The selectmen entered the anteroom, gathered their hats and coats and departed. Enveloped in his cloak, The Shadow waited motionless in the corner until the throng had departed. Then he moved swiftly from the room and gained the steps to the ground floor.
A janitor was locking the front door. The Shadow made his exit by a side portal that the man had not yet closed.
Instead of turning toward the town, The Shadow took a side road that skirted the hill. He was familiar with the terrain, for Harry Vincent’s report had included a rough map of Torburg. The course that The Shadow had chosen was leading him toward the home of Milton Claverly.
A steeple clock chimed the hour of twelve. The Shadow had approached the stretch of road that lay below the old tower. Another turn, he would be in sight of the Claverly house, which stood beyond the curve of the hill.
Suddenly, The Shadow paused. Sequestered in the darkness at the side of the road, he stared toward the top of the slope. Outlined against the dull moonlight that filtered through clouds was the old bell-tower, somber and gray.
There was no explanation for The Shadow’s stop. It might have been prompted by a chance, coincidental thought. Still, it could have been induced by an uncanny, psychic knowledge of something that was about to happen.
Whatever the reason, the action became the forerunner of a strange event. Brief seconds passed while The Shadow lingered. Then, as if in answer to a question that hovered in his mind, an ominous token came from the tower on the hill.
Clang!
The stroke came from the belfry. It rang out through the night air. Caught by the straying breeze, it tolled its message to the town below.
Dong!
The second stroke. No longer did The Shadow pause. That melancholy clangor could root ordinary beings to the spots where they were standing, but it held no power over The Shadow.
Tonight, precisely twenty-four hours after their previous toll, the bells in the tower were ringing out another dirge. Stroke by stroke, in solemn precision, the massive brazen cups were repeating the knell that Harry Vincent had reported.
While the bells clanged, bringing new terror to the town of Torburg, The Shadow, creature from the night, was sweeping up the slope toward the tower on the hill!
CHAPTER IX
DEATH DISCOVERED
Dong! — Dong! — Dong!—
There was rhythm in the funereal chime. Not one bell, but several, were forming a death medley as they clamored from the tower. Heard from a distance, the monotone was strangely musical; but as The Shadow neared the base of the tower, the closeness of the sound caused a jangle.
Discordantly, the reverberations clashed. The welling strokes seemed like rusty protests. Hideously, the bells were wrangling as their dongs no longer blended. Then, with a final crash, their knell ceased. Echoes alone throbbed from the belfry as The Shadow reached the metal-sheathed door.
To gain this point, The Shadow had been forced to circle the tower. Scarcely more than twenty seconds had elapsed since the clangs had ceased. The final impetus to the bells must have been given only a few seconds earlier.
His form outlined in the moonlight, The Shadow was gazing at the door. The entrance to the tower was closed. A clamped padlock was in view. Anyone who had left the tower must necessarily have locked the door behind him.
Where, then, was the intruder?
The Shadow’s eyes turned to survey the ground about. The tower stood away from trees. No one could have fled from the spot before The Shadow had gained the door. That, at least, was improbable.
It was possible that the intruder was still within. The closed padlock might have been shut by some accomplice. The bell ringer might be waiting inside, confident that the padlocked door would shunt investigators away.
There was no sign of a lurking person who might be here to aid anyone within the tower. A soft laugh came from The Shadow’s hidden lips. A gloved hand produced a picklike instrument. The Shadow wedged the prong into the snap of the padlock.
The device yielded. The Shadow fastened the padlock to the staple, after he had drawn the hasp. He opened the door and entered the tower. His flashlight showed the interior. The tower had a concrete base; its walls were finished smooth.
A circular stairway ran about the inside of the tower. This disappeared ten feet above, for the central portion was equipped, at that point, with a thin wooden floor. Evidently the tower had various levels.
Swiftly, The Shadow ascended. He reached the first floor and again played the light. Here was another section, some ten feet in height, with a floor above. Its cross-dimensions, however, were less, due to the taper of the tower.
Up another flight. Again, The Shadow studied a deserted floor of even smaller radius.
Then came a third floor, likewise empty when The Shadow flicked the light upon its interior. Estimating the height of the tower, The Shadow knew that the next flight would bring him to the belfry.
Cautiously, The Shadow crept upward through total darkness. He reached the belfry. An automatic came from beneath his cloak. The flashlight blinked close to the floor, then upward to the hanging bells. A brief inspection; but it sufficed.
The belfry was empty!
MOONLIGHT was coming through the slitted windows of the belfry. As The Shadow lingered, his eyes became adapted to the dull glow. Passing clouds brought better illumination. All was visible. The Shadow studied his surroundings.
The belfry was about eight feet high. The bells were comparatively small ones, lighter in weight than The Shadow had supposed. They hung from the roof of the belfry, which was absolutely level. Two cross beams supported the bells; the rest of the ceiling was formed of boards, like the floors that The Shadow had passed.
One feature that The Shadow had noted was the arrangement of the ropes. He had seen three ropes hanging through a hole in the ceiling at the bottom of the tower. He had traced these all the way upward. Now he observed them attached to the bells themselves.
A soft laugh whispered through the belfry. The situation intrigued The Shadow. Had he found someone lurking here, the result would have been a simple encounter. The total absence of any lurker gave The Shadow a new trail of mystery.
He had heard the bells ring; he had found the tower locked; but he had discovered no one in the belfry. The Shadow was searching for an explanation; his soft laugh indicated a determination to gain the answer to the riddle.
But before The Shadow could begin a further inspection of the bells, an interruption came from the ground below the tower.
Voices sounded. Peering through a slitted window, The Shadow made out the forms of men who had arrived. One was Sheriff Wheaton Locke. The official had found the opened door at the foot of the tower.
Conditions were reversed. The Shadow, stationed in the belfry, had no opportunity to descend the stairway — unless the sheriff and his squad decided to depart without an inspection. To them, the unlocked door might mean that someone had come and left in haste. It might also indicate that some person was still within the tower.
Half a minute passed. Then The Shadow saw the men enter the door below. It was plain that they intended to inspect the tower. The Shadow desired no encounter with these representatives of the law. Their discovery of the unlocked door had been a misleading episode. It was best that they, like The Shadow, should find the tower empty.
Choosing the side of the belfry that was away from the direction of the town, The Shadow thrust one arm through a slitlike window. His head followed; then his body. Despite the narrowness of the opening, The Shadow squeezed through in the fashion of a contortionist, until only his legs remained within.