The Condor

CHAPTER XXIV. SPOILS OF THE CONDOR

No noise of battle had reached the north side of the hill. The brow of the wooded mound had cut off sound from this further slope. Beside the old mill, only the ripple of the creek disturbed the hush of night.

A light was burning in the main room. There, Hiram Zegler was ordering his nephew Elisha in the accomplishment of a curious task. The two were stacking metal tubes of three-foot length. The cylinders were glistening with dripping water.

The door to the cellar was open. Zegler and Elisha had brought their burdens up from the stream below.

Elisha was expressing high-pitched liking for the task. Zegler’s half-witted nephew regarded the whole thing as a game.

“Say, this beats fishin’, Uncle Hiram!” the dolt was saying. “What do you reckon is inside these here metal bottles? They’re like the little ones you used to find in the net, hadn’t they? The little ones that had notes in them?”

“Shut up, you fool!” snarled Zegler. “We’ve got to load this swag in the car and make a get-away. These are the last of the lot, I guess, but there ought to be a small one coming. With a message, telling us where to head. Come on — we’re going down again.”

The pair descended the winding stairs. They reached the net; Zegler flashed a light into the meshwork. It showed no glimmer of the little tube that he expected.

“Mebbe the note’s in one of them big ones, uncle,” suggested Elisha. “How ‘bout us agoin’ up to look?”

“Sometimes you aren’t dumb,” commented Zegler. “That might be it. Well, we’ll wait here though. Just for sure. Something ought to ride along to tell us that we’ve got the whole shebang.”

Elisha uttered an inarticulate cry as he gripped his uncle’s shoulder. Pointing up the stream, the nephew indicated an object that was swinging out from beneath the floor boards at the right; through from that hidden channel that The Shadow had scented on his visit here.

“Hadn’t that one a monster!” exclaimed the dullard, finding words. “More’n six feet long, that fellow. The biggest ketch of the lot!”

Twisting free of low-hung timbers, a mammoth cylinder revolved into the net. As one end swung around, Zegler thrust bared arms into the water. He snarled to Elisha to help him. They brought the cylinder against the side of the stream.

Zegler snatched up a hooked bar and tugged the big tube upward. Elisha caught hold; they rolled the cylinder from the stream. Madly, Zegler twisted at the cap; it gave. Elisha gaped as he saw a head and shoulders thrust themselves from the tube.

ZEGLER aided the gray-haired arrival from his torpedolike craft. Griscom Treft crawled to his feet. Seen in the light from a lantern that glowed on the cellar wall, Treft’s face was the evil countenance of The Condor.

“I made it,” he rasped to Zegler. “With all the swag ahead of me, except some of the gold. It was too heavy; it would have sunk the cylinder. I left it in a box in the strong room.”

“Some of the tubes were mighty heavy weighted,” observed Zegler. “But that channel comes down mighty steep through the slope. Remember the time we tested it? Even them logs with iron hitched to them came through.”

Elisha was standing in a gawky attitude, listening. The Condor shot a look of alarm. He nudged Zegler.

“What’s the matter, Elisha?” demanded the miller. “Hearing something?”

“Thought I heerd an automobile,” returned Elisha. “Hadn’t sure, though. She seemed mighty high up; like she was a-comin’ over the hill. No noise now, though.”

“There’s no road over the hill,” snorted Zegler. “And there’s no cars go along this road. Don’t stand there mooning, Elisha!”

“Come on!” rasped The Condor. “There is a road around the hill. It will take pursuers half an hour to reach here, assuming that the fools have sense enough to guess that the outlet of the subterranean stream is at this mill.”

“Twelve miles around, if it’s a foot,” asserted Zegler, starting for the stairs. “But it’s not more than two, through that underground stream.”

“My passage required less than ten minutes,” announced The Condor, following while Elisha brought up the rear. “It was a swift trip, Zegler, but rough in spots. There are waterfalls within the hill.”

They had reached the top of the stairs. The Condor’s eyes gleamed as he surveyed his precious cylinders. All had come through ahead of him. Save for a few thousands in gold, The Condor’s swag was intact.

“Fetch up the net, Elisha,” began Zegler. “We’re clearing out of here right now—”

“No time!” rasped The Condor. “We’re taking that north road, Zegler, the one we picked in case of flight. No one will think of following it.”

“Things went bad at the lodge?”

“Completely. The sheriff is there with sixty men! I alone was clever enough to escape. Come! Let us carry these cylinders to your car. We have a million here; your share will be greater, Zegler.”

The miller motioned to his nephew. They hoisted a three-foot cylinder. The Condor began to raise another, choosing a lighter one. Suddenly, he dropped the burden. His lips delivered a sharp, warning cry. Zegler stopped short with Elisha. Like The Condor, they stared toward the rear door.

A figure had arrived there. Tall, sinister, it had developed out of nothingness. The Shadow, cloaked in black, his fierce eyes burning their challenge, was here to stay The Condor’s flight!

THE SHADOW’S autogyro had come from Southbridge, handled by Miles Crofton, The Shadow’s skillful pilot. It had hovered above Table Rock; it had descended at The Shadow’s signal. Taking to the air again, the ship had come directly here.

Elisha had heard its motor. The ending of the sound had been the beginning of the autogyro’s straight descent to the clearing by the dimly lighted mill. The Shadow had picked this place as one that must be reached, no matter how the fight had turned at Mountview Lodge.

Contact with Zegler by those in the lodge; odd-shaped metal cylinders in Zegler’s desk; the net beneath the mill, where a huge, hidden stream surged in to join the main body of the creek; Cliff Marsland’s story of the outlet from the lake in The Condor’s limestone strong room; Cliff’s description of the cylinders that he had seen there — these were the conclusive clues that had told The Shadow all. He knew that The Condor, when trapped, would use the underground channel for removal of his ill-gained spoils.

The Shadow’s one surprise was to find The Condor here. By all odds, the master crook should have fallen in the fray outside the lodge.

A thud sounded as Zegler and Elisha let their cylinder drop. Weighted at one end, it wabbled upright as Zegler shot his hand to pocket for his gun. The Condor, crouching, dropped behind the cylinder, snatching out a revolver of his own.

Automatics barked. One spat a bullet that sent Zegler sprawling while he sought to aim. The other sent hot lead toward the top of the cylinder. Slugs sizzled their way just above The Condor’s head.

Treft had gained good shelter, thanks to Elisha. Half behind the tube, half behind the miller’s nephew, The Condor was immune to those first shots. But he wanted greater surety when he fired.

Springing up, he clutched Elisha. Like an old man of the sea, he kept behind the stupid fellow, dragging him back toward the wall. Fiercely, The Condor returned The Shadow’s fire.

Bullets from automatics; bullets from revolver — all zoomed wide. The Shadow, weaving across the floor, was trying to clip The Condor without striking Elisha. He knew that the nephew was an innocent party to crime.

The Condor, in turn, could not follow with his shots because he had Elisha as too heavy a shield.

Between the lamplights this strange duel thundered, The Condor fighting to retain the living barrier between himself and The Shadow.

Suddenly, The Shadow dived forward to the center of the room. His automatics clattered to the floor.

The Condor cried out in wild elation. He thought that he had wounded his black-clad foe. He stared, peering from the edge of Elisha’s shoulder as he saw The Shadow seize upon a cylinder.

Treft fired one wild shot as The Shadow twisted the heavy burden. He was swinging it horizontally; with a terrific lunge, he sent it bowling forward along the floor as Treft fired again.

This bullet clipped The Shadow’s arm. Off balance, he had slipped as he sought to dive along the floor. A slight wound only; but it made The Shadow slump slightly as his side struck heavily.

Treft had no chance to follow up his lucky stroke. The Shadow’s full force had been behind that cylinder.

Spinning across the floor, it clipped Elisha’s ankles and whisked the miller’s nephew from his feet.

As Elisha sprawled, hands foremost, Treft floundered also. Elisha flattened, then came puffing to his hands and knees, his breath knocked out by the sudden upset.

The Condor was flung clear. He landed on his knees and swayed dizzily while The Shadow, twisting forward on the floor, shot his uninjured arm toward one automatic.

Savagely, The Condor aimed. He fired hastily as The Shadow performed a quick roll. The Condor’s shot zoomed wide. Hard upon the revolver blast, The Shadow’s automatic roared its fire-tongued reply.

While the echoes of that shot still quivered through the mill, The Condor sprawled, face forward, to the grimy floor. His clutching claw lost its gun. His snarling lips spat incoherently. His frame quivered, then lay still. The Shadow’s bullet had reached Treft’s heartless breast.

ELISHA, quivering in a corner, saw The Shadow rise. He watched the cloaked avenger open a cylinder.

Gold coins poured out upon the floor. This tube was one that The Condor had used to pack some of the precious metal — as much as it would hold without sinking.

Another tube disgorged stacks of bundled currency. A silver casket clattered on the floor. The Shadow pounced upon the object and opened it. He saw the false pearls that Cliff Marsland had carried to Mountview Lodge. The fake Blue Pearl was centered in the velvet.

Elisha whimpered fearfully as a fierce laugh came from The Shadow’s hidden lips. Sinister, eerie, it rose to an echoing burst of sardonic mirth. The Shadow swept past the bodies of Treft and Zegler, the room still ringing with his triumph laugh.

The Shadow had taken back his own possession. The false pearls gone, Cliff Marsland would need no alibi for the part that he had played in The Shadow’s service. Within the next few days, Michael Walpin would be the astonished recipient of his own genuine pearls. They would reach him from some unknown sender.

Elisha, still whining, heard the last shudders of The Shadow’s laugh. Blinking, the dullard no longer saw the black-cloaked form. The Shadow, his last strokes delivered, had departed to the outer darkness. But Elisha dared not move. He still felt terror of the weird shape that he had seen.

The Shadow had reached the autogyro. He gave an order; the motor throbbed. Huge blades whirled; the strange craft rose precipitously from the open space beside the mill. Ground dwindled away as it hovered higher.

Peering down from the darkened sky, The Shadow spied tiny lights speeding along the west road. They were turning into the byway that led to the old mill. Harry had learned where the outlet from the cave could he found. The Shadow had explained it during their ride tonight.

Spoils of The Condor lay waiting on the floor of the old mill. The law would soon hold that wealth, to deliver it to the owners whom The Condor’s brood had robbed. The law would find Griscom Treft also.

The Condor had escaped capture, to find death.

From high in the darkened sky sounded a quivering laugh. A dirge to men of crime; another token of The Shadow’s victory. Swishing winds submerged the eerie cry. The Shadow, triumphant, was riding into his chosen realm of night.