The Banshee Murders

CHAPTER XX

OUT of darkness that ended when they heard a clang behind them, Margo Lane and the other prisoners found themselves in a most curious place. It looked like the interior of a Dutch oven, but on a much larger scale.

They were in a peculiar subterranean grotto here in Central Park, but the place showed that it had been artificially constructed and long ago.

Phil Harley might have recognized that spot. The peculiar taper of its walls was the clue. This was the defile where Doorn Van Woort had once been unwise enough to plant a crude cabin beneath two overhanging cliffs.

Doorn’s grandson Thales had done better by the place. Above was crude masonry wedged between the rocky brows, transforming the defile into a cave. The bridge thus made had been packed with earth above, so it served both as a hiding place and a fortress.

Down through the grotto ran a burbling stream, that issued from among the higher rocks. Below it flowed out through the antique grating that The Shadow had once noticed. That grating had been lifted by the half-squad of leopard men in order to bring the prisoners up through.

There was another route out from this man-made cavern that antedated the landscaping of Central Park. The other route wound upward, by means of crude stone steps. It went out of sight with no sign of its destination.

Other prisoners were already on exhibit. They consisted of two men who answered to the descriptions of Winslow Ames and Claude Older. But they were not the persons who attracted most attention. That honor belonged to one man only, whose face brought a responsive gasp from Margo, the moment that she saw it.

Craig Farnsworth!

The rugged man who had backed Ronjan’s treasure hunt seemed very pleased to find someone who appreciated his craft. When he spoke, Farnsworth seemed to be addressing Margo Lane, as proxy for her friend Lamont Cranston.

“You are a stranger here,” Farnsworth told Margo. “The others are the same, so they think, but they are wrong. They have simply come to claim and dispose of what belongs to them.”

Farnsworth gestured to a pair of men who stood beside him, hard-faced fellows who had served as cab drivers when Ames was abducted. One was baldish and therefore could have passed for Older, the night when the other man had driven a hansom to the Willow Arch.

The two men stepped aside to prove that they were not meant by Farnsworth’s gesture. Farnsworth was referring to the prisoners as persons who had a claim they might not keep. But in stepping aside, Farnsworth’s two helpers revealed a huge coffer which they promptly opened.

The dull light of the grotto instantly gained a remarkable intensity from the glitter of the coffer’s contents. Gold and silver, lustrous though they were, seemed but a background to the brilliance of massed jewels that sparkled from the coffer’s midst.

This was the treasure from the brig Good Wind!

Farnsworth’s eye followed the circle of silent prisoners. His gaze finally focussed on Sylvia Selmore.

“You were proud of your Welsh ancestry,” Farnsworth told Sylvia. “You would have done better to think in terms of Dutch. You might have learned that you were a descendant of Thales Van Woort.”

From there, Farnsworth’s gaze took in Winslow Ames, Claude Older and finally Arlene Forster, each in turn, signifying that the same applied to them.

“You resemble your ancestors, all of you,” declared Farnsworth. “But none of you recognized your heritage. You should thank me for finding it for you and bringing you here to see it.”

This explained the pictures that Cranston had shown Phil, all from the Van Woort family album. Not the portraits of the persons present, but those of relatives that they resembled. There had been an added picture, one that looked like Phil’s own uncle. It explained what Farnsworth said next.

“One heir is missing,” Farnsworth declared. “I expect my other men to bring him here shortly. If they fail, it does not matter. The police will simply arrest Philip Harley for complicity in murder.”

Farnsworth pronounced the word “murder” coldly, but did not specify the victim. He postponed that information as his eyes met Thara’s. With a broad smile, Farnsworth bowed to the sleek-haired brunette.

“You were an excellent banshee,” declared Farnsworth, “or whatever Miss Sylvia would call you.”

The dark cape quivered delicately from a shrug of Thara’s shoulders.

“It was simple,” explained Thara. “I often appeared as a spirit from beyond when I helped Dom Yuble in the voodoo ceremonies. These men assisted in those rites,” - Thara nodded toward the leopard crew - “so give them credit too.”

“Voodoo rites,” laughed Farnsworth. “Simple shams to impress tourists to the Caribbean. It was much more amazing - and more profitable - to transfer the game to Central Park.”

Eyeing the leopard men, Farnsworth added a compliment for himself.

“It was simple to release a trained leopard from the zoo,” he declared. “You break one lock on a cage and supply another afterward. The keepers never bothered to try those padlocks when they saw that they were locked. But with a real leopard supposedly at large, the police were not impressed by accounts of persons who saw my leopard men.”

As Farnsworth paused the glitter of the treasure captured his attention. His large smile spread in a manner that rendered it more ugly.

“It was Dom Yuble who discovered that the treasure was not in the Good Wind,” declared Farnsworth. “He saw that the brig had been blown open by a powder explosion and he told Niles Ronjan, who promptly guessed the truth. Master Glanvil of the Good Wind had transferred the treasure to the sloop Rover and its owner the smuggler Caleb Albersham.

“Where else would Albersham take it, but to the forgotten cavern that was still the property of the Van Woort family? Albersham wanted it for himself, but if his secret trip had been discovered, he could have claimed that he was acting in the interests of his employer, Thales Van Woort.”

Gloating as if pleased that there had been double-crossers back in the days of double-deckers, Farnsworth proceeded with his keen analysis.

“Albersham went back to the Good Wind,” recounted Farnsworth. “He helped Glanvil wreck the brig and together they left on the sloop Rover intending some day to return and split the treasure that Van Woort never guessed was here. Only the Rover was lost in the great storm that reputedly sank the Good Wind.”

Another glance around the group and Farnsworth’s stare changed. He was coming back from the past to the present.

“When Yuble discovered that there was no treasure,” stated Farnsworth emphatically, “he told Niles Ronjan. In turn, Ronjan ordered Yuble to remain silent rather than have investors demand a settlement. Pretending that the Good Wind project had failed, Ronjan intended to get new backers and hunt for other treasure.

“But Yuble was too clever.” Farnsworth turned to Thara. “Yes, he was clever, your friend Yuble. He told me all that had happened and I studied old records which led me here” - he gestured toward the high stone stairs - “by the route which leads from above. I disposed of all the records that might have left a clue.”

Dipping his chin into his hand, Farnsworth surveyed the prisoners coldly, all except Margo, who no longer counted.

“To find the treasure here on land was best,” declared Farnsworth, “since it eliminated Ronjan’s interest. Of course it raises the point that the wealth really belongs to the Van Woort descendants. It was necessary to assemble them of course.

“One was already here” - Farnsworth was looking at Miss Sylvia - “so I planned the banshee hoax to encourage her to stay in New York. As for the others, I coaxed them to New York by means of attractive financial offers that required no great effort on their part.

“Now that you all are here except for young Harley, I shall ask you to assign over your heritage to me. If you refuse” - Farnsworth gave a shrug - “well, it would not be wise.”

Glancing about, Farnsworth waited for someone to speak but no one did. From far down the bubbling stream came the muffled clang of the old grating, lifting and dropping back into place.

“The other crew,” decided Farnsworth. “They are bringing Harley. Perhaps he will speak for the rest of you.”

Turning to look for the newcomer, Farnsworth frowned and his expression graduated into a glare. For the man who suddenly appeared from among the lower rocks was Niles Ronjan, a large revolver pointed ahead of him.

The term eccentric no longer applied to Ronjan. His was the fervor of a fanatic.

“So you found this grotto!” cackled Ronjan. “You found it, never thinking I was first! Tell me, Farnsworth, why did you think that I delayed the treasure hunt after I found the Good Wind empty?

“Only because I planned to remove the treasure from here and plant it in the sunken hulk of the old brig. Like a fool, I was willing to let you share, should I be given time. Then I saw Yuble acting strangely and I knew that he had sold out to you. But I never suspected that you had found the Good Wind treasure too.

“Never until tonight, when I discovered Yuble murdered in my own apartment. Then I realized the depths of your game, how you were trying to pin all crime on me. I found the creature that murdered Yuble, the vampire bat from the tropics -”

Farnsworth’s interruption was a snarl, a signal for the leopard men to pounce upon Ronjan. They were whipping out their knives so fast that the old inventor’s gun could not have coped with them except for Thara Lamoyne.

With a fierce cry for the leopard men to follow her example, Thara flung herself upon Farnsworth. She had all the fury of a sleek, wild, jungle beast, this maddened girl, as she thrust her arms and shoulders from within her spreading cloak so that her hands could use their fingers as death-dealing claws.

The word of Yuble’s murder had turned Thara into a creature of mad vengeance. As Farnsworth’s other followers tried to haul this living fury from their chief, the leopard men hesitated and momentarily, Ronjan seemed the winner.

Then, at a mad howl from Farnsworth, the leopard crew decided that they owned allegiance to a living master rather than a dead one. They swung to deal with Ronjan, willing to take Farnsworth’s orders now that Yuble was dead. Ronjan was already springing at them, gun first, but the weight of numbers would have flattened him, except for the sudden intervention of a factor hitherto undeclared.

The whole grotto filled with the shivering, challenging, titanic laugh that could only be The Shadow’s!

As if from nowhere, a cloaked fighter sprang into the midst of the divided fray. His gun-shots spilled the leopard men amid the whirl of their own clattering knives. Clouts from the swinging automatics added Farnsworth’s other henchmen to the list of The Shadow’s succumbing adversaries.

Finally, The Shadow flung Thara with a whirling spin into the arms of Ronjan. Tangled in her draping cape, the former banshee buried her face in her hands and wept pitifully, not because she felt herself a part of crime, but because she had been frustrated in her attempt to wreak vengeance upon Farnsworth for Yuble’s death.

Men were coming down from the high steps that rose above the stream; they were The Shadow’s agents, Phil among them, coming by the same route that their chief had used to reach this underground treasure haven. They took over custody of Farnsworth, Thara, and even Ronjan, whose own deeds were on the doubtful side.

When Margo and Arlene looked for the cloaked rescuer who had so fully turned the tide, The Shadow was gone. From high up the steps drifted back the weird, strange laugh that spelled triumph in The Shadow’s universal language.

The Shadow was to make a reappearance, but in another guise. This occurred when Commissioner Weston was completing his grilling of a much cowered Craig Farnsworth, down at headquarters, with Inspector Cardona helping in the quiz. Lamont Cranston, casual as ever, arrived to witness the finish.

Briefly, Weston summed the evidence for Cranston’s benefit. Then:

“There’s one thing that even Farnsworth doesn’t know,” declared the commissioner. “He can’t figure how The Shadow discovered the upper entrance down to the grotto. Farnsworth destroyed the documents that mentioned it.”

Cranston raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“Where was that entrance, commissioner?”

“Under a big flat slab,” explained Weston. “The marker covering the grave of Caleb Albersham, the smuggler. It was the blind for the stone stairway leading to the treasure cavern belonging to the Van Woort family.”

A slow nod came from Cranston.

“I suppose that Albersham fixed it that way.”

“Of course,” retorted Weston, “but how did The Shadow guess it?”

“Because he knew the grave was empty,” declared Cranston, quite calmly, “and therefore he assumed it must serve some other purpose. There was a peculiar marking on Albersham’s slab, wasn’t there, commissioner?”

“Nothing peculiar about it,” snapped Weston. “Like most other tombstones, it had an inscription that said: Here lies the body -”

“The body of Caleb Albersham?” put in Cranston, blandly. “The skipper of the sloop Rover that was lost at sea with all on board?”

That was all, except that Cranston’s smile, alight though it was, had what might have been defined as a visual echo of The Shadow’s parting laugh!