Through the door, The Shadow followed passages with his flashlight. He encountered other barriers, set in narrow places, but they were comparatively flimsy. Reaching a squarish room, The Shadow saw a flight of rough-hewn steps. He called below.
A shout answered him; he recognized the voice as Harry's. Another voice joined in; The Shadow could hear the rattle of doors as he dashed down the steps.
Then the clatter increased; a third voice added its bellow. It was louder than the others, for it came from the nearest cell; there, The Shadow's light showed Niles Rundon.
Smashing the locked gate with his heavy automatic, The Shadow went on to the next. He finished it in quick time, and slashed at the third. Rundon was stumbling for the steps, followed by Harry and finally Carradon, when The Shadow turned about.
From above the steps, he saw the wavering flicker of a flashlight. Shouting to the rescued men to watch out for an attack, The Shadow sped to overtake them. He heard yells as he reached the top of the steps.
His flashlight showed the last of the crooks who had opposed him out by the boat.
It was Rufus. Though wounded, the fellow had avoided bullets well. He had dragged himself through the passages; in the squarish room, he was tugging at a chain set in the wall, snarling that he would bring death to all.
Niles Rundon was grappling with him, but his clutch on Rufus' hand only tightened the fellow's clench.
Though weak from their imprisonment, Harry and Carradon managed to add weight in Rundon's behalf.
Rufus sagged, as Rundon hauled him downward. But the chain was tugged, and it produced an instantaneous result. From somewhere in the depths came a muffled echoing explosion.
The walls of the room seemed to rock while The Shadow was scattering the other men, rolling them toward the outer passage. Titanic crackles told of ledges breaking throughout the stratified granite.
There were clatters, as stony chunks gave way, but all came from far below. Finally, reverberations ended, leaving the squarish room intact.
As the rescued men were starting out through the passage, The Shadow took a look into the cell room below. It was intact, too, except at its deepest end. There, masses of stone had sagged. Evidently the explosive charge had been buried well beyond that point. Rufus had calculated upon a complete destruction of the underground lair; but the charge had not been sufficient. The damage was comparatively small.
Not only were the rescued men delivered by The Shadow; he, too, was safe. Only one man expired with the blast; Rufus, himself.
Niles Rundon had given the crook's head a bash against a rock. Already seriously wounded, Rufus could not stay the blow, nor survive it. He was dead when The Shadow viewed him under the flashlight. The cloaked fighter's laugh was solemn, mirthless, much like a knell.
When The Shadow reached the outside passage, he found the rescued men stumbling toward persons that they recognized as friends. Rundon lost his footing, skidded from the ledge and went shoulder deep into the water before hands caught him. Harry was grabbed before he made a similar stumble.
The two were telling their story, as was Carradon. The Shadow edged into a darkened niche, as men came through to search the underground passages and hunt for stolen goods. Others took Harry, Carradon and Rundon out to the boats.
Some were examining the strange lake monster, when The Shadow passed them in the background.
Instead of using ropes that hung from the higher crevice, The Shadow made his exit by a silent swim beneath the arch.
He was climbing, unseen, among the stony pilings, when he heard excited talk ahead.
A boat had just arrived from the Community Center, bringing news of Professor Scorpio. The arch-faker had made a bold escape. He had shown up at the landing field wearing oversized clothes and carrying a shotgun that he had stolen from some cabin.
At the twin points of his double-barreled weapon, Scorpio had made the new pilot take him in the plane, promising the fellow death like Drury had received, if he refused to aid the getaway. When last seen, the plane's lights had been twinkling beyond the mountain pass, carrying Scorpio off to safety.
Some of the persons who listened that news also thought that they heard an eerie sound, much like a whispery laugh, coming from the darkness near the base of Indian Rock.
The Shadow was not displeased because of Scorpio's escape; quite the contrary. The departure of the professor kept the case wide open, promising a final solution of every question that crime had produced.
CHAPTER XVI. THE MAN WHO BELIEVED.
DURING the next few days, enough mysteries were solved to satisfy most members of the Calada colony. The whole case was sensational from start to finish: Professor Scorpio stood branded as a crook as well as a rogue. His folly had been his own act of terminating a profitable racket, by turning to crime for bigger stakes.
Search of the Castle brought many discoveries; among them secret filing cases, hidden in walls, that contained evidence of Scorpio's long-played game. He had owned much land around Lake Calada, mostly by proxy. He sold property to the right people; namely, those who would fall for his spook racket.
Part of his game had been the bribery of servants. Through them, he had picked up large amounts of valuable information, which he served back to his clients in the form of astrological readings, slate messages, and the utterances of materialized spirits.
Only a few such servants had been used for crime, later, and permitted to join the band of strong-arm crooks who had been quartered under Indian Rock.
The rest were still trusted by their employers; when the names of such servants were found in Scorpio's files, the culprits broke down and confessed.
They told how they had been bribed, often with trifling amounts. Scorpio was clever that way; once under his thumb, he scared his tools and made them stay with the game.
Curiously, most of them actually believed that the professor had some occult power, for he had told them things about themselves that amazed them.
It hadn't struck them that so many were in the racket; that Scorpio had a few servants spying on the rest.
A very tricky gentleman, Professor Scorpio, and his ace in the hole was Edward Barcla.
All evidence showed that Barcla, alone, had impersonated spirits. In that way, Scorpio had kept many of his spies puzzled as to the workings of the ghost business. His Hindus, too, had evidently helped him in some important details that his other spies knew little about.
The thing that amazed the confessing servants most was the lake monster. They had actually believed that the thing was some weird creature.
Barcla was dead: so were all the crooks who had used the mystery boat. Therefore, the Hindu servants supplied the only close links to Scorpio. But they swore that they had been connected with the ghost racket only; not with robbery and murder. They stuck to that story so stolidly, that everyone believed them.
As The Shadow had foreseen, the case remained open.
Not a trace of any stolen goods could be discovered. The Castle was practically torn apart; every cranny in the lair beneath Indian Rock was thoroughly searched, without result.
Gillespie still lacked his bonds, Jamison his paintings. The Albion statuettes were untraced; Paula Lodi's jewels were still glittering, but where, no one knew.
Added to that, Hugo Grendale had lost his utility stocks, on the very night when criminals had met their watery Waterloo in combat with The Shadow.
Professor Scorpio, too, was missing. He had made the plane pilot land him on an obscure field, where Scorpio had taken an old automobile from a disused hangar. The professor had fixed everything for a personal getaway, when required.