The Banshee Murders

CHAPTER XIX

UP where the lilacs grew, Miss Sylvia Selmore, attired in shimmering white, was acting as the high-priestess of a fanciful woodland cult that was the product of her own deluded brain. Surrounding Sylvia were cult members who included fanatics like herself, plus a few who weren’t.

Margo Lane belonged to the normal contingent as did Arlene Forster. Perhaps that was why they studied each other so askance. In fact their mutual suspicion was so great that neither noticed another girl, who wore a long dark cape as black as her glossy hair. Thara Lamoyne was very capable at making herself inconspicuous when she wanted.

From far away, tiny twinkles of light appeared through the lilacs above the gray rock which formed the stepping off place to the pool below. The cult members were here, in the little glen that sloped gently down behind the rock.

A happy shriek escaped Sylvia:

“Canhywllah Cyrth! Canhywllah Cyrth!”

Everybody crowded forward, especially some portly mediums who wanted to claim a share in the uncanny manifestation. Margo and Arlene were both elbowed well apart. Thara however expected the forward shove. She was already edging away, stooping as she started a circuit through the trees.

Thara was clever. As she neared the last low shrub that flanked the moonlit rock, she lowered her head and gave her hair a forward sweep that sent it in a shaggy mass across her face. A downward motion of her hands slipped the cape from her shoulders; then, as the cape hooked the shrubbery, Thara’s hands rose to sweep her hair into a temporary fluff. Drawing the cloak like a curtain, Thara let it fly back with the branches that gripped it, as she made a pirouette upon the rock above the pool.

“Gwrach y Rhibyn! Gwrach y Rhibyn!”

Miss Sylvia shrilled the happy news while others stood amazed. So cleverly had Thara worked her arrival, it seemed that she had really sprung up out of the rock, or had materialized herself from among the floating moonbeams.

She lived up to Reilly’s descriptions, this shimmering, lithe creature from nowhere. In the moonlight, her olive hue could not be distinguished; the glow, coming through her hair, gave it a blonde effect rather than brunette. No ancient goddess, materializing before mortal eyes, could have appeared more amazingly.

The cult crowd weren’t the only ones to be amazed. From the rustic bridge below the pool, Commissioner Weston and Inspector Cardona were learning first-hand that no Reilly was ever a liar and Officer Reilly was there in person to witness the proof.

“‘Tis the banshee,” confirmed Reilly, “and whatever she is wearing, ‘tis scantier than regulations allow.”

Neither Weston nor Cardona was worrying whether Thara had encased herself in one of the skin-tight bathing suits that used to feature the diving acts at the old Hippodrome. This was a question of banshee or no banshee. If a spirit form, Thara couldn’t be arrested; if mortal, she could have introduced herself in pantalettes and hoop-skirt and still be liable to arrest on a charge of conspiracy to defraud.

The worthies of the law wanted to break up the cult racket in Central Park and then head elsewhere to solve the still unexplained disappearances of Messrs. Ames and Older. Rather hasty, Weston and Cardona, considering that they were to witness an even more remarkable evanishment before their very eyes.

Finishing a tantalizing twirl, the amazing Thara finished a long sweep of her lovely arms, swerved toward the pool and tilted her head forward so that her hair flung downward like a curtain as she doubled her figure to the rock, arriving there gently on her knees. Then, her crouched form performed a somersaulting motion that carried it in a doubled-up tumble down into the pool.

That was what Weston and Cardona saw, with Reilly there as witness. But it was only an illusion of the moonlight. What went across the brink was a loose clump of stone, just Thara’s size, that she had set in motion with her knees and sped with a further shove of her hands.

As the men on the bridge let their eyes follow what they thought was the tumbling form of a humanized banshee, the cult members in the glen were treated to another phase of Thara’s neatly timed disappearance. The girl simply let herself follow into the cavity that the chunk of stone had left; there she twisted sideward and upward, into the shelter of the bush where her cape was hanging. Enveloping herself in the garment with a single motion, Thara stepped into her slippers and was skirting back around the lilacs while she slicked her hair close against her head.

Thara’s trip was shortened by the fact that everybody, Margo and Arlene included, had crowded up to the brink where the Gwrach y Rhibyn had vanished.

Whistles were blaring from the bridge and police were appearing from all angles in response to the call. Weston’s shouts sounded still louder:

“She’s under the ledge! That’s where she ducked! Stop her when she comes out of the pool!”

Margo was groping madly among the cult members, to come face to face with Arlene, at whom Margo gave an almost accusing stare, which the other girl returned.

“I thought -”

Both said it at once, then laughed. “Let’s hunt the banshee together,” suggested Margo. “But we’d better get started while the cops are still coming from the copse.”

“Have you any idea who she is?”

Margo thought that Arlene asked the question and began to nod, only to see Arlene do the same. Then they were both looking into the face that wore the Mona Lisa smile above the severe cape, the face of Thara Lamoyne.

“If you know who she is,” reprimanded Thara, “you should tell the police. If you have any idea where she has gone, you should certainly try to find her.”

The banshee couldn’t be Thara, the girl who at that moment rated as Public Banshee Number One in the estimate of both Margo and Arlene. For Thara to return here so immediately without arriving dripping wet, cleared her of suspicion and completely. There was only one fair thing to do; that was to invite Thara on the search, which Margo promptly did.

It was Margo who set the pace, straight to the gully into which she had slipped that first night when she’d gone banshee hunting. Once you reached the gully you were in the groove because there was no getting out of it until the other end.

Finding no banshee, Margo decided they were ahead of schedule. Coming up from the gully, she saw Arlene close beside her, but Thara had dropped behind. Then from the underbrush came an elephantine plodding and Thara arrived, bringing Miss Sylvia, who was responsible for the pachydermic crushing of the shrubbery.

“I brought Miss Selmore,” explained Thara, in a cool contralto. “I thought she ought to be the first to discover the banshee.”

“If you mean the Gwrach y Rhibyn,” protested Sylvia, “I am convinced that she is a genuine sprite. However, if science demands an investigation, I am willing to comply.”

It would have taken science to hoist Miss Sylvia across the transverse, even if a rope had been handy. However, Margo was sure the banshee wouldn’t take that route tonight. Close by hulked an old building that Margo recognized as the disused goat stable; beyond was the partly renovated merry-go-round.

There would be the place to wait and watch, so Margo waved the way. With Thara bringing Miss Sylvia along they reached the carrousel and saw its partial stock of painted wooden animals huddled in the moonlight.

Only some were neither painted nor wooden.

They came to life, four of them, all crouching leopards. With one quick swoop they pounced upon the search party and took them prisoners, all except Thara, who happened to be in on the deal.

The Shadow had done well, capturing a crew of leopard men tonight, but that was only half of it. These reserves were making up for the shortcomings of the others. Knowing it would be useless to struggle, Margo let her leopard captor drag her along. Looking back at the blackness of the slope, Margo could only hope that The Shadow was in it.

Things, though, no longer seemed to be shaping as The Shadow planned. At that very moment, a party of his agents, numbering Phil Harley as an extra man, had just reached the old Watch Tower on the middle hill, only to find it deserted!