The Embassy Murders

CHAPTER XX THE DEATH VATS

HARRY VINCENT and Vic Marquette were dashing down the spiral stairway. They knew the route, for it was through this way that they had been brought to Rochelle’s.

“The house at the rear,” panted Vic, as they clattered from the staircase. “That’s where he’s gone! Be ready, Vincent! There’ll be other mobsmen there!”

The door to the courtyard was unlocked. Vic gripped Harry’s arm as they reached the open. The two paused momentarily to listen. Sound of gunfire were bursting from streets all around the area.

“The police!” exclaimed Vic. “Say — how could they have got here this quick? Come on, Vincent; this will help us. They’re coming in from all sides. Our man is trapped!”

Vic and Harry reached the house in back. A dim light showed in a rear room. Vic spied a doorway. He opened it to show a flight of descending stairs. With Harry Vincent at his heels, the secret-service operative led the downward dash.

A dim light showed in a cellar room; beyond it, another dimly lighted compartment. Harry Vincent clutched his companion’s shoulder.

“Listen!” whispered The Shadow’s agent.

Vic heard the sound. Within the stone walls of the cellar, it made a ghostly effect — a slow, steady tapping that was gradually drawing away. For a moment both men were startled by the uncanny noise. Then the explanation came in a blurted whisper from Harry’s lips.

“The man with the limp! It’s the tapping of his cane!”

Vic Marquette nodded. They had overtaken the villain whom they sought. Somewhere, beyond the narrow opening to the other section of this dim cellar, a fiend was seeking safety.

“Come!” Vic led a cautious advance. He and Harry crossed the first room swiftly, but with little noise. They gained the opening; off ahead, they could hear the echoes of the tapping cane.

Together, the pursuers moved foot by foot into the further room. Vic’s eyes were straight ahead. Harry’s wavered toward the floor. This was fortunate. Just as the tapping of the cane had ceased, Harry gripped Vic and drew him back.

The action was just in time. Vic Marquette’s feet were on the edge of a stepping-off spot.

A rank odor surged to the nostrils of the pursuers. Their eyes accustomed to the gloom, Vic and Harry saw what they had just escaped. They were on the lip of a deep pit; several feet down in the uncovered hole was a murky, greenish liquid that filled the entire pit.

THEIR eyes traveled further. They saw a second pit separated from the first by a thin, dividing side. Beyond that, a gloomy wall, with a narrow edge of floor—

A chuckle brought eyes upward. With guns lowered, Harry and Vic were taken unaware. Their staring eyes saw the figure that they sought. On the narrow ledge beyond the further pit stood Darvin Rochelle!

The fiend was standing backed against the wall. His cane was in his right hand. His left was drawing it away. Before either watcher could recover, the cane had come apart. A hollow sheath was withdrawn from glimmering steel!

Up came Rochelle’s right hand. Harry and Vic were covered by the strangest weapon that they had ever seen. The interior of Rochelle’s cane had formed a long-barreled gun.

The portion where the handle had been now made a hand-grip with bulging chambers. The gun which Rochelle held was a revolver of small caliber, but with a rifle barrel that gave it power.

Covered by this weapon, it was futile for either man to move. Trapped by Rochelle, they could only hope to parry. The first words that the enemy uttered showed that no mercy could be gained.

“You shall die!” Rochelle’s snarl ended in a wicked chuckle. “You, like others, shall end in my vats of death. Look before you — see where I have consigned the bodies of those whose murders I have ordered!

“Bolero — Piscano” — Rochelle was gleeful as he named the death list — “Rexton — Clifford — Tromboll — Dolband! All have been dissolved within the acid which those vats contain. They were murdered by Bugs Ritler and his mobsmen. They were carried here and dropped into the vats by Thurk.

“There was another. Herkimer. Thurk slew him and threw him into a vat as well. You wonder why I tell you this?” Rochelle sneered. “Because both of you, like the others, will meet with the same fate.

“No evidence will remain of my crimes. Speculation will exist; truth will be lacking. I shall depart by my secret exit; before I go, two more victims will be bestowed to their resting places. One for each vat of death!”

As Rochelle delivered a fiendish chuckle, Vic Marquette growled a quick command to Harry Vincent.

“Spread away,” was Vic’s order. “Open fire — both at once. Maybe one of us will get him—”

With simultaneous accord, Harry and Vic sprang sidewise, in opposite directions, along the edge of the nearer vat. It was their only chance. One was doomed, according to Rochelle’s choice; the other had a slender chance.

Rochelle had divined the move. As the springing men swung their gun arms upward, the master plotter aimed first for Vic Marquette. All odds were in his favor. A quick shot with another rapid aim — both Vic and Harry would be doomed.

At that instant a shot resounded with a roar from a point directly in back of the spot where Harry Vincent and Vic Marquette had been standing side by side. The spreading action had cleared the way for a hidden marksman.

The Shadow! He had trailed the pursuers of Darvin Rochelle. He had heard Vic Marquette’s order to Harry Vincent. A spectral figure, hidden from Rochelle’s view by the men between, he had been ready with the needed shot.

THE roar of the automatic, enlarged by these confining walls, awoke staccato echoes. Darvin Rochelle’s right arm was drooping. The sheathing cane slipped from his left hand and dropped into the vat before him. His long-barreled gun formed a pointer as its muzzle turned toward the depths of the vat. Like an omen, the gun slipped from Rochelle’s hand. It dropped and sank into the simmering acid.

Rochelle’s form was slumping. The villain’s left hand was to his breast. His eyes were staring downward, bulging as they saw the fate that awaited him. His wavering body seemed to twist in a futile, convulsive effort to retain itself against the wall.

Then, as death followed the mortal wound, Rochelle’s body took a rigid pose. It seemed to rise, almost as if alive. With a peculiar twist that formed a replica of Rochelle’s halting stride, the body slipped from the ledge.

A splash came from the vat. A pungent odor arose as wavelets moved upon the greenish surface. The man with the limp was dead. His corpse, like those of his victims, was swallowed by the greedy acid in the vat of death!

From the archway to the outer chamber came the hollow tones of a weird laugh, that crept with ironical mockery above the vats. Even though that laugh had been uttered by their rescuer, Vic Marquette and Harry Vincent shuddered at its chilling tones.

The laugh reached a high crescendo. It broke with a shuddering gibe. Echoes rang from every wall — reverberations that seemed uttered by living, ghoulish tongues.

When the last note of that sinister taunt had died, a strange, predominating silence hung above the vats of death, where Harry Vincent and Vic Marquette stood motionless.

Triumphant, The Shadow had departed. His work was done. He had dealt just doom to Darvin Rochelle, the man with the limp!