Part 3 (1/2)
Wheeling to the living members of the Krewe, Selbert snapped a fresh challenge.
”Chardelle was dealing with some really big shots,” a.s.serted Selbert. ”He couldn't have risked letting them down and he must have known it. His only way to be safe was to cut you fellows in on the deal!”
”Except that we wouldn't have listened,” expressed Aldion, indignantly.
”As Seneschal, I'd have voted against such a thing!”
”As Seneschal, you would have no vote,” reminded old Tourville, ”nor would I as Scribe.” Producing a scroll, Tourville pa.s.sed it to Selbert. ”Read by-law 5-A, Captain, and you will see that King Satan has complete say on all matters of policy concerning the Krewe of Hades.”
”But this would be different,” argued Aldion. ”It doesn't come under the head of policy -”
”All lotteries are policy,” interrupted Selbert, ”and without intending to be funny, I'd say that Scribe Tourville is right. All that Chardelle had to do was take it up with King Satan, which meant Ferrand. You fellows didn't count.
The most you could do was quit.”
Tucking the scroll in his pocket, Selbert went into another tack.
”When did any of you last see Ferrand?”
Tourville shook his head and Aldion shrugged. Then Aldion stated: ”We haven't seen Ferrand for some time. He's been moping, you know, over girl trouble.”
Selbert raised his eyebrows to show he didn't know.
”Ferrand was going down to the bayou country, the last we heard,” added Tourville. ”I instructed Chardelle to find out if Ferrand would be back in time, and Chardelle a.s.sured me that he would.”
Another idea was growing in Seibert's mind.
”You gave a lot of orders to Chardelle, didn't you, Tourville?”
”As Scribe of the Krewe of the Knights of Hades,” returned Tourville, with dignity, ”I am special deputy to His Majesty, King Satan. It is my prerogative to a.s.sign certain tasks to the Seneschal, and lesser details to theMessenger.”
”We'll take over your duties,” a.s.serted Seibert, a trifle sarcastically, ”and it would please us, Scribe, if you would tell us where His Murderous Majesty might happen to have gone at present?”
”King Satan is answerable to no one but himself.” Tourville was still taking his mummery seriously. ”But it is his wont on Mardi Gras night to appear but briefly at the functions of the other Krewes.”
”Good,” decided Seibert, ”we'll start a man-hunt or a devil-hunt, just in case he's showing nerve enough to go through with the old routine.”
Turning to instruct the few police who were present with him, Seibert was pleased when the door opened and more arrived, including a few plain clothes men who were dressed as masqueraders since Carnival costumes were the equivalent of plain clothes on this final evening of Mardi Gras.
These arrivals were bringing news of ma.s.sed battle on a Humpty Dumpty float, and by questioning survivors they had learned that it traced back to the Hoodoo House that operated as the Devil's Den. Paramount was the account of a cloaked masker who had cracked loose from within a steel egg and gone his way into the night.
”Somebody masking as The Shadow -”
Before the informing detective could go further, the man named Shorke made an excited interruption.
”He must be the one who took the prize money!” Shorke's plea was addressed to Seibert. ”I couldn't see him in the dark so he answers the description.”
Waving for silence, Seibert inquired: ”Any reports on The Shadow?”
”He was seen earlier,” informed a detective, ”when he ran into a man with a Mephisto Mask up toward Ca.n.a.l Street.”
Seibert's eyes narrowed.
”Go on.”
”And there was a girl with him,” added the detective. ”She was wearing a Columbine costume. Short skirts and long legs -”
”She's the one who was here!” broke in Shorke. ”When I told her I'd been robbed, she didn't wait around!”
”Any further reports?” queried Selbert, briskly. ”I mean on the Devil, The Shadow, or Miss Columbine?”
The detective nodded.
”Somebody saw the girl over at Exchange Place.”
”Then what are we waiting for?” demanded Selbert. Turning to his own squad, he waved for them to take charge; then to the rest, he ordered: ”Come on!”
The hunt had started and which it produced first, The Shadow or King Satan, Jim Selbert didn't seem to care!
CHAPTER VII.
ITEM by item, Lamont Cranston had connected the details that Margo Lane remembered from her grueling experience in the Devil's Den. On the table-cloth, Cranston had drawn a complete plan of the neighborhood around Hoodoo House as well as the interior of the building itself, the latter copied from Margo's descriptions.
Carefully, Cranston was marking crosses and dotted lines to represent various partic.i.p.ants and their courses, when the sound of a police siren reached him. They just couldn't seem to get along without sirens, even in NewOrleans.
So rapidly that Margo wondered what it was all about, Cranston came up from his chair and whisked her behind an open door.
”Stay there,” he warned, ”until after they all come through. Then go out the front way, because they'll have forgotten all about it. Here” - Cranston whipped away the table-cloth with its penciled evidence - ”throw this over your head and shoulders and masquerade as a ghost until you get back to your hotel.
Then get out of that Columbine costume and hide it!”
Footsteps were pounding up the stairs while Margo was enveloping herself in the white drape and Cranston similarly was robing himself in black as he resumed the costume of The Shadow. Instead of looking for some place of concealment, he started for the door, showed himself in full light, and wheeled in the opposite direction.
Shouts from arriving police were drowned by the crash of a window. Next, the officers were storming through the deserted cafe on the trail of someone who was making as remarkable a flight as the one that Margo had attributed to King Satan.
Almost as remarkable but not quite.
No one had caught a glimpse of the crimson-clad Devil who had flown from Hoodoo House, but there were plenty of fleeting glimpses of The Shadow, despite his black attire.
That in a sense made The Shadow's trail more remarkable.
The Shadow intended to draw pursuers after him. He was spotted when he dropped from a low roof to the street; seen again when he cut diagonally to another sidewalk. Through a narrow alley which had once been a rendezvous for fencing masters, The Shadow showed a suitable technique by parrying the police clubs that swung at him.
Once through the alley, The Shadow evaporated. He had drawn the whole man-hunt, including Captain Selbert, along his own course, leaving n.o.body to witness the departure of an improvised ghost from the upstairs cafe back in Exchange Place.