Crooks fired wild shots at the vague figure that was weaving its way toward the passage to the cellar steps. But The Shadow, swaying elusively, was perfect in his aim. While bullets whistled past his shrouded form, his automatics kept up their stinging fire. Newcomers sprawled upon the floor. Others went screaming, staggering from the house.
One lull enabled The Shadow to swing his emptied automatics beneath his cloak. A second brace of weapons delivered the final shots. The doorway was cleared, with wounded crooks Iying in the hall and on the ground outside. But The Shadow did not choose that exit. Instead, he opened the door to the cellar. He descended and reached an opening in a bin. He entered a low, blackened tunnel — the secret way to the old well that lay between the mansion and the causeway.
THE crowd was surging out from the tapestried room. The deputies seized revolvers dropped by the first crooks whom The Shadow had encountered. Austin Culeth had drawn a revolver of his own; Philo Halthorpe had seized Nicholas Rokesbury’s weapon.
While Wildemar Brent and Clyde Burke were slowly following with Dorothy, Austin and Halthorpe came back. They tossed revolvers on the table. These were the guns of Rokesbury’s entire crew. The deputies were bringing the wounded men into the hall. Halthorpe was taking charge.
Clyde Burke set out for town to summon physicians. Austin Culeth, strained by his long ordeal, slumped into a chair beside the table. He looked up suddenly to face Wildemar Brent and Dorothy. He spoke, in a mechanical tone.
“You heard what our strange rescuer said,” declared Austin. “Just before the final fight — to Rokesbury — about my father’s wealth. How Rokesbury” — Austin paused thoughtfully — “had the spoils in his grasp. When he was in this room—”
As Austin paused again, Brent and Dorothy looked toward the tapestried panels. The girl remembered that Rokesbury had removed them. She turned to Austin.
“Those panels,” she began, “with the thick tapestries—”
Austin was nodding as he arose. He drew a knife from his pocket. He thrust the blade into the edge of a thick-clothed panel. He ran the knife sidewise, upward, sidewise. The tapestry peeled back like the cover of a paperbound book.
Fitted between the cloth of the tapestry and the muslin that served as backing were flat sheets of paper that gleamed with gold-inked printing. One came loose in Austin’s hands. Shaking, the heir carried it to the table.
“A utility bond!” exclaimed Austin. “Ten thousand dollars of United Power right—”
“Worth far above par!” exclaimed Brent. “We know what your father did with the stolen wealth he held!”
“Every panel holds them,” asserted Austin. “Those tapestries are backed with more than a million in gilt-edged securities. Look here!”
He was plucking new bonds from the panel that he had opened. His knife blade ripped the edges of a second tapestry. More bonds came into view. Austin was trembling as he brought them into the light.
“Consolidated Electric!” exclaimed Brent. “Also worth more than your father invested in it. Austin, you can restore every cent that was stolen and still have many thousands of your own!”
“We must tell Philo Halthorpe!” declared Austin, suddenly. “Come! He is outside.”
The trio hurried from the room. They passed through the hall where the deputies were watching the wounded crooks who had served Nicholas Rokesbury in his vile schemes. The outer door was open.
They found Philo Halthorpe pacing the drive beneath the alcove light, waiting for Clyde Burke to return with the physicians.
“We’ve found the hidden wealth!” exclaimed Austin, hoarsely. “Found it where our mysterious rescuer indicated. In back of the tapestries of the panels.”
PHILO HALTHORPE stood dumfounded. He began to stutter his surprise. Then came a cry from Wildemar Brent. The naturalist sprang out into the drive. He stood there, pointing toward the blackness of the swamp, beneath the sweeping beam of the distant airway beacon.
“Look!” cried Brent. “Look! At last — at last — at last! The ignis fatuus.”
“The marsh lights,” expressed Austin, in an awed tone. “I remember seeing them here when I was a boy.”
A luminous nebula of bluish light was creeping, wavering across the surface of the marsh, less than a hundred yards from where the watchers stood. It was the eerie will-o’-the-wisp, that strange phenomenon that some have termed the “Jack o’ Lantern.”
Like a ghostly figure, the blue light flickered just above the boggy muck. It was traveling mysteriously between the mansion and the hill. Sometimes it seemed to take the shape of a gigantic human; at other moments it formed an elongated cloud. But always it glowed with that mysterious luminosity which science has sought unsuccessfully to explain.
In his hushed enthusiasm, Wildemar Brent forgot all but the ignis fatuus. The startling events within the house passed momentarily from his mind. He forgot the revelations that The Shadow had made.
“If Professor Shelby were only here,” said Brent. “He would understand my enthusiasm—”
The naturalist paused. He realized that there was no Professor Darwin Shelby. He stared again toward the mystic marsh lights. The wavering glow had reached a fixed position — a usual occurrence with the ignis fatuus. The other watchers stared as tense as Brent. All seemed to sense that something strange was about to happen.
Into the aura of bluish light stepped a shrouded figure. Spectral in the cold glow, The Shadow moved forward. The lights was wavering as it formed a luminous setting for that weird shape cloaked in black.
Then came a creepy sound, as strange as the phenomenon of the marsh light. From the spot where the ignis fatuus still shone came a weird, triumphant laugh. It rose to a startling crescendo. It shivered into nothingness. The house caught the quivering echoes. Ghoulish tongues seemed to answer from gray walls, responding to the call of a mysterious master.
The watchers gasped as they stared at the avenging figure that had become motionless against the flickering blue background of the weird light. Then came a sudden fading of the ignis fatuus. Complete darkness reigned on the morass; with it was the hush of absolute silence.
Weird as the elusive will-o’-the-wisp, The Shadow, triumphant, had vanished into the blackness of the marsh.