Part 6 (2/2)
Yvonne saw the Aztecs, making off through a pa.s.sage on the other side of the courtyard, dragging their wounded with them. The Shadow was staggering after them, blundering into walls and doorways, but still blasting shots that hurried the fugitives along their way.
Dazed from the ordeal, Yvonne regained her senses to find herself back in bed. Andy Ames was standing beside her, waving back police who wanted to question her.
Mechanically, Yvonne told her hazy story of savage fighters beaten off by a foeman cloaked in black - a tale so fantastic that all listeners except Andy believed it the result of Yvonne's strained imagination.
Even Andy had his doubts. He, too, had been rescued by The Shadow, but he couldn't understand about the Aztecs. Grimly, Andy kept his silence, wondering how well The Shadow had fared at the finish of the fray.
Yvonne's final description of The Shadow's staggery departure made it seem that the victor's plight might be worse than that of his conquered foemen.
CHAPTER XII. CRIME'S SEQUEL.
LATE the next afternoon, Andy Ames stopped at the Mayan Museum to talk to Fitzhugh Salter. He feltthat the curator was the one man who might be able to link events that seemed divided between Mexico and Louisiana.
Andy's suggestion that the men who murdered James Carland might have been Aztecs produced a smile from Salter. The curator summed up the case quite simply.
”You have spent too much time with Professor Hedwin,” he told Andy. ”Unconsciously, you have absorbed some of his strange notions. His talk of the Xitli cult is quite convincing, of course, and I noticed last night that such men as Talborn and Brendle were impressed by it. Probably the same applied to Yvonne Carland.
”She was distraught by her uncle's death, and her imagination became overworked. Until we have proof that an Xitli cult exists - and I a.s.sure you that I shall give the possibility a thorough and impartial study - we must accept the opinion of the police; namely, that James Carland was murdered by local a.s.sa.s.sins.”
Leaving the museum, Andy wondered if he should have told Salter all that he knew. Andy was in a serious dilemma, for he felt that he had put the law on a wrong trail. It went back to last night, when Andy had spiked the testimony of the captured Cajun regarding strange men from the Amazonia.
Should he reverse his own statements, Andy would put himself in a serious position, one that might involve actual suspicion on the part of the police, who were not inclined to accept Yvonne's description of the men who had slain her uncle.
It would be better not to talk about the stone hatchet that Andy had thrown into the river, though Yvonne, too, had mentioned such weapons. None of the primitive hatchets had been found in the courtyard outside the Carland apartment, which meant that the invaders must have carried them away.
In fact, Andy himself was doubtful of Yvonne's testimony; not regarding the actual presence of the squatly men, but as to their actual number.
From certain facts, Andy was trying to size the whole situation. He knew that The Shadow was in New Orleans; that the cloaked fighter had helpers who looked like Aztecs, but were not. a.s.suming that the squatly man on the Amazonia was one of The Shadow's Xincas, Andy naturally presumed that Yvonne had seen men of the same type at the time of her uncle's death.
She could have mistaken them for the killers, and supposed that they were the men The Shadow battled later. But she talked of many, not a mere few, which rather puzzled Andy. He didn't want to fall into the same error as the police, that of regarding Yvonne's story as sheer imagination. But he found himself taking a halfway view of it.
It never occurred to Andy that The Shadow might not have brought his Xincas to New Orleans at all.
But Andy Ames did strike upon the theory that the Xincas themselves might be wors.h.i.+ppers of Xitli, who had suddenly revolted against their proper chief, The Shadow.
The idea gave Andy qualms, for it brought back the question of last night: how had The Shadow fared after staggering off into the night, as Yvonne had described?
FROM the window of his office in the Mayan Museum, Fitzhugh Salter was watching Andy Ames stroll slowly along the street. The smug curator evidently guessed that Andy was in a quandary, for his smile had broadened by the time Andy was out of sight.
Returning to his desk, Salter began to thumb through a sheaf of typewritten sheets that pertained to the ancient Mayan language. These were revisions of an earlier ma.n.u.script that the museum had already published. The work engrossed Salter so completely that it was dark when he again looked toward the window. It was time to close the museum, so Salter went out and locked the door, but did not leave. Instead, he returned to his office and drew the window shades down.
To all appearances the museum was closed for the night. Deep dusk was settling when a taxicab stopped at the nearest corner and a man alighted from it. As soon as the cab had left, the man walked toward the museum and stopped to gaze at the great pyramid. There was still enough light to show his face; it was the withery countenance of Professor Darius Hedwin.
Like probing gimlets, the professor's sharp eyes picked out a tiny crack of light that issued past one of the drawn shades in Salter's office. For a short while Hedwin rubbed his chin; then, giving a cackly laugh, the professor sidled away in stoop-shouldered fas.h.i.+on off into the increasing darkness.
This was a cloudy evening. Tonight the shrubbery was invisible. Only the museum itself could be seen - like ghostly steps, moving up toward the blackened sky. A perfect night for an outsider to approach unseen. Once inside the museum, anyone could prowl at will.
Thus it was not surprising that things occurred, a short while later, on the top floor of the pyramid.
As on the previous night, the flame-robed, green-masked figure of Xitli made a sudden appearance from the room that held the costumes. His casting of a chemical flare was the signal that brought a horde of Aztecs from their hiding places to greet their feathered chief.
This time the door of the throne room stood wide. When Xitli entered and took to his throne, the Aztecs followed at the fire G.o.d's beckon.
Xitli questioned them with brief, hissed words. They gave their story of the night before. Xitli sat silent, his eyes glistening through the inlaid jet that formed the eye slits of his mask. The Aztecs waited fearfully, until his hissed voice came again, telling them that what they had done was good.
Evidently Xitli was pleased because of Carland's death; enough so to excuse his followers for their failure to slay Yvonne and their inability to overwhelm The Shadow. Then, in his same forced tone, the fire G.o.d spoke new instructions, which the crouching Aztecs accepted as absolute. A fling of Xitli's hand produced a glare that dazzled them; then Xitli was gone.
Stealthily, the Aztecs stole down the stairs, to find the exit that took them out into the night. Later there was a rumble of the elevator which signified that Xitli, too, had come down from the top-most floor. But the thick darkness outside the museum was too deep to reveal any departure by those who had a.s.sembled in the throne room.
The gleam of street lamps a block away did show a pair of squatly men moving from the direction of the Mayan Museum. It was fortunate that Andy Ames was not on hand to view that pair. He would have believed that his doubtful theories were actually correct. For the two who pa.s.sed that light were not Aztecs; they were The Shadow's Xinca servants, mysteriously arrived in New Orleans!
WHILE strange events were occurring near the Mayan Museum, Andy Ames was dining with Yvonne Carland in a private room of the second floor of a French restaurant. They were avoiding discussion of the night before; rather, their talk concerned the future as a relief from the horrible past.
Though Yvonne regretted her uncle's death, Andy knew quite well that she held no sentiment for James Carland. Yvonne's own parents were dead, and it had been Carland's duty to administer the small fund that they had left their daughter. Yvonne had been living with her uncle not just as a measure of economy, but because she knew that she would have to watch her money as long as he held control of it.
All that was ended; from now on Yvonne could handle her own affairs. She was to inherit Carland's money; too; but his estate consisted largely of debts. They were not the sort that Yvonne would ever have to pay; still, they worried her.
”When Mr. Talborn arrives,” declared Yvonne, ”I am going to tell him that whatever money is left will go to the museum fund toward the pledge that my uncle did not keep.”
”Talborn will be glad to hear it,” returned Andy, ”if he ever gets here. I wonder what's keeping him? I called him right after I left the museum, and he said he would join us within an hour. But it's been more than that -”
There was an interrupting knock, followed by Talborn himself. Smiling apologetically, the affable exporter explained his delay. There had been some mix-up in a cotton s.h.i.+pment which had forced him to remain at his office. Seating himself at the table, Talborn ordered dinner. His smile faded suddenly when Yvonne began: ”There is something I must tell you, Mr. Talborn. It concerns my uncle and the money he pledged to the museum -”
”One moment, Yvonne,” Talborn interrupted. ”I think that we should consider that particular subject as closed. None of the men who took over his pledges - that is, persons like myself - felt any animosity toward James Carland. I, for one, could not possibly have been responsible for his death.”
Talborn's manner rather shocked Yvonne, particularly as she had not intended to blame him. Knowing what was in Yvonne's mind, Andy promptly intervened by questioning Talborn very bluntly: ”Who do you think might be responsible?”
”I don't know,” returned Talborn, ”but there were persons whose plans were badly hampered when Carland failed to supply the promised funds.”
Andy went hot beneath his collar. One such person might be Fitzhugh Salter, whose job as curator had depended on the completion of the Mayan Museum. Another happened to be Professor Hedwin, who had faced the problem of a stranded expedition in Yucatan. But Andy himself had been with the expedition and could take Talborn's thrust as a personal one.
It was Yvonne who tactfully veered the discussion to safer ground. Quite coolly, she said: ”I was starting to tell you, Mr. Talborn, that I intend to pay my uncle's pledge, in part, at least, from whatever funds his estate provides.”
Immediately Talborn became his affable self, but his head-shake was a doubtful one.
”A generous offer,” he said, ”but I doubt that Carland's debts will be covered. You must remember that he owed fifty thousand dollars to Eugene Brendle, in return for which he gave the worthless marshland.”
Yvonne's lips tightened. She had to agree that the so-called rice fields were worthless. Too often she had heard her uncle boast of the shrewd deal that he had made when he borrowed the cash from Brendle. He said that if he failed to promote the rice fields, he would let Brendle keep the swampland.
”Mr. Brendle will come first,” a.s.sured Yvonne. ”When I see him I shall tell him so.” YVONNE hadn't long to wait. At that moment Brendle made an unexpected entrance. The stocky contractor was quite excited and greatly pleased to see Yvonne. He pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to the girl.
”For your uncle,” said Brendle. ”They sent it over to my office. It's from Jonathan Dorn, the man who was going to finance the rice fields. I've been looking all over town for you, Yvonne.”
The telegram stated that Dorn was arriving on his yacht that evening and would expect Carland to meet him. The yacht was to dock on Lake Pontchartrain, in the northern section of New Orleans. Quite obviously, Dorn had not heard of Carland's death.
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