The Dark Death

CHAPTER III. THE TRAIL

“THEY’RE getting leery.”

The comment came from Hawkeye. It was the first statement that he had uttered since the bridge. Yet the dash clock showed that the sedan had been traveling a full half hour since then.

The course had led along a boulevard. Then into a less-traveled road. It was on this highway that Hawkeye made his comment. He added reasons a moment later.

“Did you see the touring car speed up a bit?” he questioned. “It was like a warning, to the car ahead.

They’ve been watching back. Other cars have turned off this road. But we’re still coming along.”

“At a steady thirty-five,” remarked Harry. “Remember that, Cliff. It’s the pace they’re using.”

Cliff nodded.

Harry peered to the right. He spied a filling station a few hundred yards ahead. He slackened speed a trifle; then, as he neared the gasoline establishment, he swerved, applied the brakes and coasted up beside a gas standard.

“Check three minutes, Cliff,” he remarked.

“Right,” replied Cliff.

Harry stepped from the car and met the service station man who was coming out to the gasoline tank.

“Sorry,” said Harry. “I’ve got plenty of gas and oil. Radiators heating up a bit. Thought maybe it’s short on water.”

“I’ll fill the radiator, sir—”

“Never mind. I’ll help myself.”

Harry went to the radiator while the attendant was returning to the service station. Lifting the cap, Harry peered in; then picked up a watering can and poured a few pints into the radiator. He replaced the cap and climbed in back of the wheel.

“Thirty seconds left,” stated Cliff.

Harry started the motor. He was easing out into the highway just as Cliff announced the expiration of the three-minute period. Harry slid the car into high gear. The headlights formed a brilliant path as they rolled along at thirty-five miles an hour.

They passed a few cars coming from the opposite direction; but there was no sign of the mobster cars ahead. At this pace, there was no chance of overtaking those whom they were trailing.

Hawkeye eyed the speedometer; then grunted.

Like Cliff, Hawkeye had suddenly caught the idea. Crafty-eyed, he peered through the windshield. He was the first of the trio to spot the signal that came suddenly from ahead. They had just reached a crossroads sign when Hawkeye growled:

“There it comes.”

SPARKS flared from the road. They were bluish; and as Harry applied the brakes, they sizzled down to a purple flame that flickered in the slight wind. The fuse was close by the roadside, at the crossing. Harry swung the sedan left.

A half mile along this new road. The Shadow’s agents spied another signal. This time a sparkle of green flashed from the highway. It was followed by a small green fire. Harry swung the car at a new crossroads. His tire extinguished the blaze as he made a right turn.

This road was paved but little traveled. They came to a stop sign and Harry halted the sedan. At that instant, a burst of white sparks flashed from beyond the crossing. Harry started the car straight ahead, disregarding the yellowish blaze.

“A precaution,” he remarked. “We’ll get them at every crossroads where we’re supposed to go straight through. If we don’t see the yellow, it means that we’re ahead of time.”

As he spoke, another yellow flame spurted from a crossing ahead. Another half mile; there a purple flame was burning when they arrived. The mobsters must have sped up along this stretch. Harry swung left, the direction indicated by purple, and increased the speed of the sedan.

It was a lonely road, swinging in the direction of Long Island Sound. Cliff and Hawkeye gazed steadily while Harry drove along. They knew well enough that these signals were from The Shadow; that somehow, their chief had managed to light the trail for his aides.

Harry slackened as he approached a lonely crossroads. White sparks spurted; then a yellow flame.

Harry missed this light with his wheels. As he kept on, a single headlight came speeding from a bend.

A motorcycle with side car shot past at a rapid clip. Harry was doing less than thirty as the motorcycle went by.

Hawkeye twisted about and peered through the rear window. He bobbed toward the windshield as Harry took the curve.

“Cops!” exclaimed Hawkeye. “And they’re stopping at the crossing. Must have seen that blaze in the road!”

“I was a dub for missing it,” returned Harry.

“Maybe they’ll pass it up,” remarked Cliff.

“Yeah?” Hawkeye snorted. “Say — look ahead. This road is straight for another mile. They must have passed two cars already. Now us — number three — and then a light burning in the road. They’re going to wonder something.”

“I’ll hold it at thirty-five,” declared Harry. “Keep looking back, Hawkeye. If they turn around and overhaul us, we’ll have to stop and give them a stall. But it will mean losing the trail.”

“Maybe we’ll get a break,” remarked Cliff.

“Not much,” growled Hawkeye, from the rear window. “They’re coming back. That’s them all right, hitting it in from the bend.”

“They’ve got a full mile for a start,” announced Harry, as he swung a curve. “But they’ll do that distance at sixty miles—”

“Hold it. Harry!”

The exclamation came from Cliff. Right ahead, in the middle of the bend, green sparks were sizzling from the roadway. Another signal. Turn to the right!

“Crush it, Harry!”

HARRY nodded as Cliff spoke. He jammed the brakes, rolled over the fading sparks and extinguished the green flame. He wheeled the car between two stone pillars and rolled along a winding driveway. As they coasted past a clump of shrubbery, Harry turned off the ignition.

He and his companions heard a roar from the road that they had left. Five seconds later, the motorcycle went whizzing past the gateway that they had entered. As the sound faded, Harry turned the ignition key.

The coasting car caught in gear. The motor throbbed as they continued along the driveway.

“Neat,” growled Hawkeye, “We dodged the cops that time. But they’ll be coming back.”

“Unless they get fooled at some crossroads further along,” put in Cliff. “Maybe they’ll think we opened up the car when they started after us.”

The driveway was twisting up the side of a hill. Harry was using dim lights; yet the glow showed another driveway coming up to meet this one.

“That’s to another gate,” decided Harry. “We’ll remember it when we’re leaving. In case the cops decide to come in here.”

The driveway that the sedan was following took a sudden turn past bushes to meet the other drive. As they made the swing, Harry applied the brakes. A dozen yards ahead, a flare of red fire was burning in the driveway, just before it reached the fork.

“The end of the trip,” announced Harry. “That’s the final signal. We use our own brains from now on.”

He rolled across the red fire and extinguished it. But he kept on slowly, covering the thirty-odd feet that remained to the meeting point of the two drives. Harry’s driveway and the other were like the arms of an inverted Y that joined into a single roadway.

While Cliff and Hawkeye shifted beside him, Harry made a sharp turn down the other arm of the Y. He coasted the sedan off the driveway through an opening between two clusters of shrubs. There he turned out the lights.

“If we have to run for it,” he said, in a low tone, “we’ll be all set to head out this new driveway. If the cops come in from the road we followed, we can dodge them.”

Harry opened the door on his side of the sedan. Hawkeye did the same on the other side. Cliff followed Hawkeye to the ground. Doors closed softly. Dull moonlight, coming through clouds, showed the trio as they joined at the rear at the sedan. Guns in readiness, The Shadows agents moved up the drive way, keeping to the grass.

It was Hawkeye who stopped them suddenly. Pointing off between trees to the right, the hunch-shouldered fellow gave a muffled exclamation. Harry and Cliff looked. Just above a terrace, they saw the gloomy outline of a huge, dark mansion.

No use to follow the driveway further. Simple reasoning told that it wound upward to the house. That mansion was their objective. Cautiously, the agents of The Shadow crept to the top of the terrace.

There, behind an embankment that served as a natural buttress, they waited. Cliff Marsland assumed command as they watched the house from a distance of fifty yards. The Shadow’s agents were in readiness for events that were to come.