The Third Skull

CHAPTER XVIII. IN THE GALLERY

“THIS passage,” stated Selwood Royce, “was originally intended to be a small gallery in itself. Notice the arrangement of its paneled walls.”

He pointed along a corridor that measured some thirty feet, before it turned left. At the end of this thirty-foot extent was a door in the wall. The barrier contained a full-length mirror. The visitors could see their reflections as they approached.

“Is the gallery past the mirrored door?” inquired Clyde.

“No,” replied Royce. “That is merely a storage closet. We take the passage to the left. It is a short one — only a half a dozen feet — and it leads us directly into the center of the main gallery. You will notice that the main gallery parallels this long passage through which we are now walking.”

They reached the turn. Here Royce pressed another light switch. They swung left and came directly into the main gallery, which was dark. Royce pressed more switches; they were set in relays all the way along.

The gallery was illuminated. The visitors were standing directly in front of one of the pictures. It was a Moorish scene, which showed a youthful Oriental speaking to a Moorish maiden beside an open latticed window. The picture was entitled: “The Last Tryst.”

“Not a good example of the painter’s art,” remarked Royce. “Despite the fact that the gallery is wide enough to allow a proper viewing distance, those figures appear blurred and ill-proportioned. This portrait in the next frame is more interesting.”

He pointed out a painting of a fierce-looking bandit whose attire indicated him to be a Corsican.

Splashed with colorful adornments, the lawless chief was staring with a contemptuous expression. The picture bore a title: “The Lost Smile,” and Royce suggested that the observers watch the lips.

“They change, don’t they!” exclaimed Clyde. “Sort of a Mona Lisa effect.”

“Not exactly,” replied Royce. “It is more like a well-known painting called ‘The Laughing Cavalier.’ You will see, I think, that this rogue’s mustachios have something to do with the illusion. His lips are down; but the point of the mustache are up.”

“Are all the pictures freakish?”

“Yes. My father had a penchant for such paintings. Look at this one — ‘The Firing Squad’ — it shows fine imagination. It gives you the effect that the guns are trained on you — as if you were the prisoner, about to be executed.

“This is gruesome” — Royce paused before a painting which showed a bound man staring upward to the huge foot of an elephant that was about to stamp on his head and crush it. “This gives you a pleasant example of the way the old maharajahs used to dispose of criminals.”

THE group strolled on. This portion of the gallery was long; they came to a turn at the end, a short passage that led in deeper. By this time they had seen a picture of a revolutionary mob, close-up and wild-eyed, bearing a dead, staring head upon a pike. They had also encountered two realistic oils of medieval torture chambers.

They looked at the pictures in the short passage; there was even one on the end wall. Then Royce led them back through to see the other half of the gallery.

“Sort of a chamber of horrors, this place,” remarked the millionaire. “But that is purely accidental. My father had no particular interest in paintings of murderous scenes. He merely liked the bizarre; and the gruesome pictures came in that class.”

Passing “The Last Tryst,” the visitors followed the left side of the gallery and found another turn leading in. This, too, was short; but instead of ending in a solid wall covered by a painting, it displayed a door.

“That leads to the closed north wing,” remarked Royce to Clyde. “The portion of the house that I pointed out this afternoon — wait a moment, you weren’t here then — I mean the part of the house that I mentioned to you at dinner.”

“I told you about the north wing this morning, didn’t I?” Royce had turned to Wingate. “I believe that when we were at Morth’s, I mentioned that his house reminded me of the abandoned portion of my mansion? Where forgotten rooms are filled with old furniture—”

“I don’t recall that conversation,” interrupted Wingate, rather testily. “I was too concerned with important matters to be interested in houses.”

“I guess I was talking to Doctor Deseurre about it,” recalled Royce. “But you were there at the time; I thought you were listening also.”

“Well, Burke, have you enough notes? If so, we might as well return downstairs. It’s stuffy up here. The place is windowless.”

“Just a few points.” said Clyde. “You say all of these paintings were collected by your father?”

“All of them,” replied Royce. “This was his hobby.”

“How long did he take to acquire the complete collection?”

“A dozen years. Perhaps more. But he made replacements. He filled the gallery long ago; then gradually introduced new paintings, removing others for which he cared less.”

“What became of the rest?”

“They are stored in the north wing. My father intended to place them in the paneled corridor which we first entered.”

Moving out into the main stretch of the gallery, Royce stopped by one of the paintings and asked Clyde to look closely at the frame. The reporter did so; then exclaimed in surprise:

“The frame is part of the paneling!”

“Exactly,” declared Royce, with a smile. “So is every other frame in the entire gallery. “When my father had decided upon the ones he wanted for permanent display, he had the old wainscoting ripped out and a new one put in, with spaces to receive each particular painting.

“He intended to do the same with the outer passage, lining it with his other curious art works. But he had not decided upon the final arrangement; and he had stored away the paintings until later. He was ill; his enthusiasm in his hobby had waned. He never completed the task.

“As for myself, I like this gallery only because it was my father’s pride. I am glad that it is permanent. I intend to keep it so. I also plan to leave the outer passage as it is.”

Royce looked to Clyde for further questions. The reporter had none. They moved along; as they reached the entry that led from the center of the passage, Clyde noted some one standing there, out by the turn from the thirty-foot passage. Clyde recognized Lamont Cranston.

THE tall guest was standing half relaxed. His eyelids were almost closed. He seemed tired, dozing on his feet; his hawklike features were facing toward the picture of the Moorish window.

From where he stood, the tall observer had the fullest possible distance from which to survey the painting; but he could not be seeing it plainly with his eyes half shut.

Clyde, first to arrive, saw Cranston arouse himself. A slight smile appeared upon his thin lips. He turned toward the outer passage just as the others came into view. The group moved along in Cranston’s direction. Royce was last, turning out the lights.

All the while, the guests at Royce’s had been conscious of the heavy dripping of the rain. The sound had been muffled in the art gallery. It became more intensive as they went down the steps into the main portion of the house.

“A bad drive back into town,” commented Wingate, in an irritated tone, as Royce led them along the hallway past the dining room. “The roads hereabout are terrible. I nearly wrecked my coupe driving out—”

“And you’re not going to risk it back,” put in Royce. “You’re staying here tonight, Mr. Wingate. I have already invited Burke to remain; and Mr. Cranston—”

The tall visitor raised his hand.

“I am going to New Jersey,” he insisted. “I merely stopped by because I chanced to be in the vicinity.”

“But the driving conditions—”

“Mean nothing to my chauffeur. Stanley prefers heavy weather. He says it keeps traffic off the roads. Thank you for your invitation, Royce, but I intend to go along.”

Cranston’s tone was final. Royce called the butler, who brought the visitor’s hat and coat. Royce insisted upon going out to the front porch; there he shook hands with his guest and saw Cranston step aboard the limousine. Under a porch light, he waited to watch the big car drive away.

AS the limousine started along the rain-flooded gravel drive, a quiet voice gave instructions through the speaking tube to Stanley.

“Cobalt Club,” came Cranston’s order. “After that, take the car to the garage where we usually store it in New York. I am not going home tonight.”

Stanley was nodding.

“And by the way,” added the steady voice. “Be careful going out through these narrow gates. We might encounter another car in the rain.”

Stanley brought the limousine almost to a stop. They were at the stone gates which marked the lower end of the drive. The chauffeur peered through the downpour; then proceeded with care.

So intent was Stanley that he did not hear the sound of an opening door. He probably would not have noted it under any conditions, for the sound was almost totally inaudible. The door closed again, just before the limousine rolled from the drive.

Stanley was taking an empty car back to Manhattan. During that brief trip down the drive, the rider in the rear had done more than give brief instructions. It was a different figure than Lamont Cranston’s which stepped so silently out into the rain. Cloak and hat had come from a bag in the rear seat, weapons also.

A phantom shape had emerged by Royce’s gates. Through the driving blackness of the rain, an invisible shape was moving toward the lane-like shelter of trees that led up to the house.

Keen eyes saw Selwood Royce returning into the mansion. The porch light went out. Through blackness, The Shadow cut over toward the portico where Weldon Wingate’s car was parked. He approached the door that the lawyer had used when going for his papers. It was unlocked.

The Shadow entered. The dull light from the hallway showed a glisten to the blackness of his garb.

Glistening raindrops covered slouch hat and cloak shoulders. Then The Shadow faded into the darkness of an unlighted hall. From then on, no one could have traced the course of this mysterious being who had returned to the confines of the huge Long Island mansion.