"Don't worry." Hooley's paw darted out again. He held Dixon stiffly while his ugly eyes probed him.
"Why did you try to have us killed, pal?"
"I didn't!"
"You lie! We're gonna give you the works - unless you tell us the right answers!"
"I'll tell you anything I know," Dixon moaned.
"You know a guy named Paul Rodney, don't you?"
"I never heard of him. Who is he?"
"He's a guy with a brown beard. One of your stooges. He tried to burn us down outside your library window the night you stole your check back from me.
We got away from that okay. And we got away from his sulphur candle in the hotel room. But you ain't getting away from us until you let us in on what the big secret is!"
"Secret?" Dixon faltered.
"JOE and me think," Hooley told Dixon slowly, his hand still clutching him
with a grip of steel, "that maybe we've been suckers takin' your lousy two grand
a month! We think there's something big in the wind that we've been missing.
Something that might bring us in some real dough!
"We've been doin' a little sleuthin' ourselves, see? We've found that the lad in the brown beard is a guy named Paul Rodney. He's tied up with a tough little killer named Squint. That much we know. What's Rodney's angle, pal?"
"I don't know," Dixon repeated, monotonously. He pressed his lips together
as if afraid more words might spurt out to betray him.
"So you don't know no Paul Rodney, huh?" Snaper grinned.
"No!"
"And you ain't got no big secret? I mean, outside of the little blackmail graft all three of us know?"
"I - I have nothing to say. I won't talk!"
In desperation, Dixon tried to aim a blow at Snaper's jaw, but his fist was caught in a smothering grip. His arm was wrenched over his head with a force that made the arm twist in his shoulder socket.
"Take off his shoes and socks, Joe," Hooley whispered.
Snaper leered. This was stuff he understood. In a moment Arnold Dixon was sitting helplessly on the floor, his back jammed hard against the plastered wall, his bare feet extended in front of him.
"Lemme do the burnin'," Snaper begged, his eyes slitted with anticipation.
"Okay. Try him with a match flame first. If that don't work, we'll get really busy with him."
The match made a sputtering sound against the bare wood of the floor. The yellow flame flared. Snaper bent forward, enjoying the terror in the distended eyes of the old man. Hooley kept the squirming Dixon from kicking out with his bare feet.
The flame of the match approached closer to the flesh of Dixon's bare sole. He could feel the heat of it, then the sharp agonized prickle from the tip of the flame itself. Hooley's hand over his mouth restrained the scream that gargled behind Dixon's lips.
His cry went unheard. But another sound echoed in the bare room with startling suddenness.
It was a harsh, sibilant laugh. It seemed to fill every nook and cranny of
the cottage. And it came from the crumbling red-brick interior of the ancient fireplace!
SNAPER whirled as he heard it. His jaw dropped with superstitious terror.
But, Hooley was made of bolder stuff. The gun in his hairy hand pointed toward the chimney opening. He began to squeeze the trigger.
A single harsh command made him abandon his purpose.
"Drop it!"
Twin gun muzzles were trained on both crooks from the darkness of the fireplace.
For a second, there was hesitation on Hooley's pasty countenance. Then the
weapon slipped from his hand to the floor. Snaper, too, dropped his weapon.
Arnold Dixon, half fainting, shrank back as he saw the figure that was emerging slowly from the brick recess of the chimney.
Black from head to foot, the figure stepped with measured slowness into the room. Nothing was visible about it except for the nose and the restless, deep-socketed eyes. They were like twin pin points of flame under the drooping brim of a black slouch hat.
The Shadow!
He had evidently climbed to the roof and entered the bare room below by way of the ancient chimney. Yet no sound had betrayed his miraculous descent.
Nor did his feet seem to make sound as he moved across the creaking boards of the door.
His two heavy guns jerked sideways in black gloved hands. Snaper and Hooley backed slowly against the wall beside the chimney.
The Shadow was measuring them as if debating what to do, when he heard a tiny sound from the shade-drawn window. It brought him whirling about with the swiftness of a black panther. The noise had come from the shade. It had crackled slightly under the push of a cautious finger. Through the bottom of the opened window a face was peering into the room.
Flame spat from a pistol, as The Shadow leaped aside. A bullet whizzed through the crown of his slouch hat and thudded into the plastered wail. Again the gun at the window flamed.
The room became instantly an inferno of confusion. Not once did The Shadow
attempt to return the fire. He was aware that Snaper and Hooley were rushing from the room and out the front door. Flat on the floor, The Shadow's gloved hand darted outward. He caught the lamp, drew it close, blew out the light with
a quick puff of his thin lips.
Darkness flowed instantly over the room.
The Shadow needed darkness. He wanted not to kill, but to vanish. He had recognized the pale, desperate face outside the window. It was the millionaire's own son! Bruce Dixon!
THE voice of Bruce was clearly audible now in the murky room. He came rushing in through the front door, his feet thumping noisily.
"Dad! Are you all right? Where's the lamp?"
"I'm all right, son. Strike a match - quick!"
A match flared and light flowed back into the room. The lamp was lit.
Arnold and Bruce Dixon stared at each other.
"Where are Snaper and Hooley?" the old man gasped.
"They were too fast for me. They got away in a car." Bruce's voice crackled warningly. "Where did that other crook go - the man in black?"
Arnold Dixon pointed toward the silent brick maw of the chimney. His son tiptoed closer, peered cautiously upward. He could see nothing but the empty expanse of the flue with a square patch of darkness at the top. He fired his gun upward. Nothing happened. The square at the top remained unchanged.
Bruce turned abruptly and ran from the house. He stared up at the sloping roof. There was no sign of The Shadow. No possible place where a man might cling and remain unobserved.
Bruce's car was still standing where he had left it. He cried a husky warning to his father, as the latter hurried from the cottage.
"Take your own car. I'll drive mine. We don't want any one coming here to investigate the shooting and finding either of our cars here. Drive slowly and keep just ahead of me."
In a moment, both automobiles vanished up the road. They were headed for the Dixon mansion.
So was The Shadow. He had managed to haul himself aloft into the overhanging branch of an oak tree from the roof of the cottage a scant second before Bruce had fired up the chimney. From the tree, The Shadow had seen the two blackmailers flee. They had gone in the same direction that the Dixons were
now taking.
The Shadow laughed as he followed the trail.
He found Hooley's car hidden close to the stone wall of the Dixon estate.
The Shadow intended to deal himself another hand in this swiftly changing game of intrigue and treachery. He paused only long enough to do a very peculiar and interesting thing.
He unscrewed the cap of the gas tank at the rear of Bert Hooley's car.
From beneath his black robe he took a tiny bottle. The contents of the bottle were colorless like water, but heavier; it dripped like a sticky flow of castor
oil as he poured it out. He poured every bit of it into the gas tank.