The Creeping Death

CHAPTER XVII THE SHADOW ON THE CLIFF

A TREMENDOUS fury had possessed Lucien Partridge. He realized that he had been thwarted by a man whose subtle craftiness was more potent than his own.

Not an irate word; not the semblance of a threat had passed between him and Lamont Cranston. The old man had intended to send forth another unsuspecting victim. Instead, Cranston had outwitted him; yet, in turn, had left no evidence that he had suspected the old man’s design.

Partridge was in a quandary. Was Cranston merely a chance visitor, who knew no more than he had said? Or was he a shrewd investigator who had come to learn the secret of Partridge’s application of the creeping death?

In view of their conversation, the first surmise must be correct. But, instinctively, the old man sensed that Lamont Cranston had come to learn one single fact; that forewarned, he had been forearmed.

In either case, it would be dangerous for this man to live. Knowing of Forster’s connection with Guthrie, and the double connection between those men and Partridge, Cranston was a menace to the old man’s schemes. Either unwittingly or by design, he could spoil Partridge’s mighty dreams of life, death, and wealth.

Something must be done to intercept him before he could manage to leave Westbrook Falls. Fitzroy — Forster — Guthrie — Armagnac — none of these compared with Cranston as a danger. Turning, his face still livid with rage, Partridge spied Vignetti. His wild expression became an insidious sneer.

“Vignetti!” he exclaimed. “This is your chance to-night. Remember Li Tan Chang! That man who has gone” — Partridge pointed down the road — “take him as you took the old Chinaman. Death! By the knife! The vendetta!”

The Corsican needed no further urging. Only one road led to the inn. Vignetti had a car available. He knew the road well. He could easily overtake the man who had eluded his master’s clutches.

Three minutes later, Lucien Partridge was smiling grimly as he watched the tail light of Vignetti’s car disappearing around the turn in the road. This would be bold work to-night; but Lucien Partridge did not fear the outcome.

A subtle killing would be best. Vignetti might engineer such a deed. But even if the Corsican should attack Cranston in the open, the deed would not reflect upon Lucien Partridge. Vignetti never failed with the knife. No matter what might happen, his passion for the vendetta would cause him to maintain silence.

The fact that Lucien Partridge’s servant had madly slain in cold blood could never be construed as a crime on the part of the kindly faced old man. That face was not kindly as Partridge turned back toward his mansion; but when he came into the light, the old man was smiling with a benign expression.

MEANWHILE, Vignetti was speeding to the pursuit. Driving wildly along the road, the Corsican was striving to gain upon the car ahead. Within a mile, he caught sight of the tail light up ahead. He kept on behind the sedan, waiting for a spot where vengeance might be possible.

As they neared the bridge, luck favored Vignetti. A large, battered truck was standing in the center of the road. The sedan was forced to stop. Vignetti, drawing up slowly behind it, covered every bit of the car with his headlights. He saw the driver get out and approach the truckmen.

Stopping his car, Vignetti leaped out and crept forward. This was his opportunity. Cranston was in the back seat of the sedan. He could attack and kill while the driver was expostulating with the truckmen. Then he could turn and drive away before he was noticed.

Vignetti placed his hand upon the handle of the door. He slowly turned the knob. He opened the door. He saw a form leaning in the darkened corner.

With a savage leap, Vignetti sprang forward with his knife. His swift thrust entered that huddled shape. The blade passed through a nonresisting object and buried itself into the cushions of the seat.

Vignetti sprawled upon the floor of the car. His stroke had gone through nothingness!

Rising to his knees, the Corsican quickly withdrew his knife. He struck a match and held it cupped in his hands.

What he had mistaken for a human being was nothing more than a coat, topped by a hat upon its collar. The dummy object was stuffed with a sheet of wrapping paper!

Bewildered, Vignetti leaped from the sedan and closed the door behind him. He rushed up to the driver, who was returning from his argument with the truckmen. The fellow seemed surprised to see Vignetti.

“What’s the matter?” he questioned.

“That one — where is he?” Vignetti’s words were uttered in broken English.

“In the back seat of the car,” was the response. “I spoke to him when I got out.”

“He spoke to you?”

“I spoke to him. He didn’t answer.”

“No — not now is he there.”

The driver opened the rear door of the sedan. He saw the coat and hat. He reached out, and the garments dropped as he touched them. He looked at Vignetti, puzzled.

“What’re you doing here?” he questioned.

“Mr. Partridge — he send me,” explained Vignetti. “He say important for this one to come back. Back to see. I open door. Man not there. Where?”

“It beats me!” declared the driver, as he rummaged around the back seat. “This is his hat and coat all right. This paper — say that must be off the package he brought with him. Left his hat and coat and took the package. It beats me!”

“He no pay?”

“Sure he paid me — plenty. I made a deal to take him up to Partridge’s and back. But I can’t figure when he got out. You didn’t see him?”

“I no see.”

The driver shrugged his shoulders. The truckmen were moving their vehicle to the side of the road. The driver jumped in the front seat and went by.

“Lucky you got by, cap,” one of the truckmen called to him. “We’re stuck here for a while. Guess we’re going to get started, but it will be tough if we bust again before we get to the bridge. This road is too blamed narrow.”

Vignetti was not interested in the truckmen’s troubles. He was wondering what had become of Lamont Cranston. He realized suddenly that the man must have left the sedan within a mile of Partridge’s place.

FUMING, Vignetti hurried back to his own car, and managed to turn it around in the narrow road. He sped on toward Partridge’s and shot along the road beside the gorge. Watching on both sides, he sought any sign of a person in the darkness. He saw no one. When he pulled up in front of the gate, he saw that Partridge had gone inside.

Running to the house, Vignetti encountered his master. In a wild outburst of Italian dialect, he told his story. Lucien Partridge evidenced a sour expression.

“That man is dangerous, Vignetti,” he declared. “He suspected you as well as me. We must be alert to-night. Come.”

He led the way to the gate. There, the old man listened, as though expecting to hear a sound amid the dark. The lights of Vignetti’s car showed the road toward the gorge. The old man remained in statuesque pose, staring in that direction.

Whatever Lamont Cranston had done, he had certainly not returned to this spot. Yet Partridge’s surmise that the visitor was still in the vicinity was not an incorrect one. For while the old man waited at the gate, a tall, silent figure was approaching the edge of the river chasm, around the corner from the range of the automobile lights.

The night was dull and cloudy. Even at the edge of the gorge, the tall black figure was scarcely visible. The rays of the moon were obscured by fleeting clouds.

Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow. Calling Vignetti’s turn — deceiving the driver who thought he still had a passenger — the specter of the night had dropped from the sedan, leaving the hat and coat that he had worn. The package which he had opened had contained the outer garments which he now wore — the long black cloak and the broad-brimmed slouch hat.

Reaching beneath his cloak, The Shadow drew forth four disklike objects. Flat surfaces that bent as he twisted them, he attached these articles to his hands and feet.

Stooping, The Shadow thrust his head and shoulders to the very edge of the dim cliff. Then, inch by inch, foot by foot, he let his body go over the precipice a few yards from the extended end of the iron fence that bounded Lucien Partridge’s domain.

A few minutes later, a momentary clearing of the clouds showed a black form clinging to the sheer wall of the great gorge! Suspended over nothingness, The Shadow was creeping along the cliff, past the projection of the barring fence!

The moonlight passed. The only sign of The Shadow’s progress was the slow, squidgy sound of the rubber suction cups that he had attached to his hands and feet.

Like a fly upon the side of the wall, this amazing personage was feeling his way past the barrier that prevented entrance into Partridge’s domain!

No human fly could have clung to that sheer surface of granite. Even with the suction cups, it was a task of the utmost danger. Had one hand or foot failed to force a purchase, death would have been the result, for the upper edge of the cliff was overhanging at the spot where The Shadow now rested.

At times that clinging, moving figure swayed. The strain was terrific. Yet The Shadow kept on, until he was clear of the fence, which to touch would have caused death or given the alarm. Then up the precipitous wall he went, nearer and nearer to the top.

The clouds cleared suddenly. The moon was directly overhead. The Shadow did not move. The strange light caused his vertical body to cast a long black line straight down the wall of the cliff.

For The Shadow, himself, was the nucleus of that strange shadow, a narrow patch of black, many feet in length. Had Alfredo Morales been watching from across the gorge, he would not have believed that shade to be a living being.

The sky darkened. The Shadow, secure amid the blackness of night, moved upward. He passed the fringe of the cliff. On the very brink, regardless of his proximity to the mighty drop, he paused to remove the suction disks that had served him so well in this amazing journey.

Rising, the being in black stepped over the insulated wire that connected the ends of the electrified fence. Then his tall form merged with the darkness of the lawn.

The most formidable barrier to Lucien Partridge’s domain had been conquered. The one spot from which the old man had believed he was perfectly protected was the very spot that The Shadow had chosen for his entry into this sphere of action.

The moon was shining again, but its cold rays revealed no living form upon the tree-sprinkled lawn. The Shadow was somewhere; but his presence could not be detected.

Out of darkness The Shadow had come; into darkness had he returned!