Part 2 (2/2)
Inviting Cranston into a limousine, Carland began a string of patter as they rode away from the airport.
”I'm glad to meet you, Mr. Cranston,” he declaimed. ”Glad to meet anyone with vision enough to see the future of rice land in the Mississippi delta. I have thousands of acres of it, the finest land in the world.
”Swampland, some call it” - Carland's chuckle showed contempt - ”and that's where they are wrong. It may have been salt marsh once, but today it is covered with rich Mississippi silt, the acc.u.mulation of many years. The reeds that grow through the silt simply bind it, and help it to thicken.
”Salt-gra.s.s flats? Bah! Two hundred years ago the French called those lands 'trembling prairies,' which proves that they knew the ground was good, although unstable. Modern methods of agriculture weren't known then, Mr. Cranston, but we understand them today.
”Rice can be grown along every bayou and lagoon. Big amphibian tractors, with wheels like paddles, will cultivate the land. We'll have barges moving along channels where now you see only shrimp boats and natives paddling those funny dugout canoes they call 'pirogues.'”
IT was an impressive sales talk, and by the time the car had reached the heart of the city, Carland was tabulating figures to show the big profits from rice that could be brought straight to New Orleans by the water route.
Then, as the car stopped in front of an office building, Carland glanced anxiously at his watch.
”It's well after five,” he said, ”but I think we shall still find Mr. Brendle in his office. He's a contractor; used to lay roads all over the State. He thinks the rice project is feasible. I want you to meet him, Mr.
Cranston.”
They found Eugene Brendle in his office. The contractor was a stocky, broad-shouldered man whose concave profile, with bulging forehead and chin, was centered by a very stubby nose. He was the type of man who evidently thought over all decisions, but once having made them, would not alter his final plan.
It happened that The Shadow knew the exact situation between James Carland and Eugene Brendle, for, as Allard, The Shadow had heard it from Graham Talborn, the exporter, while in Mexico City. At present Carland owed Brendle fifty thousands dollars, and the future rice lands - whether salt marsh or rich silt - were the security for the loan.
Evidently Brendle mistrusted Carland, and well he might, for the fifty thousand dollars had not gone to the completion of the museum. Calling the loan when the time came would not help either, unless the delta land proved to be worth fifty thousand dollars, which Brendle appeared to doubt. In his turn, Carland was attempting to convince Brendle that the land was good.
”You're a good judge of property, Mr. Cranston,” said Carland, turning to The Shadow. ”You know the facts and figures on rice” - glibly, Carland was glossing over the fact that he had just provided Cranston with such information - ”and I think you will agree that my land is worth more than fifty thousand dollars.”
”As represented, yes,” returned The Shadow, in a calm tone that suited Cranston. ”Of course, before investing such a sum, I would like to see the land in question.”
”And if you found it up to specifications -” ”I would either purchase it or offer to invest in its development.”
Carland threw a triumphant look at Brendle, as though Cranston's statement had settled the whole question. Then, like a man slapping a trump card on the table, Carland stated: ”Your offer is a trifle late, Mr. Cranston. I have already heard from Jonathan Dorn, the New York financier, requesting first opportunity to inspect the property. It would not be fair to Dorn to consider any transaction before he arrives.”
”How soon will that be?”
”Frankly, I don't know,” replied Carland. ”Within a week, I hope, Mr. Cranston. If you will be staying in New Orleans that long -”
”I shall be.” Cranston's lips formed one of their half smiles. ”My hobby happens to be the study of Mayan remains. I hoped that I might get a preview of the exhibits in the new museum before it was open to the public.”
Mention of the museum brought a glare to Carland's haggard face. Angrily, he exclaimed: ”I'll have nothing to do with the Mayan Museum! If Graham Talborn had waited, giving me a chance to straighten out matters, I might have regained my oil concessions on the strength of that museum. The Mexican government wanted it completed before the West Indian Exposition; they would have listened to reason while I held the upper hand.”
Brendle gave a steady look toward Carland.
”You forget,” said Brendle, ”that others had much to lose while the museum remained unfinished. Salter, the curator, had his job to think about. Professor Hedwin was nearly stranded, down in Yucatan. I had contracted for materials, and had loaned you fifty thousand dollars -”
Carland's glare had turned to a wince. He interrupted Brendle by clapping the contractor on the shoulder.
”I owe you a lot, Brendle,” said Carland. ”You're the one friend I had among the whole crowd. The way they deserted me, like rats, when Talborn came along! Don't worry, Brendle. You'll get your fifty thousand dollars, with interest.”
”I hope so, Carland.”
There was an actual touch of hope in Brendle's tone, inspired, perhaps, by Cranston's interest in the rice fields on which the cash depended, plus Carland's statement that a financier named Dorn had already considered their development.
”Why don't you take Mr. Cranston to the museum?” suggested Carland to Brendle. ”Salter will probably be glad to see you, though he wouldn't care to see me. You can call me later, after you've looked over the place.”
BRENDLE accepted the suggestion. He closed his office, and they rode to the museum in Carland's limousine. The Shadow and Brendle left the car, and Carland drove away. Entering the museum, Brendle conducted his new acquaintance, Cranston, to the curator's office.
There, they found Graham Talborn, also back from Mexico. Like Carland, Talborn failed to identify Cranston as Allard. The Shadow also shook hands with Fitzhugh Salter, the curator, a middle-aged man of portly proportions, chubby-faced, and of retiring disposition. There was a smug touch, however, to Salter's features, that marked him shrewder than his surface showed.
”I'll show you the museum from the bottom up,” declared Salter, when he learned why Cranston had come. ”That means from the top down, because all our exhibits are on the higher floors. The lower floors are for offices. Come, gentlemen; this way.”
They went to the very center of the pyramid, which, on the ground floor, did resemble an office building.
The elevators were necessarily in the center, in order to reach the top floor of the tapering structure. They entered an elevator and Salter took them to the top, where they stepped out to a promenade atop the temple that surmounted the museum.
Daylight had diminished. New Orleans stretched off into the distance, sparkling with lights, a scene that reminded The Shadow of Mexico City, except that here there was no throb of Aztec drums. Yet, somehow, the spell of the past seemed stronger here than in old Mexico.
Like ancient priests who had ruled Chichen Itza, The Shadow and his companions stood beside a parapet from which they could see the spreading steps of the ma.s.sive pyramid below. It was almost as if the structure itself had been lifted from the ancient city of the Mayas and placed, in all its prime, upon the fringe of a modern metropolis.
This pyramid was, of course, a reproduction; but that only made the illusion more real. The Shadow could sense the spirit of grandeur even more than at Chichen Itza, where he had often visited the ruined temple of the Mayas upon its crumbling mound.
Gazing toward the terraces below, noting the gloom of the low shrubbery that surrounded the museum grounds, The Shadow could almost picture stealthy figures of the past, creeping into this chosen place where a vanished glory had been renewed. The lower darkness, like the blackening sky above, seemed fraught with ominous significance.
Tuned to the unknown, The Shadow possessed a sixth sense that seldom failed him. The very atmosphere was charged with menace of a sort that he had sensed often in the past. Voiceless tongues were crying a message of coming danger that no one else could hear.
Whether it meant evil of an ancient origin, or crime of a modern type, The Shadow could not tell. But his whole being told him to be ready for strange events soon due!
CHAPTER VI. WITHIN THE MUSEUM.
FITZHUGH SALTER stood smugly by while the visitors enjoyed the view from the parapet. The curator seemed in no hurry to show them through the museum ”from the top down,” as he had expressed it. Not until he saw Cranston turn and gaze questioningly in his direction, did Salter suddenly rouse himself.
He bowed his visitors toward the stairs leading down from the roof, and they descended. Darkness greeted them, until Salter found a switch box and supplied lights to the top-floor corridor. The Shadow saw a stairway leading down around the elevator shafts, also the doors of various exhibit rooms.
The doors were locked, but Salter produced keys that opened them. The locks were of a very ordinary sort, which was natural enough, considering that when the museum itself was locked, the whole top floor would be protected.
Many of the Mayan exhibits were already in place, and they formed as large a collection as The Shadowhad ever seen.
There were tablets with hieroglyphic carvings that Professor Hedwin had sent from Chichen Itza; great stone rings, four feet in diameter, decorated with intertwining feathered serpents.
In another room were pottery exhibits; also some ancient masks fas.h.i.+oned from such hard substances as turquoise, sh.e.l.l and jet. Salter said they were ceremonial masks, representing such deities as Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, but he did not undertake to identify any more of them by name, though there were dozens of the masks.
Pa.s.sing a rack of costumes, garish and of vivid colors, Salter said that they were of modern manufacture, but that they represented the actual robes used in rituals wherein the masks were also worn. Then, either ignoring, or not hearing, questions, the curator opened the door to a long room that showed an array of statuary, all hewn with stone tools.
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