the cliff that overlooked Long Island Sound. He descended the stone steps cut in
the face of the cliff.
A FEW moments after the lawyer had vanished, there was a faint pop-pop from down the road. A motor cycle approached, its motor muffled. Clyde Burke dismounted hastily, wheeled the machine out of sight. He hurried to the ruin of
the Carruthers house.
He pursed his lips. The sound of a chirping sparrow filled the smoky air with brief clarity.
It was answered from the foundations of the ruined house. A black-gloved hand beckoned. Calm lips issued orders. Clyde listened attentively to the words.
When The Shadow had finished, Clyde was in complete knowledge of what was required of him. He nodded to show that he understood. There was utter amazement on his face. The Shadow had told him things that seemed completely incredible. But knowing The Shadow's methods, the absolute logic of his thoughts and actions, Clyde was ready to obey him.
The two hurried to the brow of the cliff and descended the stone steps to the platform at the water's edge. There was no sign of William Timothy. The Shadow's gloved hand pointed to the cliff wall two or three feet above the tide
mark where the restless waters of the Sound lapped the foot of the rocky precipice.
Exposed by the low tide was a perfect replica of an Indian's head. The freak rock formation was in profile and the face pointed away from the float on
which Clyde and The Shadow stood.
The Shadow held a length of rope in his hand. The end was directly over the bold outline of the Indian's nose. Clutching the loose end of the rope, Clyde lowered himself into the water and swam slowly away. The rope straightened. It touched the black surface of the water a dozen feet to the left of the platform.
Clyde's hand dipped beneath the surface at this exact point. His groping fingers felt no rock. There was a hole in the cliff below the water. It was the
entrance to a submerged tunnel.
Clyde drew in a long breath of air. He dived. Relying implicitly upon the instructions that The Shadow had given him, he swam through a long gallery filled completely with salt water from floor to roof.
THE floor of the tunnel swerved sharply upward and The Shadow's agent emerged gasping into air-filled darkness. He had been given a tiny flashlight and he sent its beam into the gloom. The gallery continued upward for a few yards farther. Its stone floor was dry.
There were muddy footprints, showing that some one had preceded Clyde into
this queer crypt within the cliff. Perhaps more than one, if The Shadow's warning had been correct. Other footmarks had evaporated. Only Timothy's still showed.
Clyde was very careful with his tiny light, as he moved onward. He descended a suddenly steeper slope to what looked like a natural doorway in the
rock tunnel. The round hole was open, but the means for closing it was close at
hand.
A rounded boulder was propped against the wall, midway down the slant.
Beside it rested a rusted crowbar.
Both boulder and crowbar were relics of an earlier day of criminal activity. This cliff and the house above it had been the headquarters of a powerful gang of rumrunners. The Shadow had uncovered the story from backfiles of newspapers, after he had penetrated to the secret of the underground cave.
It had once contained barrel upon barrel of contraband liquor. Now it hid men who were feverishly searching for a million-dollar cup - a priceless relic from the ancient civilization of China.
With the crowbar, Clyde pried the boulder loose. The incline took care of the task of shifting it. It rolled downward with a faint rumble on the smooth floor of the slanting tunnel. It struck the opening in the rock and wedged itself there. No man within could budge it without tools.
The exit of the lawyer and those who had preceded him into that underground labyrinth was now definitely closed. There was another entrance, but only The Shadow knew of it. He alone had explored every nook and cranny, on
a previous visit.
The last act of the drama was now about to commence.
Clyde again filled his lungs, dived into the water-filled gallery and swam
back to the dark ripple of the Sound.
He followed The Shadow up the cliff steps to the brink of the sheer precipice. The two disappeared into the blackened ruins of the foundation walls
where the Carruthers house had once stood.
For an instant, their creeping figures were dimly visible. Then there was no movement at all. Both men had vanished.
CHAPTER XVIII
EDITH TAKES A HAND
EDITH ALLEN lay stretched on the floor of the tool shed, where her uncle had left her bound hand and foot.
She was working tenaciously to free her hands from the loops of twine that
fettered them. In this activity, she had more than a mere forlorn hope. When her
uncle had jumped at her, she had a second's warning of his intent by the look in
his eyes.
Wisely, she had made no effort to struggle. But she held her hands together in such a way that the wrists overlapped slightly. Timothy had not noticed the girl's stratagem. But the trick had given her a precious fraction of an inch in which to slide her wrists back and forth.
She had slim, supple wrists, muscular from golf and tennis. The cords bit deeply into her flesh as she worked to loosen them. She gritted her teeth and tried to forget the pain. Already, one of her wrists was almost free. In another moment, she gave a sobbing cry. The cord fell to the floor. Bending, she untied her ankles with scarcely a pause.
She had a definite plan of escape in mind. Unlike her uncle, she had had ample time, while she lay straining on the floor, to notice the formation of the tool shack. The front and sides were a formidable obstacle to freedom. But the rear was a different story. Behind the shelves that lined the rear wall, the planking was very thin.
She concentrated her efforts on a single plank. It was rotted by rain and moisture, and field mice had gnawed part of the crumbling wood away. Edith hooked her fingers into the tiny aperture and tried to rip the board away. But the task was too much for her strength.
She got to her feet, ran desperate eyes along the length of the shelves.
Suddenly, she saw the glint of a hammer-head. She seized the implement and went
grimly back to her task.
It took several hard blows before she was able to split the crumbling plank. It was thin enough to split in several places. She was able now to rip it out, piece by piece.
A nail gashed a furrow in the flesh of her neck as she crawled through, but she paid no attention to the sharp pain.
She ran toward the home of Arnold Dixon. The thought of the old man's peril was like a draft of cold water. It steadied her pounding heart.
LIKE her uncle, the first thing Edith noticed was the open window on the ground floor of the silent mansion. But approaching it, she made an additional discovery. A gun lay in a patch of trampled grass. She picked it up, examined it, found that it was loaded.
Clutching it with a repressed sob of determination, Edith climbed swiftly through the open window and crept like a noiseless ghost up the broad staircase
of the mansion.
So gently did she ascend that she reached the upper floor without disclosing her presence to whoever was in the lighted room at the end of the corridor. The door was partly open, but it was impossible for the girl to see who was within.
That some one was inside with Arnold Dixon, she was certain. For she could
hear the faint groaning voice of the millionaire, and another voice she had never heard before.
A cautious glance at the crack of the door showed her the profile of a stranger. He was whispering grimly to Dixon. But Edith had no knowledge that this was Harry Vincent, an agent of The Shadow. She didn't realize that Harry's