. Since then, Pierre Laboutard had faded neatly into the background; but he and his mixed tribe still had to live.

Lately, Laboutard Co. hadn't been seen, and it was supposed that they had gone back to the bayous.

But The Shadow had traced them to the New Orleans waterfront.

Laboutard wasn't in the habit of leaving a forwarding address, but The Shadow, familiar with life along the New Orleans docks, had finally narrowed down the hunt. Tonight, he expected to call on Laboutard; but first, he had another appointment.

Professor Darius Hedwin had arrived from Mexico, Andy Ames with him. Fitzhugh Salter was holding a reception at the Mayan Museum, in Hedwin's honor, and Lamont Cranston was one of the invited guests.

Since the event promised some threads to the past that might lead to the future, The Shadow had decided to attend, and look to Laboutard afterward.

Attired in faultless evening clothes, The Shadow reached the museum, where he was introduced to Professor Hedwin and Andy Ames; Fitzhugh Salter was there, of course, and The Shadow also foundGraham Talborn and Eugene Brendle.

Affable as ever, Talborn was surrounded by a group of prosperous looking men, contributors to the museum fund. Talborn's enthusiasm over the museum was quite contagious, and the grizzled exporter was very generous in his statements. Though Talborn was the largest contributor to the cause, he shared the credit with others, much to their pleasure.

A contrasting group acknowledged Brendle as their spokesman. They were men connected with the building trades, who had helped in the construction of the museum. There were architects among them, and craftsmen, and they all received a share of praise from Brendle.

The contractor made it quite plain that he had left many of the details to various specialists, knowing that they were both competent and reliable.

One man was noticeably absent: James Carland. He had been invited, as a matter of courtesy, but no one expected him to appear. There was a slight stir, however, when a girl arrived in Salter's office. The Shadow heard her name buzz through the group: "Yvonne Carland!"

Promptly, The Shadow gathered that the girl was Carland's niece; that she lived in New Orleans with her uncle. She must have inherited her disposition, as well as her looks, from the other side of her family, for she wasn't a bit like her Uncle James.

YVONNE CARLAND was a brunette, with large brown eyes, and a complexion of a delicate cream that made an excellent contrast to her ruddy, smiling lips. Her features, like her name, denoted the French ancestry of her mother's family, while her voice had a slight touch of the musical Louisiana drawl.

"Uncle Jim wouldn't come," Yvonne told Salter, "and I can't say that I blame him. But I thought you ought to know that we appreciated the invitation, so I up and came myself."

Dropping his smug style, Salter became profoundly polite.

"You are very welcome, Miss Carland," he said. "We feel that your uncle would still be one of us, but for his financial problems. We hope you will a.s.sure him on that point."

Yvonne shook hands with Professor Hedwin, who scarcely noticed her during the process. His eyes were far away, as though his thoughts were still in Mexico. But Yvonne's eyes, The Shadow noted, were fixed on someone very close at hand. She had a warm smile, too, for Andy Ames.

"I knew you would come," The Shadow heard Andy confide. "Otherwise, I would have telephoned you, Yvonne."

"Which would have been unwise," the girl returned. "It will take a while, Andy, before my uncle will be in a good humor. He won't hear or speak of anyone who has a thing to do with this museum, except Mr.

Brendle."

"Because he owes Brendle money?"

"That's why. It's just good policy with Uncle Jim, to be friendly under such circ.u.mstances. Honestly, Andy" - the girl's eyes blazed - "sometimes I hate my uncle."

"You haven't anything on Professor Hedwin," said Andy. "All you have to do is say 'James Carland,' and he erupts like a Mexican volcano!" Andy's voice had raised a trifle. Hedwin was close enough to hear Carland's name and the reference to the volcano. Instantly, Hedwin's high-pitched voice cackled an interruption to all other conversations.

"James Carland!" he exclaimed. "Why mention the man who tried to destroy all our efforts? He pledged himself to build this museum, and then abandoned us. He used his evil influence on others, too. There was a man from New York, named Jonathan Dorn, who offered to finance my expedition while it was in Yucatan.

"But Carland talked to him and wanted him to put money into rice fields. We heard no more from Dorn.

Bah! He was as bad as Carland!

"Don't try to stop me, Salter" - waving his arms, Hedwin pushed the curator away - "because I don't like interruptions. Let me see." The professor's glower became a reflective stare. "What did I intend to tell you? Ah, yes!" Hedwin brightened. "I meant to speak about the volcano; Xitli."

The whole group showed relief as Hedwin changed the subject. They listened, with real interest, while the professor harped upon his theory that the Mayas had identified their fire G.o.d with the volcano. Once talking about Xitli, Hedwin became hard to stop.

"Let us go upstairs," he finally suggested, "and I shall show you the prize of this museum - the throne room of Xitli, furnished with the relics that I personally brought back from Cuicuilco."

Riding up in the elevators, the group rea.s.sembled outside the throne room. Salter started to turn the combination, but Hedwin pushed him aside. Those two, it seemed, were the only ones who knew the combination to the big strong door.

When he opened the door, Hedwin turned on a light that gave the room a ruddy glow, symbolizing flame.

THE room contained the curios that Hedwin mentioned. Little images of the squatly fire G.o.d were in the niches along the walls. Two tablets of stone, with odd hieroglyphics, were on either side of the built-in throne. There were vases and urns about the room, but most important was the seat of the throne itself.

There, The Shadow saw a squarish block of basalt, smooth except for its special markings. He heard Andy telling Yvonne how the professor had unearthed the black stone on the last night at Cuicuilco.

Then, like the rest, The Shadow was watching Professor Hedwin parade across the room, to take his place upon the throne. Seated there, the gray-haired excavator cackled happily.

"I am Xitli!" announced Hedwin. "And you" - he swept his withery hand about the group - "are my followers. Because Xitli had followers" - Hedwin was nodding, wisely - "yes, many of them. The Xitli cult was powerful, and dangerous. It survives to this day, and now its meeting place is in New Orleans, instead of at Cuicuilco!"

Salter was undertoning something to the persons near him. Rising from the throne, Hedwin advanced to the door, demanding sharply: "What's that you are saying, Salter?"