"I shall bring back the ghost," promised Scorpio, "the moment that proper conditions are restored"
Shouts diminished. The Shadow could hear them subside from where he waited below, by the partition in the cellar. The boarding was swung wide; The Shadow had found it that way on his return. Listening, he heard a slight click, the slab above was sliding in the darkness.
Something landed with a plop close beside The Shadow. It didn't wait to swing the partition back in place; huddled, it started to grope out through the darkness. The Shadow reached a gloved hand to the top of the partition, then grabbed the edge of the opening.
Two seconds later, he was crouched in the big fireplace, having drawn its sliding base half shut. One glove drawn from its hand, The Shadow was dabbing thumb and forefinger against two tiny sponges that he had in his other gloved palm, while he watched Professor Scorpio's efforts to conclude the séance.
Scorpio was bringing back a spook, but not the right one. The thing that had again come to sight was the luminous form of the baby spirit.
Mutters told that it didn't satisfy the sitters; and Scorpio was trying to mollify them by sending the spook out over their heads, apparently beyond any possible control on his part.
Quickly creeping close to the occupied professor, The Shadow stretched his hand up close to the faker's beard and snapped thumb and finger together. The result was more startling than anything that Scorpio had produced.
The chemicals-which had been on the sponges-exploded with a blinding flash; they caused a report louder, sharper than a pistol shot. That blast from nowhere literally staggered the professor. He keeled backward with a wild cry. The floating spook bobbed toward the ceiling.
Denwood, though as startled as the rest, knew that this was his cue. As new bedlam rose, he pressed the flashlight switch, spreading a wide beam in Scorpio's direction. The sudden light caught Scorpio with the goods.
THE professor was handling a reaching rod-a long hollow, telescopic tube which stretched from his lips.
At the end of it was the floating baby spook.
The rod was very thin, and cleverly constructed. It was an extension brought out from the interior of his big gold watch, when he pulled the stem.
Filled with balloon-like silk, the watch provided the spook when Scorpio blew through the tube. The case of the watch was open, on the end of the reaching rod, and he had inflated the "ghost" with his breath.
At present, the shape was drooping, for Scorpio had no breath left. He had let the distant watch case tilt and the luminous silk had flopped over the edge, instead of settling back where it belonged.
A dozen hands were grabbing for Scorpio. The Shadow's were not among them. He had reached the window and was springing across the sill. Men were shouting from all around; they were the deputies, closing in, because they thought they had heard a gun go off.
Scorpio should have fallen prey to the throng that grabbed him, even though a few snatched for the reaching rod and its fake ghost, instead of the professor. But Scorpio heard a yell that drove him to maddened effort. The man who shouted was Grendale.
The financier was pointing to his safe; its door was open wide, the contents scattered. Among the disorder, Grendale saw no sign of a certain bundle that he prized.
"My stocks!" he howled. "The big ghost took them!"
Losing robe and turban, Scorpio wrenched loose. A skinny figure with his outer garments gone, the maddened professor dived for the base of the fireplace, which he saw half open; went through it as it was, and landed in the cellar.
Bobbing up, he hoisted himself at the partition and slashed the slab shut. Yanking the partition into place, he blocked off pursuers.
Outside, The Shadow's gun was talking. He was shooting at half a dozen men who had opened fire on the deputies. It was dark outdoors, and when a deputy grabbed a figure that came his way, dark cloth fell far enough to show the ghostly face of Rundon.
The deputy dropped back. A very solid ghost, the thing sent the deputy farther, with a hard punch.
Bundling itself under the cloth, the ghost was out of sight before The Shadow could open fire on it.
Almost immediately, the luminous face showed up again, this time a dozen yards away, in a cluster of crooks who were slugging at the deputies. Men from the house were yelling: "Grab the ghost!" so the deputies obliged. Shots rang out, as the crooks took to their heels, leaving the luminous fighter struggling alone.
The ghost sagged. A flashlight streaked its face. It looked like Rundon's, until someone whipped away the thin metal mask. Beneath, the deputies saw the features of a man they had long hunted: the dying face of Edward Barcla.
Crooks were dying, too, but some had gone crashing toward the shore. They were saved, momentarily, by yells from the house, urging the deputies to go after Scorpio, who had taken to the woods. Some responded, beginning a belated chase, for the frantic professor had gained too long a start.
Others, however, heard the crashes at the shore and headed there. They heard shots, too, and the ring of a strident laugh-The Shadow's. But when they reached the lake front, accompanied by arrivals from the house, they halted, baffled.
The crooks were gone; so was The Shadow. The faint swash from the water never could have given them the trail in time. It took something more audible to produce the long-needed result. It came, that needed token.
The laugh of The Shadow!
THE weird taunt sounded from the blackened water. Instantly, lights sliced toward it. They saw The Shadow, those men on shore, as he rose from the surface of the water, beckoning. He was already a hundred yards away, traveling rapidly, but the glare that he had called for showed the thing that he wanted seen.
It was the lake monster, for the first time revealed as a low-lying, scooting craft, glistening under a sufficient glow of light. They couldn't lose it, if they pursued it this time. For the thing was carrying an outside passenger, unknown to the depleted crew within it.
Half crouched, The Shadow was riding the strange ship, still sending back the eerie laugh that would serve as a guide, should lights lose sight of the craft that he had boarded!
Already, a speedboat was starting from Grendale's wharf, proving that one man had reached there.
Roused to the occasion, a score of men sped to other boats. The dock itself seemed to roar, as the flotilla got under way.
An extended procession was off on the greatest water race that Lake Calada had ever known. The Shadow, though out of sight, was still the beckoner; not by gesture, but through his laugh, which trailed its repeated mirth from far ahead!
CHAPTER XV. THREEFOLD RESCUE.
THE lake monster had reached its haven. It was picking the tricky channel among the stony blockade that fronted the base of Indian Rock. Back by the entrance of the cove, The Shadow could see pursuing craft.
Some had lost the trail, for the nearest boat had gone wide of the Indian Cove channel and swung into the cove by the Pioneer Mine, with others following.
Only about half the pilots made that mistake; the rest, guided correctly by The Shadow's distant laugh, had reached Indian Cove. Echoes were trailing there; the tones of The Shadow's mockery reverberated from the hills. It seemed to draw them toward a final goal, the great rock that formed the inner buttress of Indian Cove.
The laugh ended abruptly. The steel creature that The Shadow rode was nosing its way beneath the natural arch under Indian Rock. Its occupants, snug in their sealed cockpit, hadn't an idea that The Shadow was on the deck above. In fact, he wasn't, when the ship pushed past the arch.
Lacking clearance, The Shadow had slipped over the stern and was trailed out behind the rudder that ran between the twin propellers. Away from the churning blades, he kept his head above water as he was hauled into the space beneath the rock.