DEATH SHIP.
Maxwell Grant.
CHAPTER I. THE DOUBLE SNARE.
THE last rays of sunset dyed the Golden Gate, adding a touch of crimson to the yellowed sky above the blue Pacific. Looking off from the high structure of the Golden Gate Bridge, a long, sleek steamship could be seen heading out to sea, her decks crowded with Alaska-bound pa.s.sengers.
Soon, that sight was lost to the driver who had viewed it. He was across the bridge, north of San Francisco, dipping his coupe along a descending road that led away from the ocean.
Headed somewhere beyond Sausalito, he was away from the sunset"s glow, entering a gathering twilight that already gripped San Francis...o...b..y.
Headlights glimmered from the coupe; within the car there was the sound of a whispered laugh. The dusk that presaged darkness was to that driver"s liking.
He was The Shadow, whose chosen paths were those that lay beneath the shroud of night.
Out of heavy traffic, the car was moving slowly, as if lingering until darkness deepened. Its lights were dim and therefore inconspicuous, but even that did not fully suit the mysterious driver. When he had reached a road at the bay side, he extinguished the lights altogether.
From then on, the car"s course resembled a creep, while keen eyes guided it solely by theribbon of grayish white that signified the narrow, winding roadway.
There came a place where a side road plowed off into the hillside, marked only by a thick blackness. Most drivers would have hesitated at turning into that byway, even though familiar with it, for darkness gave it the semblance of a bottomless hole. But The Shadow swung his car with cool precision, undeterred when it suddenly tilted sideways.
With tires crunching heavily, he leveled the car in the very spot he wanted, a deep ditch below the road level. When the wheels began to climb, he halted.
Parked in the bed of a dry stream, the coupe was placed where occasional travelers along the side road would not discover it, thanks to clumps of bushes that flanked the roadside above. Well tucked from sight, The Shadow listened for sounds close by. Hearing none, he turned on the car"s dome light.
The glow showed a figure attired in Tuxedo; but the face above was obscured by the brim of a slouch hat. Despite its broad brim, the hat seemed ordinary enough, until long-fingered hands drew the folds of a cloak up from the car seat.
Once that black garment had settled on its owner"s shoulders, the dark hat blended with the attire. The long hands drew on gloves of the same jet-black hue, to produce the final touch that made The Shadow a grotesque being quite different from the human driver who had brought the coupe here.
Paper crinkled as The Shadow spread it. His eyes studied a neat chart that showed not only the obscure road, but a pathway that led to the bay. The latter was indicated by wavy lines, with a jutting block that obviously marked a pier.
Moving a forefinger along the line of the path, The Shadow finished by reaching for the light switch. A click brought darkness to the coupe.
In that gloom, no eyes could have discerned the shape of The Shadow. Nor could ears have detected the almost soundless exit that he made from the car. The only traces of his subsequent course were the occasional blinks of a tiny flashlight that moved along the path to the bay.
Those flashes, however, were m.u.f.fled by the folds of The Shadow"s cloak. After some fifty feet, they ceased entirely. Sure of his route, The Shadow was proceeding in complete darkness.
Night had come in sudden fashion, but The Shadow could distinguish between shades of blackness. There was a smoothness, like that of polished ebony, that marked the waters of the bay; a bulkiness about the darkness that formed the sh.o.r.e line. The Shadow"s goal formed a pencil streak that marred the bay"s smooth sheen. That goal was an old pier that stretched into deep water.
WITH fifty yards to go, The Shadow halted; he had sensed motion in the darkness near him.
His caution was rewarded when he heard stealthy footsteps prowling near. They pa.s.sed; still listening, The Shadow caught other, fainter sounds. Picking the right spot, he saw the guarded blink of a flashlight.
His suspicions were proven. A small cordon of prowlers were on duty, watching the neighborhood of the pier. From further sounds and another flashlight"s blink, The Shadow determined that the watchers were drawing closer. Evidently they intended finally to congregate at the pier itself, and that prospect forced The Shadow to a single decision. This was his chance to pierce the cordon before it became too tight; to be at the one place where enemies would not expect to find him: namely, at the pier itself.
There was swiftness to The Shadow"s approach as he covered those final fifty yards, but speed did not mar his ability at keeping silence. When he reached a squatty structure that formed the land end of the pier, he looked back to detect another telltale sparkle from a flashlight. His penetration had not been discovered.
The pier was a wide, high platform, and the building at the land end of it served as a boathouse. The building was set low, and it was necessary to pa.s.s through it to reach the s.p.a.ce beneath the pier, where The Shadow knew that a small vessel was kept. For tonight"s venture was no aimless quest on the part of the mysterious being in black. The Shadow was delving into an enterprise as mysterious as these of his own creation.
He had come here to investigate the newly invented Z-boat designed by Commander Rodney Prew, formerly an officer in the United States Navy.
Off to the northeast were distant lights that marked Mare Island, where naval officers expectantly awaited tomorrow"s announcement regarding the purpose of Prew"s new craft.
To the south, The Shadow could see the glow of San Francisco, a city that had sheltered the secret meetings of plotters whose purposes were as hidden as their methods.
Through stray clues, The Shadow had divined that the future of the Z-boat was at stake, although there had been no surface indication of such circ.u.mstance. It was more than a hunch that had brought The Shadow here tonight; he had the definite fact that if any stroke should be intended, it would have to be made before tomorrow.
From the time when the navy department had learned of Commander Prew"s private construction of a new type of war craft, he had been given a limit in which to complete his preliminary work. Tomorrow, when that period expired, polite officers in navy uniforms would sail down from Mare Island and take over the ship beneath the pier.
Whether Prew, or others, wished to prolong the secrecy surrounding the Z-boat, was still a mystery in itself. So, for that matter, was the presence of the men on sh.o.r.e. On previous excursions here, The Shadow had found no guarding cordon. The only watchers had been a few men stationed on the Z-boat itself.
Previously, The Shadow had gained access to the little boathouse only to find it deserted, with farther pa.s.sage blocked. At the door where he stood now, black against the darkened weather-beaten wood, he soon made sure that the interior of the boathouse was as dark and silent as it had been before. That made it expressly suited to his requirements.
While outside lurkers were closing in upon the pier, becoming more confident as they progressed, The Shadow could be awaiting them in an even better lurking spot. Whatever their purpose, he would be well equipped to learn it when they arrived, as well as having the element of surprise in his own favor.
THE SHADOW took one last survey. Off on the bay, he saw dwindling lights, merely those of a plying ferry. Gazing toward San Francisco, he observed a more ominous sign; sudden swaths of brightness that came from big searchlights playing a huge circle upon the bay.
Their sweep formed an absolute barrier between this spot and San Francisco, but they never altered in their circuit.
Those were the lights of Alcatraz, constantly on the watch for any creeping craft that might try to reach The Rock, where hundreds of criminals held almost impossible dreams of rescue.The Shadow remembered one time when Alcatraz had been invaded, but he himself had nullified that enterprise. (Note: See "Shadow Over Alcatraz," Vol. XXVIII, No. 1.) Thanks to The Shadow, Alcatraz was again impregnable; and watchers on the fortress island were unwittingly returning the favor. Their searchlights, it seemed, were sufficient to prevent any trouble makers from using the water route to or from this pier where Prew"s Z-boat was veiled from public view.
That speculation ended, The Shadow began operations upon the boathouse door. It was locked, but none too strongly, for it was intended to be inconspicuous, since the inner barrier between house and pier was the one that actually counted. The Shadow had worked on this lock before, and he picked it this time with very little trouble.
Easing inside, he closed the door behind him, letting the spring lock latch by degrees. Then, with his flashlight close to the floor, he crossed the single room until he reached the inner door. It offered a different problem; it was not only locked, but bolted from the other side.
Skillfully, The Shadow tapped the woodwork with silent, gloved finger. He was checking on a previous finding: the exact location of the bolt. From beneath his cloak he produced a tiny drill, set it at the exact spot required.
Pressure on that drill"s spring handle would drive a hole through the woodwork, enabling him to get at the bolt. The Shadow"s thumb was poised, when something stopped him.
It was a creak, that sounded first as if it came from the outer door that he had locked behind him. A whisper of breeze stirred through the darkness, then faded. Next a footfall, as evasive as the trifling breeze.
It couldn"t have come from the outer door; The Shadow was sure that he would have heard a key at work. But, so far as he remembered, there was no other entrance to this boathouse other than the two doors, and he could account for both of them!
Then he recalled the gasoline cans. They had stood in an inner corner, grimy and covered with cobwebs, big containers that The Shadow had not moved from their place. Nor had he looked for them tonight. a.s.suming that they had been removed, the sound could have come from that corner.
THE drill slid beneath The Shadow"s cloak. His deft fingers were on the b.u.t.t of an automatic.
He was faced toward the corner that he suspected; at the same time, he was drawing away from the inner door, knowing that it might prove to be a danger spot.
Calculating upon stealthy moves in darkness, The Shadow was showing no haste. He was waiting for another footfall to reveal the location of an adversary. But the sound he wanted did not come. Instead, there was a click from the wall, away from the corner where the cans had been.
With that sound came light, the brilliance of a hundred-watt bulb, hanging from the ceiling to a level just above The Shadow"s eyes. He wheeled in the glare; only to halt at sight of a revolver aimed by the person who had pressed the switch.
Luck had gone against The Shadow. His gun undrawn, he was covered by a marksman whose eyes showed determination that matched the menace of the revolver muzzle. From The Shadow"s lips came a whispered tone: not his accustomed mockery at sight of an unexpected foe, but one of actual surprise.
The Shadow was trapped by a girl-a dark-eyed, slight-built brunette whose beauty wasmatched by her eagerness to hold him helpless. But her gun, though it was steady enough to command complete attention, was not the only weapon that held The Shadow covered.
Through loopholes in the wall beside the inner door were a pair of rifle muzzles that The Shadow spotted from the corner of his eye.
In the midst of that dilemma, The Shadow"s thoughts flashed back to the events surrounding his stealthy arrival. He remembered the closing cordon, the progress that it had been making during recent minutes. Those men outside would soon be at their destination: the door by which The Shadow had entered the boathouse.
Caught in full light, a trespa.s.ser upon forbidden ground, The Shadow stood in the very center of a double trap that carried every promise of coming death!
CHAPTER II. BENEATH THE BAY.
NORMALLY, danger was The Shadow"s call to action. Experience had shown him that the greater the odds against him, the more he could win through speedy tactics. He possessed that rare instinct which enabled him to take chances, confident that his own boldness would produce the needed breaks in his favor.
Yet that faculty was not The Shadow"s greatest boon. More valuable than his daring was his ability to recognize situations wherein the opposite tack was necessary.
This was one such case. Caught as he was, The Shadow saw instantly that this trap, as it stood at present, was unescapable. However swift his action, he could bring nothing but his own doom as a consequence, unless he managed first to shape a coming course.
The girl was determined in her manner. Her grip on the revolver showed that she knew how to use it, and there was a steadiness of her slender forefinger that indicated a hair trigger in back of it. Those guns that jutted from the inner wall were waiting only for the girl"s decision, ready to take over any effort in which she might fail.
It was policy, therefore, to let the brunette believe that she had gained full control. When her tension lessened, a similar slackness would result among the invisible gunners who covered The Shadow through the loopholes.
The very tone of The Shadow"s whispered laugh was a proof of his instinctive decision. The girl did not realize the thought behind it; she took the tone for what The Shadow intended it to convey: an expression of bitter resignation. His hands, as they came upward, shoulder high, were reluctant enough to complete the pretense.
The girl"s finger eased. Though he ignored the wall guns, The Shadow was sure that they had also lessened in their menace. His calculations concerned those outside watchers, moving in to block the land exit from the boathouse. There would be a few minutes before they could be grouped outside the door. The Shadow intended to make the most of that interim.
His head tilted slightly upward. His eyes caught the glow of the hundred-watt lamp, six feet away at an angle to his left. The girl was farther away, at the side wall, facing across the boathouse, but she saw the glitter of The Shadow"s eyes. Her gaze became intense; she was trying to make out other features beneath the hat brim. Failing in that, she moved a step forward, then halted.
"Stand where you are!" announced the girl, in a low, steady contralto. "And let me remind you that it is customary for strangers here to declare themselves!" There was a pause; then The Shadow"s whisper, sibilant, with a trace of mockery.
"Perhaps both of us are strangers to these premises," he countered. "Since you have thrust yourself into this situation, your own introduction should come first."
The girl"s lips became scornful.
"My name is Claudette Marchand," she told The Shadow. "That is something you already know. Anyone who has meddled in Commander Prew"s business knows that I am his confidential secretary. You are not the first person who has sought to bribe me into betraying the secret of his invention."
WHILE she talked, Claudette was crouching slightly forward, endeavoring to gain a real glimpse of The Shadow"s face. Whether she believed that she would recognize him, or was merely putting on a bluff, The Shadow could not discover.
One reason for his laxity in the matters was The Shadow"s interest elsewhere. His gaze had lowered, as if to escape the girl"s stare. His real purpose was to pick the place from which Claudette had bobbed into the boathouse.
The answer lay in the corner. There, near the inner wall, The Shadow saw a trapdoor with an iron ring. Unquestionably it led to steps below. That trapdoor had been covered by the big gasoline cans on The Shadow"s previous visits.
"Perhaps"-Claudette had moved another step forward-"you have heard of Felix Sergon?"
She paused, having p.r.o.nounced the name emphatically, with a hardness to the "g," and her eyes were looking sharply for some response from The Shadow. Observing none, she repeated the name disdainfully: "Felix Sergon, who calls himself an adventurer and soldier of fortune, but who is actually an international spy. I have his picture here"-her free hand brought a small photograph from the sash of her dark dress-"and if you would care to see it more closely -"
She ended with a gesture, as though she sought to compare the photo with The Shadow"s face, once she could manage to see beneath the hat brim. The Shadow"s eyes went toward the picture; he saw the portrait of a flattish square-jawed face topped by short-clipped hair.
Felix Sergon-both the name and the picture were recognized by The Shadow. But whether Claudette Marchand actually believed that The Shadow might be Sergon, was another question. She was clever, this girl, crafty enough to be trying to outsmart the black-cloaked intruder whom she had so cunningly trapped.
What she did not count upon was The Shadow"s own skill at bluff. He hadn"t forgotten those bristling guns at the inner wall, nor the creeping men who by this time had neared the outside door. He seemed, however, to be interested only in the preservation of his own ident.i.ty.
Hands still high, The Shadow drew away, turning so that his back was toward the wall. The shift was natural, as was his sudden crouch.
Though Claudette saw no danger from the move, she was canny enough to recognize that the changed position might produce unforeseen complications. She dropped back a few steps, steadying her gun. Again, her contralto tone was firm: "Stand where you are!"
The shift had brought The Shadow closer to the hanging bulb. It was just above the level of his hat brim. For the first time in gazing toward The Shadow, Claudette could look past him to the inner wall.
Not only could the girl see the ready guns; she should have heard the creeping past the outer door that betokened the arrival of the outside prowlers, for The Shadow caught that sound. But there was a change in Claudette"s expression, a curious bewilderment that made her waver. Something made her momentarily forget The Shadow, and that was the only urge he needed.
Claudette Marchand, alone, could have frustrated The Shadow"s next move; for the gunners at the loopholes were looking at his back and did not realize what was happening until the stroke was under way.
ALL the while that he had kept his hands half raised, The Shadow had been pressing his right elbow against his ribs. His purpose had been to keep a half-drawn automatic from tumbling to the floor. It was the gun for which he had started a reach when Claudette sprang the surprise with the big light.
The Shadow wanted that automatic in a hurry, to serve him in the present situation, and he acquired it in a unique style.
With a sudden upward fling of his right arm, he hooked the gun muzzle in the crook of his elbow, jerking it out from beneath his cloak. It popped into sight like a jack-in-the-box, flipping over to the left. The fingers of his left hand were ready for it; they took the gun b.u.t.t in midair.
The Shadow did not wait to find the trigger. As he dived rightward, toward the floor, his left hand made a backhand slash, using the .45 as a bludgeon. Cold metal smashed the hot gla.s.s of the dangling electric-light bulb.
The light was gone with a sharp explosion that sounded like a gunshot. Hitting the floor in a long roll, The Shadow lashed one foot toward Claudette. He tripped the girl just as she tugged away at the revolver trigger. Her gun was popping uselessly as she rolled beside The Shadow.
A moment later, other guns were splitting the blackness with their flaying tongues. The men at the loopholes were shooting for The Shadow; but to no avail. He was below the line of their fire; he had found Claudette in the darkness and was sprawling her, gunless, against that inner wall.
Guns stopped their chatter. There were gruff shouts from behind the part.i.tion, the yank of bolts. Simultaneously came the ripping of the outer door that The Shadow had latched when he entered. Flashlights flickered there.
Into that glow came an avalanche of blackness. The Shadow was on his feet, flinging forward, sledging with his automatic to hew a path through the opposition. He ran into a cl.u.s.ter of men, who met him with bare hands.
By all the laws of previous experience, The Shadow should have left that crew sprawled about the doorway. Instead, he met a startling setback. The effect was exactly as if The Shadow had been a rubber ball thrown against a wall. His lunge ended the moment that hands encountered him. He was bounced back, half across the boathouse, in a reversesomersault that carried him a dozen feet.
There were more lights, coming from the inner doorway, now wide open. The Shadow saw ugly faces in the glow, gun muzzles turned in his direction. The whole scene was kaleidoscopic, whirling, blinking, before his dazed eyes. All that The Shadow could actually sense was a round ring of metal that his fingers had encountered on the floor, near the corner.
He realized what it was and gave a hard tug, felt the trapdoor yield. With a twist of his flattened body, The Shadow went through the s.p.a.ce that fortune had provided him just as the roar of guns blasted above his head.
There was a ladder that Claudette had used when she had hidden beneath the trapdoor, but The Shadow did not find it. Instead, he took a dozen-foot plunge that ended in a splash. The feel of that cold water was grateful, for it offered a refuge and ended The Shadow"s daze.
Ten feet below the surface, he groped for a s.p.a.ce beneath the pilings that might offer him another exit.
He found a way through; holding his breath, he squirmed under water; then, with lungs that seemed about to burst, he made for the surface. Coming up into light, The Shadow grabbed for the slimy rung of a ladder, shook the water from his face and stared at the sight before him.
HE had gone beneath the inner wall of the boathouse. Under the old pier, he had found the long s.p.a.ce where the Z-boat was moored. Lights from the side walls showed a craft that was some sixty feet in length, shaped like a speedboat but with a streamlined oval deck.
On the blunt, narrow stern of the odd craft The Shadow saw the name, Barracuda. Hauling himself half up the ladder, he spied an odd-shaped c.o.c.kpit in the middle of the vessel. The s.p.a.ce looked deep, and it was fronted by what appeared to be a half-domed windshield.