The Grove of Doom

CHAPTER V. THE CLUTCH OF DEATH

A GOLF ball dropped from space, and thudded on the close-clipped green of the thirteenth hole. A few moments later, two other spheroids made a similar arrival. Then players and caddies approached and walked upon the green toward the balls.

One of the men was Lamont Cranston.

While the others were studying the positions of the golf balls, Cranston strolled toward the bunkers beyond the green. From this position, he could watch the actions of a man who stood upon the sandy shore.

None of Cranston’s companions were similarly observant. They were looking back toward the fourth member of the foursome who had just found his ball, and was playing it from the rough.

The man whose activities commanded Lamont Cranston’s attention was Calvin Merrick. Until a few minutes before, Merrick had been walking about the green. Now he was examining a scruffed section of the sand beside the water.

Cranston watched while the detective walked along the shore, noting a succession of marks that led past the bunkers to skirt the woods. These were Mildred Chittenden’s footprints. Cranston turned back to the game long enough to sink a perfect putt. Then, as he followed his companions to the fourteenth tee, he watched Merrick returning to the green which the players had just left.

So engrossed was the detective that he did not notice the men upon the tee. Only Cranston was watching him.

Merrick was trying to visualize the situation that had existed here the day when Walter Pearson had last been seen. Finally, with an unconscious shrug of his shoulders, the baffled sleuth walked slowly toward the fairway along which he had come.

The fourteenth tee was more distant from the grove of beeches than was the thirteenth hole. Lamont Cranston and his companions played off, then started up the fourteenth fairway, away from the Sound.

Simultaneously, Calvin Merrick, still in deep thought, stopped his advance and moved over to the edge of the trees.

Cranston, well up the fourteenth fairway, turned and saw the detective. Merrick had stopped just on the fringe of the woods. Cranston watched him intently, expecting that Merrick would come back to the thirteenth fairway.

It was then that the detective performed the unexpected. Acting upon a sudden impulse, he walked directly into the grove.

Merrick was gone in an instant, his dark-checkered suit merging with the gloom beneath the beeches.

Cranston, still intent, divined the detective’s purpose. It must have occurred to Merrick that the route straight through the woods would be the course that Walter Pearson must have followed. The detective was going over the exact ground, taking advantage of the one clue that he possessed.

Unlike Mildred Chittenden, Lamont Cranston had not sensed the peculiar lure of those copper beeches.

Even to his eagle eye, they were nothing more than a thick woods of uniform appearance. Yet an unusual expression appeared upon Cranston’s inflexible face. It was seldom that Cranston’s countenance displayed any noticeable sign. The passing expression faded. Cranston went on with his game.

Cranston’s surmise was a correct one. Calvin Merrick, after his examination of both beach and green, had decided that no marks were of importance. He had started back toward the clubhouse, when the thought of the shortcut had attracted him.

His first motion toward the beeches had been one of momentary curiosity. Once beneath the fringe of the first trees, he had suddenly decided to take this way back to the clubhouse.

TWENTY yards within the grove, Calvin Merrick sensed the peculiar weirdness of these silent corridors.

He was totally inside a gloomy area that seemed detached from the outside world. The detective paused a moment to take his bearings; then, catching a tiny glimpse of green as he gazed backward, he again turned ahead and walked stolidly onward, his eyes roaming over the matted brown of the ground about him. Had Merrick entered here without purpose, he might have hesitated in his progress. However, the detective was still engrossed with one commanding idea. He was anxious — as Walter Pearson had been — to pass directly through this grove, and his occupied thoughts offset the feeling of unreality that so impressed him.

Maintaining a straight course through the widespread cluster of trees required a definite action in order to retain the proper sense of direction. This kept Merrick steadily on his way, and, furthermore, the detective was peering everywhere in hopes of sighting some trace of Walter Pearson.

It would be impossible, Merrick knew, for a man to become totally lost in such a limited acreage of forest. Even a circuitous course would eventually lead the man to the outside.

Nevertheless, this gloomy atmosphere was depressing. It might be possible for an elderly man like Pearson to have experienced a heart attack within these depths. This search was advisable, in Merrick’s opinion. The sleuth had struck a very tangible idea, when he had decided that the phone calls attributed to Pearson might have been mistakes or false impressions.

Before Merrick reached the center of the grove, he was turning from a straight course into a zigzag path, in hopes of covering any variation in the way that Pearson might have taken. The detective’s eyes were straining in their search, for the density of the leaves above caused a perpetual twilight among the scattered tree trunks.

Stopping for a moment, Merrick looked upward. He was surprised to see that one tree was not distinguishable from another. The whole grove might well have been one mammoth plant with a myriad of stems rising from the ground, so closely did the thick-leafed branches interlace.

Now, in all its fullness, Calvin Merrick felt the spell of the grove. Far in from the sunlight of the broad, green fairways, the detective was lost in a haunted labyrinth that seemed to hold him in a weird prison.

Practical minded though he was, Merrick felt his imagination at work.

At distances about him on the ground, were tiny spots of light — the only places where sunlight trickled through the all-pervading leaves. These spots were small comfort; for when Merrick paused at one, he could not even see the sky through the filtering foliage above his head.

With a dull laugh — a fearsome sound that only added to his qualms — Merrick fought off an impelling desire for flight. He realized that he had come too far to turn back; that it would be as safe to go straight ahead as it would be to return. All the while, cold reason fought with fevered instinct.

What danger could possibly lie here? None, Merrick reasoned. Nevertheless, when the detective mopped his forehead, he felt cold perspiration upon it. His nerve was failing him, Merrick knew, and he could not understand it.

He tried to continue his slow, searching pace; then he compromised with himself. Through the grove he would go, but rapidly. Later, he could return for another search.

DESPITE the smooth regularity of the ground, Merrick felt himself stumbling as he strode forward. His head was swimming; he was staggering almost like a drunken man. Bumping into a tree trunk, Merrick grasped it and gasped in relief as he felt the solidity of the bark-surfaced wood. The token of reality brought back reason. Merrick’s fears took on a childish aspect. The man laughed, convincingly this time, and went onward at a steady gait.

Now at almost the exact center of the grove, the detective was mentally at ease. He felt that he had conquered the primitive terror that had seized him. This flash-back to a natural dread of a strange unexplainable environment was gradually dwindling.

Accustomed to the unearthly silence, Merrick occupied himself with his former purpose of making a search as he went steadily ahead. It would not be long before he reached the other side of the grove.

Then came a startling change. Something occurred to alter the lulled situation. Into this realm of total silence came a peculiar sound that Merrick could not understand. He stopped stock-still trying to locate the odd noise that resembled the rustling of leaves.

Staring upward, the detective could see no change in the foliage above him. He glanced in different directions. His ears still detected the elusive noise; yet there was no indication of what had caused it.

With one hand against a tree trunk, Merrick waited nearly half a minute. The noise had ended. He started forward; he paused, fancying a repetition of the sound; he again proceeded.

An unconquerable fear swept over him. Totally disregarding reason, Merrick sprang forward in a mad effort to escape this terrifying place.

The detective’s plunge ended abruptly. In a trice, Merrick’s body was seized in an irresistible grasp.

Raising one hand, Merrick tried to ward off the terror that had come into being. His arm, like his body, was drawn into the same clutch. Now, struggling helplessly, Merrick felt his head drawn back. He tried to scream, his voice faded as the death grip tightened on his throat.

He was being drawn upward, despite his most valiant efforts — upward into the mass of coppery leaves.

Branches crackled as the detective’s helpless form pressed among them. Merrick’s head swung sidewise, downward — his bulging eyes caught one last glimpse of the brownish sward below. Then that last view ended. Calvin Merrick’s eyes were fixed with death.

SILENCE and gloom reigned over the spot where the detective had last stood. Searching through this grove, Calvin Merrick had learned the cause of Walter Pearson’s disappearance — had but learned it through his own experience. The end of the detective’s quest marked the end of his own life.

A second victim had fallen prey to the insidious influence that existed in this weird environment. Not one trace remained as evidence. Some superhuman force had acted to deal swift doom with its fast-approaching clutch of death. Unseen, unknown, striking from an invisible hiding place, a fierce, relentless agency had done its terrible work. A warning sound — scarcely audible; a grip — so mighty that no man could withstand it; the crackling of branches and the breaking of the victim’s bones — then the silence of doom prevailed.

Within the huge umbra of the interlaced beeches, the unnatural twilight continued, despite the brilliancy of the summer afternoon. Out on the Sound, boats were moving gaily. Inland, on the links, men were playing golf. Surrounded by carefree fellow men, Calvin Merrick had encountered relentless fate.

The disappearance of the detective, like that of Walter Pearson, was still a mystery; yet its occurrence did not pass unnoticed. One man, whose eagle gaze was fixed upon the grove, inferred that some disaster had taken place within the widespread beeches.

Lamont Cranston, on an upper fairway, commanded an angled view that enabled him to see all the land sides of the grove. His eyes watched the thirteenth fairway, they gazed toward Harvey Chittenden’s estate of Lower Beechview and at regular intervals they were focused upon the spot where Merrick should have come forth on his journey to the clubhouse.

Ending his round of golf, Lamont Cranston rested on the clubhouse veranda. For a full hour he had maintained close vigil upon that distant acreage of woods. He had seen Calvin Merrick enter; he had not seen the man emerge.

Afternoon was waning; soon twilight crept over the placid scene. Two hours and a half had passed since Calvin Merrick had gone into the grove of doom. Then did Lamont Cranston cease his watch. He entered the dining room and ordered dinner. He spoke to the attendant.

“I am arranging to stay here at the club,” said Cranston. “Tell the clerk to have a room assigned to me.

IN the evening, when soft moonlight spread its glow above the burnished beeches, Lamont Cranston again stood upon the veranda. The glow of his cigar tip seemed to mark his thoughts. At last the finished stump fizzed through the air. Cranston went indoors and upstairs to his room.

There, from a suitcase which he had brought with him, the calm-faced man took forth two garments. One was a long black cloak, the other a slouch hat.

Donning these clothes, Cranston took on a strange, sinister appearance. His figure no longer possessed a human bearing. It was a form that might well have been conjured from another world.

White hands emerged from the folds of the cloak. Upon one finger of the left hand glistened a shining, mysterious gem of ever-changing hues. It was a rare fire opal, or girasol — the single jewel that symbolized The Shadow.

Black gloves slipped over the long, slender hands. Two automatics came into view, to be buried beneath the folds of the cloak. A hand invisibly extinguished the single light in the room. Completely obscured by darkness, the tall figure in black glided to the hallway and down the stairs.

A few minutes later, an almost imperceptible swish sounded as the cloaked being crossed the veranda.

People were there; but none saw the mystic personage in their midst. A patch of black flitted across the moon-bathed grass. It was like the shadow of a passing cloud unnoticed, despite the fact that the sky was cloudless.

That phantom shape glided on, down toward the mysterious grove.

A strange personage was at work tonight. A being of invisibility was setting forth to follow the course that had taken two men to their doom.

Beside the thirteenth green, the flitting shape merged with the blackness beneath the fringe of overhanging beeches. No eye could have noted that absorption, no ear could have heard the slightest sound.

Lamont Cranston, guest at the Beechview Club, was temporarily absent. He had vanished, but a new presence had arrived. The Shadow, figure of darkness, had ventured forth into impenetrable gloom to seek the answer to the mystery that lay within the grove of beeches!

Where two men had dared by day and died, a single being was advancing through the thickness of night.

The Shadow knew no fear!

Could he elude the clutch of death?