Treasures of Death

CHAPTER XXI THE CLUB OF DEATH

THIS night was one of intense gloom. Steady rain had been driving for three constant days. Shrouded in a blanket of rising mist, Eli Galban’s old mansion was more spectral than ever before.

Peering eyes were staring from a window. They were the eyes of Fawkes, the huge-headed servant. The front door opened; the blackened hall behind did not show the figure of this monstrous servitor.

Fawkes was beginning a patrol of the grounds. His footsteps carried him across the lawn toward the end house in the row — the building which seemed to encroach so noticeably on Eli Galban’s premises.

Fawkes returned. He moved into the house. The door shut behind him. Fawkes went to the second hall, where waxwork figures showed weirdly in the light. Mercher was waiting there. He had been on guard while Fawkes was gone.

Fawkes crossed the room and started toward the stairs. Mercher watched him. So did Harry Vincent, from above. As the fearful servant moved toward the steps, Harry quickly headed for the darkness of the second floor.

Mercher, however, stopped Fawkes as the man reached the landing. The secretary was alert. His doubled form seemed to spring forward as Mercher hurried after Fawkes. He put a low question to the man. Fawkes responded with a muffled growl.

Mercher signaled Fawkes to remain on guard. He hurried to the elevator and disappeared. It was several minutes before Fawkes again stumped down the steps. Evidently he had been on his way to the third floor to see Galban before Mercher had stopped him.

When Harry Vincent came back to the landing, he viewed both Fawkes and Mercher. The secretary was standing close to the waxwork figure of an Indian chief. He was eyeing Fawkes solemnly. The servant pointed toward a panel in the wall. Mercher nodded and moved in that direction. Fawkes sought to follow him. Mercher stopped the servant. He opened the panel and disappeared into deep darkness.

WHILE these events were taking place within the house, the splattering rain kept up a melody without. Yet amid those drippings there was more than mere darkness. A figure had entered the grounds about the house. At the rear of the old mansion stood The Shadow.

A spectral form, yet one which seemed to waver with every gust of wind, The Shadow was studying the walls. He could see gloomy windows; all were barred. His eyes turned downward. They saw the heavy grating of a cellar window.

A tiny flashlight gleamed. While The Shadow’s tired right hand held the little torch, his left worked on the barrier. It was a task to open the grating, yet it was no more difficult than the bars above. The Shadow, wearied, had chosen this spot instead of attempting a climb to the stories above.

The grating gave with a slight click. The window moved beyond. The Shadow’s tall form sank; it slid into the darkness of a deep cellar. The flashlight was out; The Shadow let himself below. In the darkness of the basement, he moved toward the other side of the building.

The Shadow stopped. Ahead, he saw a dim flight of stairs. Above it was a gloomy light. As he edged toward the wall, keeping constantly in darkness, The Shadow could spy the peering face of Lycurgus Mercher at the head of the stairs. The secretary was listening for sounds from below.

The Shadow reached the wall. He stood there, unseen by Mercher. Yet in the tense moments of waiting, his weariness increased. His body began to sway. It was with the utmost difficulty that he could keep up the vigil.

Mercher was coming cautiously down the stairs. He did not see The Shadow. A flashlight gleamed in the secretary’s hand. It was directed toward a spot on the wall away from where The Shadow stood.

Mercher uttered a hiss. The panel closed above. The secretary, thinking himself alone, began to examine a grated opening in the side of the cellar wall. His flashlight showed what had once been an old drain, or passage, leading off from the side of the cellar.

Mercher turned to move away. He paused a moment; then moved back to the spot that he had examined. His flashlight flickered upon the old grating. A hissing cry escaped his lips. The grating shot inward from a powerful thrust; with it came the form of a stalwart man!

Mercher’s flashlight showed the arrival’s face. It was Thibbel, Wendel Hargate’s hard-faced servant, whose shot had wounded The Shadow three nights ago. Coming from the opening, Thibbel landed full upon Mercher. Thibbel’s hand displayed a gun as the flashlight fell. The husky man swung it to crush his enemy.

Then came a third fighter. The Shadow, springing forward from the gloom, was in the conflict. In the melee, Thibbel staggered free from Mercher’s grasp. Then, with a mighty sweep of his arm, he blindly struck The Shadow’s crippled shoulder.

UNSEEN, the tall black form went toppling. It was not the fury of Thibbel’s swing; it was The Shadow’s own weakening, under strain, that made it futile for him to continue the fray. His tall form collapsed, while Mercher leaped to contend with Thibbel. The Shadow was out of the fight.

Motionless upon the floor, his right arm limp, The Shadow lay while Thibbel and Mercher fought silently in the dark. The Shadow’s left hand was clenched beneath his cloak. It was pressed against the precious bottle that he had brought with him from his sanctum, along with the wide flat box.

A hand descended in the darkness. A chance stroke dealt a heavy blow with a revolver. Thibbel was the author of that stroke; Mercher received it. The secretary collapsed with a muffled groan. Thibbel sent his body spinning to the floor. Mercher rolled over and lay sprawled above the crumpled form of The Shadow.

Thibbel picked up the flashlight. He uttered an ugly laugh as he turned its rays upon Mercher. He did not see the obscured figure of The Shadow, nor did he linger. Satisfied that Mercher was no longer an antagonist to fear, the yeoman who served Wendel Hargate, headed toward the stairs.

He extinguished the flashlight when he reached the panel. He rapped. The panel opened. Like a shot, Thibbel sprang into the room of waxwork curios. His revolver swung as it covered the man who had opened the panel. Corry Fawkes, glaring with his fiendish eyes, was trapped by this unexpected enemy from below!

Thibbel, bold and dangerous, yanked a second gun from his pocket. His action was well timed. At that moment, a panel clicked and Sanyata stepped from the elevator. With a hoarse laugh, Thibbel covered the Japanese.

HARRY VINCENT, from the landing, could view the entire scene. He could also hear the growled challenge that Thibbel uttered to the men whom he had so neatly snared. Thibbel had shown his mettle in his encounter with The Shadow. He was proving it once again.

“Thought you’d fool us, eh?” snarled Hargate’s henchman. “Well, I figured your game. There was only one way to get into this joint — from the old house at the end of the row. We’ve been working there and I thought maybe you’d wise up to it.

“So you were waiting. Letting us come on through. So you’d have us with the goods. Thought you’d have a chance to plug whoever came and take it up with the police afterward. Well, you missed your guess.

“I knew there were three of you. So I came alone” — Thibbel’s laugh was sarcastic — “and I picked off the first guy down in the cellar. If you two want to go the route, just try something.

“I’m here to see old Eli Galban and nobody’s going to stop me.”

Harry Vincent, on the landing, was debating what to do. At the spot where he stood, he was directly in the path of Thibbel’s aim. To move at this moment might mean his own destruction. Unarmed, he could bring no aid; the very fact that he had left his room might lead Fawkes and Sanyata to regard him as an enemy.

Thibbel was backing across the center of the room. He paused near the waxwork figures, his face displaying an evil grimace. It seemed that he might be planning to slay Eli Galban’s servants in cold blood.

Yet Fawkes and Sanyata remained motionless. The Japanese was stolid; the monstrous, big-chinned man still retained his fierce glare. Of a sudden, Harry Vincent realized that they must be waiting some strange action that would rid them finally of this enemy, Thibbel.

The action came, as Thibbel neared the closest of the waxwork figures. With a fearful silence, the Indian chief came suddenly to life. As Thibbel, suspecting danger, swerved to glance behind him, the figure swung its mighty war club. The descending weapon landed with a crushing force upon the head of Wendel Hargate’s servant and henchman.

Thibbel’s body dropped to the floor. No human skull could have stood the fury of that blow. Thibbel was dead; Harry saw Fawkes and Sanyata step forward to remove his body. Then, as Harry glanced again toward the waxwork figure that had come to life, he saw the Indian chief back in his old position.

It was like a fearful dream — this stroke that had slain an intruder before Harry Vincent’s eyes. Like a living corpse, the Indian chief had again rejoined his fellow statues formed of waxwork!