The Death Giver

CHAPTER VI. THE NEXT VICTIM

HARRY VINCENT was standing within a telephone booth at the Felswood Pharmacy. He had found this place an ideal one from which to establish contact with Burbank. The telephone booths were near a side door; and no one noticed those who entered or left. Moreover, the store was located beside a through-traffic street, and a constant influx of strangers patronized it.

Burbank’s voice came over the wire. Harry delivered a brief report. The situation was the same at Quinley’s house. Burbank’s response was to continue watching. Harry hung up the receiver and left the booth.

Outside the store, he entered his coupe and drove toward Quinley’s home. He parked across the street, and extinguished the lights. His car was inconspicuous here.

While watching the house on the other side of the street, Harry reflected upon the mission which he had undertaken for The Shadow. It was early evening at present. Only a few hours before, Harry had been summoned to the office of Rutledge Mann. There, he had received special orders.

In response, he had waited in the lobby of a small office building on Forty-eighth Street. There, he had picked up the trail of a man with a Vandyke beard. This individual, so Harry had been informed, was Vernon Quinley, a manufacturer’s representative who had an office in New York, and a home in the small town of Felswood, Long Island.

It was obvious to Harry, from the time he began his trip in Quinley’s wake, that this man must have some connection with the strange deaths at Felswood station.

For years, Harry had been a trusted agent of The Shadow. Time and again, he had aided his mysterious chief in relentless warfare against supercrime. Harry Vincent owed his life to The Shadow; and he was constant and fearless in his duty, for he had the utmost faith in The Shadow’s prowess.

Harry had read accounts of the unsolved deaths at Felswood. He had expected The Shadow to take a hand. With instructions to follow Quinley, Harry was positive that The Shadow must have unearthed some hidden clew in connection with the unexplainable killings.

But how did Vernon Quinley figure in the matter?

Harry’s orders were quite specific. He was to watch Quinley’s home; to report any suspicious actions on the part of the man.

On the train, Harry had noted only that Quinley was nervous. At Felswood, Harry had found his own car waiting on the parking lot. It had been taken there by some one — probably The Shadow. Quinley had driven away in a cab; Harry had followed.

Another point referred to Quinley’s garage. Harry had been told by Mann to watch all that happened there; and that if Quinley went out in his car, he was to follow. This duty involved frequent reports to Burbank, and was to continue until Harry was relieved.

CONSIDERING the situation, Harry decided that some mission must have drawn The Shadow away from this spot. In the past, Harry had done vigil in The Shadow’s stead. This appeared to be another instance. Because of it, Harry was confronted with a dilemma.

Two courses were open: one was to remain watchful, here in the car, as a passive spectator; the other was to play a more active part by approaching Quinley’s house for closer observation. The first method was the safer; the second offered greater opportunity for tangible results.

The Shadow always permitted his agents to use their own judgment in a case like this. Harry, after a few minutes of waiting, decided to introduce the more daring procedure.

He slipped from his coupe and stole up the driveway toward Quinley’s house. A lighted window lured him. Harry peered in through a screen. He saw Quinley seated at a table, talking over the telephone.

The window was open; despite that fact, Harry could barely distinguish the man’s words. Quinley’s tones were cautious and tense. Harry tried to make out the obscure conversation.

“It’s all finished, then,” Quinley was saying. “Good… Good… I’ll get rid of it to-night… Yes, I’ll pack it in the car… The other, for emergencies? No. Of course I haven’t touched it… Keep it in case of investigators. Yes, I’ll have to keep it… You had it installed. I don’t know how it operates… I see… You will remove it later… Yes, I’ll remember…”

Quinley’s back had been toward the other side of the room. The man’s face turned, and Harry could see a pallor above the Vandyke. Vernon Quinley was evidently listening to disconcerting words.

“Forget?” Quinley’s voice was suddenly plaintive. “How could I forget… Yes, that thing that was not human… No, no! Don’t remind me of it!”

The man was shaky when he set down the telephone. Harry saw him turning toward the window. It was time to drop from sight.

Lying beside the wall, Harry heard Quinley go from the room. A moment later lights appeared on the front of the garage. Quinley had turned a switch in the house.

The garage!

Harry knew that Quinley must be going there. The man had said something about the car. This was vitally important.

Springing across the driveway, Harry hid behind a bush just as Quinley emerged from the house. The bearded man went to the garage, opened the sliding door, and entered. A light appeared through the opening; then the door was shut.

In that brief glimpse, Harry had seen that the front of the car was toward the door of the garage. The place was large enough to accommodate two cars, and there was a large space in front of the garage, where Quinley evidently reversed his car. But there were no windows in the doors, and Harry could see that the shades were drawn on the side windows of the garage. Quinley had effectively blocked off all view from outside.

What was taking place within? Harry was determined to find out.

HE crept up to the door and slowly moved it. Well-greased and free of motion, the door slid imperceptibly under Harry’s touch. It enabled The Shadow’s agent to peer within.

Harry could see no sign of Quinley.

This was because the car was close to the wall at the spot where Harry stood; and Quinley was evidently in the open space designed for a second car. There were two sliding doors, and the one which Harry was operating was outside the other.

Boldly, Harry wedged the opening until he was able to squeeze his body through. He began to close the door; then stopped and dropped beside the car. Harry could hear the man Quinley at work.

The man was operating something at the rear of the car. Creeping past the front, Harry peered along the fenders. He was astonished at what he saw.

Vernon Quinley was lifting the rear portion of the top. It formed a special compartment above the back seat.

From this space, Quinley removed a strange device. It consisted of a long barrel, with a mechanism at one end — a strange and unfamiliar type of gun. With it, Quinley held a peculiar box that had dials like those on a radio set. The man took out these objects by standing on the bumperette; and he carried each one to a table on the other side of the garage.

Drawing out what appeared to be a molding of the table, Quinley reached in a drawer and produced a long, flat box. He opened it carefully, and Harry could see that it was divided into a dozen compartments, like an egg crate. In all but three of these sections were glistening spheres that looked like tiny globes from a Christmas tree.

Quinley closed the box and laid it on the table. He turned toward the car and stopped short. By merest chance, the man had noted that the garage door was partly open.

His nervous eyes suddenly spotted Harry Vincent’s head beside the front fender of the car. A gasp came from Vernon Quinley. It was the signal for Harry to act.

SPRINGING to his feet, Harry drew an automatic from his pocket, and leaped into view. He covered Quinley with the gun. The man’s hands went up, and his face whitened; Quinley showed marked signs of cowardice. Harry had him cornered.

“What’s the game, eh?” demanded Harry.

Vernon Quinley stared pitifully toward The Shadow’s agent. In his trepidation, the bearded man mistook the intruder for a detective. Harry Vincent, a man of athletic build, looked ready for business. Quinley shrank away.

“What’s the game?” repeated Harry, sensing the man’s fear. “What are you trying to get away with?”

“Nothing,” responded Quinley, in a weak, stammering tone. “Nothing — nothing at all.”

Harry grunted his disbelief. He stalked forward and reached the table in the corner of the garage, while Quinley watched him with the eyes of a captured rat.

Without ceasing his vigilance, Harry managed to note the objects on the table. In an instant, he understood the purpose of the mechanism and the glimmering spheres within the flat box. A glance toward the rear of the sedan told him.

The long-barreled device was a special gun for shooting the glazed projectiles! An artfully made trap — now plain because the double top of the car was open — would allow the strange bullets to emerge! This was the device; these were the missiles that had brought death to three persons aboard the Suburban trains!

The moment that the thought occurred to him, Harry Vincent formed a plan. He had been forced to act quickly. His only course was to hold Quinley helpless until The Shadow might arrive.

Harry was here to watch Quinley, not to capture him; but the man did not know that fact. Therefore, the best policy was to bluff Quinley, and stall him with a quiz.

“So you’re the fellow who is in back of it!” stated Harry gruffly. “Killed off three people, eh? Ammunition enough for a lot more. Come clean, before I drag you out of here! What was the idea?”

To Harry’s surprise, Quinley seemed to welcome the interrogation. In a nervous voice, the man began a vague reply. Harry stopped him short with a motion of the automatic. Quinley’s ratlike eyes shifted nervously.

“I want your story,” demanded Harry.

“I— I did it,” admitted Quinley, in a low voice. “That’s the way I— I killed them.”

“Go on.”

“I— I always parked my car in the same place,” confessed Quinley. “The box — with the dials. It’s a special mechanism set to respond to heavy vibration. I— I—when I parked near the station to take the train, the rest was automatic. When the train pulled in, the vibration from the tracks threw the mechanism.”

“Lucky for you it didn’t go off while you were in the car.”

“It couldn’t. It’s fixed — I had it hooked up with the ignition switch. It wouldn’t work until — until the motor was stopped. I turned the key, and that set it.”

“What’s in those glass pellets?” queried Harry, nudging his free thumb toward the box.

“I don’t know,” pleaded Quinley. “They aren’t glass. They’re a special compound that goes to atoms when they strike. Loaded with poison, they are. I’m not — not responsible for this. I couldn’t help it — I was trying to obey orders.”

“Orders from whom?”

Harry’s voice was stern. Vernon Quinley, caught, was a pitiful creature. He seemed incapable of resisting the questions that were put to him. The evidence was all against him.

“I— I made a mistake,” he admitted. “A mistake that would have made trouble for me. A certain man discovered it. He threatened me — first with exposure; then with death — unless—”

“Unless you committed these crimes?”

“Yes.”

“Go on,” said Harry, in a quiet tone.

The order had a psychological effect upon Vernon Quinley. It indicated that Harry Vincent might be lenient. The man with the Vandyke started to reveal a vital fact.

“It was Thade,” he declared, in an awed whisper. “Thade, who calls himself The Death Giver. He had me brought to his den. He frightened me with his threats. He showed me—”

A strange effect came over Vernon Quinley. The man shrank back against the side of the sedan. He closed his eyes, and clawed frantically in the air. When he spoke again, his voice was a hoarse scream.

“I can’t tell!” he exclaimed. “Thade — Thade will kill me. Thade is The Death Giver! He sees everywhere! I have told too much already!”

The man had lost all control. Harry Vincent sensed a pressing danger. If Quinley’s voice became louder, it would be heard outside the garage. People would enter here, and Harry’s position would be as embarrassing as that of Vernon Quinley.

With his automatic leveled toward the man at the car, Harry circled away from the table until he neared the door of the garage. To close that door necessitated either a shift of the gun to his left hand or a careful turn of his body with the automatic pointing over his left shoulder.

Harry chose the latter course.

WITH gun aimed alongside the car, he reached with his left hand to close the garage door. Before his fingers began their pressure, Harry heard a gloating cry from Quinley. The man’s frenzied glare had become a cunning, fiendish look. As Harry paused, scenting danger, Quinley uttered startling words.

“You are fighting Thade,” the bearded man exclaimed. “He is The Death Giver — and he has death for you! Do you think that Thade would leave me helpless? No! No! He has given me protection — a way to rid myself of enemies such as you! Only chance saved you before. Now I can act — and you will die!”

As he spoke, Quinley was shifting away from the car. Suddenly, he sprang up from his cringing position, and made a dash across the garage toward the corner beyond the table. As he ran, the man snatched a large, keylike instrument from his pocket.

The unexpected action put Harry in a difficult position. Only a shot could stop Quinley; and if Harry fired, it was more important than ever that the garage door should be shut. With his back half turned toward the running man, Harry would find it awkward to shoot. The predicament caused Harry to fumble.

Thinking of the garage door first, the young man turned to close it; but before he acted, his thoughts went back to Quinley as the greater menace. He realized that he must stop the man at any cost. Swinging away from the door, Harry aimed his automatic just as Quinley neared the corner.

“Stop!” came Harry’s tense order.

A threat was better than a shot — if it worked. But Vernon Quinley could not be forestalled by any threat.

He had reached his objective — a metal box set against the wall. With clutching fingers, the man thrust the big key into a slot in the center of the box. His writhing claws began to turn the key.

In an instant, Harry knew that this box must be a death-dealing machine installed for emergencies.

Quinley had shouted his reliance upon Thade. Here was an instrument that had been reserved to forestall intruders. A shot was necessary now — vitally necessary.

Harry pressed the trigger spontaneously. He wanted to warn Quinley, not to injure him. The Shadow’s orders had been to watch — not to attack.

Harry’s bullet flattened against the wall a foot from Quinley’s head. The roar of the gun; the impact of the bullet — these made Quinley quail. His hand faltered on the key but with a hunted cry, the man tried to continue.

Another shot burst from Harry’s automatic. The bullet clipped Quinley’s left shoulder. The man nearly lost his grip; then, in frantic despair, he clutched the key more tightly with his right hand, and gave it a twist with all his strength.

Harry Vincent was pressing the trigger for a third time, but too late to forestall Vernon Quinley. Even had his bullet lodged in the man’s body, it could not have stopped the turning of the lever. The futile shot, however, did not reach its mark.

Just as Harry was about to shoot, the door of the garage slid swiftly open behind him. Some one plunged in through the opening, at the same instant. Harry Vincent felt a powerful arm sweep in front of his body.

As Harry fired, he was lifted up as though he were a small child. His gun fired toward the ceiling. A man of tremendous strength had raised him in a mighty grasp, and for one fleeting instant Harry saw eyes that sparkled from beneath the broad brim of a black slouch hat.

Then Harry was carried from his feet, by a swift heave that swept him clear across the driveway outside the garage. A half second of rapid transit; the hold released, and Harry hurtled head foremost upon the grass. He struck upon his shoulder; his automatic sailed from his grasp; he rolled over twice, and crumpled into a thick bush.

In the space of a second, Harry Vincent had been carried nearly thirty feet from the garage door; and as his spectacular, involuntary flight came to its abrupt ending, a new and more terrific shock occurred.

A MIGHTY roar burst from the garage. A terrific explosion rocked the ground. Harry’s eyes, staring back along the way which he had come, saw the structure split asunder from the force of a terrific explosion!

The whole building seemed to cave; showers of debris came thundering forth; and Harry huddled himself to escape the remnants of scattered wreckage.

The noise of the concussion reverberated back and forth, amid the shattering sound of breaking glass from all the windows in the neighborhood.

Harry was momentarily stunned; then he opened his eyes and stared at a rising cloud of thick dust and smoke where the garage had been. Not a remnant of life or property remained within the place where hidden dynamite had burst.

Pressure upon his arm brought Harry fully to his senses. Some one was helping him to his feet. He recognized the black-garbed form of The Shadow. His mysterious chief was drawing him away from this spot of doom. With The Shadow aiding him, Harry reached the coupe.

He slumped into the seat and lay there, while the car moved under The Shadow’s guidance. Harry was just recovering from the effects of the driving plunge which he had taken before the explosion; but he realized now the importance of that deed.

The Shadow, arriving too late to stop Vernon Quinley’s action, had swept Harry Vincent from the area of certain doom, carrying him far enough away to escape the destruction caused by the explosion.

THE car came to a stop several miles from Felswood. Harry stretched and looked toward the driver’s seat. He fancied that he saw the door closing. He reached out his hand. There was no one behind the wheel. The Shadow had gone!

With regained strength, Harry slid over to the wheel and drove slowly away. He knew The Shadow’s purpose; the master of darkness had taken him away before the police arrived. Harry was safe; and The Shadow had departed.

Driving toward New York, Harry could but dimly recall the events that had taken place. They came back to him one by one; and he listed them mentally for the report which he must forward to The Shadow as soon as he got back to the city.

Harry knew only that Vernon Quinley had been instructed to dispose of the death-dealing instruments that were in his car; that the man, in desperation, had turned a switch that had demolished the garage and buried him in its wreckage.

Quinley — the strange gun — the glasslike poison bombs — even the sedan with its special top — all were gone. Not a shred of evidence could remain within the shattered garage.

But Harry Vincent did not know the power of the mind that had prompted Vernon Quinley to perform such drastic action. He did not realize that Quinley, the faltering coward, would not have deliberately destroyed himself along with the evidence.

That explosion had been planned by the master mind of Thade, The Death Giver. He had made Vernon Quinley believe that the device installed in the corner of the garage would bring destruction to intruders — not to the man who operated it.

Only The Shadow had known, because The Shadow had learned the ways of Thade by viewing Barcomb’s death. Arriving just as Quinley’s hand was turning the key of death, The Shadow had performed the superhuman task of saving Harry Vincent.

Once again, the hand of Thade had balked The Shadow. Vernon Quinley, from whose lips The Shadow could have gained new facts, had gone to his doom.

Another victim had fallen prey to Thade, The Death Giver. The fiend lay hidden — and The Shadow knew that his evil brain was plotting further death!

Six deaths: three useless, one with base intention, the other two a stroke of genius directed against men who had reached the limit of their usefulness.

The man who had devised such terrors was the one whom The Shadow sought to meet. What fiendish plots might lie within his brain of evil! What tragedies might he be planning now!

Before The Shadow could learn the lair of this insidious monster, new crimes would be on the way. The rule of doom was not yet over. But if The Shadow could not stay its immediate progress, the course of the future still might be diverted.

Thade, The Death Giver. Who was he? Where was he?

Only The Shadow could learn!