The Ghost Of The Manor

CHAPTER XIV A VISITOR VANISHES

WARREN BARRINGER had been fortunate in his flight. The shot in the study had been muffled. Its report had not reached the outside grounds of Delthern Manor. Furthermore, the old house was in an isolated spot.

Yet Warren had not escaped unseen. As he had come from the old gate in front of the mansion, a pair of approaching eyes had spied him from the darkness.

Strange eyes! They were the only visible portions of the person who bore them. Hardly had Warren Barringer left by the arch before those eyes were staring in the direction of the mansion, piercing the darkness as they looked toward the gray walls of Delthern Manor.

A soft swish sounded above the flagstone walk. The door of the great house opened softly. It closed. A shadowy shape glided across the floor of the lower hallway. It ascended the stairs, and followed the corridor. It stopped before the open door of the room where death had struck.

Keen eyes surveyed the scene. Intuitive ears listened. Then came the swish of a cloak. The sinister form of The Shadow loomed within the room of death. A solemn, whispered laugh drifted through the close atmosphere of the room.

Gliding across the room, The Shadow studied the body of Humphrey Delthern. His eyes turned to the form of Wellington. They noted the gleaming revolver on the floor. A gloved hand lifted the weapon and replaced it.

Seating himself at the desk, The Shadow, close beside the ghastly body of Humphrey Delthern, began to open and close the drawers. He found nothing of consequence. But his keen eyes noted one significant fact. In every drawer except one, the small collection of papers and envelopes were in perfect order.

Standing again, The Shadow visualized the scene of death. He studied Humphrey Delthern’s chair. He examined the space on the opposite side of the desk. He moved to the hall, and turned the rays of a tiny flashlight upon the floor.

The entrance of Warren Barringer; the death of Humphrey Delthern; the intervention of Wellington; these were events that The Shadow was reconstructing. Again, a low laugh echoed from his lips. Its strange tone denoted a tinge of regret that his arrival had been delayed.

Warren Barringer’s precipitous haste; Clark Brosset’s efforts to mislead Lamont Cranston; these were factors over which the murderer had had no control, yet they had proven to be important elements in crime. Because of those factors, The Shadow had arrived too late to prevent these killings.

Keen ears were listening now. Footsteps sounded vaguely from the floor below. A woman’s voice was calling up the stairs.

“Wellington!” Marcia Wardrop was summoning the servant. “Wellington!”

The call faded. A gasp came from below. Hurrying footsteps announced Marcia’s departure. The girl had sensed that something was amiss. Alone in the house, she had lost her nerve. She had rushed out of the old mansion to summon help.

THE SHADOW calmly returned to the room of death. His eyes looked toward the door. A laugh resounded from hidden lips. The Shadow’s tall form moved across the room, and blackened itself against the paneled wall. It slowly crept along the surface, skirting the edge of the rug beyond the spots where the bodies lay.

At one point, The Shadow paused. He went on, then returned. Backed against the wall, he surveyed Humphrey Delthern’s body. Another laugh came from those mysterious lips — a grim laugh that betokened a strange discovery.

From this spot, The Shadow had detected a peculiar factor that involved both bodies. Black-gloved hands moved from the folds of the cloak. The Shadow moved toward the form of Humphrey Delthern; then returned. He repeated the same procedure as he studied Wellington’s body.

Pressing his tall form flat against the wall behind the desk, The Shadow still continued to visualize what must have happened. His tiny flashlight was in evidence, despite the fact that the room was well illuminated. It was along the floor beside the wall, then clicked off.

Again, The Shadow studied the bodies. With this inspection, his repeated laugh was expressive. Its new tone told that The Shadow had learned an important fact. These men had been slain by a hand that had not hesitated. A double murder, with Warren Barringer present, could not have been executed with delay.

Yet in each case, the stroke had lacked exactness. The knife in Humphrey Delthern’s body was buried at an angle. The shot that had slain Wellington had entered from the side. What could have caused these awful things to happen?

The Shadow knew. His next action proved it. Moving swiftly, the tall phantom reached the light switch by the door and extinguished the illumination. Only a slight glow from the hall entered the room. The Shadow glided back to the wall. There, in almost total darkness, his keen eyes seemed to perceive the situation as it had existed.

The flashlight gleamed in the left hand. The Shadow lunged forward toward the body of Humphrey Delthern. He withdrew and swung in the direction of Wellington. He pressed himself more firmly against the wall; then stood motionless. His laugh sounded with a note of sinister elation.

VOICES came suddenly from below. The Shadow’s form made no motion toward the door. Instead, it remained in the darkness. Feet were pounding on the stairs. No noise came from the spot where The Shadow had taken his position.

Men were in the hallway. They were coming toward the open door of the study. A voice growled. No response came from the room of death. A figure loomed in the gloom of the hall, and stared into the dark study. Another man appeared suddenly beside the first arrival.

“Nobody in here,” growled the man who had spoken before. “That is, nobody — unless—”

There was a foreboding tone in the voice. It brought a grunt from the second man.

“Reach in there,” said the first speaker. “See if there’s a light switch by the door.”

A hand groped along the wall. It found the switch, and clicked it. On came the lights, to show the dead bodies, with two uniformed policemen staring in from the door.

“Dead!” came the exclamation. “Both of ‘em — Delthern and the butler. Say — the girl had the right hunch when she thought something was wrong!”

Searching eyes scanned the room. Both officers raised their heads and looked beyond the bodies, in sudden thought that the murderer might still be lurking here. They saw nothing but the paneled walls.

Staring directly at the spot where The Shadow had been, there was no sign of a living being. Save for the dead bodies of the murdered men, the room of death was empty.

No trace of The Shadow remained. Out of blackness he had come; into blackness he had gone, now that his inspection had been made. Active even to the moment when the policemen had hesitated just outside the door, The Shadow had managed to completely evade discovery.

Just as the murderer had eluded the sight of Warren Barringer, so had The Shadow escaped the detection of the police. The visitor from the void had vanished!