The Shadow - House Of Ghosts Part 11

CHAPTER XVII.

THE WRONG TRAIL.

AT the head of the stairs, Roger ran squarely into Dorthan, coming up from the kitchen. He was steering the stooge into the Colonial Room, when Dorthan suddenly pointed. Horror showed on the face that was made up to look like Donald's. The ceiling trapdoor in the closet was closed!

Footsteps were pounding from below, some from the kitchen, others by the front stairs. There wasn't time to get the trapdoor open. Madly, Roger hauled Dorthan out toward the pa.s.sage.

If ever crime had a great break, this was it.

Roger saw Wiggam arriving from the kitchen. Others hadn't quite gained the top of the front stairs. Motioning Wiggam aside, Roger chased Dorthan down the back way, hissing for him to grab one of Hector's coats that he would find in the kitchen.

Hardly had Dorthan gone, before Clyde arrived. He'd taken the front way in order to catch Roger. Spreading his hands in bewildered fas.h.i.+on, Roger looked about, as though amazed. Then, sighting someone coming along the hall, he exclaimed: "There's Hector!"

It was Hector, coming from his room, where he had been sleeping when the gunfire awakened him. His bewildered look, plus the fact that his face was his own, were absolute proofs of his innocence. Hector stared, even more puzzled, as a whistle shrilled from below. It was Torrance at the front door, summoning men.

Hurrying up the front stairs, Torrance heard Clyde call down that the ghost wasn't Hector. As if to belie Clyde's shout, a figure scudded through the great hall and out the front door. It was Dorthan, das.h.i.+ng around by the dining room, but all Clyde saw of him was the back of his borrowed white coat.

Roger saw the fugitive, too, from the top of the stairs. Torrance didn't turn in time. Roger had another bright idea.

"This way, doc!" he called. "I just saw someone dash up to the tower!"

As Torrance hesitated, some of his men appeared at the front door.

Torrance yelled for them to round up anyone they saw and to particularly watch the tower.

With that double order, he started up the tower stairs behind Roger, while Clyde hurried down to the front door to stimulate the real chase outdoors.

AGAIN, Roger was playing a bold hand. He knew that Crispin was in the tower, but he was sure he could handle Torrance well enough to allow the escape of the second ghost. What Roger didn't know was that at that very moment, Crispin was about to meet with a surprise.

Nicely rigged in a white sheet, Crispin was weaving about the tower, waiting for someone to come from the house and spy him. He particularly hoped that Jennifer would be the observer, because he was doing a very nice ghost act.

Crispin didn't know what a ghost act could really be.

Up the side of the tower was coming a shape in black that looked like a mammoth vampire bat. The sounds that accompanied this thing from the unreal, merely made it all the more uncanny. The noises were The Shadow's suction cups, but Crispin, hearing them, mistook them for floor creaks from the weather-beaten tower.

One squidge ceased; then another. Over the rail of the tower, behind the fake ghost's back, came the cloaked shape of The Shadow. Reaching to his feet,The Shadow stacked the last two suction cups with the others, placing them beneath his cloak. His gloves stayed there, too. In their place, The Shadow produced a small tin box with two sections, dipping a thumb in one, his forefinger in the other.

All this was happening during the chase that followed the death of Gustave.

Such trifling things as gunfire were too well m.u.f.fled in the great sprawly mansion to be heard from so remote a spot as the old watchtower.

Having applied two pastes to his thumb and forefinger, The Shadow delivered a low laugh that was caught by the tower's broken rafters and echoed back in ghoulish style. That weird tone might have impressed a real ghost; its effect was certainly electric upon Crispin, the fake spook.

The shrouded man wheeled about. He saw the burning eyes of The Shadow.

With a shrill, wild cry, Crispin lunged, hoping to hurl his rival from the tower.

The Shadow snapped his thumb and forefinger.

A burst like a reporting gun went off in Crispin's face, along with a flare of flame. Those special chemicals had served The Shadow often, but never more dramatically than this. (Because of the danger connected with this explosive formula, we do not give its components here. It is a device often used by The Shadow in his exploits against crime. - Ed.) The concussion scattered what was left of Crispin's dissipated wits. The man reeled back, his sheet falling from his shoulders.

Then The Shadow was upon him, about to complete as rapid a capture as could be desired. With Crispin settled, the way would be clear to bag the others of this crooked clan. At least it would have worked that way, but for a blaze of intervention.

Flashlights shone suddenly from all about the house. Torrance's men had heard the shout from upstairs. They were converging upon Dorthan, but they hadn't forgotten that they were to check the tower, too. Somebody aimed a searchlight from a car and gave it the switch.

The glow flooded the scene in the tower.

There, Torrance's men saw two ghosts instead of only one!

Curious ghosts, one white, the other black, that tangled in a grip that formed a swirling camouflage pattern. The Shadow was taking Crispin well in hand, despite the crook's last desperate struggle. But the men on the ground made no distinction between ghosts, good or bad.

Torrance's tribe let loose with a volley from guns of all description.

Bullets battered the base of the tower and raked its pergola top. Slugs whistled over The Shadow's head and shoulders as he flung Crispin to the floor and made a twist of his own for the shelter below the rail.

THE brief release wouldn't have helped Crispin if he'd been purely on his own. He was still dizzy from the chemical blast that had drawn so much attention to the tower. To Crispin, the rattle of the guns was just an echo of the explosion that had bewildered him. But to Freer, it meant new trouble, and Freer was here. He'd finished his climb up into the tower to warn Crispin of something that seemed very slight in comparison to present events.

One of Crispin's legs was dangling down the ladder. Grabbing it, Freer hauled Crispin right out of his sheet. Together, they were tumbling down the ladder, leaving The Shadow nothing but a shroud so empty that Crispin seemedto have really turned into a ghost. With bullets still whining through the openwork, The Shadow took the route by which Crispin disappeared.

The trap door was thudding in place before The Shadow reached the landing.

A few seconds more and The Shadow would have wrenched it open, to follow the

two.

ghosts down the chute to the secret room. But at that moment, the regular door of the tower slashed inward, admitting a three man surge.

It was a neat device, that door. Opening inward, it was stopped by the warped floor boards; Actually the floor was a trapdoor that hoisted upward, hence the door, when open, served as a lock to keep the trap shut. The landing was so small that people always left the door open when they examined the floor, and thereby defeated their own chances of discovering the trick.

In this case, the door prevented The Shadow from following the two fake ghosts. Before he could slam the door shut, the landing was crowded to its utmost capacity. The Shadow was squeezed among three men: Roger, Wiggam and Torrance.

It was a disadvantage, being a black ghost.

If Roger and Wiggam had found a white one, they'd have let him go, and muddled Torrance into the bargain. But a black one meant The Shadow and Roger was prompt to draw a gun. So was Torrance, who regarded any intruder as Gustave's murderer. So The Shadow's only course was to rip loose from his captors and plunge down the regular stairs.

He did it with such speed that when they began to fire at blackness down the stairs, they learned it was nothing but the slamming door below. Angry at the escape of the very material ghost, Torrance ordered an immediate chase.

REACHING the front stairs, The Shadow heard a pleased cackle from his right and saw old Jennifer at the door of her room. She was holding her arms folded as though standing guard and seemed very pleased because the searchers had discovered a real ghost in the tower. At the front door, The Shadow met a rush of Torrance's men and bowled right through them, to dash off into the dark.

All was quiet around the corner of the house. There, Crispin and Freer were coming from the hinged s.h.i.+ngles, carrying Margo between them. Another man sprang up to aid them; it was Dorthan, still wearing Donald's face, but no longer enc.u.mbered with Hector's spare coat.

The three sped for the mausoleum and were nearly there with their burden, when The Shadow came around the corner of the house, followed by waving flashlights and wild shooting guns. He saw the fugitives near the mausoleum, but was unable to overtake them, because another batch of local fighters were das.h.i.+ng in to trap him.

Only when strong flashlights actually struck The Shadow, was he visible; then, only as a blot of weaving blackness that blocked off other objects beyond.

So blurred was the situation that when Clyde called: "There he goes!" he actually pointed in the right direction. Clyde's effort to help his chief resulted in flashlights picking up another whirl of black, but the hazy shape was gone when guns tongued its way.

Even though he'd seen Margo being carried by her captors, The Shadow had veered away from the mausoleum where the group had disappeared. His first task was to shake these ardent pursuers, summoned ironically enough, by The Shadow himself. The Shadow dropped them, halfway to the sunken road where he had parked his car. By then they were spreading out, scouring the fringes of the cemetery for the cloaked ghost that they had followed when taking the wrong trail.

To men of crime, The Shadow's difficulties were regarded as a boon. While flashlights were moving along the fence that marked the new limit of the Stanbridge estate, all was quiet and dark in the midst of the old graveyard.

It was then that a figure sidled in from the trees and entered the mausoleum.

The dull clatter of hasty footsteps brought results. The floor slid back suddenly and a beckoning hand called the arrival down the hidden steps. In the dim-lighted tunnel, Dorthan was waiting, his face still that of Donald Stanbridge.

Dorthan, however, was more interested in the arrival's features. He turned a flashlight on them, gave a grunt of satisfaction, and extended a welcoming hand. The man who had ducked in from the dark was the expected embezzler, Ralph Putney. The Cleveland gyp was carrying a satchel loaded with his loot.

Admiringly, Putney watched Dorthan pull a large lever that caused the great stone floor to slide back into place on its special, well-oiled rollers. The click that sounded when the floor closed, brought a chuckle from Dorthan, in which Putney joined.

With that formidable barrier bolted from the inside, no one, not even The Shadow, could hope to reach the lair where men of crime held sway!

CHAPTER XVIII.

DOOM TO COME.

IT was half an hour before Roger Stanbridge arrived in the formidable hide-out where three ex-ghosts were toasting their new comrade. This time, Roger didn't come by way of the tunnel, because it was closed. He came with Wiggam, through the front door of the cottage. An excellent procedure, because it pa.s.sed suspicion.

Indeed, Roger had a special right to accompany, Wiggam home. Rating as the new master of Stanbridge Manor, it was only natural that Roger should hold a conference with the faithful caretaker.

Roger was pleased to see Putney present. The man's long face, with its broad nose and narrow eyes, was the first that Roger noticed. Having been introduced to the visiting embezzler, Roger turned to look for Dorthan and saw him. Dorthan was himself again, having removed the last vestiges of Donald's make-up.

"A fine job you did," snapped Roger. "You nearly gave the whole works away."

"What else could I have done?" demanded Dorthan. "As soon as that shotgun went off, I had to lam for the back stairs."

"Except that you waited long enough to blast Gustave."

"You mean I should have waited that long to save you the trouble."

Roger glowered at Dorthan's implication.

"What chance did I have to cut loose with that gat?" queried Roger, angrily. "I was out in the big hall."

"And I was in the kitchen!" retorted Dorthan. "Ask Wiggam who knocked off your brother."

Wiggam spoke for himself, but he addressed Roger, not Dorthan. "I really couldn't say, sir," insisted Wiggam. "I was thrust under the table during the melee. I saw very little -"

"You mean you're saying very little," broke in Dorthan. "Naturally you'd stand up for your boss; don't blame you, Wiggam. For that matter" - Dorthan gave a generous shrug - "I don't blame you either, Roger. If you tried to lay it on Crispin or Freer, I wouldn't like it, but it doesn't matter with me. I knocked off a bank watchman, so why should another job matter?"

"Nice of you," said Roger, curtly, "but I'm quite willing to take the Gustave burden on myself. I would have disposed of him long ago, if there hadn't been a more sensible way. After going to all that ghost nuisance, it was a shame to spoil the thing.

"Anyway, they'll still think a ghost did it. Donald is dead, so how are they ever going to find the murderer? We'll stick to our story, Wiggam and I.

We'll say it was Donald and we'll have Jennifer and Torrance to back us up.

After I take over the manor, which I can do tomorrow, n.o.body will come within ten miles of the place. We're still the only people who know the ins and outs."

Crispin and Freer exchanged anxious glances. Neither wanted to break the news to Roger, so Dorthan did it for them.

"The girl got hep," said Dorthan. "She's the person who locked me out of the ceiling. The gaff gave her a ride down the chute, so Crispin and Freer brought her along."

Coming to his feet, Roger slapped his hand on the table and stared at Wiggam.

"So that's what was eating Burke!" exclaimed Roger. "He was looking all around for somebody. When he learns the Lane girl is really missing, he'll start a man hunt!"

"A woman hunt," corrected Dorthan, coolly, "and we might as well let them find her. Over the edge of that big cliff would be a good spot. They'd think she went haywire and ran when the ghosts began to walk."

"An Indian princess jumped off there once," recalled Roger. "It sounds good enough for this sweetie. Where did you put her?"

"In a room upstairs," said Crispin. "Bound and gagged so tight she won't get loose no matter how hard she tries."

Roger leaned back in his chair. He was grinning shrewdly as he poured himself a drink.

"Relax while I think it over," he decided. "Lookout Rock is a good idea, if those yaps don't search there first. We'll hope they don't."

MARGO was doing some hoping of her own, as she struggled with the bonds in the room upstairs. Crispin and Freer must have read the latest encyclopedia of knots and splices, because the harder Margo worked, the tighter the cords became. What irked her most was the fact that the ropes weren't heavy. It was just that they were tough.

As the cords tightened, Margo kept hoping that one would break. If that happened, the rest might yield in turn. Margo had more strength than her captors supposed, still it wasn't enough. But she knew quite definitely that this was one mess from which they couldn't afford to release her, so she continued her strenuous struggle, on the floor of the pitch-black room.

Something gave suddenly, with a tw.a.n.g. At first Margo thought it was herheart, then as its beating continued, she was thrilled by the thought that a cord had really broken. Again she writhed among the bonds and another snapped as sharply as if it had been cut.

Straining harder than ever, Margo was rewarded by the breaking of further ropes, until she felt like a Christmas package being opened in a hurry.

Somehow the thing was fantastic, as though an invisible hand had begun to move ahead, cutting the succeeding cords with an unseen blade.

Completely free, Margo couldn't believe it. Cords actually seemed to haul her back as she staggered to her feet. She was slumping, when blackness caught her; solid blackness that spoke in a whispered tone.

"Move quietly," the voice commanded. "The tunnel is across the cellar.

When you reach the end, pull the big lever. Leave the floor of the mausoleum open and find Burke. Tell him to bring others here through the tunnel."

Margo felt herself almost floating from the room and down the stairs.