The House That Vanished

CHAPTER XXII THE SHADOW DEPARTS

THEY found Myra Dolthan in the big room of her dead uncle’s suite. Garbed in her traveling attire, the girl was reading a book when the arrivals entered. Myra had heard nothing about the fray at Doctor Claig’s. She looked up in surprise when she saw the anxious faces.

Spying Taussig Kermal, Myra arose with a smile. She extended her hand to the lawyer. Kermal received the girl’s clasp. Relief showed on his heavy features. He wondered for a moment at the enthusiasm of the girl’s greeting; then Myra explained.

“I did not fully trust you, Mr. Kermal,” said the girl. “I am sorry. I was wrong. You are my truest friend. That is, unless—”

She paused soberly; then added:

“Unless I place one friend before you. One whose face I have never seen; one whose voice is weird and mysterious, whose words carry absolute conviction. One who must be believed and cannot be disobeyed.”

“The voice!” exclaimed Daggart, looking toward Croy. “The voice we heard tonight!”

“Tell us everything, Myra,” urged Kermal. “We must learn all that we can about this amazing being who rescued us.”

“Who rescued you as well as me?” queried Myra, in surprise.

“Yes,” replied Kermal. “I shall explain that later. Go on, Myra.”

“Two nights ago,” stated the girl, “after you had let Mr. Lanford question me, I felt grave concern. I wondered about everything, Mr. Kermal. Particularly about your accusations of my uncle.”

Doctor Claig nodded wisely.

“Later,” continued Myra, “there was a knock at my door. I thought it was Daggart. Instead, it was a tall stranger in black. His eyes were like living fire; his voice an uncanny whisper.”

Daggart and Croy looked at each other and nodded their corroboration of the voice.

“This visitor,” resumed Myra, “seemed more than human. He was a most amazing being; his cloak, his hat, made him seem a solid shadow come to life. Yet his tones were calming. He was as gentle as he was fearful.

“He promised me protection. I gave him the diary that I had kept. When he left, he vanished so amazingly that I thought almost that he had been unreal. But later, he cut the bars outside of my window. After that, I saw a glimmering light from the second floor of the garage. His promised signal. From then on, I had no fear.”

THERE was a calmness to the girl’s story. Every word had the ring of fact. None who listened doubted. Clyde Burke and Harry Vincent were agents of The Shadow; the others had heard his laugh upon this very night.

“At about eleven o’clock tonight,” declared Myra, “or a little later, perhaps, I heard four taps upon the shutters of my window. That was his signal. Strange taps — almost as though they were in the room.”

Again Daggart and Croy were impressed with recollections. They, like Myra, recalled The Shadow’s signal.

“I opened the shutters,” declared the girl. “I saw those glowing, living eyes in blackness. That whispered voice spoke again. The figure moved downward; I followed, by a ladder that was resting against the wall.

“It was black about the house. The ladder was white. It seemed to move beside me as the voice gave instructions. Stretched level with the ground, that ladder; carried by a figure that I could not see beside me.

“We passed the garage; there my conductor placed the ladder against the wall. The voice still spoke, moving onward, commanding me to follow. It was like a dream, my eyes unseeing. A gloved hand held my arm, guiding me; the whispered tones gave truthful utterance.

“My invisible friend was telling me of danger. My uncle was coming to Doctor Claig’s. Mr. Kermal had been right when he had told me of my uncle’s plotting. I was to meet others who would take me to safety when I told them who I was. Then suddenly, I realized that I was walking alone.

“For the moment, I was terrified; I stumbled as I continued along the slope. A flashlight appeared in front of me; I was at the edge of a road. Two men were there; they questioned me. They were Mr. Burke and Mr. Vincent. They introduced themselves when I told them who I was. They brought me here in their car.”

“Where did you find Miss Dolthan?” questioned Goodling, turning to Clyde and Harry.

“On the back road,” replied Clyde. “We drove up there to watch the house while you went in with Parrell. While we were waiting around, we heard someone coming our way. It turned out to be Miss Dolthan. We knew town was the safest place for her.”

“You were right,” agreed Goodling, grimly. “We’ve a lot to thank you for, Burke. You too, Vincent.”

“Rufus Dolthan turned phony?” questioned Clyde. “These chaps” — he indicated Kermal, Croy and Daggart — “look a lot like the ones you were looking for.”

“They’re the ones,” stated Goodling. “Lanford told us they were all right; but we didn’t believe him until Parrell started to act up and Dolthan broke in on the meeting.”

CLYDE was looking at Lanford, who pointed toward Croy. Clyde stared at the big man; he saw Croy grin. Then Clyde smiled as he nodded. He was indicating that he had at last recognized the man with whom he had battled while on the running board of the old sedan.

“Rufus Dolthan is dead,” declared Goodling, solemnly. “Roy Parrell also. They admitted their crimes, believing that we were helpless. Then a rescuer arrived; as nearly as I can judge, he must have been the same one who aided Miss Dolthan to safety.”

“He came in by the window,” put in Croy, with a nod. “That is it. By the window.”

“After you were gone, Miss Dolthan,” added Daggart, to Myra, “he held Croy and myself there, so that we would be ready when your uncle came to kill you.”

The girl uttered a startled cry. Then, realizing that all danger was past, she reached to the table beside her and picked up a little book that lay there.

“My diary,” she stated. “I cannot imagine how it came here.”

“Parrell found it in the station wagon,” explained Clyde, to Kermal and Claig. “While he was looking for his pipe. I was with him. That’s how he guessed where you were.”

Bit by bit, the story was being pieced. More comments followed; yet, as the talk continued, the part by The Shadow increased in its mysterious proportions. One suggestion followed another; it was Jay Goodling, finally, who summed the case.

“Whoever he was,” declared the prosecutor, solemnly, as he referred to The Shadow, “he must have learned everything through sheer deduction. Not only a superfighter, he is a supermind. A superbeing.

“It was he who scattered those crooks at the house on Dobson’s Road and brought us to the first goal in our hunt. He learned that Kermal was at your house, Claig. He went there and prepared to save Myra from danger that he foresaw.

“He must have analyzed the case to perfection; known that you were on the level, Kermal; that Dolthan was crooked. He must have analyzed it from Yager’s murder, the way you outlined it tonight.

“He was for you, Kermal. He wanted a show-down. He wanted to make Dolthan reveal himself as the villain. No one but this mysterious stranger could have placed that diary in the station wagon. But how he knew so many other things is what amazes me.

“Parrell’s pipe in my office. Parrell found it in the station wagon instead. Burke and Vincent on that rear road; with their lights out. Yet this superbeing found that out while he was rescuing Myra Dolthan and sent the girl to safety.

“He handled Daggart and Croy; then pitched in to start the fight against them. He had Rufus Dolthan figured to the dot. He knew that Dolthan would set out to kill Myra; and then he had Daggart and Croy waiting. The very men with whom he had battled less than a quarter of an hour before.”

OTHERS nodded their heads in understanding. Each terse detail was new proof of The Shadow’s might. Men who had fought for right felt like mere pygmies as they considered the craft, the strategy, the prowess of The Shadow.

“Well, Myra,” announced Kermal, after Goodling had concluded. “Congratulations are in order. You are twenty-one; your father’s estate is yours. Here is the will that I made out” — he produced the crumpled paper; he had taken it from Rufus Dolthan’s pocket — “and I still advise you to sign it.

“There’s no one now to influence your stepbrother should he be named as your heir; but I’ve seen enough of crooks to know we shouldn’t trust one just because he hasn’t gone to prison. As for witnesses” — Kermal chuckled as he looked about the group — “we have plenty of them now.”

Kermal spread the crumpled will upon the table. Myra Dolthan took a pen that Fred Lanford brought from a desk. She dipped the pen in ink, wrote her signature below the will and passed the document to Taussig Kermal.

It was then that all were stilled by a weird sound that reached them. Though the timing of that distant call might have been mere coincidence, it impressed every listener with the startling thought that an unseen being had known all that passed within this room.

From somewhere outside the hotel, floating through silent night that blanketed the town of Sheffield came the burst of eerie mirth, that faded into shivering echoes, wafted by a dying breeze. As if he claimed the privilege of being the first witness to the will, The Shadow’s tones had come from the invisible spaces that formed his habitat.

Justice had triumphed. Men of right had conquered insidious crime. All through the strength of The Shadow, that master being whose token of departure remained, unforgotten, in the minds of those who had heard.