“The inscription in the border: ‘Ye living men who love life and hate death; ye who will pass by this spot shall sacrifice to me!’ — I know its importance now!”
The jaws of the trap were closing. They clicked into place, forming what appeared to be a solid floor. Then came the downward shift; the floor that formed the death trap slid beneath the wall while the solid duplicate replaced it.
“The library!” exclaimed Jarvis Raleigh, suddenly. “That’s where the false Stokes Corvin used to stay. This way — this way—”
All followed Raleigh along the passage. The library light was on; the door to the veranda was open. Jarvis Raleigh uttered a cry as he pointed toward the corner bookcase. He sprang in that direction.
The volumes of Dumas had been removed. Behind the spot where they belonged was an opened panel. Cunningly set in the wall, this moving portion had been designed to deceive the keenest eyes.
Beyond the opening were two switches. Their purpose was obvious. One to change the floors; the other to drop and close the trap. This was the final secret of the death trap arranged by Windrop Raleigh — a chasm of doom below the cunning hiding place where the old miser had kept his hoarded wealth.
While amazed men stared, a distant cry came to their ears from far across the lawn. A chilling sound of sinister mirth, it was the climax to the final revelation.
Those in the library stood silent with awe as they heard the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SHADOW WRITES
THE blue light was shining in The Shadow’s sanctum. Long white fingers were lifting newspaper clippings and typewritten reports. These gave the final pieces of information that concerned the mystery of Montgard.
Papers and clippings disappeared. A massive book replaced them. Opening to a blank page, the hands of The Shadow produced a long quill pen. Fingers began to write, in a perfect penmanship.
When Lamont Cranston first arrived at Montgard, he read the inscription on the floor of the turret entry. He noted an error in a single tile; the wrong figurine for the inscription. Despite his pretense to the contrary, Lamont Cranston was familiar with hieroglyphics. To his eyes, the error was plain.
When the floor of the entry was examined after the strange disappearance of Merton Helmsford, the proper figurine was in the inscription. A single tile could not have been removed. Therefore the entire floor must have been changed.
The Shadow paused. His pen disappeared from the light; it returned, its point glowing with new ink. Again, the hand inscribed:
Waiting crooks were close by Montgard. Their purpose indicated that their leader expected word from within. The man who called himself Stokes Corvin was the latest arrival at Montgard.
Stokes Corvin had been in the library. The room warranted inspection. The volumes of Dumas were the clew that led to the discovery of the secret panel.
Reeves Lockwood and Merton Helmsford perished because they knew too much. Rags Wilkey — posing as Stokes Corvin — killed one and then the other because he feared that the lawyer had learned him to be an impostor and that the detective might press the investigation.
Those deaths were unfortunate. They came before the discovery of the secret panel that placed the guilt on the impostor. Had Sidney Richland used ordinary judgment he would not have become a third victim. His death came through his unfortunate actions.
The impostor, by inference, was Rags Wilkey — a crook whom only Joe Cardona could identify — one formerly associated with Mallet Haverly. His practice of tossing cigarette stumps upon the lawn near the kennel from which the hound had been removed was indication of his communications. Messages, wadded in the cigarette stumps, were his chosen method.
Another pause. The Shadow’s thoughts were reverting to the past. The hand of The Shadow made its final inscription.
Windrop Raleigh had dealt in secret crime at Montgard. His tiled floor was secretly duplicated. One error only — that of a single figurine — was never discovered during his time.
Luskin knew the secret of the death trap. He also knew, in part, the existence of the hiding place near the top of the turret.
A servant in the household while Windrop Raleigh was installing these secret places, Luskin had managed to learn the truth.
The trap of doom, unused since the death of Windrop Raleigh, was brought into play by the new murderer who had found his way within the walls of Montgard. Wilkey did not know the error in the tile which had escaped the notice even of Windrop Raleigh. It remained for another to detect that one flaw in the trap — Windrop Raleigh’s legacy of death!
The pen disappeared. Ink dried upon the page.
The hands of The Shadow moved into the outer darkness. They returned, bearing perfect copies of the inscriptions which appeared on the tiled floor of the turret at Montgard. A slight notation on the second copy showed the changed figurine which proved to be the solution of this strange mystery.
Now the pages of the massive book were closed. The light clicked out; a weird laugh sounded amid the enshrouding gloom.
The final statements in the mystery of Montgard had been chronicled for all time within the secret archives of The Shadow.
The Shadow had solved the mystery of Montgard, and had cleared another case in his amazing career. He had found the clew which saved the name and reputation of innocent people.
But, difficult though this clew was to uncover, he was to find one even more unusual, even more mystifying. It was the clew of death which no science of language could solve — only The Shadow’s amazing power of deduction, and uncanny ability to trace crime.
Men died, one by one, and no one knew which would be next. Some guessed that the killer went by phone numbers; others that he had a certain number of people to kill. Which would you have guessed if you were faced with The Death Clew which The Shadow faces in the next story?