The Living Joss

CHAPTER XVII. THE HANDS OF KWA

FRIGHTENED faces were peering from the dance room. George Cubitt was still covering the Chinaman, who cowered at the foot of the stairs. Only one man looked upward toward the second floor.

That man was Joe Cardona.

There, at the head of the staircase, the detective saw the grim form of an avenger clad in black. He observed the black cloak, its turned-back edge revealing a portion of crimson lining. He spied two keen, blazing eyes that alone were visible beneath the brim of the slouch hat. He saw the smoking muzzle of the automatic that projected from a black-gloved fist.

The Shadow!

Cardona had encountered that mysterious being before. He knew the power of The Shadow’s might. He had, ere this, gained evidence of The Shadow’s readiness to combat crime. Tonight, the hand of The Shadow had saved Cardona’s life.

The weird peals of a mocking laugh seemed to rise from the dying echoes of The Shadow’s amazing shot.

Only perfect marksmanship could have thwarted Koy Shan. The Shadow had delivered it.

Then, as Cardona again ordered Cubitt to watch his prisoner, the form of The Shadow seemed to blend with darkness. A swish of the black cloak; the weird figure was gone. Joe Cardona started up the stairs.

Even though he knew The Shadow to be a friend, Cardona was impressed by a sense of awe as he reached the top of the staircase. The sight of four Chinamen sprawled upon the hallway floor brought a gasp from the detective’s lips.

Joe Cardona stared. He could see no sign of The Shadow.

Barton Schofield’s door was on the left. Cardona seized the knob. The door was unlocked. Cardona opened it and turned on the light. Barton Schofield was half out of bed, trembling as he stared toward the man who had entered. He gasped in momentary terror; then recognized the detective.

“All right?” queried Cardona.

“Yes,” faltered Schofield. “What — what has happened?”

“Trouble,” returned Cardona briefly. “They were here to get you, Mr. Schofield, but we” — Cardona paused sheepishly as he gave the plural pronoun — well, we managed to bag them. Lie down — you’re all right.”

“But if there’s danger—”

“Never mind that. Lock your door. I’ll send people up to watch.”

Barton Schofield nodded obediently and rolled back into bed. The old man lay face upward, trembling slightly as he pulled the covers about his neck. Cardona made sure that there was no one in the room; then turned out the light and closed the door. He recalled then, that Schofield, in bed, would not be likely to arise in the darkness to turn the key; but the detective decided that it would be unnecessary.

CARDONA hurried to the head of the staircase, and was greeted by a shout from a young man below.

One of the guests was guarding the captured Chinaman. The prisoner was helplessly bound with belts.

“Say” — the guest was giving information to Cardona — “the crowd has gone outside to round up any others that may have gotten away. That lawyer chap is with them — the one with the revolver. Maybe you’d better get out there — those men may be dangerous—”

With a growl, Cardona hurried down the staircase. He ran out on the veranda, and heard shouts coming from the lawn at the left. Leaping the rail, Cardona saw a flashlight in the hand of a guest. Its rays revealed a scurrying Chinaman who was dashing across the lawn.

A revolver spoke. Cubitt had fired. The Chinaman kept on. Another shot — a third — the man who had claimed skill at target practice was proving his inability to hit a moving object. The range was too great for Cardona. He saw the Chinaman reach a big tree and run behind it.

“Look out!” shouted Cardona. “Look out! That fellow will turn!”

The warning went unheeded. The fool with the flashlight deliberately approached the tree where the Chinaman was hiding. Before Cardona could give another order, two other guests had stepped within the range of light. The Chinaman leaped into view, aiming a revolver at the nearest of the unarmed men.

Cardona fired a futile shot. He knew that at this distance, his bullet would go wide.

At the same instant, an automatic roared from the second story of the mansion. Cardona saw the Chinaman collapse. The detective turned quickly and stared toward the house; but there was no clew to the window from which the shot had been fired.

But Cardona knew the identity of the hand that had delivered that rescuing bullet. The cannonlike roar of a mammoth .45; the perfection of the aim at distant range — those betokened the presence of The Shadow.

Once again, the master hand had intervened. Now, Cardona was shouting orders that were heeded. The imminence of death had cowed the bravado spirits of these guests who had begun the Chinese round-up.

It was lucky, Cardona knew, that The Shadow was still on the second floor. He had probably heard the shots which Cubitt had fired, and had come to deliver his timely aid. Cardona glanced toward the house once more, then called to the others to follow him indoors.

He did not see the shape that was descending from the window by the trellis. The Shadow, who knew the number of the raiders, was coming down to search for the one missing Chinaman.

While the black-clad phantom was slowly circling the rear of the Schofield mansion, Cardona led Cubitt and the others to the front of the house. He pointed to the open door.

“Go on up,” he told Cubitt. “Make sure that Mr. Schofield is no longer alarmed. I’m going around beneath his bedroom window. Call down to me from there.”

Cardona prowled to the appointed spot. He waited, flashing an electric torch toward the rear of the house. Although he glanced in that direction, he did not see the shape of The Shadow, pressed against the rear corner of the mansion. The black-clad fighter was waiting until Cardona moved away.

Lights flashed in the upstairs room. Then came a loud, hoarse cry. George Cubitt’s face appeared from the window. Seeing the detective below, the young lawyer proclaimed a startling discovery.

“Barton Schofield is gone!” he shouted. “Someone has grabbed him! Bedclothes ripped away — chair overturned—”

“What!” blurted Cardona.

At that very instant, a motor roared in the front driveway. Swinging his flashlight, Cardona bounded in that direction. He knew what the noise meant. New abductors had been lurking here; they had seized the old banker after the detective had assured him that all was well!

CARDONA was a sprinter. He neared the drive just as a car was starting away. Behind him, traveling through darkness, came the weird form of The Shadow.

At the wheel of a large sedan, Cardona spotted the venomous countenance of a yellow-faced driver.

This was the fiend who was driving away with Barton Schofield absolutely helpless in his power.

Up came Cardona’s revolver. But before the detective could shoot down that insidious monster that snarled with its bulging teeth, an unexpected enemy leaped forward from a bush beside the drive.

The last of the missing Chinamen had been lying here! With upraised knife, he fell upon Joe Cardona, and bore the detective to the ground!

Thirty feet behind Cardona, The Shadow, unseen in the darkness, had begun to raise his automatic as Cardona had lifted his revolver. That fiendish countenance in the sedan, visible to The Shadow in the glare from Cardona’s torch, was a direct target even at this distance.

But before The Shadow pressed the trigger, the last Chinaman thwarted Joe Cardona. The detective’s light tumbled as its owner fell. Blackness covered the sedan, and Joe Cardona lay at the point of death, a dim figure crouched upon him.

In this emergency, The Shadow responded by diverted aim. Darkness increased the difficulty, but the glow of the flashlight upon the ground gave him a surer target than the cowering form in the moving sedan.

The Shadow fired, not at the car, but at the Chinaman who was about to stab the detective. Once — twice — the automatic roared. The Chinaman toppled from Cardona’s body. For the second time tonight, The Shadow had saved the sleuth’s life.

The automatic did not cease. It roared a cannonade as The Shadow shot through darkness in hope of stopping the flight of the sedan.

Though he fired blindly, The Shadow was uncanny in his skill. Two of his bullets were neatly directed after the unseen target. One brought the clattering crash of a shattered windshield; the other smashed through a fender, between tire and gasoline tank.

It was the driver of that speeding car — not The Shadow — who was lucky. Either bullet, had it landed but a few inches from the actual place it struck, would have crippled either the fiend at the wheel or the car itself.

The rescue of Joe Cardona had permitted the sedan to escape. It was too late now to stop it. The Shadow moved rapidly across the lawn toward the lane; then stopped. He knew that pursuit would this time be in vain.

Joe Cardona was on his feet. His flashlight played upon the features of the dying Chinaman. Grimly, the detective was speaking to this man. The almond eyes opened. Deliriously, the Mongol raised one hand and pointed toward the driveway, scarcely knowing what he did.

“Kwa!” he croaked. “Kwa — Kwa the—”

A rattle followed. The eyes closed. The Chinaman was dead. Joe Cardona growled in perplexity.

“Kwa,” he repeated. “What in blazes does that mean?”

To Joe Cardona, the word was no clew. But the detective was not the only one who had heard the dying utterance. A tall, phantom figure, standing shrouded in the darkness, had listened to the Mongol’s gasp, and had understood its meaning.

That fiendish figure at the wheel of the escaping sedan had been Kwa, the Living Joss! The hidden power in Chinatown, the venomous creature who dealt in evil, was responsible for the disappearance of the wealthy Barton Schofield.

The hands of Kwa had stretched forth from their terrible lair. The Shadow knew!

Yet, even though Kwa had escaped, the laugh of The Shadow sounded as a sinister whisper upon the spaces of the lawn!