Zemba

CHAPTER IX LURKERS BELOW

AT the very time when Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland were strolling from the Hotel Princesse, two other men were sauntering along the Boulevard Saint-Michel. The two were Frenchmen. Despite their respectable attire, they had the air of Apaches.

Warily, this pair was keeping watch upon patrolling agents. The number of military police had been doubled since last night’s affray. Though apparently upon ordinary patrol duty, the agents actually formed a loose cordon about the sector wherein The Shadow had battled with Gaspard Zemba.

One Apache spoke in a hoarse whisper. His words were the jargon of the Parisian streets. The other nodded; together, they edged into an alleyway and took a threaded course toward the street where last night’s battle had been held. As they sneaked along, they mumbled low words.

“We must be careful,” cautioned one. “Agents may be hereabouts. Be ready for trouble, Georges.”

“I am prepared, Bantoire,” replied the other. “But the odds are with us. The agents have finished their search of the empty nest.”

“The nest that they are thinking is empty—”

“But, which still holds one little fledgling—”

“And will have two others shortly.”

Repressed chuckles; then Georges questioned:

“You spoke with Jacques?”

“Oui.” Bantoire chuckled. “Across the telephone. He has remained on duty.”

“He has heard from Zemba?”

“Non. That is why we must speak with him.”

The two had slackened their pace. They shuffled into a darkened doorway, while a pair of agents stalked past, flicking the gleams of flashlights against house walls. After pacing footsteps had faded, the Apaches resumed their progress. They arrived at the street where the battle had been fought. They found the steps that led to the caveau.

There they descended and passed a broken door. Georges crouched in the corner of the doorway and rapped his knuckles on a flagstone of the floor. A pause, then came an answer; a faint tap from subterranean depths.

“Bon!” whispered Georges. “To one side, Bantoire, while I raise the stone. You shall be the first to descend.”

A scraping sound in the darkness. Then the noise of Bantoire creeping downward. After that came the descent of Georges. Then a click as the flagstone settled into place. Cautious whispers came amid moldy darkness; then a light glimmered.

Georges and Bantoire were in a stone-walled passage, illuminated by a single bulb from the ceiling. The glow showed their ugly faces. Georges pushed back the lowered visor of his slouchy cap to reveal a scar across his forehead. Bantoire delivered a grin that showed irregular, blackish teeth.

FACING the arrivals was another of their ilk: Jacques. This Apache was squatty, but long-limbed. His face was rough and unshaven; but the stubble failed to cover a mass of pockmarks that formed the most conspicuous feature of his physiognomy.

Without the formality of greetings, the three Apaches stalked along the underground passage. Reaching the end of it, they descended another flight of steps. Then the passage turned to the right.

Jacques pressed two switches; one extinguished the corridor light; the other brought a glow from a room ahead. The trio entered a small, roughhewn chamber.

The room had no door. That was actually a precaution, for it enabled them to hear sounds from the corridor. The taps given by Georges had sounded the full distance. Yet they had penetrated to Jacques only because they had been sharp, unusual noises. Slight sounds could not be heard from this chamber, because a low, audible trickle already pervaded it.

The monotonous gush was that of water; and it came from beneath a trapdoor in the corner. Obviously, the trapdoor led to a conduit that carried a hidden brook into the River Seine. This room was almost on a level with the river bed. Though the quays of the left bank were quite distant from the spot, the conduit formed a means of exit.

There was a large box in the center of the room; one that served as table, while smaller boxes stood about as chairs. The three Apaches seated themselves beneath the single light directly above. Georges looked toward a gloomy corner, where a crude telephone adorned the wall. Its wire led to the trapdoor.

“No word from Zemba?”

Jacques shook his head in reply to the question, which came from Georges.

“No word. Well, Zemba is wise. That is what he told us long ago. Remember how we discussed it last night?”

“The night before,” corrected Bantoire.

“Last night or the night before,” retorted Georges. “What difference? Zemba said that if trouble came here, he would not call again. Such was his own warning.”

“And he told us to remove the telephone,” added Bantoire, “and to leave here if trouble came.”

“Of course,” agreed Georges. “But trouble did not come.”

“It came above here.”

“But not here below.”

BANTOIRE looked ready to argue the point. Suddenly, his manner changed. He held up a hand in warning. The others listened. They heard nothing but the trickle of the subterranean stream. Georges delivered a contemptuous laugh.

“Bantoire hears things,” he told Jacques. “He thinks that The Shadow is about.”

Jacques chuckled.

“He has not been about for the last twenty-four hours,” he testified. “Nor was he here before then. My ears are as keen as yours, Bantoire.”

“I heard something,” insisted Bantoire. “The noise came from the passage.”

“Do you hear it now?”

“Non.” Bantoire shook his head when Georges gave the question. “I hear nothing.”

“When one is not listening, he hears,” chuckled Georges. “When three are listening, they do not hear. It does not make good sense, Bantoire.”

Rising, Georges paced across the room and stood by the door, peering toward the darkness of the corridor. Then, with a shrug, he returned to the improvised table. From a pocket of his slouchy jacket, he removed a folded newspaper and spread it on the big box. Jacques leaned forward, eager for the news.

“Read this, Jacques,” laughed Georges. “After that, we shall remove the telephone and carry it away through the pipe to the river. For such were the orders that I last received.”

Georges paused, then continued:

“And should Zemba join us, we shall know him by the token of his left hand. Look, Jacques! It tells of it here in the journal.”

Leaning from one side, Jacques eyed a column of the newspaper, while Bantoire did the same from the other side. Georges was in the center of the trio. One side of the table alone was unoccupied. It was the edge toward the door. So engrossed were the three that even Bantoire failed to hear the slight sound that came creeping inward.

Then came amazement. The top edge of the newspaper crinkled. A grimy shape slithered forward, straight to the center of the table, sliding to cover the very column that the three men were studying. Sharp, startled exclamations broke from the lips of the three seated men.

PLANTED on the center of the newspaper was a hand, stretched flat. Steadied by the weight that leaned upon it, that talon pronounced its identity more vividly than any other possible symbol. Conspicuous with the steadied hand was a gaping space between the middle finger and the little one.

Where a third finger should have projected, the viewers saw only a shortened stump that stopped with the lower knuckle. A left hand, its third finger missing. The token of which the trio had spoken; the very hand which had been mentioned in the newspaper. Like a living creature conjured into their midst, that hand had arrived to banish their prolonged discussion.

Rigid, the three Apaches stared, their leering faces frozen with expressions that betold amazement. Slowly, twisted lips formed grins of evil delight. The leader whose dictates they obeyed had come to stay their departure; to take them into his confidence that they might further abet his insidious schemes.

Such was the revelation that came to all three. Georges, Bantoire and Jacques — each snarling a tone of glee. They were viewing the talisman which they had hoped to see.

The hand of Gaspard Zemba!