Part 5 (1/2)

A man was running to the car, a man who could have been anybody in that speckled moonlight. He yanked the door open and flung himself into the car all in one manoeuver. The door went slam just as the dogs arrived to leap at the car windows. They were huge dogs, matching the size of their deep-throated howls. Amid that tumult, The Shadow heard the shriek of a self-starter, then the sudden roar of a motor.

The car lurched forward toward the barn, the only direction that it could go. The yard was large enough for it to wheel around, but it didn't reappear as it properly should have. The Shadow didn't have to guess why. He heard the reason: shot-guns.

Apparently Farmer Tramrick was entertaining a group of visiting grangers for just such an occasion as this. Hare-brained with their hair-trigger weapons, they were repeating their system of the previous night.

The man in the car was doing exactly what The Shadow had under similar circ.u.mstances; he was taking the quickest way out before that shooting could become accurate as well as hasty.

The one way out was through the big barn. The Shadow recognized it as he raced in that direction. As the crash came, he made a sharp swerve to avoid what he knew would come in his direction.

It came. The car that was the target of the shot-guns came smas.h.i.+ng through the rear exit of the barn. The door was ripped apart like tinder. It wasn't damaging to the car. The unwieldy door was flimsy, but the result that followed was as tremendous as it was unexpected.

In the wake of the car came an explosion that sounded like a huge sigh. In a single instant, flames lifted through the barn, filling the whole interior!

Spontaneous though this combustion seemed, it was too huge to be a chance conflagration. It was like the holocaust at the Old Bridge Tavern, which The Shadow had attributed to a heavy dose of thermite. In that instance, the flaming outburst had followed what seemed a chance stroke of lightning. Here, it followed the forced pa.s.sage of a car through a barn. But it would be stretching the imagination beyond all reason to suppose that anything like a backfire or a static electric spark from the car could have produced this immediate pyre.

Something was flung from the car. An incendiary bomb was a plausible answer; or better, a pair of such missiles. The flames were arching from both sides of the barn, to join in a fiery curtain behind the escaping car. It was all the work of a few brief seconds. During those few ticks of the clock, the car could not have halted in its devastating drive.

Nor did it halt now. It swerved to avoid a patch of brambles. Then it whipped around the other way.

From his angle, The Shadow gained a quick look through one closed window. He could see the driverbent low across the wheel. To identify him in those fleeting glimpses was impossible. The car was carving into darkness during those moments. By the time it had wheeled around the barn to head toward the only exit from the farmyard, the whole scene was illuminated.

The great barn was becoming a mighty torch. Flames were scorching up through the long slants of the roof. The tremendous puff had ignited the haymow.

However well the perpetrator of this incendiary act had planned it, the escape of the car was the real pay-off. The visiting farmers forgot the firebug the moment they saw the barn ignite. They came das.h.i.+ng from all directions to rescue the livestock. The car, cutting around in front, attracted the attention only of the dogs. They looked like a pack of h.e.l.lhounds, as they launched from the fiery background to chase the car out along the road.

There was one factor that could hardly have been included in the planning of this scene: The Shadow.

Maybe he was expected, but certainly no one could have guessed from what direction he would arrive.

He'd let the fugitive car speed by. That didn't mean he would permit its escape. Quite to the contrary, The Shadow took a supreme measure to prevent that very thing.

Instead of taking the hard way, through the flaming barn, or the long way around it, The Shadow picked the best of short-cuts that in addition promised an immediate result. Against the side wall of the barn was a shed, with a hen-house in back of it. The latter made a direct step to the former. While the departing car was still sloughing through the farmyard, The Shadow reached the shed top with a series of quick leaps. He hooked one arm through the frame of a broken window, while he aimed an automatic with his other hand.

Against the h.e.l.l-light from within the barn, The Shadow's black cloak took a crimson dye, reflected from the window, where the mountain of hay was in full blaze. Quite unperturbed, he intended to clip the fleeing car with long-range shots as soon as it came broadside on the road.

There were shouts from below and without changing aim, The Shadow looked across his shoulder to learn the cause. He saw it, in the shape of gesticulating farmers. They were calling to Claude Bigby as he came around in back of the barn. With him was an excited man who was obviously Martin Tramrick.

The farmers had seen The Shadow and were pointing to him. Before Bigby could restrain them, Tramrick howled for them to shoot down this monster. His very location marked him as the fiend responsible for the conflagration. Shot-guns came up without reluctance.

This had all the ear-marks of The Shadow's final dilemma, the event that was to end his long career.

There wasn't time to cross the shed roof and leap to the ground before those shot-guns blazed. To start shooting at the farmers with the automatic wouldn't help. Not only would The Shadow have to wheel, there were too many shot-gunners. Even though The Shadow could have chopped down innocent men in the interest of his own self-preservation, this was something he wouldn't do.

Beside The Shadow was a window already caving under the heat of the gorging fire. To go through it meant a literal dive into a sea of destroying flame.

The Shadow really needed a friend. Quickly.

It happened that The Shadow's situation was not unique. Tuned to that dramatic instant came the cry of another creature in a like predicament. That call was more anguished than any human tone. It floated up through the red-roaring billows at The Shadow's elbow. It was the tortured whinny of a fear-tormented horse. The terrified animal was trapped in a stall just below this sector of the hayloft. Only The Shadow heard that maddened neigh, which located itself to the exact angle. It proved that something still lived and breathed amid the holocaust, which was enough for The Shadow.

Without the fraction of an effort, The Shadow was gone in the most astounding of all his disappearances.

It took no effort to lean, which was all The Shadow did. He leaned against the window. It was already buckling, and accepted him like something that belonged where it was going. No longer blocked by a few panes and The Shadow's form, a cloud of white smoke swirled out. It billowed around the spot that The Shadow left, filling the momentary vacuum in grotesque imitation of the figure that had left it.

Shot-guns ripped a simultaneous volley that astounded the men who delivered it. The thing they saw happen simply couldn't.

Solid blackness transformed itself to whiteness, like something human turning ghostly. And it was ghostly indeed. The whitened figure disseminated into vapor of its own leisurely accord. It was as though it was mocking the men who thought they could harm it with something so impotent as a round of shot-gun slugs!

Trailing from the evanescent ghost came the sound of a strange laugh, like a farewell thinning off into the open air. That was The Shadow's final touch to keep the farmers guessing. He knew the sound would misdirect them. He wanted them to stay right where they were, for a few precious moments.

Besides, that confident laugh steeled The Shadow to his ordeal. Plunging into a wallow of smoke and flame to a goal picked by sound alone, was anything but a certainty. Here The Shadow was really using effort in a long, hard lurch toward the frantic, repeated whinny. Hay tangled him in its flaming ma.s.s as he buried his head in a cloak fold and hoped that the fiery obstruction would yield.

It gave. He plunged through the hay chute that lay above the stall. Solid whiteness bulked below. Amid the deceptive smoke, The Shadow swept the cloak aside. His fall was broken by the horse. He landed upon its ma.s.sive, quivering back. The Shadow flung away the burning hay that cl.u.s.tered him. With the same sweep of his cloak, he placed the black folds across the horse's head and eyes.

A hard swing of The Shadow's other hand landed full force on the horse's flank. His lips voiced a fierce tone into the steed's ear. Its fear blanketed along with its blinded eyes, the horse lurched forward. Its mad rush snapped the half-burned rope that held it.

Out from beneath an avalanche of falling eaves and timbers rode The Shadow. He crouched low, astride a thundering carrier whose equine fear had been transformed into a thirst for all the speed that it could give!

XII.

THE whole barn crumpled as The Shadow emerged in his wild ride. Through a yard full of huddled cattle and astonished farmers came a white horse that looked like the devil's own. n.o.body could doubt it, considering the flaming background that birthed the frantic animal and the master who urged him.

Astride the white horse, The Shadow, a contrast in black, could well be mistaken for a fiend incarnate.

He was riding straight at a cl.u.s.ter of men. They scattered as wildly as the burning hay that The Shadow was still flicking from his cloak. They didn't realize that his course was blind because the horse was hooded within those folds. The famed legend of the ”Headless Horseman” was totally eclipsed by The Shadow. He, to all appearances, was a phantom riding a headless horse. This illusion wasn't dispelled until The Shadow was practically clear of the barnyard. He whipped the cloak fold away from the horse's eyes.

With the fire well behind it, the horse behaved as a good steed should. It turned along the road and raced toward the fork. The Shadow was carried away from the occasional shot-gun blasts that were too far back to matter. Looking over his shoulder, The Shadow saw farmers das.h.i.+ng toward the house. They were apparently scrambling to help prevent the flames from reaching it. But there were others climbing into cars to pursue the mystery figure that had fled the burning barn.

Cars could overtake Tramrick's favorite horse, but they weren't going to catch The Shadow. As he neared the fork, he met the hounds coming back. He reined in the horse with the burnt rope end.

Rearing, the horse responded to The Shadow's tug. The steed stampeded the dogs by bringing its forefeet down among them. At the same time, The Shadow took a long leap to an embankment. He hurdled a stone wall and arrived beside the car where Margo was staring astonished by the things that were happening.

Next, The Shadow was at the wheel and driving back toward Lamira, at his accustomed speed. Yelps and neighs were far behind, growing more distant against the fading glow of the great barn fire. Likewise the headlights of pursuing cars were dwindling. Margo noticed this as she glanced through the back window. Meanwhile, she was telling The Shadow about a car that had whizzed past the fork.

”It was the same car,” insisted Margo, ”but I'm not sure that Creswold was driving it. Anyhow, he doesn't have a bigger start than he had before. You ought to overtake him before we reach Lamira.”

The Shadow did even better.

By the time he was coming around the bottom of the big hill, The Shadow spotted the other car. It was making a sharp reverse swing up into Brett's driveway. Knowing the sharp curve of the hill and the roundabout course of the drive, The Shadow simply slackened speed and drew Margo over as he went out through the door on his side of the car. In parting, he shot the quick order: ”Get back to Lamira. Watch for Creswold at the Star. I'll meet you there.”

Racing up the thinly wooded slope, The Shadow reached Brett's house from the back, or rather its most remote side, since there was no telling whether Future Haven had a front or back. He saw the mystery car reach the top of the drive. It made a twist beneath some trees, and parked with its lights off. By the time The Shadow reached the spot, he found the car deserted.

One thing certain: the man from the car couldn't have entered Brett's. The Shadow would certainly have spotted him in the moonlight. The only other place where he could have headed was down across the slope toward the lower end of Stony Run.

Away below, headlights were sweeping along the highway. The Shadow watched them. For once his form seemed tense, since those lights represented Margo driving back to Lamira. It was inconceivable that the man from the empty car could have reached that lower road in time to intercept Margo, but The Shadow hadn't forgotten Lenstrom's fate along that very stretch of highway.

The moonlight showed what might have been a relaxing of The Shadow's cloaked form when Margo's car safely reached the bridge across the Kawagha. She swung into Lamira. Then, as if to belie such an emotion as relief, The Shadow turned that slight gesture into a rapid whirl.

Again demonstrating the invisible speed of the night wind, he faded from the moonlight. A blaze ofheadlights appeared coming up the driveway.

It was Bigby with a batch of farmers.