companions. His co-operation helped.
Grasping hands missed The Shadow's cloak, as it whisked off into the darkness. Stumbling, they heard a swish; then the laugh again, from another section of the cellar. They were spreading, hence Harry could be of no further aid, but it did not. matter. Once away, The Shadow was too elusive to be captured.
Even his uncanny laugh was vague, misleading. It seemed to echo in from different directions. Choosing his own path in the darkness, The Shadow had better luck than Barcla. Finding a window in a far corner of the cellar, The Shadow ripped it open and hauled himself through.
By then, someone had found the main switch. Dim lights came on; men spied the open window and started for it. Ordinarily, they would have had no chance of overtaking The Shadow, once he was away; but it happened that the cloaked fighter had met with opposition.
Through the window The Shadow had spotted a moving flashlight, bobbing hastily through a grove of huge pines. Knowing that the light meant Barcla, The Shadow was rising to follow, when a man intercepted him.
The fellow was stocky and brawny. He lunged in from the corner of the house. He had a weapon, in the shape of a heavy hammer, which he swung at The Shadow's head.
A quick hand whipped up from cloak folds, bringing a gun with it. The Shadow hadn't time to find the trigger of the automatic; he was using the gun for a cross parry. His darting hand slithered the weapon between his dodging head and the descending hammer, just in time to deflect the blow.
Overbalanced by his swing, the squatty man struck the house wall, shoulder first. Thrusting the gun away, The Shadow caught the fellow with a jujitsu hold; flung him, like a human battering-ram, against the first men who were coming through the cellar window. Sprawled back through the outlet, they lost their chance of pursuing The Shadow.
Again their prey had become a living ghost, the only token of his departure a creepy, elusive taunt, as spooky as the wail of an invisible banshee.
Delay was costly, none the less. Barcla had profited from it, as had The Shadow. The fugitive crook had managed to elude his cloaked pursuer, as The Shadow learned, after covering a hundred yards through the pine trees.
There were no further signs of Barcla's flashlight; no crackling sounds of a person moving through the underbrush. Similarly, there was no glow from the hacienda, nor any roar of fire. The flames had been extinguished, the building saved.
Having crossed a knoll, The Shadow could not see the windows of the building, which now shone with the restored electric lights.
WITH Barcla's trail lost somewhere in the woods, The Shadow decided to skirt to the lake front, where he could appear as Cranston and join in the hunt for the missing jewel thieves.
Others had already started on that mission. Harry Vincent found himself with Howard Carradon, who was pointing a light along a narrow path to the left. From the right, they could hear the sheriff bellowing that there was no one at the dock.
'This way!' Carradon plucked at Harry's arm. 'To the old boathouse! That's where they might be hidden.'
Carradon started to the left. Harry paused, realizing that it might be more than a two-man job. He yelled for the sheriff to head to the old boathouse, and finally received an answer. By then, Carradon and his light were out of sight. Blundering along the path, Harry saw other lights closer to the water. He yelled and a return call came from Niles Rundon.
'Find Carradon!' shouted Harry. 'At the old boathouse. He's alone! He may get into trouble-'
An interruption came, from Carradon himself. His yell was triumphant; with it, Harry heard a splintering sound, like an old door being ripped from its hinges.
'Here they are! In the boathouse! Hurry up you fellows, before they can get away!'
Rundon's light cut a swath through darkness. It revealed the abandoned boathouse, the door wide open.
Carradon came bounding into sight, his own flashlight in one hand, a broken canoe paddle in the other.
He swung the improvised weapon at a pair of thuggish men who lunged for him from the boathouse.
The men were grappling with Carradon, when Rundon reached them. Harry had less than a hundred feet to go, but the ground was dark and rocky. He figured, though, that Carradon and Rundon could keep up the fight during the dozen seconds that he would require to reach them. But things went awry in that short space of time.
One thug yanked the paddle from Carradon. Harry saw it swing in the light, and Rundon took a long sprawl. His flashlight sailed from his hand and struck the ground. Harry had a fleeting glimpse of the rough-looking men shoving Carradon through the boathouse door. From the way Carradon was swept from sight, it was plain that other hands had received him.
So far, Harry hadn't used the automatic that he carried. This was the time to bring it into play. Rundon had rolled somewhere on the ground; Carradon was safe inside the boathouse. Hoping to bag the two crooks that he had seen, Harry yanked his gun and opened fire.
Instantly, a searchlight sliced a brilliant path from above the boathouse door. Harry was trapped in the beam; he was shooting blindly against men who had him as a target. Though the ground was uneven, stones were too small to offer shelter.
Flattening, Harry heard bullets whine past and crackle the turf of the slope behind him. From the closeness of those slugs, he could guess that the next few would find him, if his own shots did not score.
Then, from off a flank, came the fire of another gun. Its stabs were visible among the trees; with the tattoo of shots came the challenge of a mocking laugh, The Shadow's. The first bullet knocked the searchlight askew; the next shattered it.
Rolling along the ground, Harry was doubly safe. Foemen had lost his position in the darkness; they couldn't find it from Harry's next shots, for he had none left. Besides, they were busy blasting at The Shadow, the worst policy they could have chosen.
THE SHADOW was shifting as he fired: the spurts of his gun were useless as targets. But the crooks couldn't shift; they had dropped below the level of the boathouse door and were cramped there. They thought their shelter was sufficient; but it proved otherwise.
Picking their position, The Shadow provided accurate shots. A howl told that he had clipped one of the marksmen. Then, at a muffled call from somewhere in the boathouse, the crooks withdrew from the door. On his feet again, Harry stumbled forward; he was sure that he heard splashes as he neared the boathouse.
The Shadow's fire ended. Harry was met by the sheriff and others, who had dashed along the shore.
Men were pulling Rundon to his feet. One hand clapped to his head, Rundon pointed dazedly to the boathouse.
'They slugged me!' he gulped. 'They've got Carradon... in there! Help him-'
Harry was already at the boathouse, beckoning. Half a dozen men, with a variety of weapons, from golf clubs to empty fire extinguishers, joined him. They surged through the broken door and stopped short, staring at a blank stretch of water.
The boathouse was nothing but a wharf with a shed over it. There wasn't a place where a person could hide, not even under the planking, for it showed large gaps where old boards had been torn away.
Carradon was gone; so were his captors, as surprisingly as if they had not been there at all.
From the shattered searchlight, wires ran to a storage battery that rested on the planking. The arrangement had been rigged from old equipment left in the boathouse, and it was the only tangible evidence that any persons had been around the place.
Why the thieves had abducted Howard Carradon was one riddle: how they had managed it, was another.
Like all mysteries, the problem of the departing crooks could be answered: but not by Harry Vincent, nor the others who had arrived after the fray. They had all come from one direction; Carradon's abductors had wisely gone the other way. One person had anticipated their route: The Shadow.
Instead of coming to the boathouse, he had made for the shore a hundred yards beyond, and to the left, intending to intercept his enemies. But they had fled by water instead of land, At the water's edge, The Shadow noticed the faint swash of ripples that others could not hear.
Looking out into the lake, he detected a dim phosphorescence, moving away at rapid speed. It was out of gun range, and shots would have spurred it, rather than stop its escape. Watching the course of that thin-foamed wake,
