could hear the scratch of a match. Light flared. Timothy was holding the match high over his head. He uttered an exclamation of satisfaction when he saw the vertical wire of an electric droplight.
There was a click and the windowless prison of the tool shed became bright
with illumination.
'Search the shelves,' Edith cried, eagerly. 'There must be a chisel, or something.'
'A chisel won't help a bit,' Timothy replied, evenly. 'I know the strength
of that door - and the strength of the lock, too.'
His smile deepened.
'Luckily, I was suspicious about what we might run into here to-night. I came prepared for an emergency.'
As he spoke he fished a circlet of keys from his pocket. They were skeleton keys. He knelt at the keyhole of the door and began to manipulate them
with trembling fingers. Then he left the door abruptly and began to rummage along the shelves at the back of the shack. He was looking for a length of stout cord and he found a piece that satisfied him.
'Cord?' Edith inquired in a puzzled tone. 'What's that for?'
'For you, my dear,' the lawyer cried, softly - and sprang at her.
TIMOTHY was gentle as possible, but Edith was unable to elude the firm grasp that caught her and held her helpless. The cords were tied swiftly, in spite of her furious efforts. He laid her on the floor, surveyed her with a panting apology.
'I'm sorry,' he muttered in a shamefaced tone. 'It's for your own good, Edith. This is the safest place you can be to-night, and I mean for you to stay
here.'
'You're afraid to trust me,' she sobbed. 'You think I'm still in love with
Bruce!'
He nodded. His hands shook. But there was no relenting in his steady eyes.
'It will take all my nerve and energy to protect myself,' he muttered. 'I can't be bothered with the presence of a woman.'
He sprang back to the door. One of his skeleton keys had really fitted the
lock, although Edith had been unaware of it at the time. Timothy threw open the
door, quickly slipped into the darkness.
He ran noiselessly toward the mansion. As he darted past the side wing, he
glanced warily up. The house itself was in darkness except for two lighted rooms. One was on the upper story: the bedroom of Arnold Dixon. The second lighted room was on the ground floor.
The lawyer approached this latter spot. The frame of the window showed unmistakable signs of a forced entry. The rug on the floor looked rumpled and scuffed as if a furious fight had taken place within at some recent moment.
Yet
there was no sign of a human being lurking within.
Timothy crouched back from the window, wondering uneasily what he ought to
do. As he stood there, half turned to protect himself from a sudden attack at his rear, his startled glance saw a tiny square of white paper lying on the grass. It was visible because of the slanting rays of light that issued from the window.
Bending swiftly, the lawyer snatched it. He read the note on it with incredulous amazement. It was the same bait that The Shadow had left with Bruce
Dixon. Bruce had dropped it as he sprang swiftly from the room after his rather
easy 'victory' over The Shadow.
The lawyer realized the significance of his find as quickly as Bruce had before him. It was obvious that some one - just who, the worried lawyer found it impossible to decide - had unearthed the secret hiding place of the missing Cup of Confucius.
The typed memo under the cryptic lines above was proof of that. And the memo made the whereabouts of the cup ridiculously clear. All that was needed now was resolute determination, and speed.
WILLIAM TIMOTHY hastened away through the darkness, unmindful of the painful limp that came from the partly cured arthritis in his foot.
He found his car where he had left it and drove swiftly along the deserted
road that led to the blackened ruin of the old Carruthers house. He drove past it and parked his car in a branching lane that cut inward through pine and spruce, away from the direction of the near-by Sound.
When Timothy returned to the Carruthers property, he was on foot and his movements were cautious. The house had been almost completely obliterated by the roaring flames that had consumed it. The only remnants were a few charred ends of beams that protruded from blackened foundation walls.
Timothy's watchful eyes gleamed as he saw a patch of blackness on the earth midway between the ruin and himself. The black patch had seemed to move slightly. It was almost the exact size of a crouching man - a man who might be wearing a dark, concealing cloak and a wide-brimmed slouch hat drawn low over burning eyes and a hawklike nose.
The Shadow!
Timothy drew his gun, a small glittering automatic. The patch was no longer moving. He circled cautiously, approached from the rear. Suddenly, he gasped. The thing had been a trick of Timothy's overwrought imagination.
Starlight had made that patch of blackness seem to move. It was merely a small area of charred ground where a blazing timber had fallen and burned away the grass to a blackened bald spot.
Chuckling with relief, Timothy circled the ruin and approached the brow of
the cliff that overlooked Long Island Sound. He descended the stone steps cut in
the face of the cliff.
A FEW moments after the lawyer had vanished, there was a faint pop-pop from down the road. A motor cycle approached, its motor muffled. Clyde Burke dismounted hastily, wheeled the machine out of sight. He hurried to the ruin of
the Carruthers house.
He pursed his lips. The sound of a chirping sparrow filled the smoky air with brief clarity.
It was answered from the foundations of the ruined house. A black-gloved hand beckoned. Calm lips issued orders. Clyde listened attentively to the words.
When The Shadow had finished, Clyde was in complete knowledge of what was required of him. He nodded to show that he understood. There was utter amazement on his face. The Shadow had told him things that seemed completely incredible. But knowing The Shadow's methods, the absolute logic of his thoughts and actions, Clyde was ready to obey him.
The two hurried to the brow of the cliff and descended the stone steps to the platform at the water's edge. There was no sign of William Timothy. The Shadow's gloved hand pointed to the cliff wall two or three feet above the tide
mark where the restless waters of the Sound lapped the foot of the rocky precipice.
Exposed by the low tide was a perfect replica of an Indian's head. The freak rock formation was in profile and the face pointed away from the float on
which Clyde and The Shadow stood.
The Shadow held a length of rope in his hand. The end was directly over the bold outline of the Indian's nose. Clutching the loose end of the rope, Clyde lowered himself into the water and swam slowly away. The rope straightened. It touched the black surface of the water a dozen feet to the left of the platform.
Clyde's hand dipped beneath the surface at this exact point. His groping fingers felt no rock. There was a hole in the cliff below the water. It was the
entrance to a submerged tunnel.
Clyde drew in a long breath of air. He dived. Relying implicitly upon the instructions that The Shadow had given him, he swam through a long gallery filled completely with salt water from floor to roof.
THE floor of the tunnel swerved sharply upward and The Shadow's agent emerged gasping into air-filled
