The
Shadow made a bad mistake to-night. He tipped his hand!"
While the car rocked along, Rodney held a scrap of paper before Squint's eyes so the ugly little chauffeur could read it.
The car increased its speed. The whine of the rubber tires on the dark highway was like an ominous croon of death.
UPSTAIRS in the Dixon mansion there was tense quiet. Arnold Dixon's hands were no longer bound. He trusted Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke now. His beseeching eyes seemed to implore them not to leave him.
Vincent watched the square outline of the open window. Clyde kept his attention riveted on the door. They were armed and ready. They had heard sounds
of a furious fight taking place somewhere below in the estate.
It might mean a renewed attack from the staircase or from the sheer surface of the ivy-covered wall. Vincent knew that a determined man could climb
that wall, if he were desperate enough. He gave it tense, undivided attention.
The stone that flew without warning through the open window almost struck Vincent's hunched shoulder. It landed with a thump on the floor, rebounded against the wall.
Vincent pounced on the object before he saw clearly what it was. His first
thought was that it might be a bomb. But it was a plain, jagged stone. A sheet of paper was wrapped about it, tied securely in place with a tight loop of cord.
Harry Vincent ripped the cord loose, spread the paper flat under his eager
eyes. He uttered a low exclamation.
The paper contained a hasty scrawl in a hand that was familiar to Harry.
There was no doubt in his mind but that The Shadow had written this message.
The note was terse. Vincent frowned, but Clyde Burke's eyes gleamed when he read it:
Vincent remain with Arnold Dixon. Do not leave under any circumstance.
Burke report immediately to burned house on shore road. Signal sparrow chirp.
Speed.
Clyde Burke whirled, his face aglow with delight. Vincent showed no sign of the disappointment that filled him. He merely extended his hand, said "Good luck!" and watched Clyde race from the room. He heard Clyde depart on the motor
cycle on which he had come out from New York.
CHAPTER XVII
THE INDIAN'S NOSE
IT was pitch-dark in the tool shed where Bruce had so callously thrust William Timothy and his niece. The lawyer couldn't see Edith Allen, but the sound of her shrill scream made his ears tingle.
"Quiet!" he told Edith. "Screaming won't help us get out. I have the means
of escaping from here in less than five minutes!"
His sharp whisper was confident. Edith became silent. In the darkness, she
could hear the scratch of a match. Light flared. Timothy was holding the match high over his head. He uttered an exclamation of satisfaction when he saw the vertical wire of an electric droplight.
There was a click and the windowless prison of the tool shed became bright
with illumination.
"Search the shelves," Edith cried, eagerly. "There must be a chisel, or something."
"A chisel won't help a bit," Timothy replied, evenly. "I know the strength
of that door - and the strength of the lock, too."
His smile deepened.
"Luckily, I was suspicious about what we might run into here to-night. I came prepared for an emergency."
As he spoke he fished a circlet of keys from his pocket. They were skeleton keys. He knelt at the keyhole of the door and began to manipulate them
with trembling fingers. Then he left the door abruptly and began to rummage along the shelves at the back of the shack. He was looking for a length of stout cord and he found a piece that satisfied him.
"Cord?" Edith inquired in a puzzled tone. "What's that for?"
"For you, my dear," the lawyer cried, softly - and sprang at her.
TIMOTHY was gentle as possible, but Edith was unable to elude the firm grasp that caught her and held her helpless. The cords were tied swiftly, in spite of her furious efforts. He laid her on the floor, surveyed her with a panting apology.
"I'm sorry," he muttered in a shamefaced tone. "It's for your own good, Edith. This is the safest place you can be to-night, and I mean for you to stay
here."
"You're afraid to trust me," she sobbed. "You think I'm still in love with
Bruce!"
He nodded. His hands shook. But there was no relenting in his steady eyes.
"It will take all my nerve and energy to protect myself," he muttered. "I can't be bothered with the presence of a woman."
He sprang back to the door. One of his skeleton keys had really fitted the
lock, although Edith had been unaware of it at the time. Timothy threw open the
door, quickly slipped into the darkness.
He ran noiselessly toward the mansion. As he darted past the side wing, he
glanced warily up. The house itself was in darkness except for two lighted rooms. One was on the upper story: the bedroom of Arnold Dixon. The second lighted room was on the ground floor.
The lawyer approached this latter spot. The frame of the window showed unmistakable signs of a forced entry. The rug on the floor looked rumpled and scuffed as if a furious fight had taken place within at some recent moment.
Yet
there was no sign of a human being lurking within.
Timothy crouched back from the window, wondering uneasily what he ought to
do. As he stood there, half turned to protect himself from a sudden attack at his rear, his startled glance saw a tiny square of white paper lying on the grass. It was visible because of the slanting rays of light that issued from the window.
Bending swiftly, the lawyer snatched it. He read the note on it with incredulous amazement. It was the same bait that The Shadow had left with Bruce
Dixon. Bruce had dropped it as he sprang swiftly from the room after his rather
easy "victory" over The Shadow.
The lawyer realized the significance of his find as quickly as Bruce had before him. It was obvious that some one - just who, the worried lawyer found it impossible to decide - had unearthed the secret hiding place of the missing Cup of Confucius.
The typed memo under the cryptic lines above was proof of that. And the memo made the whereabouts of the cup ridiculously clear. All that was needed now was resolute determination, and speed.
WILLIAM TIMOTHY hastened away through the darkness, unmindful of the painful limp that came from the partly cured arthritis in his foot.
He found his car where he had left it and drove swiftly along the deserted
road that led to the blackened ruin of the old Carruthers house. He drove past it and parked his car in a branching lane that cut inward through pine and spruce, away from the direction of the near-by Sound.
When Timothy returned to the Carruthers property, he was on foot and his movements were cautious. The house had been almost completely obliterated by the roaring flames that had consumed it. The only remnants were a few charred ends of beams that protruded from blackened foundation walls.
Timothy's watchful eyes gleamed as he saw a patch of blackness on the earth midway between the ruin and himself. The black patch had seemed to move slightly. It was almost the exact size of a crouching man - a man who might be wearing a dark, concealing cloak and a wide-brimmed slouch hat drawn low over burning eyes and a hawklike nose.
The Shadow!
Timothy drew his gun, a small glittering automatic. The patch was no longer moving. He circled cautiously, approached from the rear. Suddenly, he gasped. The thing had been a trick of Timothy's overwrought imagination.
Starlight had made that patch of blackness seem to move. It was merely a small area of charred ground where a blazing timber had fallen and burned away the grass to a blackened bald spot.
Chuckling with relief, Timothy circled the ruin and approached the brow of