Fingers of Death
- Автор: Грант Максвелл
- Серия: The Shadow #25
- Год: 1933
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Shadow Magazine
- Жанр: Крутые детективы
Электронная книга - «Fingers of Death». Краткое содержание книги:
It was evident that The Shadow knew all about Josiah Bartram’s crimes. For The Shadow must have found the letter to Hurley Adams! Yes, The Shadow had surely opened that letter, resealed it, and left it beneath the monolith!
Fully, Harry realized, The Shadow had suspected the truth early in his investigation of these crimes.
Where was The Shadow now? What would be the denouement of the strange situation that now existed?
The answer came more quickly than Harry had anticipated. Josiah Bartram, gloating, was about to bring on a startling climax.
“A mausoleum,” the murderer was repeating. “Not an empty one, however. One other man died, Hurley — a troublemaker whom I let Mahinda handle. Willard Saybrook, my niece’s fiance, entered here. Mahinda overpowered him. He put him in my old vault. There Saybrook lies dead.
“Before I leave, I shall have Mahinda transfer his body to the mausoleum. I am going far away, Hurley, leaving for a foreign clime as Malcolm Warthrop planned to leave, more than twenty years ago. But Mahinda and I shall be safe — and very wealthy — while Warthrop and his secretary were taking long chances with less return.
“Yes, my mausoleum will contain a body; that of Willard Saybrook. He lies dead beneath our feet. He can never harm me. Not unless” — Bartram smiled fiendishly — “he, like myself, has the power of rising from his grave!”
The words were too much for Willard Saybrook. With a cry of anger, the young man broke away from Harry Vincent and leaped into the room where Josiah Bartram stood.
A gleam of amazed dread swept over the murderer’s face. He who had risen from the grave was confronted by an enemy who had also come from the tomb!
Foes from the crypt! They faced each other now!
CHAPTER XXIII. DEATH TO THE DEAD!
WITH mad frenzy, Willard Saybrook leaped past Hurley Adams and flung himself upon Josiah Bartram.
The murderer was too astounded to meet the attack in time. Vainly, he tried to draw a revolver from his pocket as his young antagonist threw him toward the wall. Saybrook clutched Bartram’s wrist. Fingers of death had no opportunity now. Hurley Adams was on his feet. Harry Vincent was at the door. Neither tried to stop the unequal struggle. Willard Saybrook had a right to exact vengeance.
“Fingers of death’” screamed Saybrook. “Those were your words when you pretended to die. Words that would make people think you were a murderer’s victim, too. Fingers of death! Use them now! They belong to you!”
With one hand clutching Bartram’s wrist, Saybrook used his other fist to grapple the old man’s throat.
Bartram’s face was purple. His free hand clawed helplessly in the air. The murderer was caught by the victim who had been restored to living by The Shadow’s rescue.
Fortune suddenly came to Josiah Bartram’s rescue. Harry Vincent cried a warning as he saw the floor open. Up through the trapdoor came the dark face of Mahinda! Drawing his automatic, Harry leaped toward the Hindu. He had not reckoned with Mahinda’s amazing speed. The Hindu leaped from the steps and caught Harry before The Shadow’s agent had leveled his gun. With a twist, Mahinda sent Harry’s automatic to the floor.
With one arm flung about his adversary, Mahinda freed his other hand, and drew a wicked-looking knife.
Long, sharp-pointed, it was almost a short sword, resembling a Malayan kris. As the blade raised in the air, Willard Saybrook caught its gleam. Leaping away from the helpless form of Josiah Bartram, Saybrook sprang to Harry’s aid.
“Get Bartram!” he called to Hurley Adams.
The lawyer responded. With this fight in progress, he had ended all allegiance to the murderer. He sought to keep Bartram helpless while Saybrook wrenched the knife from Mahinda’s grasp.
The three allies were dealing with fiends. Mahinda, powerful and swift, was more than a match for Harry Vincent and Willard Saybrook. He rolled upon the floor with them, regained his knife, and brandished the long weapon in the air, ready to plunge it into the form of either adversary.
At the same moment, Josiah Bartram, with remarkable agility, caught Hurley Adams by the throat, and sent the lawyer spinning against the table in the corner. The murderer crawled to regain his gun.
With Harry Vincent flattened on the floor, Mahinda drove his knife toward Willard Saybrook. He expected to kill first one and then the other.
Saybrook saw the knife blade starting on its plunge. Then came salvation.
The report of a huge automatic cannonaded from the doorway. There stood The Shadow. The black-clad master had been watching from the darkness. His inflexible eyes gleamed steadily as his firm hand directed a perfect shot into Mahinda’s body.
SAYBROOK heard the terrific roar. The door was behind his back; he could not see the person who had fired it. The bullet whistled within two inches of Saybrook’s head, in its course toward Mahinda’s body.
The Hindu’s forward lunge became a sidewise topple. The long blade missed Saybrook and the knife, by a freakish twist, buried its point deep in the floor as it shot from Mahinda’s hand.
Josiah Bartram had regained his revolver. Hurley Adams, in an effort to stop the murderer, flung himself forward. No action could have been more damaging. Bartram, with prodigious strength in his left arm, gripped Adams and held his body as a shield, while with his right hand, he blazed swift shots toward the doorway.
The Shadow could not respond without shooting Adams. Moreover, the black-garbed fighter had just time to swing to safety beyond the doorway.
Bartram’s shots were well aimed, but they reached the spot where The Shadow had been a split second after The Shadow had left it.
With evil chortle, Josiah Bartram saw new opportunity to kill. He thought that The Shadow had fled; but he still gripped Hurley Adams as his protection. Extending his arm, he aimed at Willard Saybrook.
Both Saybrook and Harry Vincent would be easy prey. They could reach no weapons in time to save themselves. The death finger was on the trigger, when a new shot roared from the corner of the doorway.
The Shadow, under cover, had picked Bartram’s extended wrist as his mark.
The aim was true. The Shadow’s bullet struck before Bartram could shoot.
But the fiend was not yet through. Like a flash, he sprawled upon the floor with Hurley Adams grappling from above. His left hand seized the gun and sought to fire another shot.
The action was futile. As Bartram’s arm doubled beneath his body, The Shadow fired again and struck an unprotected shoulder. Hurley Adams fell free, and Harry Vincent, now grasping his automatic, delivered another shot that entered Bartram’s back.
Coughing upon the floor, with lips flecked with foam, Josiah Bartram had reached the end of his murderous career. The Shadow’s voice sounded the knell of doom.
“Josiah Bartram!” The words came in a weird whisper. “I learned the part that you were playing early in your run of crime. You managed to kill Ernest Risbey in spite of my agent’s presence. I had planned to protect that man against you.
“Julius Selwick signed his own death warrant when he refused to hear my terms. I was forced to leave him to your hands. Howard Grady died through his own folly.
“Had Felton Shores used discretion, he would be alive to-day. I left him to protect himself. He failed to do so. The ones who have died were men whose hands were not clean. I have protected those who did no harm. Grady alone died innocently.
“It was I who rescued Willard Saybrook from his tomb. I watched Hurley Adams because I knew that he sought to make amends. You wanted wealth — all for yourself. You found it. You pretended death, and therefore you deserved it. It is yours at present. Death to the dead!”