The Shadow - Serpents Of Siva Part 3

"Let us say then, that our thanks are mutual."

"Yes. Our thanks to each other."

Lucille gave a mild laugh when she heard Harry's statement. They were riding along a lighted boulevard; Harry could see her head shake.

"Not thanks to each other" - Lucille's laugh had ended; her tone was serious - "but thanks from both of us, to Siva."

"To Siva?" Harry spoke as though puzzled, to cover his eagerness. "Who is Siva?"

"A strange and mighty power," replied Lucille, "who holds the keys to life and death. You saw the image of Siva, this afternoon, upon the yacht."

"You mean that little token that you dropped?"

"Yes. Here it is. Be careful of it."

Lucille placed the golden curio in Harry's hand. As he examined it, Harry remembered comments that Cranston had made, after hearing a description of the tiny figure. Cranston had identified it as a replica of the Hindu G.o.d Siva; a miniature of the many idols that represented that Oriental deity.

Not only that. In the fas.h.i.+on of Cranston, The Shadow had told Harry more.

Lucille Mayland was not the only person who carried and valued one of these golden tokens. The Shadow had met others who seemed to regard them as mystic talismans.

"I spoke of death," recalled Lucille, in a far-away tone. "Of those who do not understand it. We, who follow Siva, know the truths of life and death."

Harry was so interested in the image, that he scarcely caught Lucille'swords. He had noted the jeweled eyes and spiky arms; but he was puzzled over the carved necklace beneath the three heads of Siva. Lucille saw his interest.

"The necklace," she remarked, "consists of serpents and skulls. They represent life and death."

Serpents and skulls!

The contrast struck home to Harry. Those creatures on the Wanderer were like human serpents! One had disposed of Rodney Welk. The skull of death could stand for Welk!

Did Lucille recognize the grim significance of those symbols?

Harry looked toward the girl, in hope that she might betray an answer.

Her eyes showed no flinch. Her lips were forming their half smile, as she plucked the Siva image from Harry.

"I am sorry," spoke Lucille, almost sadly, "to learn that you are not interested in Siva."

"I am," affirmed Harry, earnestly. "My apologies, Miss Mayland. I was so intrigued by the image, that I scarcely heard your comment. You spoke of life and death -"

"Yes. Siva controls them. We, of Siva, are guarded against death. I was protected tonight, and so were you."

"But I carry no image of Siva"

"This one was sufficient. Its charm fulfilled my wish that you - like myself - would experience no harm."

LUCILLE spoke the words with full belief. Harry hated to show agreement with such superst.i.tion; but it was his only course. His present duty was to learn all he could, in reference to the Siva cult, of which Lucille was obviously a member.

"It amazes me," spoke Harry, "that those who carry a miniature Siva can protect anyone they wish -"

"Only when the other person is close at hand," interposed Lucille. "The danger must be recognized, and visible."

"Then, unless we are together -"

"Siva cannot protect you. Unless you carry a charm of your own.

Otherwise, you may become like -"

Lucille paused. Her lips showed bitterness. She glanced toward Harry, saw that his expression was sympathetic. Abruptly, Lucille asked: "Do you know Courtney Rensh.e.l.l?"

Harry could not recall the name.

"He was my fiance," explained Lucille. "It was Courtney who first took me to see Siva. I learned, later, that he considered the whole matter as a jest; but that was not until I had gained the belief which Courtney pretended.

"We quarreled because of Siva. Since then, I have not seen Courtney, nor have I heard from him. But I have seen Siva - often. I mean the real Siva."

The big car was rolling easily along a Manhattan avenue; for some reason, the chauffeur was making the trip a slow one. Harry noted the fact; guessed that it was at Cranston's order. The Shadow was giving Harry ample time to talk with Lucille.

"You have seen Siva!" Harry faked an awed tone. "The real Siva! What a privilege that must be."

"You would like to see Siva?" questioned Lucille. "Do you think that you could believe?"

"What else?" queried Harry. "After tonight, when I was rescued by some strange, mysterious power -"

"You heard it, too," put in Lucille. "That tone from the darkness - the voice of Siva!"

Harry nodded, realizing that through her blind belief in Siva, Lucillehad supposed the laugh of The Shadow to be a manifestation of some supernatural presence. With that nod, Harry captured Lucille's full confidence.

The limousine turned a corner; it slid past the lighted front of an apartment house. Entering the obscurity of a blackened street, it halted before a grim old house, where a number shone from a dim transom over the huge front door.

"Tomorrow night," whispered Lucille, her fingers pressing Harry's hand.

"Come here, alone. We shall go together, to see Siva. But say nothing to my grandfather!"

They stepped from the car. Harry accompanied Lucille up the brownstone steps, helped her unlock the big door. When he returned to the limousine, Harry felt a chill. Perhaps it was the rawness of the night; but, somehow, the sensation was linked with that somber old house, clamped between two dismal untenanted mansions.

When the limousine had gone, blackness glided from the obscurity of a house wall. A cloaked shape showed momentarily, near a street lamp; then merged with the night. The presence of that figure supplied another reason for the limousine's slow trip in from Long Island.

Harry Vincent had approached the home of Morton Mayland, a mansion where doom existed. During his brief pause there, he had been under a protection that had already proven itself more potent than the supposed power of Siva.

Harry's safety had been a.s.sured by The Shadow!

CHAPTER VI.

PATHS IN THE NIGHT.

INSPECTOR JOE CARDONA was a man who balanced speech with silence. Once he had voiced a theory, he became a clam. Cardona had found that such a system worked two ways. If his opinions proved correct, he could point to them. If they turned out wrong, the less that he had said the better.

That policy had become a habit with Cardona. He applied it to the death of Rodney Welk. The case was an accidental drowning; that settled it. As for the battle on the Wanderer, two mobs of water rats had chosen the cruiser's dock as their skirmish ground for the settlement of old scores. That was all.

It remained for the newspapers, particularly the tabloids, to see mystery behind the double event. They played up pictures of Welk, the Wanderer, and the pier; even the dory races at the Regatta Club. They went into the past histories of crooks who had been wounded in the gun fight.

All that was a laugh to Joe Cardona. He had spent a full afternoon at the hospital quizzing bandaged hoodlums, only to get the same answers that two of the lot had given him the night before. Nevertheless, Cardona was a trifle irked.

If the newspapers kept up all this hullabaloo what would the public think?

Cardona didn't like rumors that had no facts to back them. It was tough enough, having unsolved crimes on the books, without a bunch of news hounds faking situations that did not exist.

Worst of all, when Cardona said nothing, reporters always took it that heknew a lot he did not care to tell. It made a bad mess while it lasted; still, silence was the only way to handle it. All this newspaper hok.u.m would fade out after a few days. But, meanwhile, it was a nuisance.

Cardona had proof of that just before dinner time, when he received a message from the police commissioner. The commissioner wanted Cardona to call on some old fossil named Phineas Leeth, who lived at the Ritz Plaza. Leeth, it appeared, had bags of money, and was worried over what he termed the "Welk case."

As Cardona a.n.a.lyzed it, the old boy probably had the notion that wealthy people were getting a suicide complex, and wanted to be talked out of it.

IT was half past seven when Cardona sat with Leeth in the latter's richly furnished hotel suite. Leeth was a stoop-shouldered chap who sat crouched in his chair, a big walking stick close at hand, in case he wanted to hobble anywhere.

His face was long and droopy, his head completely bald. But his eyes, when they could shake their weariness, had a sparkle that made him look like an old eagle watching from its nest.

"About this Welk case," insisted Leeth, in a crisp tone. "Is there nothing, inspector, to support these newspaper rumors regarding it?"

Cardona shook his head; made a gesture with his hands.

"Odd. Very odd." Leeth didn't seem fully satisfied. Then: "Those wounded men, aboard the cabin cruiser - were they all Americans?"

"I guess you'd call them that," grunted Cardona, "although they've got a lot of funny names."

"Were any of them Orientals?"

"You mean Chinese? No, there wasn't a c.h.i.n.k in the bunch. They don't run dope, Mr. Leeth; they smoke it."

Leeth shook his head wearily.

"I wasn't thinking of Chinese," he said. "I was interested in Hindus."

The thought struck Cardona as an odd one; so unusual that it interested him. He had seen enough of Leeth to recognize that the old man was no dummy.

Joe put a direct query.

"We didn't run into any Hindus," he declared. "But what makes you ask about them?"

Leeth gave a relieved smile.

"That settles my chief worry," he declared. "Still" - he stroked his parchment chin - "I wonder about Rensh.e.l.l, and Sarmon."

"Who are they?"

Leeth explained. Rensh.e.l.l was a man whom he had met on several occasions; his full name was Courtney Rensh.e.l.l. Only recently, a young man named Jack Sarmon had visited Leeth. Claiming to be a friend of Rensh.e.l.l's, Sarmon declared that Rensh.e.l.l had disappeared.

"And today," finished Leeth, "Sarmon was to call here, without fail. He did not arrive."

Cardona was writing down the names. Suddenly, he asked: "Where do the Hindus fit into it?"

"They have no real connection," replied Leeth, "considering that you have no reports on them. It merely happens that I knew Courtney Rensh.e.l.l through our mutual interest in a cult devoted to the Hindu G.o.d, Siva."

From a vest pocket, Leeth produced a tiny Siva image, the exact duplicate of the one Lucille carried. He pa.s.sed it to Cardona, who held it under lamplight, where the tiny jeweled eyes twinkled with a dazzling glitter.

"That talisman," announced Leeth, soberly, "protects any person who carries it. So we have been told by Singhar Bund, guardian of the mighty Siva statue."

"You mean that Singhar Bund runs the outfit?" demanded Cardona. "Thathe's got one of these three-headed freaks built on a large scale?"

Leeth nodded, wincing as he did. He didn't care for Cardona's description of Siva. Joe noted it; decided not to repeat the mistake. He asked where the cult met. Leeth told him the address. When Cardona asked when the next meeting was scheduled, Leeth replied: "Tonight."

That news enthused Cardona. He asked Leeth if visitors could attend the meeting.

"They are always welcome," declared the long-faced man, "if they are brought by members, like myself. I feel sure that Singhar Bund will welcome you, inspector. I shall be pleased to introduce you."

"As myself?" queried Cardona. Then, answering his own question: "Not a chance! That would queer everything. You wait here half an hour, Mr. Leeth, until I come back. Then I'll be ready to go to that meeting with you."

WHILE Cardona was obtaining a short-cut direct to the Siva cult, another investigator was busy elsewhere. The Shadow was in his sanctum, studying a stack of information. That data included reports from agents, newspaper clippings, photographs, together with an a.s.sortment of other items.

Beneath a bluish light, long fingers inscribed outstanding facts concerning a list of names.

First were the names of persons who had died in supposed accidents, like Rodney Welk. With them were names of heirs who had received legacies from the wealthy victims. In every case, one heir was a person whose manner resembled that of Lucille Mayland.

Since Lucille was admittedly a member of the Siva cult, The Shadow checked on Morton Mayland. Here, the case differed. Lucille's grandfather was not wealthy. He spent money in odd fas.h.i.+ons; but apparently curtailed other expenditures by doing so.

One quirk was his desire for isolation. He owned the house in which he lived; also those on each side of it. He refused, however, to rent or sell the adjacent houses, claiming that neighbors annoyed him.

Morton Mayland had an income that amounted to a few thousand dollars yearly. It came from a royalty on patented electrical appliances that he had invented. The patents were controlled by a manufacturer named Louis Bolingbroke, whose wealth ran into millions.

That, reports told, was a sore point with Mayland. The old man believed that Bolingbroke had swindled him. Old clippings told of lawsuits inst.i.tuted by Mayland; in every case, they had gone against him.

Facts jotted down, The Shadow plucked earphones from the wall. A tiny light glowed; a methodical voice came across the wire: "Burbank speaking."

Burbank, another secret agent of The Shadow, was his contact man.

"Instructions," then whispered The Shadow. "For Vincent -"

The instructions followed, to be relayed by Burbank. They included names and descriptions of persons that Harry might meet at the Siva meeting. Such word given, The Shadow hung up the earphones, snapped off the light.

There was a whispered laugh within the blotted sanctum: The Shadow's tone of departure.