When he did know, it was too late. The quick rush of feet gave him time to
turn, but not to dodge. A blow landed with stunning impact on the back of The Shadow's skull. The treasure box slid from his limp grasp. He pitched forward, unconscious, on his face.
But not before he had recognized the face of the man who had slugged him and the fellow at his side.
Joe Snaper had swung the heavy gun butt. The second snarling assailant was
Bert Hooley.
CHAPTER IX
WHEN THE INDIAN IS HIGH
THE SHADOW recovered consciousness in a narrow gravelike vault covered with soft, cold mud. For a horrified moment, he thought that he was underground, buried alive. Then he became aware of the distant voices of men.
He could hear Timothy, the lawyer. Arnold Dixon, too. And Charles, the butler.
The Shadow realized now where was. His body was outside the walls of the estate. He had been shoved into a drainage culvert that was built under the road. He could see the flare of electric torches. The three wildly excited men were searching the road, having failed to find any trace of an intruder inside the walls.
The search was futile. After a while, they returned inside the gate and their voices dwindled in the darkness.
The Shadow emerged from his queer hiding place. It was evident to him what
had happened. Either Bruce or the two blackmailers had hidden his body there.
Perhaps all three of them, acting in concert. The fact that Snaper and Hooley had interfered to save the young man from capture was eloquent testimony to the
careful planning of the theft of the fabulous Cup of Confucius.
The Shadow, however, was far from defeated. The cup was not yet lost, if he wasted no time.
He stared clown the road toward the spot where Hooley's car had been hidden. On the blackness of the smooth asphalt, The Shadow detected a tiny gleam like the twinkle of a firefly. It was a drop of the chemically treated gasoline that had leaked from the tank of the fleeing thugs' car.
The Shadow had foreseen such an emergency and had prepared for it. Now his
grim care was rewarded. He had a sure way to trail at least two of the resolute
thieves of a million-dollar treasure.
His own car began to skim swiftly along the deserted road. The Shadow's deep set eyes watched the onrushing sweep of the road in front. Presently, he passed another of the far-spaced little fireflies. It was infinitely tiny, almost obliterated by evaporation, but he laughed grimly as he roared past it
-
and another - and another.
Snaper and Hooley were guiding The Shadow to their hangout without the slightest knowledge that a tiny hole in their gas tank was lighting the way.
The trail ended in an unexpected spot. A curving drive led in through dark
grounds to a stately three-story house perched almost on the cliff edge that flanked the dark, wind-tossed surface of Long Island Sound. The Shadow drove past the place without stopping. He came presently to an all-night filling station and bought oil and gas. He had removed his black disguise and was again
the suave Lamont Cranston.
From the talkative pump dealer he learned that the pretentious house down the road belonged to a couple of wealthy Wall Street brokers. John Piper and Harold McCoy. He smiled as the dealer described them.
Piper was Bert Hooley, without any doubt at all. Joe Snaper was using the McCoy alias. Apparently, they had leased the big frame dwelling only recently.
TEN minutes later, The Shadow was cautiously gliding toward the house, his
movements hidden by the restless roar of wind through the wildly tossing trees on the front lawn. Beyond the cliff on which the house was perched The Shadow could catch a glimpse of the Sound. Even in the darkness, the white froth was visible. A storm was roaring up with gale intensity.
The Shadow relied on this fact, as well as his black enveloping disguise, to aid him in getting into the house unnoticed.
He failed to reckon on the presence of a watchdog. The animal was tethered
on a long chain to a tree. It began to bark loudly.
The Shadow halted. He was watching the lighted windows on the top floor of
the silent house. The shades were drawn, but suddenly the shadow of a man darkened the white square at the left window.
A face peered. For a minute or so it remained, while the dog continued to bark loudly. Then, evidently reassured that the sound meant nothing serious, the face withdrew.
The Shadow had studied that countenance through a pair of tiny binoculars.
Before it jerked away he knew exactly who it was. A man who, so far, had not been evident in this strange case at all. A thin-faced, pockmarked little gunman named "Squint" Maddigan.
To The Shadow, the fact that Squint was present in this remote house on the shore of Long Island Sound was a disturbing thing; cause for instant action. For wherever Squint went, there also went Paul Rodney, one of the wealthiest big-shots of the underworld.
The Shadow had hitherto, on the basis of reports received from his undercover agents, decided that Paul Rodney and his evil little henchman Squint, were waging war against Hooley and Snaper for possession of Arnold Dixon's vast wealth. He knew now that the lure was the fabulous Cup of Confucius.
And the criminal conspiracy was deeper than even The Shadow had surmised.
It included the two original blackmailers, Dixon's own son - and now Squint and
his brown-bearded boss.
The Shadow lost no time in forcing an entrance to the mysterious house.
He
circled it warily twice, then decided upon the cellar.
Five minutes after The Shadow began his patient work at the rear cellar window, he was inside and the window closed softly behind him.
THE SHADOW ascended a flight of boxed-in wooden stairs. He could hear nothing except the faint squeaks of mice in the dark cellar. But The Shadow's feet made no sound on the wooden steps that led to the ground floor.
He opened the door at the head of the stairs with infinite caution. He peered for a long time before he moved from concealment. He was surprised to discover that every light on the ground floor was now ablaze. He was certain that when he had stared upward from the grounds outside, only the top floor had
been lighted.
The slow, scraping sound of descending feet on the main staircase of the house caused The Shadow to back hastily toward the cellar door from which he had recently emerged. He had a partial view of the staircase, and he left the cellar door open a bare inch or so and waited.
That sound from the stairs puzzled him; it was not only the slow thump-thump of descending feet, but a fainter sound - almost exactly like the careless drip of water.
His eyes gleamed with comprehension when he saw the figure of Squint suddenly appear on the lower steps of the stairs. The rat-faced little killer was carrying a gallon tin of kerosene. He was spilling the stuff everywhere, sloshing it over the floor wherever he walked. And grinning like a chalky mask of death!
The Shadow was preparing to make a silent rush, when he changed his mind.
Squint had turned his face toward the staircase.
"What do you say, Paul?" the shouted, irritably. "Hurry it up! If we're gonna burn this dump down, we gotta get goin'!"
"Shut up and spill that kerosene! Do as you're told, damn you!"
It was Rodney's voice, vicious with some unexplained rage. His feet came clumping down the kerosene-soaked stairs a moment later.
The Shadow watched the ugly pair through the crack of the cellar door.
There was a crumpled scrap of paper in Paul Rodney's hand and he waved it angrily. This paper seemed to be the cause of his rage.
"Why do you bother with that?" Squint snapped. "It don't mean a thing.