The Banshee Murders

CHAPTER XIV

GETTING lost in Central Park was easy. Phil Harley had done it before; he did it again.

Within fifty yards, Phil needed to regain his sense of direction and turned around to take bearings, only to find the scene quite muddled. Bushes, trees, now intervened, so that the drive was no longer visible.

Looking where he thought Thara’s carriage was, Phil could no longer locate it. It was either out of sight beyond a bush clump or it had moved further along. In either case it wouldn’t help Phil find the fugitive hansom, so he decided to look for the latter.

At that moment, something intervened.

That something manifested itself against the glow from a light which might either represent the drive, a footpath, or anything else that was lighted around Central Park. The thing was a shape of jet blackness, human in a weird sort of way.

It looked like a person cloaked in black, with widespread, menacing arms. It lunged up beyond a shrub clump, made an eccentric sidelong shift, then performed a truly kaleidoscopic disappearance, because changes of color were involved. One instant, the creature turned greenish; the next, it was dyed red. Then it was gone with a fantastic swoop.

Phil suddenly realized the reason for all this. He’d seen the night creature flit in front of a changing traffic light, which was why it took on those fantastic hues. The red glow of the traffic light still persisted, but no longer as a background for the fanciful monstrosity.

The light told where the drive was, but Phil didn’t want the drive. He wanted to find the mysterious hansom, so he blundered off in its probable direction, at the same time preparing to meet the cloaked monster should it cross his path.

Instinctively, Phil connected that creature with the invisible fighter that he had encountered the night before. Since he didn’t know that it also paid clandestine visits to the top floor of the Chateau Parkview, Phil’s data on the monster subject was somewhat limited; but he felt right now that he could cope with the creature if he met it.

First though, Phil was to meet the hansom cab.

It took a long, mad rush among trees, over rocks, and through underbrush, before Phil finally came upon the missing vehicle, and then - quite curiously - it was reaching the open. The hansom must have used its own network of bridle paths and unlisted routes to reach this open stretch of flat, smooth ground which was crossed by a paved footpath, wide enough for the hack to use as a road.

This open area was an almost-forgotten spot termed the Oval and ahead it narrowed to a path with overhanging trees that was called the Willow Arch. Beyond the Willow Arch lay a section of the Great Lawn, but the terms would have meant nothing to Phil Harley, even if he had heard them.

Phil wanted to find out who was in the hansom and it was coming to a halt just in front of the Willow Arch, the tall bulk of this giraffe among vehicles threatening to tangle with the willow boughs should its driver attempt to take it through.

That was a break for Phil, or so he thought. Starting full tilt across the Oval, Phil found that the ground was level but heavy with thick grass, so he switched to the footpath for more speed, which proved a tactical error.

Before Phil could quite reach the halted hack, men lunged out to block him, attracted by the clatter of his running footsteps. In the dull glow that the city cast against the sullen sky, Phil recognized his assailants. They were chunky men that he had met the night before and they were garbed in outfits resembling leopard skins.

Leopards in agility they were as well, but instead of claws they had knives, long blades that flashed at Phil like great-toothed fangs!

He was a tough fighter, Phil, but battling off a tribe like this was almost as difficult as a head-on encounter with The Shadow.

Thinking of the hansom as a refuge, Phil made an effort to enter it, but without success. Getting into a hansom was troublesome; you had to enter it from the front and Phil didn’t know the system. Besides, the driver was flicking down with his whip, shouting something at both Phil and the leopard men.

It was all the driver could do to restrain the horse by means of the long reins that ran clear over the top and to the driver’s box above and at the back. The hansom seemed to be squirming on its two wheels and next it heeled over to the right as though something had been shoved from it.

Phil wasn’t there to see. He’d dived away to escape the leopard men. His best course seemed a mad race back across the Oval, so he started that way, hoping these jungleers weren’t good knife throwers.

They didn’t have to be.

Amid the rough turf Phil found an old tree root that he didn’t want and took a spill to the heavy sward. His pursuers were after him like rabbits, but were something much more murderous with their knives. Twisting around to ward off stabs, Phil saw blades poised above as if ready to strike in concert.

With the blades were glaring, darkish faces that looked venomous, but however ugly their spite, it was to be postponed.

Into that same dull glow from the heavy sky came the weird creature that Phil had seen before, the thing that swooped like a mammoth bat, only to evaporate. This time however, it turned the trick about.

The thing blotted all else from Phil’s sight as it struck right into the midst of the savage men in leopard skins. Instead of dwindling to nothingness, it had grown to the proportions of a life-sized rescuer.

The Shadow!

On hands and knees Phil saw the men in leopard skins scatter among the willows. Ahead of them went the hansom, jouncing from right to left, as though relieved of its burden. The driver was gone; he couldn’t risk the lacing he would have taken from willow branches.

As for Phil, he would have tried to help his friend The Shadow, if gun-shots hadn’t indicated that The Shadow was doing all right for himself. So Phil waited where he was, feeling both bewildered and shaky until a hand gripped him and hauled him to his feet.

The face that Phil saw was an honest one; it belonged to Harry Vincent, who had arrived with The Shadow’s other guests. Harry didn’t declare that fact; he simply acted as though he and Phil were persons who had run into the same peck of trouble.

“Come along,” suggested Harry. “I know a way out of here.”

Clyde and Hawkeye were sliding out of sight among the willows through which The Shadow had chased the leopard tribe. They didn’t want to complicate matters for Harry by letting Phil know that more than one stranger was around. Matters however were due for other complications.

The way that Harry took was by a rough-hewn path up from the Oval. At times it became almost a sheer cliff and when they reached the top, it showed gradual slopes in all directions. They were long slopes and in the foreground Phil could see a dim vista with the gray lines of crossing paths and drives, along with the light-reflecting sparkle of ponds and pools that otherwise were dark.

Instead of introducing himself, Harry Vincent explained where they were.

“They call this the Knoll,” said Harry. “You can see most of the park from here. People gravitate to it in an upward direction. From here we can pick wherever we want to go, except back where we came from.”

Phil Harley was inclined to agree with his new friend. By way of appreciation he introduced himself, whereupon Harry Vincent did the same. Since Phil still took it that Harry was a chance New Yorker who had blundered in among the leopard men, it wasn’t necessary to go into the details that had produced Phil’s own predicament.

Looking around the Knoll, Phil saw benches and a few bicycles parked alongside of some go-carts. Apparently people who trudged up here became too tired to take such odds and ends along with them. At least it was nice to know that there was one place in New York where belongings could be left and found again.

This, however, did not apply to Phil and Harry.

While Phil was philosophizing, Harry was looking off toward a distant building where lights had begun to flicker. There was an order coming through in the new code that The Shadow’s machine had cracked. At first Harry didn’t get it, but when the signal was repeated, he caught the message.

Turning to Phil, Harry gave the quick word:

“Keep a sharp lookout! That same crowd may be moving up here to trap us!”

Such was the gist of the message. It was telling the wrong people to surround the Knoll. A logical move, should Phil’s general whereabouts be known.

There was more to the message. It kept repeating that one term: “The Knoll.”

Phil wasn’t watching the lights. He was following Harry’s instructions and with results. Down the slope shrubs stirred and it wasn’t wind that swayed them. Furtive shapes began crossing the gray winding path; they had the spotty look of the leopard disguises.

“They’re after us!” Phil told Harry, hoarsely. “No use to go down the path by the rocks; they’ll have that covered sure! Maybe we’d better cut off the slope -”

With Phil’s very gesture, that route proved blocked, for from it came the tiny twinkles of a flashlight. It was Harry who again absorbed the message, but this time the code was The Shadow’s own.

Out of the night The Shadow was telling how to nullify the closing trap that he too had learned about by reading the more distant blinks.

Harry swung to Phil with the statement:

“Let’s go!”

How they were to go, Harry showed. He snatched up the nearest bicycle and swung himself upon it, whereupon Phil did the same with another of the handy vehicles. Then, with Harry setting the pace, they were off upon the maddest flight that the imagination could have wanted.

The path down from the Knoll was as twisty as it was steep. All you had to do with a bike was let it ride and keep steering while you gave the brakes. In this case the braking wasn’t advisable until the danger zone had been passed and there was no telling how soon that would be.

Up from the darkness the curving path flowed like a tangled ribbon unraveling itself beneath the wheels of Harry’s borrowed bicycle. It did the same with Phil’s, for he was keeping close behind this guide who apparently knew the route.

Things happened all the way down. As they whipped beneath some thick trees, knives came from the dark and planked hard into tree trunks. As they skewered around a huge rock, writhing, spotted figures flung themselves down at the intrepid riders and missed.

Greased lightning would have described those whizzing bicycles except at the places where the wheels screeched under the hard-jammed brakes, but even then, the speed was lessened just enough to make the turns.

Guns were barking from far above and now they seemed strangely remote to Phil. This trip had been so fast, so furious, that he hadn’t found a chance to breathe the air that came whining past. And now, with the menace of the leopard men banished, a new disaster threatened.

The path ended at a huge rock, down deep in the dell. Rather, it ran into a cross path, but the rock blocked the way. Harry took a swerve that a trick bicycle rider would have envied and went to the left of the rock. He missed the path of course, but jounced the bike across the ground beyond.

Phil thought that Harry had taken the hard way. The turn to the right looked easier. Phil chose it and scaled out through space. His bicycle left him and he landed with a smacking splash in a broad pond that he hadn’t even guessed was there.

Far around the other side of the pond, Harry Vincent halted his ride and turned to look for his companion. He saw men hauling Phil from the water and the glare of flashlights showed who they were. Not leopard men, but a squad in blue uniforms, representing the police.

Perhaps Phil could explain his wild nocturnal ride, but in a sense it didn’t matter. Harry’s job was done.

From here on The Shadow could take over!