The Key

CHAPTER VI OUTSIDE THE HARBOR

DYING light of day guided the Southern Star on the final stage of its passage through the Pernambuco reef. The ship had been delayed due to loading. The Brazilian pilot, however, had still gained sufficient daylight to reach the open sea.

Then night had arrived with the booming suddenness so common in the tropics. Edwin Berlett and other passengers were standing near the stern of the Southern Star gazing toward the distant lights of Pernambuco.

A hand plucked at Berlett’s sleeve. The lawyer turned to see the steadied face of Carlos Mendoza. Berlett nodded. He spoke in a low tone.

“In fifteen minutes,” said the lawyer, “in my stateroom. The door is open.”

Mendoza stalked away. Warren Sigler, peering from a group of passengers, observed the Brazilian heading for a companionway. Sigler had overheard the words between the two men.

Edwin Berlett walked toward the steps that he customarily took to the smoking salon. Reaching another deck, he hurried along and neared the bow of the ship. There were no passengers in sight. Berlett glanced over his shoulder. Confident that he was unobserved, he descended by a companionway.

Picking a course which he had evidently chosen beforehand, Berlett reached the forward hold. He stepped through a bulkhead. Straight in front, he saw starlight glittering through the side of the ship. A coal hatch was open. Berlett reached his goal.

Below, the pilot ship was ready to cast off. It was nestled against the side of the Southern Star, resting in a calm sea. Calls from above indicated that the steamship was about to drop the pilot.

Directly below, two men were standing beside a heap of sacks near the stern of the pilot ship. Burlap showed almost white, in a blackened stretch against the side of the Southern Star. The sacks were less than ten feet below the spot where Berlett stood.

The lawyer gave a soft hiss. He could see the white caps nodding on the heads of the men just below him. Edging out through the coal hatch, Berlett half dropped, half sprang. He thudded softly on the pile of sacks.

The two men, roustabouts from Pernambuco, were quick to act. Stepping together, they formed a shield as Berlett dropped into a space beside the engine room of the pilot ship. Heaving sacks aside, the men let the burlap pile upon the lawyer. Each stooped and mumbled low words in turn. In response, Berlett’s right hand slipped money into eager fists. The roustabouts seated themselves beside the sacks.

The pilot was aboard his ship. The little craft moved clear of the Southern Star. The big engines of the liner grumbled; the twenty-thousand-ton ship moved forward, while the pilot’s boat swerved for its return through the reef to Pernambuco.

The coal hatch had closed in the side of the Southern Star. The last sign of Edwin Berlett’s clever departure had been eliminated. Under the protection of the bribed Brazilians, the American lawyer was returning in safety to Pernambuco. With the harbor reached, his departure from the sacks that hid him would be a simple matter. Expectant roustabouts were counting on another bribe. Their lips were sealed. The story of Berlett’s escape would remain unknown.

ABOARD the Southern Star, Warren Sigler was watching the fading light of the little pilot ship. The secretary’s face wore a thoughtful smile. He was planning a surprise trip to Berlett’s cabin. The time was here. Leaving his place by the rail, Sigler strolled, whistling, toward the companionway.

Three men by the rail — new passengers on at Pernambuco — stared as Sigler passed. A few minutes later, they left the place where they had been standing and entered the ship.

All this while, Carlos Mendoza was seated in a small cabin, waiting. Satisfied that the time for his appointment was nearing, the Brazilian arose and picked up a small bag that lay beside him. He left his own cabin, walked along deserted passages and reached Berlett’s stateroom. He opened the door and entered. He laid his bag on Berlett’s bed and unlocked the little grip.

Warren Sigler, watching from the end of a passage, had seen Mendoza enter. He had seen Edwin Berlett leave the deck some time before. Evidently Sigler was not worrying about his new employer. Mendoza — the man with the evidence — was the arrival for whom Sigler had posted himself.

Sigler sneaked forward. Softly, he opened the door of the stateroom. He entered. He looked about for Mendoza. All that he saw was the open bag upon the bed.

Advancing, Sigler glanced about. Still no sign of his man. Puzzled, Sigler stood still. Then curiosity gained the better of him. He pounced upon the bag, only to find it empty.

A creepy laugh came from the corner by the open door. Sigler whirled. He shuddered at the form which he saw before him. Instead of Mendoza, he was viewing a tall being clad entirely in black. Cloaked and with broad-brimmed hat, this spectral figure was covering the astonished secretary with an automatic.

A crook by profession, the false secretary knew the identity of the being who trapped him. He was faced by The Shadow. Dully, he realized that the role of Carlos Mendoza had been but a disguise for this supersleuth. Living in Rio de Janeiro, Warren Sigler had thought but little of The Shadow, the grim fighter whose prowess was so famous in New York.

Tonight, he was learning that the arm of The Shadow reached far. Minion of a master crook, Warren Sigler was trapped aboard the Steamship Southern Star, less than an hour out of Pernambuco.

“Speak!” The Shadow’s tone came in a shuddering hiss. “Speak, murderer — or die—”

The challenge ended in a whispered laugh. It brought stark terror to Warren Sigler; with terror came the futile frenzy that only horror can produce.

With a wild cry, Sigler leaped forward toward The Shadow. He was pouncing for that looming automatic. The Shadow did not fire. His free arm, swinging like a plunger, sent Sigler sprawling by the stateroom door. The man’s cry, however, had served as a signal.

There were bounding footsteps in the passage. As The Shadow whirled out from the door, he was met by three men, two coming from one direction; one from the other.

Hired thugs from Pernambuco, Sigler had held them in readiness. The secretary had entered the stateroom to parley with Mendoza. With all passengers on distant decks, enjoying the welcome cool of the night, assassination had seemed an easy task.

THE SHADOW, in his whirl to the passage, met the two men first. His automatic thundered as these fighters raised revolvers to shoot him down. Two quick shots; the hired assassins sprawled wounded in the passage.

The Shadow whirled, dropping as he did. The third assailant had swung to aim. The man fired; his bullet whistled through the tip of The Shadow’s slouch hat.

The Shadow’s laugh came resounding as his black-garbed shoulders dived forward. Tripping over the plunging form, the third Brazilian went headlong upon his fellows.

The Shadow had played a daring game, counting upon the inefficiency of the would-be slayers. He could not have battled thus with New York gangsters. The hired South Americans, however, were of inferior caliber in a close-range fight.

One man was prone on the passage floor as The Shadow rose. The second, wounded, had struggled to his feet and was diving to the passage that led to the deck. With him was the unwounded man whom The Shadow had spilled.

The two men fired wildly as they hustled for cover. As they headed for the deck, The Shadow swung in pursuit. Trapped by the rail, the startled South Americans turned to aim back into the side passage as The Shadow came lunging upon them.

The Shadow had picked the unwounded man. Like a living avalanche he struck the thug before the man could fire. The automatic, swinging, dealt a glancing blow to the fellow’s head. The South American sprawled to the deck as The Shadow whirled free.

The wounded man was shooting. His aim was wide. His shots missed the swiftly-moving target; it was not until The Shadow swung upright that he gained a perfect chance to fire. As the man’s nervous finger fumbled with the trigger, The Shadow loosed a slug from the automatic. The shot found the man’s right wrist. Already wounded in the left shoulder, the fellow dropped his gun and fell groaning to the deck.

Again, The Shadow’s laugh; with it a sudden shot from the passage. Warren Sigler, recovered, had dashed to the scene of the fray. Arriving at the deck, the frenzied secretary had staked all on a quick shot at the black-garbed figure that had whirled to a spot beside the rail, more than twenty feet away.

Sigler could handle arsenic better than an automatic. The bullet from his .38 whizzed through the sweeping fold of The Shadow’s cloak and found its only lodging in the rail. Sigler steadied for a second shot that never came from his gun. It was The Shadow’s .45 that boomed instead.

Aiming for a murderer who sought his life, The Shadow did not fail. His single shot was the final reward that Warren Sigler gained for treachery to a kindly master. The false secretary fell dead upon the deck.

Cries from above. Scurrying feet on the deck above The Shadow’s head. The black-garbed victor made his quick return toward the inner passage. Leaping over Sigler’s dead body he gained the inner passage before ship’s officers arrived. Choosing an open course, he faded from view.

CONFUSION reigned aboard the Southern Star. Warren Sigler was found dead; also a passenger from Pernambuco. Two other South Americans, one wounded, the other stunned, were discovered on the deck.

Quizzing convinced the captain that these men were of criminal status. One hour later, all the passengers aboard the ship were assembled in the dining salon for a rigid check-up. Two were found to be missing.

One was a Brazilian named Carlos Mendoza, concerning whom no information was available. The other was Edwin Berlett, a prominent New York attorney, in whose stateroom the battle had begun, and whose secretary, Warren Sigler, had been killed.

There was but one conclusion. Despite the denials of the stunned South American who had come to his senses, it was decided that the armed thugs had thrown Berlett overboard. The ocean, too, was picked as the final resting place of Carlos Mendoza.

Because Mendoza was unknown, it was decided that he must have been a member of the crooked crew. A fight was pictured on the deck. Berlett, going over the rail, dragging Mendoza with him, while Warren Sigler — not suspected of treachery — battled to save his helpless master, Edwin Berlett.

The captured South Americans admitted that they had been hired to come aboard the ship; but they claimed that their orders had been gained from Rio. They had been told to aid a man who whistled; that was all. Their nationality was a point that incriminated the missing Carlos Mendoza as their leader.

LATER, a tall figure was standing alone near the stern of the Southern Star. The deck light revealed the steady, masklike features of Lamont Cranston. But the whispered laugh that floated across the propeller-churned tropical sea was the echoed mirth of The Shadow.

Alone, of those aboard the Southern Star, The Shadow knew the true story of Carlos Mendoza. The Shadow had booked two passages on this ship. He had come aboard twice; once as Lamont Cranston, again as Carlos Mendoza. No one had suspected that a single passenger had played the part of two men between Rio and Pernambuco.

It was with faked talk of evidence that The Shadow had brought about a climax. His threatened exposure of Warren Sigler, based upon observations at the Hotel Nacional, had been sufficient to prepare a death warrant for the so-called Carlos Mendoza.

Also, The Shadow alone could have revealed the fact that Edwin Berlett had not perished. The Shadow knew that Berlett had followed through a clever scheme. He knew that the pilot ship, returning to Pernambuco, was the only way by which Berlett could have escaped from the Southern Star.

Why had Berlett fled? Why had he not remained to keep his appointment with Carlos Mendoza? The Shadow knew the answer. It was the note from Mendoza — not the interview with the pretended investigator — that had made Berlett decide upon his course.

The Shadow had not witnessed Berlett’s reading of the note; but he knew that the clever lawyer, shrewd in the past, crafty in the thought of the future, had decided that refuge in Pernambuco would be better for his plans than a further voyage aboard the Southern Star.

Edwin Berlett had departed. More than that, he had gained a reputation that might help him. Presumably, Berlett was dead. Where crime lay in the offing, a living dead man might hold a real advantage.

The Shadow had triumphed tonight, in pitched battle with vicious foemen. He had delivered necessary death to Warren Sigler, a murderer who deserved a violent end. But the swift battle aboard the Southern Star and the check-up of the passengers afterward, had proven of aid to the schemes of some one other than The Shadow.

Edwin Berlett, safe in Pernambuco, had played his cards well. He had read between the lines of Carlos Mendoza’s notes. He had played a crafty part during his interview with the pretended South American.

The Shadow, fighting for his own welfare and working in behalf of justice, had automatically performed another function when Warren Sigler had precipitated the struggle. The Shadow had abetted the cause of Edwin Berlett!