The Python

CHAPTER V BENEATH THE RIVER

Doc’s sedan came to a stop at a spot on the lower East Side, not far from the river. Doc parked it at the end of an unused street, where torn-up pavings and boarded fences prevented further driving. Stepping from the car, he ordered Chuck and Bevo to bring the prisoner.

It was after midnight. Traffic had been light on the last stage of the journey. Here, in this barred street, there were no cars. No one saw the scene of two men who carried a limp body between them, while they followed the path set by a man ahead.

“You know where we are, Chuck?” growled Bevo, as they picked a rough path through the dark. “This is where they’re digging that new tunnel under the river. Say — ain’t there liable to be a watchman around here?”

“He’s been attended to,” returned Chuck. “Doc told me what might be coming. He spilled it while me and him was grabbing some grub at the beanery.”

“Who’s fixed the watchman?”

“Tony and Butch. They’re working with us. Lay off the chatter; and keep clear of them lights. Follow Doc; that’s the idea.”

The pair arrived at a darkened shack, set close to a half-demolished building. Doc had stopped ahead. He was talking to men in the darkness. His palaver finished, he urged Chuck and Bevo farther along. They entered what Bevo thought was an elevator, and placed The Shadow on the floor.

“Say — what’s the lay?” queried Bevo. “This thing ain’t moving. Getting kind of tough in here, too. Hard on your ears.”

Doc had turned on a light. He was standing by a closed metal door. He grinned as he heard Bevo’s statement.

“This is a compression chamber,” he remarked. “What you’re feeling is air pressure. Get ready for more of it before we start down.”

“We’re going under the river, Bevo,” added Chuck. “That’s where we’re going to leave this mug.”

He indicated The Shadow; then nudged Doc. The prisoner’s eyes had opened. Doc nodded and made a comment.

“That’s the way The Python wanted it,” he said. “It’s why I didn’t make the last shot too strong.”

AIR pressure had increased. The elevator was moving downward. Bevo was clapping both hands to his ears. Doc told him to swallow. When the elevator reached the bottom of its shaft, the Coilmaster opened the door and produced a flashlight. He told his subordinates to pick up the prisoner.

“Whoosh!” ejaculated Bevo, as he and Chuck lugged The Shadow into cavernous darkness. “Hold it, Chuck. Ease up a minute.”

Doc flicked the flashlight toward Bevo’s pockmarked face. He saw the stoop-shouldered rowdy sag.

“Getting the ‘bends,’ I guess,” he remarked. “That’s what knocks the fellows in these caissons. Steady him, Chuck.”

The Shadow’s bound figure rolled in the mud as Chuck released his burden. Bevo steadied under the flashlight and announced his willingness to go on. Doc made a decision.

“Cut him loose,” he ordered, turning his torch toward The Shadow’s blood-streaked face. “We don’t want the gag on him, either. Lug him along between you. I’ll follow, with a gat in my fist.

Chuck released The Shadow, who stirred weakly. Bevo joined him, and the two raised the prisoner between them. Doc held the flashlight high, pointing out the way along a huge tunnel. In his other hand, he held a revolver, jabbing its muzzle close to The Shadow’s ribs.

“Keep him moving,” was Doc’s order. “We’ve got a way to go yet; then we’ll hop back to that elevator. Butch is handling the controls; he’ll bring us up.”

“The mug’s sagging, Doc,” reported Chuck. “He’s passed out again. That last jab you gave him must have been too heavy.”

“He’ll come to in a little while,” observed Doc, with a growled laugh. “How are you making out, Bevo?”

“O.K., Doc. This ain’t so tough when you get used to it.”

Chuck was right when he stated that The Shadow had suffered a relapse. His recovery of consciousness had been spasmodic. During the interval, he had caught but snatches of the conversation that passed between his captors. A dozen minutes went by before The Shadow again sensed his surroundings.

He was in silent blackness; cramped in space that seemed unusually confining because of the pressure on his eardrums. His arms and legs were loose; the gag was gone from between his teeth. Yet he could scarcely stir at first. It was with difficulty that he rose.

The Shadow’s outstretched hand contacted slimy ooze; above his head, he heard a peculiar bubbling. Backing, he struck against the moistened surface of a huge steel barrier. Rubbing his forehead, The Shadow began to understand where he had finally been placed.

A NEW tube was in construction beneath the East River. The work had progressed past the water’s edge. The tunnel was being burrowed with the aid of a huge shield. Compressed air, driven through that barrier, was sufficient to prevent any inward surge of water.

Workmen had been employed beyond the shield, digging away, sending earth and chunky stones back through the shield. When they had ceased for the day, the shield had been left in its present position.

The Python had ordered Doc to push The Shadow through the barrier, to leave him in the tiny compressed-air chamber next to the river bed.

The bubbling noise that The Shadow heard was the escape of compressed air, upward through the river bed. More air was coming through, to keep up the pressure. This was common in such operations. Flaws in the rock of the river bed were apt to be encountered.

Those oozing jets of air were forcing their way through mud and water, clear to the surface of the river, where they formed bubbling outlets.

The Shadow was in for an ordeal. Workers beyond the shield seldom stayed there more than a short while. Shifts were frequent in this type of job.

The Shadow could not guess how long The Python might intend to keep him here. His measurement of time had failed since the limousine crash.

More minutes passed. The Shadow heard a clicking sound. It came from a spot near his feet. On the ground, he found a telephone, its receiver off the hook. A voice was coming across the wire, delivering a harsh question. The Shadow responded; his tone was a challenging laugh. A growl sounded from the receiver. It was followed by a hiss within The Shadow’s cramped quarters.

Air pressure was increasing. The force against The Shadow’s eardrums became more apparent. Again, the harsh voice sounded. Once more, The Shadow laughed in answer. His mockery sounded hollow in the strange prison, where steel and muddy rock formed a submarine arch.

The Shadow had learned The Python’s game. That voice over the line was demanding that he speak; that he tell the facts The Python wanted. In return for The Shadow’s refusal, more air was being injected into the vault. This was the crushing torture that The Python had promised!

ABOVE ground, Doc was seated at a table in a wooden-walled control room. Tony and “Butch” had bagged another watchman; that pair was outside. Chuck and Bevo were with Doc. They were staring at an illuminated control board, close by the telephone that Doc was holding.

“Are you squawking?” Doc quizzed. “How about it? Want me to ease it for you down there? If you do, you’d better blab those names in a hurry—”

The clicking tones of a laugh came mockingly from the receiver. It was The Shadow’s laugh, still challenging despite the threat. Doc snarled an oath.

Reaching with his right hand, he pressed a lever by the control board. Chuck and Bevo watched the dial register increased pressure.

Doc had been holding his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. He started to raise it; then paused long enough to deliver a final statement to his pals.

“It will be curtains after this,” he informed. “Whether the guy decides to squawk or not. But he’ll squawk this time — unless he’s already out.”

Doc spoke into the telephone. His demand was harsh; but it was coupled with the promise of less pressure if The Shadow named his agents. Doc followed with the threat of more compression if The Shadow refused to answer. A laugh — feeble, yet final — was the sole response from the receiver.

Doc jammed the receiver on the hook. He reached for the compression lever. Savagely, he shoved it to its full extent. Curtains for The Shadow — every ounce of air pressure, all at once. Doc was carrying out The Python’s final command. Chuck and Bevo grinned their approval.

DOWN in that chamber past the shield, The Shadow heard the hissing surge of the incoming air. He had caught the sound of Doc’s clicking receiver; he knew that this was the final stroke. Yet The Shadow laughed as he rose within the cavern. Weak though his mirth sounded, it carried a prophetic tone.

Grasping toward the ceiling, The Shadow dug his fingers into slimy ooze. He could feel the rush of escaping air, sweeping his hands as it fizzed up through the cracked rock. His head was roaring with tumultuous sounds. The pressure of the new air was crushing.

Its increase might mean death within a minute. Yet that very threat afforded The Shadow one bare hope of safety. The Shadow had taunted Doc, to drive The Python’s lieutenant to this very measure.

Suddenly, the action came. Its swiftness was so stunning that The Shadow did not sense it. He was already sagging, about to cave under the advanced pressure that no living person could long stand.

His ears, bursting inward, heard nothing; nor did he feel the terrific, puffy blast that loosed itself from within the cavern.

The terrific pressure had proven too great for the flawed rock above. With a mighty blast, the pent air ripped earth and stone asunder.

Like the contents of a burst balloon, it tore a wide opening through the ceiling, at the very spot where The Shadow stood. With the blast, The Shadow’s sagging form was rocketed straight upward through the river bed.

Foaming bubbles were all about. Pressure relieved, the air from the tunnel was sizzling through from the opening that it had cut. The Shadow had reached the surface in safety. He was uninjured by the terrific trip.

His feebleness, however, had not ended. Even the reviving coolness of the water was not sufficient to offset the effects that he had felt within the shielded cavern.

Struggling weakly, he managed to keep afloat; that was all. His ears could vaguely hear the sound of steam-boat whistles. They seemed far away, like noises from another world. The Shadow could see lights; but they were dim and distant.

BACK in the control room, Doc drew back the lever. He stopped it before he had gone far. He had gained no indication of what had happened below. He thought The Shadow still a prisoner; and he decided to play sure.

“He’s finished,” Doc told his men. “I gave him six minutes; I’m leaving the pressure tough enough even if he did survive. But don’t worry about that. No human could have stood that dose.”

Doc was right; but he might have added that earth and rock had failed before The Shadow. Doc’s word would be that The Shadow had died. The Python, like Doc, would believe it, when he heard the details. Neither would even begin to guess that The Shadow still lived while they gloated.

There was still a chance, however, that The Python’s machinations would succeed, even though The Shadow had escaped the pit in which he had been placed.

The accident, the dope, the air pressure — all had preceded his rapid journey through the river bed. They had left The Shadow deprived of nearly all his strength.

Upon the wavy blackness of the lower East River, a feebly moving form was drifting with the tide. Weakened arms were failing in their efforts to strike out; tired legs were doing no more than to aid in the mere task of holding a limp form afloat.

Minutes only; at the end of a brief interval, The Shadow would succumb. Oddly, his surge to safety had left him in a plight that soon would bring him to the doom that The Python had forecast. Death was hovering close above those darkened waters that held the wearied body of The Shadow.