Part 2 (1/2)
Such was The Shadow's present objective. To attain it, he took to what seemed flight as he zigzagged to the s.p.a.ce beyond the graveyard and took an elusive course toward the crag above the Glen. Yet Herb and Luke persisted in keeping after him, though to them The Shadow had become no more than a streak of fleeting darkness.
Roger and the others had arrived beside the mausoleum. Staring through the clouding moonlight, they couldn't trace the living patch of blackness that still attracted the two yokels. Torrance was explaining who Herb and Luke were, at the same time attributing their mad dash to fright. Suddenly remembering that there was a third man in the local group, Torrance exclaimed: ”Where is Zeph Blaine?”
”There was another man over there.” With a long finger, Jennifer pointed off among the tombstones, marking the exact spot of Zeph's encounter with Dorthan. ”But he was not the one who came here.”
By ”here” Jennifer meant the mausoleum, which she indicated with a back sweep of her hand. Roger turned to Torrance.
”Take a look in the crypt, doc,” said Roger. ”Borrow Gustave's shotgun before he gets excited and lets it pop. I'll take Wiggam with me and hunt forZeph. If you have any trouble, yell.”
”But what about the others,” queried Torrance. ”If we don't stop them, they'll go off the edge of Lookout Rock.”
”They'll stop soon enough,” a.s.sured Roger. ”They're just trying to get clear of ghosts.”
Roger had it the wrong way about. The ghost that Herb and Luke were after was The Shadow and at that moment he was getting clear of them.
The Shadow had reached the crag termed Lookout Rock. There he was turning, intending to speed back toward the mansion and lose himself in the darkness of the graveyard while Herb and Luke would wonder where the black phantasm had gone.
Like something disgorged by the darkness of the trees, The Shadow formed a swirling patch upon the rock's gray surface. He seemed no more than the black streaks cast by high-weaving tree boughs as he poised to pick an opening between the blundering pursuers whom he had purposely led to this dead end.
The pause was just too long.
With a sudden gush, the moon poured its full glow through the s.p.a.ce between the trees. The cloud had pa.s.sed and the mighty orb was spotted straight on Lookout Rock. Where two men should have seen nothing, they spied a form as real as it was grotesque, the shape of The Shadow, as amazing as if it had sprung from the rock itself.
Savagely, Zeph's pals hurled themselves upon their fantastic prey. Rather than let their unwise fury carry them across the brink, The Shadow wheeled to meet them. They locked in a sudden grapple from which The Shadow writhed; then, with the moonlight still persisting, the cloaked grappler performed a singular ruse.
Dropping from the combined clutch of Herb and Luke, The Shadow twisted in the other direction. Like something dislodged from the crag, he slid over its k.n.o.bby edge, bound on a trip into the outer s.p.a.ce where he seemingly belonged!
THE SHADOW was sliding feet foremost. Face toward the rock, he dug his fingers hard as he went beyond its bulging surface. Legs and body dangling clear, he gave himself a pendulum swing back under the brow. Had his grip been firm, he would have pitched himself into the convenient s.p.a.ce below the crag, but his sliding fingers didn't quite suffice.
The Shadow's inward heave landed him just on the brink of the first sheer cliff. Down he went, unable to do more than slow his drop. He jolted as he struck the next stretch of the stone cascade and slid beyond, dropping down another of the giant steps.
Viewed from the Glen, The Shadow's spilling figure was a pygmy thing, descending the palisade in short, delayed drops, much like a beetle failing in its grip. He was still slipping when the trees of the gorge engulfed him, but as he left the moonlight, his forceful struggles were as evident as before.
Herb and Luke didn't view The Shadow's descent from that angle. In fact, they didn't see his drop at all. They were struggling on the top of Lookout Rock, each in the other's clutch. Simultaneously, they realized that the thing they fought was gone and they relaxed to stare in wonderment.
First they gazed at the rock itself; next they looked across the glade; finally, they craned from the brink and gazed below. They saw nothing; learned nothing.
The rock couldn't have swallowed The Shadow. There was no sign of him in midair. Nor was there any patch of blackness on the rocks below the greatstepped cliff. The two men finally decided that a thing that had vanished so completely must have been an illusion in the first place.
It didn't occur to that pair that The Shadow's lingering fall had kept him so close to the bottom of the lowest step that he was short of the angle at which they gazed. To these observers, the cliff looked sheer. They couldn't imagine anyone descending it by degrees.
BACK at the mausoleum, Dr. Torrance was standing with the leveled shotgun while Gustave turned a flashlight within the white-walled building. The glare showed vacancy; nothing more. The inner walls were the same stone as the outer.
The floor consisted of solid granite, two feet thick.
Stamping about the place, Torrance was soon convinced that the foundations were permanent. Even the mortar between the granite blocks was as solid as the stonework. Suspiciously, Torrance looked upward, telling Gustave to raise the flashlight. The flat ceiling of the mausoleum was quite as convincing as the floor and walls.
A light was bobbing toward the mausoleum. Turning, Torrance lowered the shotgun as he saw Wiggam stumbling toward him.
”Over there, doctor!” panted Wiggam, gesturing, across his shoulder.
”That man of yours - Zeph Blaine - he's dead. Mr. Roger will show you.”
Old Jennifer supplied a cloak.
”The ghost in the tower!” she reminded. ”When it appears, it means death.
Never has the omen failed!”
Giving Wiggam the shotgun, Torrance told him to guard the mausoleum.
Beckoned by Roger's flashlight, the doctor reached the spot where Zeph had struggled with Dorthan. Roger focused the light on a sight that wasn't pleasant.
p.r.o.ne on the ground, Zeph was partly obscured by an overturned tombstone.
Toppled from its base, the bulky block had landed on the man's head and shoulders, crus.h.i.+ng his skull. Poked from beneath the stone was Zeph's hand, loosely clutching a revolver. Picking up the gun, Torrance cracked it open; found that two shots had been fired.
”So the shots were Zeph's,” mused Torrance. ”He must have seen something or imagined it.”
Roger pointed to Zeph's left hand which was tightly clutched upon the side of the fallen tombstone.
”He must have grabbed the stone,” observed Roger. ”A bad thing to do when off balance. Most of these stones are wobbly.”
He turned the light on another and Torrance thrust his hand against the upright specimen to find that the tombstone did tilt under pressure. Pocketing Zeph's revolver, Torrance told Roger to accompany him into the house. When they arrived there, the doctor went up to the second floor, where they found Hector at his window.
From the window, they could see the top of the mausoleum. No one was lying upon it, hence Torrance decided that no ghost could have disappeared in that vicinity. So Torrance decided to have a look at the tower. They went to the doorway leading to its stairs.
The door was not only nailed shut; it had a padlock so rusty that it couldn't have been unlocked in years. Smas.h.i.+ng the lock with the b.u.t.t of Zeph's gun, Torrance pulled the door wide and threw a flashlight up the stairs. Atthe top of the steep steps was another door also padlocked.
The upper door wasn't nailed. because it opened inward. Breaking the lock, Torrance pushed the barrier open, to disclose a small landing only a few feet square. The only thing ghostly was the grating of the door hinges, which ended suddenly as the door jammed to a halt against the warped floor, a few inches short of the side wall.
The floor of the tower formed a five-foot square above the landing.
Access could be gained there by a ladder up the far wall of the landing. Gun in hand, Torrance boldly climbed the ladder, gave a quick thrust to the hinged boards of the tower floor and turned his head and arms about as he pressed through the opened s.p.a.ce. Roger and Hector were watching tensely, until they saw Torrance reach down and beckon.
They joined the doctor in the tower. There, all three stared about the open s.p.a.ce, their eyes wandering, puzzled, to the gable roof that had no rafters, but which was amply supplied with cracks and holes from years of disrepair.
Again the question of a phantasm remained unsolved. Whatever the thing that had been seen in the tower, ghost or human, it had disappeared as completely as the cloaked creature that had vanished from the brink of Lookout Rock.
Weird were the visitants seen at Stanbridge Manor and The Shadow held no monopoly to that claim!
CHAPTER V.
THE GHOST HUNT.
STANBRIDGE Manor had become famous.