The Eyes of the Shadow s-2 Page 15

  "Don't try to be mentally active," he said. "It will prove quite as bad as physical strain. I advise you to forget your wireless for a few days."

  Lamont Cranston seemed to be giving the matter consideration. Doctor Wells turned to Richards, who had just returned from the wireless room.

  "Richards," he said, "can I rely upon you to see that Mr. Cranston does not overdo himself? Has he been using much mental effort - particularly in reference to the wireless upstairs?"

  The valet hesitated. He looked at his master.

  "Tell him the truth, Richards," said Cranston, with a smile.

  "Well, sir," admitted the valet, "he has seen Mr. Burbank quite often. I would say, sir, that it has spruced him up a bit. But he seems to become very tired at times, sir."

  "Very bad," said the physician. "You must forget this hobby of yours until the end of the week, Mr.

  Cranston. I am not sure that it is advisable for Burbank to be here."

  The man in the bed motioned wearily to Richards.

  "Bring me a sheet of paper and my green fountain pen. An envelope, also. Remember, the green fountain pen."

  He received the articles.

  "Now, Richards," he said, as he began to write, slowly and laboriously, "go and bring Burbank here."

  Lamont Cranston was sealing the letter in the envelope when the wireless operator arrived.

  "Any reply to that last message?" asked the millionaire.

  "Yes," said Burbank. "Here it is."

  He showed a paper that bore a short series of dots and dashes. Cranston smiled.

  "That's an O.K.," he said. He wrote a short reply. "Send this - it will be your last message. You have your car here, haven't you, Burbank?"

  "Yes."

  "After you've sent the message, come downstairs and bring your car from the garage. You can take Doctor Wells to his home; it will save Stanley another trip. I won't need you any more, Burbank. We'll close the station until the end of the week. Take this letter into town with you; I've already addressed it to Mr. Fellows."

  Richards helped the injured man as he tried to push the banked-up pillows from beneath his head.

  Lamont Cranston turned on his side and closed his eyes. His recent efforts seemed to have taken all his strength.

  "You have done wisely," said the physician quietly. "You need a great deal of rest. Your strength has merely begun to return. I shall count on Richards to see that you do not overexert yourself during the next few days."

  The doctor pulled down the shades at the windows. He motioned Richards and Burbank from the room.

  At the door he glanced toward the man in the bed. His patient was quiet - possibly asleep, thought the doctor.

  One minute after the door had closed, Lamont Cranston sat upright. His body shook with silent laughter.

  He slipped silently from his bed and made his way to a closet in the corner. He took clothes from their hooks and dressed with amazing rapidity.

  Unlocking a table drawer, he removed various articles a small rolled bag of tools; an automatic revolver, a flashlight, and a bulging wallet. He moved silently toward a window. The sash moved upward without noise.

  ABOUT ten minutes after Doctor Wells had left his patient apparently asleep, Burbank came down from the wireless room. He went to the garage for his car. The physician joined him at the door of the house.

  The quiet wireless operator drove Doctor Wells to his home, which stood on a curving lane in the town of Merwyn.

  The physician congratulated himself as he walked up the steps of his residence. He had handled a rather difficult patient in a most satisfactory way.

  "He must have rest," murmured the practitioner. "I am glad he finally accepted my verdict. He went to sleep like a child. He thinks he has recovered his strength, yet the least effort tires him. I actually don't believe he is capable of walking downstairs alone, at this very minute."

  It never occurred to Doctor Wells that he might have watched Burbank's coupe as it rolled up the lane toward the wide boulevard a block away. Had he done so, he would have been amazed.

  For when the car halted at the stop street and waited for the flow of traffic to cease, a surprising occurrence took place. The cover of the rumble seat opened slightly as though some one was peering from within, to make sure that no one was near by.

  Then the back of the car opened wider still, and just as Burbank was shifting into low gear, a figure emerged. A man dressed in a dark suit dropped into the street just as the car started forward. Then with quick steps the figure reached the sidewalk and moved toward the boulevard.

  If Doctor Wells had observed this incident, he would hardly have recognized the agile man as Lamont Cranston, for he would not have believed it possible that the millionaire could have acted with so much nimbleness.

  In fact, the physician could scarcely believe that his ears did not deceive him when he answered the telephone at eight o'clock that evening, and heard the voice of Richards.

  "Mr. Cranston has gone!" was the valet's amazing statement. "His door has not been opened, and his windows are still shut. No one has seen him go! No one has heard him go! But he was not there when we brought his dinner this evening. I can't imagine what has happened, sir. Yet I am sure that Mr.

  Cranston has disappeared!"

  CHAPTER XXX. SINISTER SHADOWS

  RAIN was dripping from the branches of the trees above the abandoned lane that led from Ridge Road.

  A downpour had begun at dusk; now, early in the evening, it had settled into a steady drizzle.

  The old roadway was pitch black as a man sloshed through the puddles, his heavy boots spattering water in all directions. He appeared to be familiar with the road and indifferent to its condition. His splashing footsteps seemed to echo behind him.

  He felt his way along the iron fence until he reached the gates which were open. Still in darkness, he sloshed along the mud of a long-forgotten driveway until he reached the ruin which had once been the home of Harper Marsden.

  Even in the darkness, the old gray walls were slightly visible. They seemed silent and forlorn as they loomed toward the falling rain. The nearest corner of the old building was higher than the rest; it had evidently been a tower extending the full height of the building - a tower of stone that had alone survived the devastating flames.

  The man passed by the front of the building and reached a flight of stone steps near the further side. The steps had been an entrance to the cellar. Slowly and cautiously the man walked down these steps.

  He turned quickly when he reached the bottom as though surprised by a noise behind him. He listened intently, then noticed that the patter of the raindrops made a perceptible sound upon the flat steps.

  He knocked on the door three times. Faint taps seemed to be repeated from within. He knocked once.

  A single tap echoed. The man knocked twice. The door was opened inward, revealing a dim light.

  The man moved along the stone floor of the basement. There were cracks above, through which rain dripped, but he continued on to a spot where other steps went down. At the bottom he reached a dry cement floor.

  Turning to the right, he entered an underground apartment. A man was seated at a crude table on which rested a lighted lantern.

  Other footsteps came along the passageway. The newcomer turned. Into the lighted room came a stooped, longstriding creature whose face was more apish than human.

  "Did you close the door, Jupe?" asked the man at the table.

  "Ehhh!" answered the ape-faced being.

  The man who had just arrived laughed as he removed his black rubber hat and coat.

  "When did you teach Jupe to answer the door?" he asked.

  "He learned it the last time you came," was the reply from the man at the table. "He's been following me every time; to-night when I walked to the door to wait for you, he grunted and pushed me aside. So I let him try it."

  The man at the table was seated on a box. The newcomer picked up a similar stool and
joined him. The stooped figure with the ugly face did the same.

  "Jupe has to get in on the conference," said the man who had come through the rain.

  The ape-faced man leaned sideways with a snarl. His eyes turned toward the passageway.

  "He hears something," said the newcomer.

  "Only the rain," replied the other man. "He's always listening for something. The other night a loose stone fell from that high corner of the building, and he was bothered about it for half an hour."

  THE speaker rose and raised the lantern, hooking it to a wire that was suspended from the low ceiling.

  The range of the light increased. Under its glow the shadows of the three men became grotesque. They were long, ugly shadows. The profile of the ape-faced man was plainly visible upon the floor. Beyond those dark, moving silhouettes, a black blot projected from the corner of the room. It, too, seemed like a human shadow, except that it was motionless.

  The visitor's eyes fell on the shadow; they moved toward the corner, where two long white-pine boxes seemed to account for the extending blackness.

  "Only two of the coffins left," he said. "One ought to do, though, Chefano."

  "I didn't know that at first, Frenchy," said the other man. "Still we may need the other after all. We may have trouble on the last night."

  "You have the credentials."

  "Yes, but we can never tell what may happen."

  The newcomer laughed. His face was not unpleasant. His teeth were perfect, and his eyes, though crafty, were well set. His nose alone marred his features. It was rather flat, with a noticeable bulge at the bridge.

  His laugh was contagious. It brought a sinister smile from Chefano. The dark-faced man's lips began to twist.

  "If anything happens," "Frenchy" said, "it will be to our advantage. The game has gone well so far, Chefano. The only trouble is that it has been too long."

  "Not for you," was the reply. "Your part is easy. One night a week is all you work, while I've been here on the job all along."

  "I don't see why you stay."

  "That's because you don't know how much trouble Jupe can make. It was bad enough getting him here.

  If I could leave him alone, I could get along without your help. I could go back and forth myself. You haven't done anything but bring that one letter from Coffran and take back my reply."

  "I've helped bury the dead," said Frenchy with a laugh.

  "I could have done that alone," said Chefano. "Nevertheless, you've been useful. If anything had gone wrong outside, you would have found it out. You've been watching the papers this week?"

  "I have. They haven't traced any of the missing men as far as Harrisburg."

  "Good. I figured they were all sworn to secrecy. Each one made a clever get-away out of town, expecting he'd be back soon."

  "I haven't any dope on the Englishman."

  "I didn't expect that. He had a long way to come. Maybe he won't show up. If so, it will be an extra coffin. You earned your pay, Frenchy, when you found out about Cooper."

  FRENCHY shrugged his shoulders. "It's all been easy," he said. "Too easy, Chefano. Maybe we will have trouble before we are through with it."

  "Forget it, Frenchy. This thing has been planned by a real mind. I'll show you how safe we are. First thing, old Coffran doped it out. He sent for me. I came from Europe and brought you with me. We've been operating over there for years, and they haven't begun to track us. We both talk English better than most American crooks. When a foreigner learns the language, he doesn't talk in gangland slang.

  "You had the first job - posing as Harvey Duncan's nephew. The old man was so delirious we could have sent Jupe to do the work, only he couldn't have made his way past the front door. The old servant -

  Hopkins, wasn't it? - thought you were a friend of old Duncan."

  "He was a little bit wise afterward."

  "Yes. That's why we had to get rid of him. I did that. Posed as a book agent. Saw the old fellow's pills on the table. Dropped a few potent pellets in with them. Of course the big job was when I used your information about the hiding place. Jupe stole the whole works. I was afraid he would strangle young Duncan. I had to whistle for him."

  "Yes. A murder would have been bad. Still, it might have been well to put Duncan out of the way.

  Coffran was worried about him."

  "Well, if he found out that Duncan was dangerous, he probably attended to him. I don't think the boy knew enough to make trouble. It was Coffran's job to attend to him, so I let it go at that. The old man doped out the scheme; he sent the letters, that's all. It wasn't too much to ask him to attend to one man in New York, even if it meant a murder."

  As Frenchy was about to speak, Jupe leaped from the table and glared wickedly at the corner beyond the pine-board boxes. He began to snarl, then he started forward. Chefano whistled sharply. The ape-faced man came back to the table.

  "What's the matter?" asked Frenchy.

  "He does that right along," replied Chefano. "Thinks he sees something."

  Frenchy looked toward the corner.

  "That's it, I guess," he said. "See that funny shadow? It must be the position of the boxes. It looks almost like a person's shadow."

  "Jupe is a lot of trouble," asserted Chefano. "I had to keep him up here all week."

  "What! You left the cabin? Do you think it wise to hang out in this place?"

  "Can't help it. A week ago - Monday it was - I left the door unlocked. He ran down to the road and attacked a farmer who was passing. Two men came along in a car and tried to help. Jupe might have killed all three, only he heard me whistling and ran back."

  "Whew! That was bad. Did they follow him?"

  "Yes. I explained that he was a half-wit, and that seemed to satisfy them. Tried to bluff it at first, but they saw Jupe in the window. I fixed things up, but I brought him over here after that. Left a light burning in the cabin for a couple of nights as a precaution."

  "It would be bad if he was seen here."

  "Nobody ever comes around this place. I let Jupe out occasionally. He runs around the graveyard. Once or twice he went down to the fence, but couldn't get out. I brought him back in a hurry."

  "You certainly know how to handle him."

  "Well, I had him in Italy, that year I traveled with a circus so the police would know I was behaving myself. Then I sent him over here with another fellow who understood him. I got him back when I came over here, and he's proved useful in this job."

  The men remained silent for a few minutes. Then Chefano rose and took a yellow slicker from a corner opposite the pine-board boxes.

  "Let's go for a walk, Frenchy," he said. "I'm tired of being inside."

  "It's still drizzling," replied Frenchy. "I walked from the old barn, half a mile down the pike, where I always put my car."

  "Well, you've got a rubber coat. It won't hurt you. Jupe doesn't mind the wet. I'll show you where I've dug the pit. Did it last night."

  The men walked toward the passage, followed by Jupe. Their shadows, distorted beneath the lamplight, moved gnomishly upon the floor. At the same time the long shadow from the boxes seemed to expand and move after them.

  Outside the building the trio walked beyond the old ruin and passed the mausoleum which shone through the darkness. Chefano produced a tiny flashlight and pointed it toward the side of the massive tomb. The light revealed a deep grave, with a pile of earth beside it.

  "You dug far enough down," observed Frenchy.

  "Why not?" asked Chefano. "I had plenty of time. The deeper the better. This isn't much deeper than the other ones."

  "Perhaps not. It looks deeper though. It must go down below the foundations of the mausoleum."

  "It does. I thought of digging it inside the mausoleum; but that would have been bad. Out here it might be anybody's grave. I'll get Jupe to carry over one of those old tombstones and plant it here."

  "You couldn't have dug it in the mausoleum."

  "Why not?"

  "It must
have a stone floor."

  "No, indeed. It was never finished, I suppose. Here, take a look."

  The door grated on rusty hinges as Chefano pulled it open. The flashlight revealed soft dirt, on which lay a few old rusty spades.

  The man with twisted lips turned out the light. Frenchy walked away as Chefano tried to swing the door shut. It required several attempts as the hinges had sprung.

  Just as Chefano closed the door, Jupe strode over and snarled angrily. He clawed at the edge of the door as if to open it. Chefano hissed. The ape-faced man quieted.

  "Stay out of there," he ordered. "Run along. Back in the house."

  "He's a lot of trouble, isn't he?" observed Frenchy.

  "Plenty. He's tried to get in that place a couple of times during the day. I've shown him that it's empty. But he's never satisfied. To-night's no time to humor him."

  "Keep him impatient." Frenchy grinned as they descended the steps.

  Inside the cellar room the two men sat at the table and conversed, while Jupe, after a short prowl, took his place on one of the pine-board boxes. Neither of the men paid any attention to him. At times the ape-faced man raised him head as if to listen. But fear of Chefano's wrath prevented him from making any motion.

  Yet Jupe was not satisfied.

  His keen ears seemed to detect a strange noise that did not cease - a noise that neither Chefano nor Frenchy would have heard if they had listened for it.

  CHAPTER XXXI. DUNCAN GOES ALONE

  TWO of the three men in Josh Stevens's cottage were growing sleepy. The rain that dripped outside was quieting.

  "Half past eleven," said Harry Vincent. "I'm tired. I'm glad you came along this afternoon, major. It's nice to know that we don't have to go out in the rain."

  The Englishman gave a sleepy laugh.

  "A good night to sleep," he said. "But I don't feel like dying. I'm rather pleased that I did come in time to look around a bit."

  "No more wireless messages?" inquired Bruce Duncan, impatiently.

  "The last one this afternoon was final," declared Harry. He seemed somewhat annoyed by Duncan's question.