Glancing about, Farnsworth waited for someone to speak but no one did. From far down the bubbling stream came the muffled clang of the old grating, lifting and dropping back into place.
“The other crew,” decided Farnsworth. “They are bringing Harley. Perhaps he will speak for the rest of you.”
Turning to look for the newcomer, Farnsworth frowned and his expression graduated into a glare. For the man who suddenly appeared from among the lower rocks was Niles Ronjan, a large revolver pointed ahead of him.
The term eccentric no longer applied to Ronjan. His was the fervor of a fanatic.
“So you found this grotto!” cackled Ronjan. “You found it, never thinking I was first! Tell me, Farnsworth, why did you think that I delayed the treasure hunt after I found the Good Wind empty?
“Only because I planned to remove the treasure from here and plant it in the sunken hulk of the old brig. Like a fool, I was willing to let you share, should I be given time. Then I saw Yuble acting strangely and I knew that he had sold out to you. But I never suspected that you had found the Good Wind treasure too.
“Never until tonight, when I discovered Yuble murdered in my own apartment. Then I realized the depths of your game, how you were trying to pin all crime on me. I found the creature that murdered Yuble, the vampire bat from the tropics -”
Farnsworth’s interruption was a snarl, a signal for the leopard men to pounce upon Ronjan. They were whipping out their knives so fast that the old inventor’s gun could not have coped with them except for Thara Lamoyne.
With a fierce cry for the leopard men to follow her example, Thara flung herself upon Farnsworth. She had all the fury of a sleek, wild, jungle beast, this maddened girl, as she thrust her arms and shoulders from within her spreading cloak so that her hands could use their fingers as death-dealing claws.
The word of Yuble’s murder had turned Thara into a creature of mad vengeance. As Farnsworth’s other followers tried to haul this living fury from their chief, the leopard men hesitated and momentarily, Ronjan seemed the winner.
Then, at a mad howl from Farnsworth, the leopard crew decided that they owned allegiance to a living master rather than a dead one. They swung to deal with Ronjan, willing to take Farnsworth’s orders now that Yuble was dead. Ronjan was already springing at them, gun first, but the weight of numbers would have flattened him, except for the sudden intervention of a factor hitherto undeclared.
The whole grotto filled with the shivering, challenging, titanic laugh that could only be The Shadow’s!
As if from nowhere, a cloaked fighter sprang into the midst of the divided fray. His gun-shots spilled the leopard men amid the whirl of their own clattering knives. Clouts from the swinging automatics added Farnsworth’s other henchmen to the list of The Shadow’s succumbing adversaries.
Finally, The Shadow flung Thara with a whirling spin into the arms of Ronjan. Tangled in her draping cape, the former banshee buried her face in her hands and wept pitifully, not because she felt herself a part of crime, but because she had been frustrated in her attempt to wreak vengeance upon Farnsworth for Yuble’s death.
Men were coming down from the high steps that rose above the stream; they were The Shadow’s agents, Phil among them, coming by the same route that their chief had used to reach this underground treasure haven. They took over custody of Farnsworth, Thara, and even Ronjan, whose own deeds were on the doubtful side.
When Margo and Arlene looked for the cloaked rescuer who had so fully turned the tide, The Shadow was gone. From high up the steps drifted back the weird, strange laugh that spelled triumph in The Shadow’s universal language.
The Shadow was to make a reappearance, but in another guise. This occurred when Commissioner Weston was completing his grilling of a much cowered Craig Farnsworth, down at headquarters, with Inspector Cardona helping in the quiz. Lamont Cranston, casual as ever, arrived to witness the finish.
Briefly, Weston summed the evidence for Cranston’s benefit. Then:
“There’s one thing that even Farnsworth doesn’t know,” declared the commissioner. “He can’t figure how The Shadow discovered the upper entrance down to the grotto. Farnsworth destroyed the documents that mentioned it.”
Cranston raised his eyebrows quizzically.
“Where was that entrance, commissioner?”
“Under a big flat slab,” explained Weston. “The marker covering the grave of Caleb Albersham, the smuggler. It was the blind for the stone stairway leading to the treasure cavern belonging to the Van Woort family.”
A slow nod came from Cranston.
“I suppose that Albersham fixed it that way.”
“Of course,” retorted Weston, “but how did The Shadow guess it?”
“Because he knew the grave was empty,” declared Cranston, quite calmly, “and therefore he assumed it must serve some other purpose. There was a peculiar marking on Albersham’s slab, wasn’t there, commissioner?”
“Nothing peculiar about it,” snapped Weston. “Like most other tombstones, it had an inscription that said: Here lies the body -”
“The body of Caleb Albersham?” put in Cranston, blandly. “The skipper of the sloop Rover that was lost at sea with all on board?”
That was all, except that Cranston’s smile, alight though it was, had what might have been defined as a visual echo of The Shadow’s parting laugh!