The light revealed Clark Brosset. The man’s lips showed a fiendish grin. The glimmering revolver in his hand was pointed directly at Marcia Wardrop!
GORSON held his own gun useless. He knew that if he attempted to fire, the fiend would slay the girl. Clark Brosset emitted a derisive sneer.
“I am leaving you, Gorson,” he proclaimed. “You will never learn my trail. But before I go—”
The police chief cried in horror as he saw Brosset’s finger on the trigger. The cry changed to one of amazement. Gorson, Farman, and Marcia, even in this moment of terror, were bewildered by what occurred.
From the blackness of the gallery, a living hand stretched out to clutch Clark Brosset’s weapon. Fingers of black jerked the revolver from the villain’s grasp. With a cry of evil disappointment, Brosset turned to grapple with a figure that had suddenly appeared beside him.
Police Chief Gorson stood motionless. He forgot that he held his own revolver. Like the girl and the lawyer, he was stupefied by an amazing conflict which suddenly occurred upon the darkened gallery.
Clark Brosset was in the clutches of a sinister shape that seemed the visible manifestation of a supernatural being! A mass of blackness, gloom of the gallery turned into solid form, had risen out of nothingness to seize the would-be slayer!
Clark Brosset’s body twisted in the toils of some superhuman force. It writhed against a power that seemed to have come from the void to gain uncanny vengeance. As the trio watched from below, Brosset still fought with this stranger from another sphere.
A cry of exultation marked a sudden change. The black shape slumped as Brosset managed to regain his grip upon the gun. Gorson saw the revolver twist in Brosset’s hand, as Brosset flung himself behind the balcony rail.
Another cry. It was a shout of momentary triumph from Brosset. The old wooden rail of the gallery quivered as a body thumped against it. A revolver roared. A flash spat through the posts of the railing.
The woodwork broke. Impelled by a terrific impetus, the railing broke apart. Amid a burst of splintering oak, the form of Clark Brosset plunged headlong through the shattered barrier.
The revolver clattered and bounced across the floor of the reception hall. Chief Gorson sprang forward. There was no need. Clark Brosset’s body, as it crashed upon the floor below the gallery, doubled like a jackknife and lay still.
Bits of woodwork had followed from the railing. Gorson, playing his light upon the gaping break, saw only blackened nothingness.
MARCIA WARDROP was staggering toward Clark Brosset’s body. She dropped beside the motionless form. Her voice came in a sighing cry.
“He’s dead!” gasped the girl. “He’s dead! Clark — is — dead—”
“Shot through the heart,” acknowledged Gorson, as he stooped over the body. “Shot by his own gun — fighting something” — he paused, correcting himself — “fighting nothing but his own imagination!”
The police chief looked sharply at Marcia Wardrop. He could see an agonized stare in the girl’s eyes. He put forth a short question:
“What do you how about Clark Brosset?”
The girl’s lips quivered. Gazing first toward Gorson, then at Horatio Farman, Marcia Wardrop made her solemn answer.
“He was my husband,” she said. “I loved him — I believed him — I obeyed him! I did not know he was a murderer — not until he wanted to kill me—”
Police Chief Gorson was silent. He arose and stood looking at the girl, crouched above the murderer’s body. Horatio Farman raised Marcia Wardrop gently.
A strange whir came from the other end of the room. Gorson swung quickly; then stood still as he listened to the chimes of the huge clock. The mammoth timepiece began to dong the hour of twelve.
A strange, whispered murmur shuddered through the room. It rose in tone and became a quivering, eerie laugh. There was no mirth in that uncanny cry. Its strident notes held a spectral solemnity.
The laugh died. Echoes followed from the walls. Whispered reverberations sent their mystic message from the gallery after the laugh had ceased — long seconds after the grandfather’s clock had sounded its final stroke.
“What was that?” gasped Police Chief Gorson, in an awed tone.
“The laugh of a ghost,” responded Horatio Farman, pale-faced in solemn sincerity. “The spirit of Caleb Delthern — the force that slew this man of murder!”
Gorson nodded, half believing. It seemed the only answer. The cry of a ghost — the shade of the former master of Delthern Manor.
Such was the belief of Horatio Farman. The old lawyer’s opinion would be unaltered now; and Marcia Wardrop, frightened, not knowing what to do, believed the same.
For the second time, the girl and the lawyer had heard the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SHADOW WRITES
UP in the study of Delthern Manor, with policemen at his beck and call, Police Chief Sidney Gorson reviewed the course of crime. With him were Warren Barringer, Marcia Wardrop, and Horatio Farman.
“We’ve got it pieced together now,” declared the chief. “Since you showed us all about the secret panels, Miss Wardrop” — he hesitated, realizing that he had used Marcia’s maiden name — “we’ve got the motive and the method. These papers prove the case.”
He pointed to documents that had come from the envelope in Terwiliger’s hand. One was the marriage license of Clark Brosset and Marcia Wardrop. Another was a confession signed by Jasper Delthern. A third was a record of debts which Jasper had owed to Brosset.
“Clark and I were married secretly, a few months ago,” declared Marcia, in a low tone. “He was a widower, and so much older than I, that we decided to keep the news from grandfather. I told Clark many things — and among them I described the secret openings in this house. Grandfather had told me all about the passages. No one else knew — not even Wellington, who lived here. Our old servant, Hiram, had known. After his death, grandfather confided to me.”
“You did not suspect your husband?” questioned Gorson. “Even after the murders began?”
“I wondered,” admitted Marcia. “I knew that someone could have opened the panel between the whispering gallery and the landing, to attack Winstead. When Humphrey and Wellington were slain, I knew that it could have been done through the panel in this wall.”
“A great trick, that panel,” said Gorson. “It can be opened only when the lights are out. That duplicate light switch in back of the panel did the stunt. It supports your story, Barringer.”
“Death struck three times while I was here,” remarked Warren solemnly. “Each time, the lights went out; then on. The murderer got away easily.”
“HERE was the game,” declared Gorson grimly. “Brosset saw how those passages could be used to advantage. The main one comes from outside the house — at that stone wall which runs alongside the grounds. It divides. One branch goes to the whispering gallery; the other to this study. Then there is the panel opening from the gallery to the landing. Is that clear?”
The listeners nodded.
“Jasper owed Brosset money,” continued Gorson, tapping the record sheet. “Brosset probably advanced him more. He knew Jasper for a scoundrel. He showed him how he could cut in on the big share of the Delthern estate.
“Brosset gave Jasper the lay of the secret passages. Jasper sneaked in here and bumped off Winstead and Humphrey. His call to Wellington was a bluff; and he killed the servant also. It was all part of the game, Barringer — to have you here as the goat. That was the protection for Jasper.”