Part 11 (1/2)
They could have used their guns; in fact, they were still ready to do so if the Aztec hatchets budged. But it was better policy to wait, for no shots could reach Xitli. Aztecs were blocking off the path of aim toward the fire G.o.d. This frozen scene at least meant life, if no one disturbed the situation.
It was the voice of Xitli that all awaited; the one tone that could decide between life and death.
The words from the green mask were harsh, yet lulling to the Aztecs. The chant faded and a weird silence gripped the throne room, wherein the slight crackle of the fire seemed to grow in accompaniment to the tone of Xitli. Then the fire G.o.d did a most singular thing.
Gripping the knife by its blade, he proffered the handle to Andy. With his other hand Xitli gestured toward Yvonne, motioning for Andy to cut the thongs that bound her.
Numbly, Andy did so, and he saw the girl's eyes open. A moment later he was lifting Yvonne to her feet, helping her past the fire where Aztecs stood immobile, their hatchets still upraised.
Andy heard the tone of Xitli, a voice that he recognized, speaking in English. As he reached the door he told the detectives to put their guns away. Andy still could not understand the situation, but he knew that he had been spared by Xitli and that the fire G.o.d was a friend.
The detectives pocketed their revolvers, and Xitli's followers lowered their stone hatchets. They retired to the walls and squatted there, like patient lions obeying the mandate of a trainer. Then Xitli himself was coming from the throne room to meet the group in the hall.
He stepped toward the costume room where the Aztecs could not see him. There he removed his mask, to reveal himself as Professor Hedwin.
”BE careful,” warned Hedwin in a low tone. ”The Aztecs must not know that I am one of you. They cannot be blamed for the murders which they committed. They did those deeds through ignorance.”
”You mean you aren't Xitli?” queried Andy. ”That is, you weren't the man who brought the Aztecs here?”
”A correct a.s.sumption,” returned Hedwin with a smile. ”In fact, I actually doubted my own theories for a while. But when I realized that the Xitli cult must actually exist, I decided to disband it. There was only one way: to pose as Xitli myself.”
Hedwin was taking off the headdress and the flame-hued robe. But his argument, though it appealed to Andy, did not go over with the detectives. They crowded in upon the old professor, then looked about for Salter. The curator had not yet arrived, but Eugene Brendle was on hand. He gave Hedwin a scathing look.
”It won't do, Hedwin,” declared Brendle. ”The proof is all against you. Smart business, trying to frame an alibi, but it won't go, under the circ.u.mstances.”
”The proof is against me?” queried Hedwin. ”You mean these?” He shoved the robe, the mask, into Brendle's hands, along with the headdress. ”Bah! What do they mean? Put them back where they belong in the costume room. Let the real Xitli have them when he comes.” ”The real Xitli?”
”Yes.” Pressing Brendle aside, Hedwin pointed a bony finger toward a man who was coming from the corner of the corridor. ”Here he is!”
The man was Fitzhugh Salter. He was still breathless from his spill outside the office. Before Salter could say a word, Hedwin had the floor.
”I watched you, Salter,” cackled the professor. ”Night after night you came to the museum, thinking that no one knew it. But I understood your game. While you pretended that my theories were worthless, you were gathering the Xitli clan.
”You knew that I detested Carland and Dorn. But so did you, Salter. You found a perfect way to murder them, for which I cannot entirely blame you. But it was despicable on your part to throw the guilt on me!”
In his harangue, Hedwin made no mention of Talborn's treasure, which in itself provided a profit motive for the crimes of Xitli. But the question of the treasure merely weighed each side of the balance between Hedwin and Salter.
Either of the two could have learned what Talborn had done. Hedwin might have looked over the s.h.i.+pments from Mexico, while Salter had such opportunity upon their arrival in New Orleans.
”Call Brendle,” suggested Hedwin, turning to Andy. ”Have him bring back the Xitli costume. Or better still, suppose we take Salter to the costume room and let him put on the regalia. We'll make him show himself as Xitli!”
His face thrust close to Salter's, Hedwin gave the curator a fierce glare. Quite undisturbed, the curator finally found his breath and turned to the detectives.
”Does Hedwin know about the recordings?” he questioned. ”If he did, he might change his tune.
Suppose” - Salter was smiling as the detectives shook their heads - ”that I tell him.”
A baffled look came over Hedwin's face. Then Salter was detailing the scene that had taken place in the office; how, on the night before, he had also listened in on a meeting of the Xitli cult and had kept a record of it.
Hedwin couldn't seem to find an answer; even Andy, whose leanings had turned toward the professor, was convinced by Salter's argument. Only Yvonne still had a plea for Hedwin.
”I shouldn't have screamed,” she told Andy earnestly. ”When Xitli held the knife above me, my nerves gave way. But he was only trying to quiet the Aztecs.”
”Quite right,” agreed Hedwin quickly. ”I told them that the sacrifice should wait until they returned to Mexico. I had to go through all the drama of an actual threat to show them that Xitli could restrain his hand at the very moment of a sacrifice.”
THE detectives were not restraining their hands. They had heard enough of Hedwin's alibis. They started to drag Hedwin toward the elevator, and the professor made no protest. Right then Salter inserted a single word: ”Wait!”
Surprised that Salter would intervene for Hedwin, the detectives halted. Facing the slumped professor,Salter spoke in a tone of marked apology.
”I believe your story, Hedwin,” he said simply. ”But first I had to prove my own. I was never Xitli; neither were you until tonight. Do you remember” - Salter had turned to Andy and the detectives - ”how I tried to hold you back downstairs?
”It was because I understood the things that Xitli was saying when Yvonne screamed. He was telling them that there had been enough of blood, that they were to leave this land as they had come here. He said that Xitli would dwell alone within his temple.
”But that was not all. The voice of Xitli was more fluent than it was last night. Then he spoke only in forced phrases; tonight he used the language as if it were his own.
”I have satisfied everyone that I was not Xitli, now I declare Hedwin innocent, too. The proof is in my office. You will all recognize it when I play the records. You will hear the voice of the Xitli that we seek, the one who actually demanded murder -”
They heard it without going to Salter's office. It came from behind them at the very door of the throne room, which everyone had forgotten. Turning about, the startled group saw Xitli himself, come upon them so suddenly that he seemed actually to have materialized himself like a genuine G.o.d of fire.
Masked, feathered, in full regalia, Xitli was throating the order to his Aztecs, who still occupied the throne room - an order which, even to those who lacked all knowledge of Mayan, could mean but one thing. Death!
CHAPTER XX. THE FINAL DUEL.
THE surge toward Xitli was immediate but hopeless. Before Andy and the detectives could bring their guns into action, the feathered fire G.o.d had swept into his throne room.
Hoping to stop him before he roused the Aztecs, the attackers swarmed through the door, only to be met by lunging men with swinging hatchets. Well did Xitli know the speed with which his Aztecs acted, how little they feared death themselves.
In one swift instant it seemed that doom was certain for Andy and the over-ardent detectives. Then, without a single gunshot, Aztecs were plunging headlong to the floor, tripped by two of their own companions - the men nearest the door. A pair of squatly blockers had literally flung themselves in front of the surging horde.
They were not Aztecs, those two, even though they had pa.s.sed as such in the flickering glow of the throne room. They were The Shadow's Xincas, sent to the meeting by their chief with orders to thwart murder when the time came.
The fact that they had not intervened earlier was proof that Hedwin's story was true. All along the Xincas had known that Hedwin, garbed as Xitli, was trying to calm the cult.
But it was a different Xitli who now commanded. His attacking Aztecs had been slowed, but not stopped. Andy and the detectives were plunging into battle, unwisely giving the Aztecs the close range that the squatly fighters liked. Above all rose the triumphant voice of Xitli, with its loud command to kill.
Only a power more startling than Xitli's could turn the tide. Such a power did.
It began with a roar from the throne of the fire G.o.d toward which Xitli himself had turned. The roar was the splitting of the built-in throne as it spread in two parts, revealing a black pa.s.sage behind it. From the blackness came a challenging laugh, the mockery of an invisible foe. At that mirth, Aztecs turned, for they knew the fighter that it meant.
Xitli himself tried to drown the challenge with another cry to kill, but the tone of The Shadow, increased by the hollow behind the throne, still dominated.