The Golden Grotto

CHAPTER III THE SHADOW ACTS

THE daring gold robbery aboard the steamship Patagonia became sensational news in the New York dailies. The bold act of piracy was unparalleled in the history of modern shipping.

From the time that the Patagonia reestablished contact by wireless, until the liner docked in New York — in the days of search and investigation that followed — the gold robbery remained the outstanding feature of front-page news.

Clyde Burke, a bona-fide newspaper correspondent, who had figured in the fray, immediately gained a position as special staff writer on the New York Classic. His signed articles, beginning with the actual episode and continuing through the period of search, were recognized by the public as the most authoritative records on the subject of the missing gold.

The Patagonia had been less than thirty miles offshore at the time of the attack. The escaping motor boat — a craft that was speedy despite its semi-submersible construction — had gained more than three hours’ start. That was enough to have enabled it to reach the coast, unload the gold, and take to sea again.

But the alarm from the Patagonia had created an effect that surpassed all expectations. With one accord, every possible arm of the law had swung into immediate action.

Piracy!

That electric word had roused Federal and State governments to instant action. Coast-guard cutters swung out to sea. Destroyers and submarine chasers joined them. Naval seaplanes swept above the coast.

All roads for miles back from the shore were patrolled by State officers. United States marines were placed on duty. Governors summoned national guardsmen for special work. From rock-bound Maine to smooth-beached Florida, thousands of watchers were alert.

Special action was taken toward investigation of rum runners in the belief that they might have been concerned in the bold expedition. Dozen of boats were brought into port. Not one answered the description of the mystery raider.

Conjecture supplanted fact. Experts agreed that the unknown ship might be a submarine — the Nautilus of Jules Verne’s story, brought into modern reality. If so, the raiders could be out of sight beneath the surface of the ocean.

Great depth, however, would be necessary to escape the observation of the air patrol. A submarine, too, would make slow progress beneath the water, and would be forced to come up eventually.

The Patagonia was a British ship; hence the naval vessels of Britain joined in the search. All foreign ports were watching. There was nowhere in the Atlantic where the pirates could have found a haven unknown. Yet seeking ships everywhere, were unrewarded.

There was also a theory that the gold robbers might have destroyed their boat after landing the stolen wealth. They could scarcely, however, have done this without leaving some trace of the deed. In all, the whole case was a mystery of the deep that seemed to baffle all discovery.

POSITIVE proof existed that the plans behind the raid had been arranged with the utmost cunning. The crooks aboard the Patagonia had been in utter ignorance of the details.

Each had been paid an advance sum, with promise of more — and all had taken their cash from one man. This individual was Jeremy Stock, an Englishman with a shady reputation as an international swindler. From some source, Stock must have received a tip that a boat would meet the Patagonia, and that he would receive his share of the spoils by attending to the job aboard the liner.

He had been one of the first to reach the open hatch. As though by prearranged system, he had stood there giving orders. When the motor boat had prepared to pull away, some one had fired a bullet point-blank into Stock’s heart. Then the underlings had been deserted. The whole affair was the most ruthless double-cross that had ever been perpetrated in modern crime.

The real pirates had escaped unscathed, with the gold. Somewhere, they were seeking safety; and as the fruitless search continued, it became apparent that the master crooks had schemed to perfection.

Road patrols diminished. Coastal investigations became mere routine. Only in distant ports lay the hope that the malefactors might be luckily apprehended.

In all reports concerning the Patagonia, not one word appeared to mention The Shadow’s interest in the case. Clyde Burke said nothing regarding the radiogram that he had tried to send. The operator who had destroyed the message was dead.

But despite his exhaustive dictation on the subject of the Patagonia, Clyde had other facts to mention that he did not give to the press. These — and they included the matter of the radiogram — went to Rutledge Mann, the investment broker who had contact with The Shadow.

Rutledge Mann, in turn, forwarded the report along with marked newspaper clippings. He deposited them in the door of an empty office in an old building on Twenty-third Street. All messages that Mann placed there reached The Shadow.

The public was forgetting the Patagonia affair. The action of the law was weakening in the face of barren clews. All efforts had diminished, except on the part of one man, who, like those who had manned the pirate boat, was a figure of mystery.

That person was The Shadow.

SOMEWHERE in New York lay an unknown spot — the sanctum of The Shadow. It was here that the mysterious being who fought crime made his lone headquarters. On a certain evening, some time after the Patagonia affair had reached the stage of total hopelessness, The Shadow arrived in his sanctum.

No sound marked his coming to that hidden room. The Shadow entered as a creature of invisibility — an unseen being in a mass of total darkness.

It was after his arrival that a slight noise gave token of his presence. A click sounded; the weird glare of a bluish light appeared in the corner of a black-walled room.

This eerie illumination was shaded so that it cast its glow upon the smooth, polished top of a table. No human presence was apparent until two white hands crept slowly into view beneath the unreal light. Those hands were like living creatures, detached from the arms that owned them. They differed only in one respect.

The right hand was unadorned; but the left bore a shining gem upon its third finger. That jewel was the symbol of The Shadow, and its very appearance was mysterious. Its iridescent glow caught the reflection of the light above and transformed that eerie blue into a myriad of ever-changing shades. From sparkling azure, the strange gem took on a purplish hue that deepened to a rich mauve.

The rare stone resembled a sinister eye, staring from limitless depths. Then it began to sparkle, casting shafts of flashing light.

This was the phenomenon that marked the species of the gem. This symbol of The Shadow was a girasol or fire opal; and with its lifelike sparkle, the hand that wore it moved to action.

Objects began to appear upon the table. Clippings — notations — then pins and tiny disks of varied color. The hands moved these into separate piles near the table edge; then produced a folded sheet of thick paper. When spread, this proved to be a large map of the Atlantic coast.

Eyes hidden in the darkness scanned the large chart. The right hand picked up a white-headed pin and set it in the bluish portion of the map. The pin marked the exact spot where the Patagonia was at the time of the attack.

Besides the pin, The Shadow placed a tiny black disk to represent the mysterious pirate vessel. The hand moved the disk in a direct line, marking off the approximate distance that the swift boat could have covered between the time of the robbery and the alarm. Using the position of the Patagonia as a base, the right hand took a pencil and drew a perfect circle.

That sphere indicated the area in which the fleeing boat must certainly have been at the time when the search began.

The left hand referred to printed notations that told of the activities of the nearest coast-guard cutters. The right hand put green disks at certain established points; then moved them, one by one, along the coast line, converging toward the Patagonia.

This action enabled The Shadow to make a definite increase in the range of the mystery ship’s area. The circle that showed where the boat might have been included a long stretch of coast. In that section, The Shadow placed red pins at various spots — each indicating possible landing places.

WITH more detailed reference, The Shadow made marks that covered the roadways leading to the important sections of the coast. These represented the cordons that had been established. The frequency of the marks showed plainly that a positive barrier had been placed behind this vital section.

The Shadow was acting on the original assumption that the fleeing ship had headed for an accessible portion of the shore. The government had done the same; but the fact that a thorough search had brought no trace had been sufficient to eliminate that area. Nevertheless, The Shadow’s interest in this sector continued.

One portion of the protruding coast — a section some twenty miles in length — seemed of intense moment to The Shadow. It lay well within the circle where the mystery ship might have been. It was provided with three red pins at different spots, and The Shadow’s fingers moved from one pin to another.

A low laugh sounded through the gloom beyond the range of bluish light. There was a meaning in that laugh. Mentally, The Shadow was reconstructing the plot, seeing its details with the same perceptive that the villains must have used.

His hand made notations with a pen. The Shadow was calculating the exact time of sunrise on that eventful day when the Patagonia had been met by a raider from the deep.

The right hand moved forward and took away two of the red pins. The one that remained marked a jutting promontory that bore the name “East Point.”

A stretch of bay lay between the narrow cape and the coast. Small dots showed islands in between. East Point represented the most isolated spot on that section of the coast. It also afforded a fair harbor.

The reason in The Shadow’s selection was apparent — particularly because of his references on the time of dawn. The mystery ship had not approached the Patagonia until darkness had begun to lift. A night attack would have been difficult.

Having gained the objective, the fleeing boat had lost the greatest asset that had helped its approach — namely, night. It had been forced to flee into increasing daylight.

East Point — The Shadow was now calculating — could have been reached within two hours after the raid. The sun would then have been barely above the horizon. At such an obscure place, a landing could easily have been effected.

But there lay a new difficulty. The roads along the lengthy peninsula were not built for rapid travel. It would have required another hour to reach the mainland, where the point terminated in a small but thriving town.

Still, this did not concern The Shadow. His pointing finger continued to indicate that pin. Here, at East Point, the gold carrier could have landed.

Coast guards had scoured the promontory and had found no trace of any boat. East Point, of all places, had been most efficiently eliminated at the start.

Pins and disks were disappearing. Only one remained — that tiny spot of red that shone upon the bleak, deserted tip of cape land known as East Point.

THE SHADOW had marked a vital spot. He had afforded no solution to the problem. He had waited merely until the government search had shown no results.

Beginning with the knowledge that cunning had outwitted law, The Shadow had followed his process of logical reasoning, as clearly as if he, himself, had been planning a raid upon a ship like the Patagonia.

The Shadow’s hand inscribed a brief, terse message in coded language upon a sheet of paper. As the ink dried, the hands of The Shadow folded the note.

Written in disappearing ink, this simply coded message would fade as soon as its recipient had read it. That was the system The Shadow used when he communicated directly with his agents.

The hands slipped the note in an envelope. Using another pen — one provided with ordinary ink — The Shadow addressed the letter with his right hand. The moving fingers inscribed the name and destination in neat characters, while the left hand rested motionless, holding the edge of the envelope.

The girasol sparkled fantastically, its glittering shafts giving silent approval to The Shadow’s deed. The stone and the hand remained upon the envelope while the right hand laid the pen aside and moved upward.

A click sounded above the blue light. The room was plunged in darkness. A cloak swished softly through the solid gloom as The Shadow moved away. The silence seemed to break asunder as the sudden peal of a sinister laugh broke through the blackness. Weird, mocking notes betokened The Shadow’s mirth.

The gibing cry reached an unearthly tone. Its peal burst like a white-capped breaker, into a fierce triumph that ended in a long, shuddering whisper.

Echoes responded from the black walls, hurling back the cry in ghostly miniature. The reverberations of the whispered mirth followed, repeating in long-continued waves like sinister lisps from the mouths of hideous ghouls.

The last sounds subsided faintly. Grim silence replaced them. The room was empty. The dynamic presence which had dominated it was gone.

The Shadow had departed. But in the few minutes of his calculations, he had laid his plans; he had issued his orders that would put The Shadow’s agents at work.