The Cup of Confucious s-125 Page 12

  It had once contained barrel upon barrel of contraband liquor. Now it hid men who were feverishly searching for a million-dollar cup - a priceless relic from the ancient civilization of China.

  With the crowbar, Clyde pried the boulder loose. The incline took care of the task of shifting it. It rolled downward with a faint rumble on the smooth floor of the slanting tunnel. It struck the opening in the rock and wedged itself there. No man within could budge it without tools.

  The exit of the lawyer and those who had preceded him into that underground labyrinth was now definitely closed. There was another entrance, but only The Shadow knew of it. He alone had explored every nook and cranny, on

  a previous visit.

  The last act of the drama was now about to commence.

  Clyde again filled his lungs, dived into the water-filled gallery and swam

  back to the dark ripple of the Sound.

  He followed The Shadow up the cliff steps to the brink of the sheer precipice. The two disappeared into the blackened ruins of the foundation walls

  where the Carruthers house had once stood.

  For an instant, their creeping figures were dimly visible. Then there was no movement at all. Both men had vanished.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  EDITH TAKES A HAND

  EDITH ALLEN lay stretched on the floor of the tool shed, where her uncle had left her bound hand and foot.

  She was working tenaciously to free her hands from the loops of twine that

  fettered them. In this activity, she had more than a mere forlorn hope. When her

  uncle had jumped at her, she had a second's warning of his intent by the look in

  his eyes.

  Wisely, she had made no effort to struggle. But she held her hands together in such a way that the wrists overlapped slightly. Timothy had not noticed the girl's stratagem. But the trick had given her a precious fraction of an inch in which to slide her wrists back and forth.

  She had slim, supple wrists, muscular from golf and tennis. The cords bit deeply into her flesh as she worked to loosen them. She gritted her teeth and tried to forget the pain. Already, one of her wrists was almost free. In another moment, she gave a sobbing cry. The cord fell to the floor. Bending, she untied her ankles with scarcely a pause.

  She had a definite plan of escape in mind. Unlike her uncle, she had had ample time, while she lay straining on the floor, to notice the formation of the tool shack. The front and sides were a formidable obstacle to freedom. But the rear was a different story. Behind the shelves that lined the rear wall, the planking was very thin.

  She concentrated her efforts on a single plank. It was rotted by rain and moisture, and field mice had gnawed part of the crumbling wood away. Edith hooked her fingers into the tiny aperture and tried to rip the board away. But the task was too much for her strength.

  She got to her feet, ran desperate eyes along the length of the shelves.

  Suddenly, she saw the glint of a hammer-head. She seized the implement and went

  grimly back to her task.

  It took several hard blows before she was able to split the crumbling plank. It was thin enough to split in several places. She was able now to rip it out, piece by piece.

  A nail gashed a furrow in the flesh of her neck as she crawled through, but she paid no attention to the sharp pain.

  She ran toward the home of Arnold Dixon. The thought of the old man's peril was like a draft of cold water. It steadied her pounding heart.

  LIKE her uncle, the first thing Edith noticed was the open window on the ground floor of the silent mansion. But approaching it, she made an additional discovery. A gun lay in a patch of trampled grass. She picked it up, examined it, found that it was loaded.

  Clutching it with a repressed sob of determination, Edith climbed swiftly through the open window and crept like a noiseless ghost up the broad staircase

  of the mansion.

  So gently did she ascend that she reached the upper floor without disclosing her presence to whoever was in the lighted room at the end of the corridor. The door was partly open, but it was impossible for the girl to see who was within.

  That some one was inside with Arnold Dixon, she was certain. For she could

  hear the faint groaning voice of the millionaire, and another voice she had never heard before.

  A cautious glance at the crack of the door showed her the profile of a stranger. He was whispering grimly to Dixon. But Edith had no knowledge that this was Harry Vincent, an agent of The Shadow. She didn't realize that Harry's

  presence here was to defend Dixon from his own foolhardy impulses.

  Edith sprang through the doorway without warning. She had the drop on Vincent before he was aware there was any one inside the house except himself and his frightened host.

  "Drop your gun!" Edith cried. "If you move an eyelash, I'll shoot to kill!"

  She meant it. Her taut eyes warned Vincent instantly that a move meant death. He did the only thing possible. The gun slid from his fingers and thumped to the floor.

  "Back up!" Edith commanded. "Against the rear wall! Turn your face to the wall! Palms flat!"

  Dixon cried hoarsely from his chair: "Edith! Don't be a fool! This man is not a crook! He's - he's here to help me!"

  The girl paid no attention. Dixon, she thought, was merely repeating some thing the desperado had taught him under pain of death if he refused.

  Also, her eyes saw something that made them harden like ice. She moved quickly toward the bureau where a small stone lay, partly covering a piece of paper. Her gun was ready to kill Vincent, if he changed his helpless pose against the rear wall of the room. She snatched the note, backed toward the open doorway.

  Holding the paper over the barrel of her gun with a free hand, Edith was able to read it with a lightning glance. It was the same note that The Shadow had hurled from the ground through the open window, ordering Clyde Burke to join him at the fire-blackened ruin of the Carruthers house.

  Edith uttered a clipped cry of comprehension. She darted swiftly from the room.

  "Stop!" Harry cried. "Don't go! You'll be killed!"

  Arnold Dixon added his shrill cry to the warning of Vincent. Harry ran to the hallway, but Edith was already on the floor below, racing away with every atom of speed in her lithe, young legs.

  Had Vincent been free to rush from the house and pursue the girl through the grounds, he might easily have caught her. But he dared not stir a step outside. The Shadow had ordered him to remain on duty at the side of the threatened millionaire.

  "Stop her, before it's too late!" Dixon shrilled.

  Vincent shook his head.

  "It's too late already," he murmured, quietly. "Her only help now is the brain and strength of The Shadow."

  THE SHADOW, at this moment, was no longer on the surface of the ground.

  He had lifted a small link of copper imbedded in the stone of a square flag in the center of the cellar ruins of the Carruthers house. The stone had lifted slowly, ponderously. Through the opening descended The Shadow, followed by the agile body of Clyde Burke.

  The Shadow used his tiny flashlight sparingly. When it shone, it was a mere flicker of light. These tiny firefly glints were all the guidance The Shadow needed on his silent journey through twisting underground corridors that

  led to the hollowed-out chambers in the heart of the cliff.

  The Shadow had been through these passages before. He knew exactly what lay ahead. He knew, also, the exact whereabouts of the Cup of Confucius. The whisper of his grim laughter echoed softly from the rocky walls.

  Occasionally, a side passage radiated off from the main corridor. Some of these passages were mere offshoots, smaller caves filled with dust and musty odors. But from one of them a faint groan sounded, as The Shadow's light winked

  briefly. The groan was barely audible, but The Shadow heard it and motioned to Clyde to follow him.

  It was with difficulty that Clyde repressed a cry, as he saw the gag
ged-and-bound figure. The Shadow's hand grasped Clyde's in a warning gesture. Clyde clamped his lips together and made no sound. He followed The Shadow back to the ever-descending slope of the winding passage.

  Another opening appeared on the left. It was similar to the one in which the gagged figure had lain. But there was no human being in it. It had evidently been used as a storeroom by the bootleg gang of the past. Its contents were grimly ominous. Boxes were piled up in a narrow tier along the cobwebbed wall. The lid was off one of them.

  Dynamite sticks! Packed loosely in a protecting matrix of slightly damp sawdust.

  Something equally dangerous - more so, in fact - was visible in other cases across the damp floor of the dungeon. The calm finger of The Shadow pointed; his faint whisper breathed at Clyde's ear.

  "Mercury - fulminate of mercury!" Clyde repeated, his eyes round with wonder.

  He knew the explosive force imprisoned in those innocent little objects in

  the open case. They were detonating caps. Made of sensitive chemical gelatin, they would explode from the tiniest impact. A single one in the hands of a careless man could transform him instantly into bloody tatters of flesh and rags.

  CLYDE'S hair prickled on his scalp, as The Shadow drew him out of the storeroom and led him silently onward into the rocky heart of the cliff.

  The corridor was widening, spreading into a huge underground cave. In size, the place was enormous. But the size was not readily apparent because of the odd way in which the cave was broken up. Huge stalactites like enormous stone icicles hung from the damp roof of the chamber. They had been formed by the slow drip for centuries of water that had seeped through the rock.

  Each drop left its deposit of carbonate of lime. The result was these crusted monsters of stone hanging like pointed pillars from the roof, dividing the cave into a network of smaller chambers.

  Clyde Burke stood perfectly still. The finger of The Shadow was pointing.

  A light glowed in the midst of this underground maze. To the sound of dripping water was added still other sounds - the clink of a pickax, the rough metallic scrape of a shovel.

  Two men were digging furiously at a spot in the floor where the earth looked as though it had been recently disturbed.

  The man with the shovel lifted his sweating face. It was a mean, ratlike countenance. Beside him, the man with the pickax swore fiercely. In the lantern

  light, Clyde caught a glimpse of a pointed brown beard and ruthless pinpoint eyes.

  The underground diggers were Paul Rodney and his evil little henchman, Squint.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE END OF THE RIDDLE

  "IT'S no use," Rodney snarled. "Get up out of that hole. We're wasting time!"

  "We've only dug about three feet," Squint protested. "The cup may be buried deeper than we thought."

  The Shadow and Clyde Burke watched the crooked pair. The Shadow had drawn his agent into a tiny grotto of the cave wall, formed by the rough juncture of two huge stalactites. Neither Rodney nor Squint were aware that they were under

  surveillance.

  "The cup can't be buried any deeper," Rodney growled. "It's been stolen already! I was afraid of this, when I saw how soft the earth was. Somebody has been here ahead of us!"

  "The Shadow!" Squint muttered.

  Rodney's bearded face seemed to twitch under the impact of sudden murderous rage.

  "That damned paper of his! It must have been a deliberate plant! He found the cup, long ago! He meant us to read that note and come here. It might be a trap!"

  His arm gestured fiercely.

  "Quick! Get back to that water tunnel! See if the exit is still open! I remember now - there was a boulder that might be - Quick!"

  Squint turned, raced off through the cave. Rodney's gun whipped into his hand. He turned, his glance searching the darkness beyond the lantern's glow with the stare of a cornered animal. He could see neither The Shadow nor Clyde.

  But by some evil intuition, he remained facing the tiny grotto in which they were hidden, as if he were dimly aware that peril might lurk in that particular

  spot.

  It would have been easy to shoot him where he stood, but The Shadow had other plans. He intended to take full advantage of the play of evil against evil in this cliff cavern. He knew now the various forces involved against one another - and the amazing truth back of it all.

  The sound of stumbling footsteps put an end to the grim tableau. Squint came racing back from his inspection of the tide tunnel.

  "It's blocked!" he shrilled. "There's a big rock jammed tight in the hole we came through! There's no way to get out!"

  "I thought so," Rodney growled. "Trapped!"

  Squint's cry was tremulous with terror. "How - how are we gonna get out?

  Maybe the water will come in, fill the whole damned place like an underground lake!"

  "Shut up! Stop that yelling! I've got to think."

  A voice behind the rigid pair interrupted with cold, slow menace.

  "Hands up, you cheap rats!"

  THE evil pair whirled, saw the level gun. It was Bruce Dixon. His face was

  black with murder. He stood motionless at the edge of a dank gallery, from which

  he had emerged.

  Rodney dropped his weapon. He knew death when he saw it. But Squint, noticing that Bruce's attention was centered almost wholly on the brown-bearded

  crook, sprang sideways and sent a treacherous bullet flaming toward their captor.

  The bullet missed. The slug struck rock with a sullen thwack. The cave was

  still roaring with sound when Squint toppled slowly forward. Bruce had shot him

  grimly through the middle of the forehead. Squint was dead before his wizened body struck the ground.

  "How about it, Rodney?" Bruce jeered. "Want a little dose of the same medicine?"

  Bruce moved slowly forward, his weapon ready for the second kill. But Rodney made no hostile move. For some queer reason, the appearance of Bruce Dixon had filled him with rage, rather than terror. His words carried their own

  explanation to the ears of The Shadow.

  "So this is your game, you double-crossing skunk! I put you in Dixon's house, fix everything so you can pose as the old guy's son and clean up his dough - and I get this!"

  Bruce laughed. The sound of it was freezing, utterly merciless.

  "Talk some more," he jeered. "You're not a smart guy. You're a fool! You still don't know what it's all about! I'm handing you a lead pill, same as Squint got, right through the skull!"

  Rodney's nerve left him. He began to plead.

  "A sniveler!" Bruce sneered. "Did you think I came here to find that damned Cup of Confucius? I've got a bigger stake than that - I'm after every penny of Arnold Dixon's fortune! An I've got to do is to blast you to death -

  and two more fools like you - and then I'm sitting pretty!"

  "Two more?" Rodney faltered.

  "You wouldn't understand."

  Bruce's finger was beginning to squeeze ominously against the trigger, when Paul Rodney gave a shout of wild joy. He was glaring with glazed eyes past

  the shoulder of his executioner. He seemed to be watching some one in the darkness behind Bruce.

  "Kill him!" Rodney screamed. "Let that rat have it!"

  But Bruce merely laughed.

  "That's an old trick! It won't do you a damned bit of -"

  A STREAK of scarlet jetted from the rocky cave behind Bruce. A bullet smashed into his back. He went down as if struck by lightning and lay there on his face without moving, badly wounded.

  Rodney said, hoarsely: "Nice shooting, Timothy!" and picked up his dropped

  gun.

  Arnold Dixon's lawyer advanced slowly into the circle of yellow radiance cast by the lantern. He moved awkwardly because of the arthritis in his left foot. But that was the only familiar sign that linked this cold killer with the

  peaceful lawyer that Arnold Dixon knew and trusted. His usual timid expression
had peeled away like a mask. Even his voice was different.

  "A fine mess you've made of things, you fool!"

  "I obeyed every order you ever gave me," Rodney muttered. "It's not my fault if Bruce went haywire. You should have offered him a bigger cut. Then maybe he wouldn't have tried to double-cross us and grab everything."

  "He grabs nothing," Timothy snarled. "He's dead! So will you be dead - if you don't remember I'm running this show and do as you're told!"

  "You don't have to get tough with me! I've been head man of all your rackets too long, for you not to trust me."

  "Maybe," Timothy snapped. "What happened to The Shadow? Are you sure he didn't follow you here?"

  "I don't know."

  "All right; we'll search the cave. Forget about drowning. The tide doesn't

  rise that high. I know, because I studied the tidal marks. We've got to find The

  Shadow! He's got to be killed - or I don't get my fingers on Arnold Dixon's millions!"

  "Drop those guns both of you!" Clyde Burke ordered.

  CLYDE had advanced with a noiseless bound from his vaulted hiding place.

  Beside him was a more ominous figure, a black-cloaked specter that seemed to tower above the tense Clyde. Burning eyes and a beaked nose were visible in the

  yellow light of the lantern.

  "The Shadow!" Timothy gasped.

  The robed figure made no answer. There was death waiting in the gloved fingers that rested so lightly on the triggers and William Timothy knew it.

  He began to babble terrified words, a protestation of his innocence. But Clyde Burke cut him short with a brief sentence.

  "Don't lie, you hypocrite! You betrayed yourself very neatly during the little talk you've just had with Rodney - your own henchman working under your criminal orders!"

  The Shadow uttered a whisper of sibilant laughter. He began to glide slowly forward, and at his side Clyde Burke advanced, too.

  Without warning, the cavern behind them echoed with a piercing scream. It was a woman's cry, bubbling with terror. It filled every nook and cranny of the