The Black Falcon

CHAPTER XXI WINGS OF THE NIGHT

A SWIFT plane was speeding northward. Lightless, its black wings were unseen against the clouded sky. A grim pilot was at the controls; beside him, a stalwart henchman. Rowland Ransdale, alias The Black Falcon, was fleeing with his minion, Hazzlett.

The ship was one which coupled speed with manageability. This combination was essential to The Black Falcon’s needs, for the winged abductor had a habit of choosing rough and unkempt landing fields when he swooped to the earth.

Both The Black Falcon and his scowling aid realized that a swifter plane could overtake them, but they were relying on their start. Coming from Long Island, they had successfully dodged any police planes that were about; now, above the wooded mountain land, they were nearing their goal, an hour from New York.

Lights flickered from the plane. The Black Falcon eased the speed. Far below, a patch showed in the woods. It was The Black Falcon’s abode, fourteen miles from the landing field by road; not more than half that distance by air.

A few minutes later, the plane was circling over the pastured clearing, which showed dull white among the trees. Flood lights glowed suddenly. A grim smile on his unmasked face, Rowland Ransdale, The Black Falcon, prepared for his final landing.

The plane reached its objective. It bumped along the rough ground straight toward the hangar, and came to a stop some fifty yards from that hidden building. As The Black Falcon clambered from his ship, two henchmen came rushing up.

Rowland Ransdale’s face was steady as the supercrook gave his order. He paused as he spoke to gaze up toward the sky; then told his henchmen of his plans.

“Hazzlett and I are going to the house,” he declared. “We shall return for you in about an hour. In the meantime, wait here. There is a chance that some one is on our trail. Be ready with the machine gun. Give them the works.”

The henchmen growled in pleased fashion. Ransdale smiled. He motioned to Hazzlett. With the others aiding them, they warped the airplane to the hangar. Then Ransdale and his chief minion strode away to the spot where the sedan was parked.

AS they rode along the jouncy road, Ransdale, in his own voice, talked with Hazzlett. The Black Falcon’s air was one of calm speculation.

“I don’t know how Cranston could have gotten away,” he declared. “He was here when we left; it seems impossible that he could have followed so quickly even if he did escape.”

“Maybe we’re running into trouble,” observed Hazzlett uneasily. “If he broke loose, he could have raised hob at the place.”

“No time for that,” returned Ransdale, in a tone of surety. “We can take it for granted that he escaped by stealth. His quick trip to New York proves the fact. I am sure that he left without releasing the others.”

“Why?”

“Because that would have meant an alarm — a fight — the danger of missing his chance to stop my abduction of the police commissioner. I can’t understand it, Hazzlett! Something is wrong somewhere!”

“You mean—”

“How could Cranston have done so much in so short a time? Why didn’t he call the police commissioner? How did he learn that I was going there? We have held Cranston prisoner — and Cranston is The Shadow!”

“Maybe,” observed Hazzlett in a doubting tone, “you have been mistaken all along about Cranston—”

“That may be it,” snarled Ransdale, in the style of The Black Falcon. “We’ll know soon enough. When we get to the house.”

A pause as the two rode on in silence. The sedan was traveling slowly along the turns in the rough road. Progress here was slow.

“We are not going back for our men,” observed Ransdale, in a tone of decision. “Let them shift for themselves, Hazzlett. We have our own skins to look after.”

Hazzlett seemed pleased by this decision.

“The game is over,” resumed Ransdale, in a bitter tone. “We must say nothing to the men at the house. I, myself, shall kill our prisoners and leave their bodies in the cells. Then we can tell the crew that we are going back to the landing field. Our men at the house can hold the bag.”

“We’ll travel in the sedan?”

“Yes. Up to that secret hangar near Binghamton. We’ll head for Canada in the monoplane. That will be the last seen of us, Hazzlett.”

“It will be an easy get-away. Even if the police planes do find our landing field—”

“They won’t find it tonight, Hazzlett. I didn’t tell the commissioner where my place was located. It wasn’t the police from whom I was hurrying.”

“The Shadow?”

“Yes. He may be on our trail. Let him come. The only place that he can land his plane — if he has one — is on our field. They’ll have the machine gun on him the minute that he lights—”

“But what if he manages to get by with—”

“With the machine gun there? The best break he can get will be to clear off the ground before he steps out of his ship. He may be wise enough to do that, if they start to use the machine gun too soon. That will mean another landing place. More delay.

“Even if he should get clear” — Ransdale’s tone was tense — “he will have to follow this course that we have taken. He has no car — even if he did have one, we have gained too good a start.

“Ten minutes will be all that we require at the house. Five to clear out my papers and money. Five to kill the prisoners while you are talking to our men upstairs. Then for our final get-away.”

The gleaming headlights of the sedan cut a swath through the darkness of a turn. The entrance to Ransdale’s secluded residence showed within the range of the glare. The Black Falcon swerved the car through the open gate. As the sedan pulled to a stop, a man appeared on the front steps of the gray-stone house.

“It’s Sharpless!” whispered Hazzlett, as he recognized one of Ransdale’s henchmen. “You are right — nothing has happened here.”

“Good,” returned Ransdale, as he alighted from the car. Then, as he approached the steps, he called: “All well, Sharpless?”

“Yes, sir,” responded the man on the steps.

“No trouble with the prisoners?” questioned Ransdale.

“All doors safely barred,” came the reply.

“Say nothing about Cranston,” whispered Ransdale. “Go down to the cellar, but don’t touch the door of the room where we had him imprisoned. Bring all the men together — up to my room. I’ll be there, packing the papers and the cash.”

Hazzlett was still nodding when the pair reached the spot where Sharpless stood. They walked through the door; the waiting henchman followed. All was quiet in the clearing about Rowland Ransdale’s hidden abode.

WHAT Ransdale had said to Hazzlett was true. The start that they had gained was valuable. A following plane, if it were headed hither, would have to choose the landing field fourteen miles away.

But had Rowland Ransdale remained outside his house; had he stared upward toward the darkened sky, he might have seen a phenomenon that would have brought him consternation. No sound came as a token from high above; only an amazing sight that marked the coming of a phantom being from the night.

Descending straight toward the clearing was an autogyro. The ship was coming from a high altitude. Its motor had been slowed until the sound was inaudible below. Sharp eyes from that strange machine of the sky had spotted the house of Rowland Ransdale. The same eyes had viewed the arrival of the sedan, betokened by the glare of the car’s headlights.

Rowland Ransdale had never dreamed that his small clearing could serve as a landing field. The space in back of the stone house was less than sixty feet across. It was no more than a sloping patch of greensward.

Yet that was the spot that The Shadow had chosen. He had not taken his autogyro from the Newark airport without clear forethought. Traveling at maximum speed, he had followed on an average of nearly two miles a minute — almost the same pace set by Rowland Ransdale’s plane.

But The Shadow, with his later start, had been forced to take the road travel into consequence. He had also perhaps considered the possibility of a fray at the landing field. He had chosen the one way by which he could either anticipate or duplicate the time of The Black Falcon’s arrival at the house in the forest.

That was by a landing at the house itself. The autogyro, its four blades whirling above it like a horizontal windmill, was making a beautiful landing. Like a bird coming to earth, it descended into a crater-like space between the trees.

Settling with silent ease, The Shadow’s ship came to rest upon the sloping green. Its shock absorbers took the brunt of the landing. The autogyro rolled forward a few short yards and stopped.

From the darkness of the strange machine stepped forth the shrouded figure of The Shadow. Blazing eyes turned upward. A soft laugh hissed from hidden lips as a light came in beyond the French doors of Rowland Ransdale’s room.

The Shadow, mysterious avenger from the darkened sky of night, had arrived to settle scores with The Black Falcon!