Bounding to his feet, Grendale shook his fist at Scorpio's beard; used his other hand to beckon to the sheriff.
'This man is a rascal, sheriff!' roared Grendale. 'I demand his immediate arrest! Act at once, in the name of the law!'
With Grendale's voice drowning out Rundon's, Scorpio came to his wits, shifting his defense to meet the new challenge.
'My arrest?' he queried. 'On what ground, Mr. Grendale?'
'On a swindle charge,' retorted Grendale. 'Because of the fake ghost you produced last night.'
'What proof have you that the ghost was not real?'
'The cheesecloth that Rundon mentioned!'
Professor Scorpio shrugged. He looked around the room, as though expecting to see shreds of cheesecloth decorating the chandelier and other fixtures. He glanced at his visitors questioningly. Then, as the sheriff's hand clamped his shoulder, Scorpio chortled:
'I see no cheesecloth. I still claim that my ghost was real. Where is your evidence that might prove otherwise?'
'Search the place, sheriff!' ordered Grendale. 'Turn it inside out. 'We'll find the proof of this fellow's fakery. We'll show him the evidence!'
SCORPIO'S lips made a ruddy curve through his beard. He was grinning, with good reason. Last night's evidence had been destroyed and could never be used against him.
There was another factor, that The Shadow recognized. Though Scorpio undoubtedly had other props, he certainly wouldn't keep them where any ordinary search would disclose them.
The professor brushed the sheriff's hand aside as though it were a bothersome fly. Suave again, he bowed.
'Go right ahead,' he began. 'You are quite welcome to search these premises, inside and out-'
He paused. Fortunately for Scorpio his beard concealed his change of expression. He had forgotten something very important. The fact was apparent to The Shadow, though neither Grendale nor the sheriff caught it. Then, remembering Rundon's trick, Scorpio tagged another statement to his incompleted sentence.
'Inside and out,' he repeated, 'after you come here with a search warrant! Until then, gentlemen, let us postpone our discussion.'
Scorpio clapped his hands for the Hindus. With many bows and courtesies, the servants ushered the visitors toward the door. Grendale was still trying to argue, but Rundon kept urging him along, insisting that a further stay was useless, to which Denwood agreed, after a glance at Cranston.
Outside, they separated. Rundon and Grendale were taking a boat back to the Community Center, and the sheriff went with them. It was beginning to dawn on Grendale that he had ruined Rundon's efforts to make Scorpio show his hand.
Something was dawning on Denwood, too, as he and his friend Cranston entered the speedboat which Harry Vincent had waiting at the wharf. Glancing back at the Castle, Denwood remarked:
'Scorpio made a bad slip, but his recovery was clever. He'd have shown us through the place, if he hadn't remembered something. It couldn't be the stolen goods; that's something he never would have forgotten. I wonder what it is that he has hidden.'
'Something that he found quite useful,' returned The Shadow, in Cranston's tone, 'and which he may need again.'
'But what could that be?'
There was a smile on The Shadow's disguised lips, as he named the answer to Denwood's question:
'Edward Barcla.'
CHAPTER VIII. THE CHANCE TRAIL.
BACK at Denwood's lodge, The Shadow summed up the Scorpio situation as it stood, doing so in a calm, impartial style suited to the manner of Lamont Cranston. He made his summary for the benefit of Harry and Denwood, whose cooperation he needed in ferreting out the sequence of unusual crime.
The logic of Scorpio's position was The Shadow's theme. The bearded professor had spoken the truth, when he stated that the wealthy residents of the Calada colony were voluntarily pouring cash into his coffers. There were two weaknesses, however, to the original game, and each was dependent upon the other. The Shadow pointed them out, in detail.
The first was how long the racket would last under rising opposition; the second, how soon Scorpio would be detected in a fraud.
'We saw what happened last night,' explained The Shadow. 'Carradon was ready to do anything to combat Scorpio. But he acted through rage, not wisdom. He wanted to stop the seance, rather than expose it; but he almost accomplished both.'
'But what about Carradon?' queried Denwood, anxiously. 'Is he dead or alive?'
'Probably quite alive.'
'But he might be dead! Don't forget, Cranston, Drury was murdered in an attempt to kill you!'
The Shadow shook his head.
'The major crime is robbery,' he declared. 'on a wholesale basis. We must consider everything else as incidental. I was not scheduled for murder, Denwood. I was simply slated for elimination.'
'For elimination?'
'Yes. Through death, because it happened to be the easiest way. If the plane had crashed, it would have been termed an accident. But in Carradon's case, abduction was simpler. If the crooks had been told to kill him, they would have settled him with bullets and left his body in the boathouse.'
The logic impressed Denwood. He began to see that crime had efficiency behind it. He could picture, too, that Carradon, or other persons-in fact, anyone but The Shadow-might be more useful to the crooks alive than dead.
'Consider this question,' suggested The Shadow. 'Why was Carradon abducted at all?'
'Simply answered,' returned Denwood. 'Because he grabbed the fake ghost.'
'Not at all,' declared The Shadow. 'Scorpio destroyed that particular evidence. Carradon was carried away because he saw the so-called lake monster and learned that it was actually a boat, used to convey stolen goods.'
Denwood's expression was one of complete amazement. He had thought of the lake monster as a myth; a wild dream of mistaken observers, which Professor Scorpio had heard about and exaggerated. No one, other than The Shadow, had guessed that criminals had escaped by water the night before. The consensus was that they had fled through the woods beyond the boathouse.
Scorpio can talk, and will,' assured The Shadow, 'but not under the crude persuasion used today. He must be confronted with facts that we can obtain through an accomplice.'
'Such as Barcla?' questioned Denwood.
'Yes,' replied The Shadow. 'But Barcla is now with Scorpio. We must look for another man.'
'Among the actual jewel thieves?'
'No. They came into the living room in the dark, and went out by the veranda door, to escape in the boat. They had nothing to do with the spook act. But there was a man that I met outside the cellar window, who had a hammer. His job was to nail the trap from below, after the seance; but Scorpio decided to fire the house, instead.'
'One of Scorpio's Hindu servants?'
Again, The Shadow answered. Denwood was jumping to too many wrong conclusions. The Shadow explained that he had gone to Scorpio's today partly to check on the servants in question. Neither of the scrawny Hindus could have been the hammer man. His build was chunky.
'In all probability,' decided The Shadow, 'the man was one of the Lodi servants, planted there by Scorpio. One of your servants betrayed you, Denwood; hence we can assume that there are other traitors in the colony. I think that Vincent and I shall call at the Lodi home, this evening.'
THE SHADOW finished with a cryptic smile, which indicated that he had no more to say. But Denwood, viewing the inscrutable features of Cranston, decided that there were many more details that remained unmentioned.
