Doom On The Hill

CHAPTER V THE SHADOW ARRIVES

MIDNIGHT. Sheriff Tim Forey and Harry Vincent were seated in Grantham Breck’s living room. The deputies were strolling about the house, keeping a watchful eye upon the kitchen, where the three servants formed a silent group.

“All right,” growled Forey. “Bring them in, Hank.”

One of the deputies responded. A few minutes later, Johanna, Adele and Craven filed into the living room. They stood like prisoners before the bar. Johanna was pale; Adele looked scared; only Craven appeared normal, but his face was morose.

“I want to talk to you folks,” growled Forey as he paced back and forth before the group. “I haven’t said anything yet, because I’ve been waiting for your master to show up. It’s midnight. He’s not back. So I’m sure something is wrong.”

Stopping, the sheriff stared at Johanna. The pale housekeeper placed her hands to her heart. Forey laughed gruffly.

“No use of faking again,” he declared. “You’re well enough to talk.”

“I did not feel good,” protested Johanna. “I tell you true, Mr. Forey. I was very sick. I was—”

“You passed out for a start,” broke in Forey. “After that you faked it. Talk straight, Johanna. What was it that frightened you? Something that Mr. Vincent said over the telephone?”

“That was right, Mr. Forey,” admitted Johanna. “It was all very bad when I heard him say that someone had been murdered.”

“Wait a minute. Vincent was watching you when he first spoke. That wasn’t when you began to faint. It was when he described the body that he had found.”

Johanna began to tremble. Staring steadily, Forey growled another question:

“Did you think from what he said that the dead man might have been Grantham Breck?”

Johanna nodded, weakly.

“You were right, Vincent,” declared the sheriff, turning to The Shadow’s agent. “Now, Johanna” — again Forey gazed at the housekeeper — “do you know where Mr. Breck went tonight?”

“No, sir.” The woman’s voice rang true. “But he goes out more than once at night. I have seen him. Yah!”

“You mean more than once tonight? Or other nights?”

“Other nights.”

“By the front door or the back?”

“By the little side door, Mr. Forey.”

“The side door? Where is it located?”

“At the foot of a little stairway, sir,” put in Craven. “Mr. Breck reached it from the landing by his little study on the second floor.”

“A secret entrance, eh?” quizzed Forey.

“Not exactly, sir,” explained Craven. “But it is a very convenient mode of entry. One that would not be easily noted.”

“Take a look up there, Hank,” ordered the sheriff. “Since you’ve started to talk, Craven, maybe you can tell us more. Did you hear Vincent’s description over the telephone?”

CRAVEN hesitated. He glanced at Johanna and saw that the housekeeper had weakened. Craven nodded solemnly; then spoke in a sincere tone.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he explained. “When I came in here, I saw a stranger at the telephone. I heard him give a description that answered to Mr. Breck. Then Johanna fainted. I said nothing, sir, for I feared that the master would be annoyed when he returned.”

“But you knew Breck was dead.”

“How so, sir?”

“By what Vincent said.”

“I was not sure, sir.”

Hank had returned. He informed Forey that he had been in the study. He gave a description of the room and the stairway to the side door.

“Desk — tables — books on shelves along the wall,” stated the deputy. “Everything in order. Looked in the closet. Nobody there. The side door was locked, Tim.”

“Bolted?”

“No. Just locked.”

“All right. I’ll go up there later. We’ve got your story, Johanna. You’re all right, Adele. But I want to talk to you some more, Craven. Where did you go after you left Mr. Vincent here?”

“To call Adele, sir,” replied the butler.

“I know that,” growled Forey. “I mean after that. Why weren’t you here to answer the door bell when I arrived?”

“I went to the master’s study, sir,” replied Craven. “I was alarmed by what I had heard. Not finding Mr. Breck, I tapped at the door of his bedroom. There was no response. And then—”

“Yes?”

“I believe that harm must have befallen Mr. Breck. I thought of the side door. I had been in my quarters on the third floor all evening; I had not heard the master go out. But I went down to the side door.”

“Was it locked?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I opened the side door, sir—”

“The locked door?”

“I have a duplicate key, sir.” Craven produced the object and handed it to Forey. “I began to look about, off beyond the house.”

“You mean you went up to the hill road,” challenged Forey.

“No, sir!” exclaimed Craven. “Indeed not! I feared that Mr. Breck might have been injured; that he might be coming in toward the house. I was looking about when your car arrived, sir.”

“Humph,” grunted the sheriff. “Was he here when you got back, Hank?”

“Came down the stairs about ten minutes after we got in,” declared the deputy.

“I had returned to my quarters, sir,” said Craven, to Forey.

“All right,” decided the sheriff. “We’ve established this much. Grantham Breck was accustomed to go in and out of that side door. He could have headed up to the hill. It looks like he was the man Vincent found murdered. Anything else, you two?”

Craven and Johanna shook their heads. It was Adele who burst forth suddenly with an unexpected statement.

“I’LL tell you something!” asserted the cook, with a defiant glance at the other servants. “There was people who came here to see the master. Maybe the same person always; maybe different ones. They came in by that side door.”

“How do you know this?” questioned Forey.

“My room was on that side of the house, sir,” explained Adele. “I was hearing them — on different nights — and I wondered who they might be. I spoke to Mr. Breck, so I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He was for saying it was my imagination. ‘Adele,’ says he, ‘you’ll be telling me next that there is a banshee round this place.’ So after that, he gave me a room at the front of the house.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“‘Twas a few weeks past,” recalled the cook. “So hearing no more prowlers, I kept to my own business.”

“How do you think these visitors came in? Did they have keys of their own?”

“I think not, sir. I’m believing that Mr. Breck was expecting them. He could have gone down that stairway, sir, to let them come into the house.”

Sheriff Forey resumed his pacing. When he stopped, he faced both Craven and Johanna. The servants eyed him stolidly. Forey smiled sourly.

“What’s your answer?” he demanded. “You’ve heard Adele’s statement. What about these visitors?”

“There may have been such persons, sir,” admitted Craven. “My room is also at the front of the house. I heard no one enter at night.”

“But you knew that Mr. Breck went out?”

“Yes, sir. Recently he developed that habit.”

“Where’s your room, Johanna?”

“It was in the front, sir,” explained the housekeeper, “until Mr. Breck said to me that I should take the room from Adele. There was nothing to make me know why we should change.”

“Did you hear prowlers after you moved to Adele’s room?”

“There was nothing that I heard from my room. Perhaps it is that I sleep very good when I have gone to bed.”

“All right,” declared the sheriff. “That’s all. You can go to your rooms, the three of you. Prepare two rooms on the second floor. Some of us will stay here tonight.”

WHEN the servants had filed out, Forey beckoned to Harry. The sheriff led the way upstairs; they found Breck’s study. The tidiness of the room was a tribute to Johanna’s housekeeping. Then Forey located the stairway; he and Harry descended. Forey unlocked the side door and motioned Harry out into the darkness.

“You’ve clicked with me, Vincent,” assured the sheriff, in a low tone. “I believe the man you found was dead. I’m also sure that it was Grantham Breck. He was an odd sort, Breck. Crafty, like most lawyers.”

“What could he have been doing up by the hill road?” questioned Harry.

“He might have been going up to see Ezekiel Twinton,” replied the sheriff, “but I doubt it. They weren’t such good friends. Breck wanted to buy Twinton’s property — some of it at least — and there was no sale. Both were sort of sore; but there was no real enmity between them.”

“Then Breck would not have been visiting Twinton.”

“That’s just it. I’ve got another theory, though. Sometimes an old duck like Breck gets childish. He probably knew that Twinton was scared. Maybe he went up there occasionally to worry Twinton.”

“I see. So Twinton would be scared to remain on the hill?”

“That’s my idea. Twinton reported prowlers to me not long ago. I’m not going to bother him tonight, although I’ll take a trip in that direction.”

“Perhaps Twinton—”

“Ran into Breck?” put in Forey, as Harry paused. “On the road you mean? I don’t think so. It’s too far below Twinton’s property. However, I’ll remember that, Vincent. There’s a lot to be cleared up. I wish we had found that body.

“You’re to stay here, Vincent” — Forey’s tone became even more cautious as the sheriff paced out upon the sun-scorched lawn — “because we may find that body and when we do, we’ll need your testimony. You’ll have a room on the second floor. So will Hank. One of the other deputies will keep watch on the ground floor.

“Meanwhile, we’ll think of Craven. He had time to beat us getting up to the hill road; he also had plenty of time to get back down here. It’s a tangle, Vincent. We’ll talk it over again after a night’s sleep. Say — it’s a dark night, all right.”

As the sheriff paused, Harry thought he caught a rustle of dried grass near the house. He listened intently; but heard no repetition of the sound. Harry followed the sheriff in through the side door. Forey locked the barrier.

A few minutes later, the crouched figure of a man rose dimly from beside the house. The listener had heard all that passed between Tim Forey and Harry Vincent. Straightening, he hurried toward the front road. From there, he took a short cut over toward the station.

When the prowler neared the railroad, he sneaked toward the platform. His stocky form showed in the light. The man who had been by Breck’s house was the railroad detective, Perry Nubin. The dick glanced in through a window of the station. He saw Zach Hoyler at the telegraph key. Shuffling away, Nubin walked along the tracks; then, after a pause, he again cut back across fields toward the old house.

The outbound Union Limited had gone through while Tim Forey and Harry Vincent had been waiting to quiz the servants. The inbound Dairy Express was due shortly. Hoyler had to be on duty when the Limited stopped; also when the fast milk train arrived. That would end his trick for the night.

THE Dairy Express was whistling for the grade crossing when Perry Nubin again neared the Breck house. Seated in an upstairs room, Harry Vincent was writing a report by the mild glare of a table lamp. The Shadow’s agent heard the distant whistle; he also caught the clang of the bell as the train rolled into the station. Then, amid a lull, Harry was sure that he heard footsteps creaking somewhere in the house. They seemed to be descending stairs.

Hastily folding his half-written report, Harry sprang to the hall. There he found the deputy who had been stationed in an upstairs room — the fellow whom the sheriff had called Hank. On the stairway from the third floor to the second was Craven. The butler stared at the two men.

“Pardon, sir,” he said to Harry. “I fancied that I heard the sound of a closing door. I thought that it might be the side exit to the house.”

“Go back to bed,” ordered Hank. “You got us hopping out here thinking you were some prowler.”

Craven turned and went upstairs. Harry and Hank returned to their rooms. But Harry was thoughtful as he heard the distant clang of the Dairy Express, followed by the chugging of the train from the station. He wondered if Craven had actually heard someone outside the house; or if the butler’s statement had been a pretence to cover his own actions.

Harry stared from his window. He saw no one. But he was seen. A chunky man, crouching off by a side fence watched until Harry had gone from the window. Then the fellow cut off toward the hill. It was Detective Perry Nubin. The railroad dick was taking a long route toward the railway. If he left the vicinity tonight, it would be by a freight. The Dairy Express had already pulled away.

Harry finished his report, a matter of several pages, with blue-inked diagrams. He sealed the papers in an envelope and left it on the table. He went to bed; but he did not extinguish the little light. Harry had a reason for letting that glow remain.

THREE hours later, a faint thrum sounded above the town of Chanburg. Then came silence as an autogiro, its motor shut, moved slowly downward toward an open space that lay in the midst of woods. The giro settled like a hovering bird. A soft laugh whispered as a shrouded figure stepped from the strange ship.

Not long afterward, keen eyes were peering from darkness toward the gloomy house of Grantham Breck. Dull lights showed from the living room windows; a deputy was on duty there. The only other window that revealed a glow was that of Harry Vincent’s room.

A squidgy sound came from the side of the house. Blackness seemed to project itself inward through Harry’s opened window. Solid darkness materialized itself into the weird shape of a fantastic being. A tall, sinister figure garbed in flowing cloak of black, his features obscured by the turned-down brim of a slouch hat. Such was The Shadow.

Harry Vincent was asleep. Gloved hands picked up the envelope from the table. Fingers produced the report. Keen, burning eyes read the full account of Harry’s adventures, including the final incident of Craven on the stairs.

Writing faded after The Shadow had read it. Such was the way with messages transmitted in the special ink. The lines of the diagram vanished after The Shadow had finished with it. The papers which The Shadow placed beneath his cloak were blank.

Every detail was implanted in the mind of the master sleuth. Silently, The Shadow crossed the room and glided out into the hall. Moving through darkness, he reached Grantham Breck’s study. A tiny flashlight glimmered as The Shadow made a brief inspection, to assure himself that no secret hiding places were located here.

After the light went out, a swishing sound came from the side stairway. The Shadow reached the side door; the light shone on the keyhole. A probing instrument of steel opened the lock. The Shadow moved out into darkness and used his special key to lock the door behind him.

From then on, The Shadow’s course was untraceable, save for the glare of his flashlight when it reappeared at the very spot on the hill road where Harry Vincent had spied the body. There, The Shadow moved in mysterious fashion. His tiny light showed broken twigs on bushes; it revealed a tiny fragment of gray cloth hooked by a bramble.

The Shadow moved up the hill side of the road. His light, directed on the ground, enabled his keen eyes to spy slight flatterings of parched grass. Moving here and there, The Shadow traced evidence of various paths — footprints that even an expert sleuth would have ignored.

Though these traces were insufficient to serve as identifications; though they formed hopeless, intermittent paths, The Shadow, none the less, seemed satisfied. As token came the whispered mockery of his uncanny laugh — a sound that resembled an echo from his sanctum in Manhattan.

When the first tinge of grayish dawn trickled from a clouded horizon it revealed a fleeting outline of the black-cloaked figure on the hillside. Then The Shadow merged with the darkness of a wooded patch. The early morning breeze caught the sinister throbs of a modulated laugh and carried its whispered echoes.

That was the final token of The Shadow’s presence. His first brief investigation finished, the master had departed. Night was The Shadow’s habitat. Others could act by day; Harry Vincent could report their doings. When shrouding darkness fell once more, The Shadow, invisible, would resume his task.