Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 148 - Serpents Of Siva

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SERPENTS OF SIVA
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," April 15, 1938.
The Shadow is ensnared by the mystic power of the East, when Serpents of
Siva entangle him in their deadly coils!
CHAPTER I
WALLS OF DEATH
THE taxicab swung from the avenue, rolled past the lighted front of a big
apartment house. With that, the bleak darkness of the side street engulfed it,
save for the twinkle of the cab's tail-light that formed a feeble, fading dot.
A chill wind swept that forgotten street, like the icy fingers of a
death-devil clutching for human prey. The gust whistled, whimpered through the
open windows of the cab, but the lone passenger did not notice it.
He was too busy, craning toward the blackish tomblike fronts of
brownstone
houses. His squinty eyes were looking for a number, while his pudgy lips
muttered oaths because he could not see it.
They were all alike, these houses - old, dingy, almost-forgotten, in a
portion of Manhattan so neglected that even the street lamps were inadequate.
Then, like a rift in that monotonous wall line, came the spot that the
passenger wanted. He snarled for the driver to stop the cab. It halted in
front
of a door that had a light above it. That glow came through a glass transom
that
bore the house number.
The passenger alighted. He paid the driver and ascended the high steps.
Fumbling in the darkness, he found a bell button. When he pressed it, his ears
caught a melancholy response from a distant bell. There was something ghostly
in its tone; it seemed as rusted as the clank of ancient chains.
A chill caught the visitor. He glanced along the street; the lights from
that back corner looked far away. He was impressed by the grim solitude of
these steps; for only that light above the door showed life. The houses on
each
side were stark and vacant; ghoulish vaults that squeezed this ancient mansion
between their barren walls.
There was the grate of a bolt, the screech of hinges. The door swung
inward; though the way was partly blocked, the visitor shouldered through.
Anything was better than that chilly outside darkness, where the wind warned
with its whispers.
Reaching the hallway, the visitor stood in the light. His peaked face
showed sallow, with its squinty eyes and twitchy lips. Those marks, however,
were due to dissipation; for the visitor was youthful. In that last quality,
he
differed from the man who had admitted him.
Turning toward the vestibule through which he had shoved his way, the
visitor saw a white-haired man with wrinkled face, whose eyes made little
beads. Lips were withery beneath a high-bridged nose. The old man's attire was
of simple black, including the thin bow tie that showed against his pointed
collar.
The sallow visitor managed a smile.
"Hello," he greeted, in a hoarse voice. "My name is Jack Sarmon. I've
come
to see Morton Mayland."
The old man gave a dry smile. It didn't please Sarmon. He had no liking
for flunkies who thought themselves important. He squinted shrewdly, waiting
his chance to show this fellow his place.
"May I inquire," clucked the old man, "just why you wish to see Mr.
Mayland?"
"Sure," returned Sarmon. "I want to talk to his granddaughter, Lucille.
I've heard the old man raises a squawk about people coming to see her. But he
won't, in my case. Not when he knows why I'm here."
The white-haired man made no reply. He reached for the visitor's hat and
coat, hung them on a hook beside the stairway. Beckoning, he conducted Sarmon
up the stairs. Steps creaked as they ascended; along the way, Sarmon saw
clusters of cobwebs. Then came a long hall; finally, a door.
The old man knocked; held his head tilted, until he received a reply.
Opening the door, he motioned the visitor through.
JACK SARMON stepped into a well-lighted, comfortably furnished living
room, to face a girl who had risen to receive him. She was alone in the room -
a fact that puzzled Sarmon, particularly when he recognized her.
The girl was Lucille Mayland. She looked beautiful when Sarmon faced her;
in fact, her appearance was more striking than he had remembered. That,
perhaps, was due to her well-chosen costume.
Lucille Mayland was a pronounced brunette; her black hair had a ravenish
glisten, against which her skin showed very white and clear. Her costume,
tonight, consisted of black lounging pajamas with sandal slippers to match.
That get-up was admirably suited to her.
Sarmon saw darkish eyes beneath thin-penciled brows; a nose that was thin
but well-formed; lips that had just the right ruddiness, above an oval chin.
There was calmness in Lucille's manner; she evidenced it in her low-modulated
voice.
"Hello, Jack!" Lucille placed a long, black cigarette holder to her lips,
puffed a slow curl of smoke. "You have come to tell me something about
Courtney
Renshell?"
Sarmon nodded. He couldn't find his voice right then.
"Whatever it is" - Lucille was frigid - "I do not care to hear it. I am
no
longer interested in anything that concerns Mr. Renshell!"
"I am, though!" blurted Sarmon. "I've got a lot of things I want to talk
to Court about. He's a good friend of mine -"
"Then why not see him yourself?"
"Because he's disappeared! I just found it out, yesterday, when I came in
unexpectedly from Chicago."
Lucille shrugged. She turned away, to extinguish her cigarette in an ash
tray. Sarmon followed her, speaking in persistent tone.
"You've got to listen, Lucille!" he insisted. "You were engaged to Court.
What's broken it up, I don't know - but, certainly, you ought to have some
regard for him. Matters aren't right, I tell you!"
The statement did not change Lucille's attitude. Sarmon became excited.
"Something's happened to Court!" he added. "His apartment is cleaned out
-
empty - and something more." The young man lowered his tone. "There was a big
box shipped out of there. The janitor said it looked like a coffin -"
A sound interrupted. It was the click of the door. Sarmon turned about,
to
view the white-haired man who had admitted him. The fellow approached,
chuckling
to himself. Sarmon protested to Lucille.
"What's the idea of this?" he demanded. "Does this flunky have to butt
into our conversation?"
There was a flash of Lucille's eyes as she turned.
"This gentleman," she told Sarmon, "happens to be my grandfather. We have
no servant in this house."
Sarmon gaped. He tried to mumble an apology. Old Morton Mayland did not
seem to want one. He chuckled, as though he regarded the mistake as a joke.
With clawlike hand, he clapped Sarmon on the back.
"Come along, young man," said Mayland, dryly. "I can explain this problem
for you."
THEY went out, closing the door to leave Lucille alone. On the stairway,
Mayland produced a folded paper. He opened it, with the comment:
"A letter that Courtney Renshell wrote to me."
Sarmon read the letter. It was dated a week ago, from Havana. It stated
bluntly that Renshell had not visited Lucille before his departure, because he
felt that she did not care to see him.
"Just another tiff," cackled Mayland. "They have had them frequently, you
know."
Sarmon nodded. He spoke reflectively, as they descended the stairs.
"Havana," recalled Sarmon. "Court was there six months ago. I wonder why
he went back?"
"The climate," suggested Mayland. "Or perhaps -"
Sarmon caught the wise chuckle in the old man's tone.
"A girl down there?" Sarmon shook him head. "No, I don't think Court
would
go for a Cuban senorita. Listen, Mr. Mayland; you heard what I said upstairs.
I
still think that something is wrong. I'm going to find out more about that box
that was shipped from Court's apartment."
They were at the foot of the stairs. Mayland smiled and bowed good-night.
Sarmon went to the rear of the hallway, to get his hat and coat. He heard the
old man's footsteps shuffling upward.
Evidently, Mayland wanted him to show himself out. That didn't bother
Sarmon; what did trouble him was the fact that he couldn't find his hat and
coat. He thought that he had seen Mayland put them on a hook; but they were no
longer there.
Groping in the darkness at the rear wall, Sarmon found nothing but the
smoothness of the woodwork. He turned about, intending to go to the stairs and
call up for Mayland. He changed that intention before he had moved three
steps.
A sound caused Sarmon's shift of policy. It was much like the sound that
he had heard upstairs: the click of a door. But there was no door in this rear
hallway; none that the visitor could see. The fact puzzled him, and his
bewilderment was the beginning of a final confusion.
Something slicked from the darkness behind him. A lash, thinner than the
slenderest of whips, slithered about the young man's neck. He sped his hands
to
his throat, but Sarmon's sallow lips could not give the cry that his vocal
cords
sought to produce.
The thin cord tightened. Sarmon's eyes bulged. His gargle was almost
soundless, for it was deep in his tortured throat. His knees caved; his body
sagged to the floor, slumping softly.
With one last upward look, Jack Sarmon saw a darkish face, barely
distinguishable in the hallway gloom. He heard a hiss, low, snakish, fearsome.
An instant later, all went black; the victim's ears were tormented with a roar
that split his head. Those were his last living sensations.
The snakish hiss was repeated.
Hands came from an opened panel at the rear of the hall. The dead form of
Jack Sarmon was eased through. With padded tread, the murderer followed, his
body contorted in reptilian fashion.
THERE was a brief interval. A man stepped from the panel, muffled in
Sarmon's coat, the victim's hat upon his head. With direct stride, the man
went
out through the hall and opened the front door. He slammed it, as he stepped
out
into the night.
Timed to that slam came the click of the closing panel, as unseen hands
drew it shut.
The door slam must have been heard upstairs. Old Morton Mayland came down
with brisk steps. He reached the front door, opened it an inch. Outside, he
discerned the man in hat and overcoat, under the dim glow of a street light,
beckoning for a cab at the corner.
Mayland closed the front door and bolted it. His smile was cryptic as he
returned upstairs.
Walls of doom had taken their toll. In this sinister mansion, isolated by
the companion houses that sided it, Jack Sarmon, the unwanted visitor, had
found swift death.
Whatever the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Courtney
Renshell, the missing man's friend would not investigate them!
CHAPTER II
ACROSS THE SOUND
THE reserved manner that Lucille Mayland displayed was not caused by the
somber setting of her grandfather's home. She showed the same pose elsewhere;
even when a member of a gay group.
That was evident the next afternoon, when Lucille sat by the rail of a
trim yacht that was slicing through the waters of Long Island Sound.
There were a dozen in the party; and their chat was trivial. The talk
concerned the dory races that they had watched from the Regatta Club, on the
north shore. Most of the other spectators had gone back to New York by car or
train; but this crowd had accepted the yacht owner's invitation to return by
way of Long Island Sound.
Seated almost alone, Lucille seemed ignorant of the fact that she made a
most attractive picture. Though her manner was the same, her appearance was
quite different from the night before. She was wearing a white yachting
costume, instead of the black attire. She seemed out of place amid this
talkative group.
There was a young man who observed that fact.
He, too, was silent and restrained; and with good reason. He had not
taken
this trip for fun. Serious matters lay at stake; he was hoping for a glimpse
of
them.
The young man's name was Harry Vincent. He was the trusted agent of a
personage called The Shadow, mysterious crime-fighter whose very name struck
terror to the underworld.
Conversation was not turning the way that Harry wanted. That was why he
had taken a gradual interest in Lucille. She seemed the sort who would respond
if serious subjects came under discussion. Those subjects, however, were the
very ones that remained taboo on this occasion.
The yacht veered; spray splashed across the rail. Someone pointed toward
a
smaller craft that was plowing some distance ahead, almost lost in the hazy
dusk
that was settling over the Long Island shore.
"There's Rodney Welk," remarked the pointer. "He's been pacing us all the
way across."
"He's showing good speed in that little cabin ship of his," came another
person's comment. "No wonder! He's traveling alone."
There was a bitterness to the comment that did not pass unnoticed. It
opened a brisk discussion concerning Rodney Welk; brought out facts that Harry
Vincent already knew.
Welk was a wealthy young man who had a distinct aversion to
companionship;
probably because he had been bothered by money-seekers who claimed to be his
friends. He had been at the boat races during the afternoon; as usual, he had
embarked alone in his little cabin cruiser.
Rumor had it, too, that Welk cared as little for his relatives as he did
for his friends. All that, however, was understandable to the persons in
Harry's group. Most of them had money and were anxious to keep it. At heart,
they sympathized with Rodney Welk, who had more than they and, therefore,
encountered greater problems.
There was a pause; then someone added:
"It is dangerous, though, for a chap like Welk to travel alone. One never
knows when accidents may occur."
A HUSH gripped the little group; after it, subdued whispers passed. Those
whispers rose to murmurs, that developed into conversation. With the tension
broken, persons were discussing the very subject that they had avoided. Harry
Vincent was hearing what he wanted.
These people were mentioning recent accidents, wherein members of their
own social set had met with death. One man, wealthy like Welk, had been killed
in an automobile crash. Another, older, and also wealthy, had been found dead
at his Berkshire hunting lodge. That death had been due to the accidental
discharge of the man's own shotgun.
There was also the case of a wealthy widow, who had made a trip to
inspect
an old house that she owned. A stairway had collapsed, plunging her to death.
Mention of those cases chilled the yachting party. Some members became
uneasy, tried to change the topic; but the talk had advanced too far. There
were a few who found a thrill in this discourse of death.
Harry Vincent was a silent listener. He hoped for some rift in the
conversation; some suggestion that something might lie behind those supposed
accidents. That idea, however, did not occur to the group.
It had occurred to The Shadow. That was why Harry was aboard the yacht.
Back at the Regatta Club, The Shadow, himself, was sounding the opinions
of other persons. The Shadow was there in the guise of Lamont Cranston, a
reputed millionaire. In fact, it was Cranston who had introduced Harry to this
smart set.
Long ago, Harry had identified The Shadow with Cranston; but he had also
deemed that the personality was simply a disguise. Who The Shadow actually
was,
remained a mystery to Harry; but there was never any question regarding The
Shadow's theories.
The Shadow suspected crime behind those recent deaths. The motive would
logically be profit, since all the victims were wealthy. It happened, however,
that the affairs of the dead persons were in excellent order. The only people
who had gained wealth were legitimate heirs, who had no connection with the
deaths.
One point, nevertheless, had impressed The Shadow.
The principal heirs, in each case, were persons of a similar type. All
were quiet, reserved; possessed of a self-sufficient manner. They were persons
like Lucille Mayland. Nothing could disturb the calmness of their pose.
Woven through the fabric of this social set were others of that sort;
human threads who shared some common secret. The Shadow, with Harry aiding,
intended to learn what subtle cause lay beneath that surface.
CHANCE had placed Lucille under Harry's observation. This was his
opportunity to learn more regarding the girl. Already, Lucille was showing
definite reactions. While others either gloried or shuddered at the talk of
death, Lucille remained calmly indifferent.
Harry saw the girl produce a cigarette case from a pocket of her yachting
jacket. Another object came with the case; it slipped from Lucille's fingers
and fell on the seat beside her. Harry reached over to pick up the object.
Lucille clutched it first.
That object was a tiny golden image, as curious as any that Harry had
ever
seen.
No larger than a small paperweight, the little figure had three heads,
each studded with several jeweled eyes. A dozen arms gave the body a spidery
appearance; about the figure's triple throat was a carved chain that looked
like a miniature necklace.
Before Harry could make out the details of the necklace, Lucille had
dropped the little image in her pocket. She brought out a long white cigarette
holder; turned to Harry and asked for a light.
While he was flicking his lighter, Harry questioned, in tone as quiet as
Lucille's:
"What of these accidents? Do they trouble you, Miss Mayland? Some of our
friends" - Harry smiled slightly, as he spoke - "seem to think there is a
hoodoo close at hand."
Lucille puffed her cigarette. Her eyes met Harry's with a gaze that
penetrated. In low, precise tone, Lucille declared:
"Death is feared only by those who do not understand it."
"True enough," agreed Harry. Then: "You understand death, Miss Mayland?"
"I understand that fear brings evil consequences," responded Lucille, "of
the very sort that one wishes to avoid. That can apply to death. Therefore, I
neither fear death, nor discuss it."
"That must take a lot of effort," remarked Harry, lightly. "I would need
something to help my mind fix itself on that idea. Some lucky charm, for
instance. I used to carry one of those things, once -"
Harry paused. It wasn't the closeness of Lucille's gaze that halted him.
Harry had seen something farther away, beyond the yacht's rail. It was a white
shape, yawing crazily against the darkened background of the Long Island
shore.
Somebody else saw the same sight; exclaimed the very thought that had
struck Harry.
"Look out there!" came the cry. "Welk's cruiser, running in circles!
What's come over the fool? He'll capsize before he knows it!"
THE yacht's captain had spied the cruiser's behavior. Bells clanged; the
yacht made for the veering craft. Previous talk was forgotten; everyone was
agog, except Lucille. They could hear the beat of the circling cruiser's
motor,
when they neared it; but the tiny deck was vacant.
The yacht's crew put a small boat overboard. It cut through the choppy
sea, trying to clip the cruiser's course. Harry heard the comment, that Welk
must have gone down into the cabin. That seemed probable; but foolhardy.
The thought gripped Harry that something much worse could have happened.
That proved true.
The boat crew boarded the cruiser, after a lucky grab. They stopped the
motor; kept the cruiser broadside to the waves, while the yacht arrived close
enough to hook alongside.
Harry was among the first to clamber over the yacht's rail and drop to
the
cruiser's deck.
The next task was to find Welk. They headed down through the cockpit,
into
the little cabin. There, they saw empty bunks on each side. Toward the bow was
an entrance to a little forecastle, where a lantern hung above a stack of
boxes.
"Canned goods," Harry heard someone say. "Welk stocked up for a cruise."
None of the boxes was very large. They were stacked squarely against the
front of the forecastle, with no space beyond them. There wasn't a place where
Welk could be. The searchers went on deck to report.
There was only one answer to the mystery: Rodney Welk had gone overboard
from the tiller of his cruiser. Someone recalled that there had been a rope on
deck, attached to an anchor. That equipment was absent. It could account for
Welk's disappearance.
The yacht's radio was flashing the news ashore, while the crew took the
cruiser in tow. Harry and a few others remained on the cruiser's deck,
discussing the theory that Welk had accidentally entangled in the anchor rope,
to take an overboard pitch.
Standing with his arms upon the cabin, Harry looked ahead, toward the
stern of the towing yacht. Through his mind thrummed the ominous conversation
that had preceded Welk's disappearance. Those persons who thought Welk unwise
to cruise alone, had spoken prophetic words.
Among those figures on the yacht was Lucille Mayland. She was too distant
for Harry to see her face; but he remembered the look she had given him, when
she disclaimed her own fear of death. Harry wondered what Lucille would say
now.
For the disappearance of Rodney Welk was another case of death - as
sudden, as awe-inspiring as those other fatal occurrences which had been
classed as accidents. So strange, in fact, that Harry Vincent could not regard
it as an accident at all.
Welk's death was murder, the latest in an insidious chain. Somehow -
Harry
could not shake the belief - it linked with something that concerned Lucille
Mayland, and the tiny, three-headed image that the girl carried.
Only one living person could solve such a maze of riddles.
That being was The Shadow!
CHAPTER III
SERPENTS HISS
WHEN Welk's cabin cruiser docked beside an old, weather-battered pier, a
swarthy man of stocky build was waiting there. He had an official appearance
and Harry Vincent recognized him. The man was Inspector Joe Cardona, of the
New
York police.
This portion of Long Island was within the New York City limits. The
yacht's wireless call had been relayed to police headquarters. Cardona had
made
a quick trip here from Manhattan.
Cardona was something of a crime detector, in his blunt, direct fashion.
Any report of strange death struck him as murder, until he had investigated
it.
Harry saw him craning as he walked along the pier.
In the dusk, Cardona examined every portion of the cruiser's hull, from
the sharp-cut bow to the wide stern, where the name Wanderer appeared in shiny
gilt letters.
The ace inspector came aboard, to quiz the men who stood there. He
recognized Harry Vincent; recalled that he was a friend of Lamont Cranston.
Since Cranston, in turn, was a friend of the police commissioner, Cardona was
pleased. He figured that he would acquire reliable testimony regarding Welk's
disappearance.
Harry and the others answered Cardona's questions. No one had seen Welk
go
overboard. The cruiser had been too distant, the visibility too poor. All
statements began with a description of the boat's odd behavior.
Accompanied by Harry, Cardona went down into the cabin; then into the
lantern-lighted forecastle. He studied the stacks of boxes; looked into every
cranny. That done, he returned to the deck and made some notations in a little
book. Abruptly, the ace asked:
"What was it somebody said about an anchor rope?"
Harry explained the theory. Cardona examined the deck and made
measurements. The theory satisfied him.
"All that's left," said Cardona, bluntly, "is to drag for Welk's body."
That work was already under way. Out in the Sound, tiny lights were
bobbing amid the rising mist. Prompt grappling should bring good results, if
coiled ropes had dragged Welk to the bottom. There would be plenty of
opportunity for the hooks to catch the rope, if not the drowned man's body.
Cardona boarded a little boat with an outboard motor. The craft chugged
out to join the grapplers.
HARRY VINCENT found himself alone on the pier beside the Wanderer.
The others had gone back to the yacht, which was moored some fifty yards
from shore. It was silent along the rickety dock, and very dark, for night had
set in rapidly. The lick of wavelets disturbed the stillness; twinkling lights
showed from the Sound.
But Harry was oblivious to those impressions. All about him, he felt
silence and blackness.
From far out on the Sound, a searchlight cut the mist, its path dimmed
before it reached the shore. Some other craft was coming across the Sound,
perhaps bringing new passengers who had attended the boat races.
Harry did not notice it, but the incoming power boat was making a wide
circuit to another old pier, nearly two hundred yards away.
Two ideas gripped Harry Vincent. First, that he should remain close to
the
Wanderer, on the chance that The Shadow would soon arrive; second, that even
Cardona's belief that Welk's death was accidental, might not be correct.
Those two ideas linked. By staying near the Wanderer, Harry could assure
The Shadow that nothing had changed aboard the little cruiser since Cardona
had
inspected it. To Harry, that vigil promised to be nothing more than mere
routine.
Harry was mistaken.
The boat from the Sound was docking at its remote pier, when Harry became
conscious of something very close at hand. There were sounds past the stern of
the Wanderer; thumps that indicated a low-lying boat moving in from the
darkness.
Scrapes followed; enough to tell that persons were climbing to the pier.
A
flashlight blinked; its glow was instantly stifled. Harry heard a low-growled
curse.
Whoever these persons were, it might not be wise to meet them. There was
no time for Harry to hurry to the shore end of the pier, even if he had been
inclined to do so. A hiding place was a logical preference; and Harry knew a
good one. That spot was the cabin of the Wanderer.
One minute later, Harry had finished a silent scramble across the
cruiser's deck and down the steps to the cabin. He was hunched behind an open
door at the end of one of the sleeping bunks.
Cabin and forecastle both had small portholes. They were open; but they
produced no sounds nor lights, either from the dock or the water. Harry
decided
that the scraping boat had touched at the wrong pier, and was moving on its
way.
He started to come from his hiding place.
A sound stopped him. It was from the deck - an evil, ghoulish noise that
sounded far from human. As nearly as Harry could picture it, the sound was a
snake's hiss.
THE venomous tone riveted Harry's mind, although he instinctively shifted
back into his hiding place, glad that he had not been discovered. The hiss was
repeated, as snakish as before, but this time, Harry was convinced that a
first
impression was correct.
That hiss was not a chance challenge from the darkness. It was a signal;
repeated for some definite purpose.
A few seconds later, the sibilant call was answered. The muffled reply
came from the one spot that Harry least expected: from the forecastle, where
the lighted lantern hung!
It seemed incredible that anyone could have sneaked aboard the Wanderer.
Duty, plus the sensation of a hidden menace, urged Harry to creep from his
hiding place. He kept well away from the cockpit door; near a porthole, he
fancied that he heard a movement on the dock. Satisfied that the man on the
deck had shifted away, Harry concentrated on the forecastle.
Peering from the darkness of the cabin, he saw the forecastle as empty as
before. There wasn't a spot where even a snake could be - not with those boxes
packed so close against the front wall.
Harry was ready to doubt all that his ears had heard, when his eyes
produced new evidence.
There was motion in the forecastle; it came from a stack of boxes. One
container was shifting upward, under pressure from beneath. The motion lay in
the lower box. Harry thought of snakes again, for the walls of the box
quivered
as if pressed from inside by coils.
The end of the box swung outward on a hinge. Something brownish wriggled
into the light. Harry was treated to a sight so incredible that only his
knowledge of danger made him credit it.
The thing that came from the box was human; it became more so, as it
unlimbered. Spidery arms clutched the box front; long gangling legs stretched
to the floor; bare brown feet padded softly. A spindly figure stretched to its
full height.
The creature from the box was a Hindu; so emaciated that his scanty garb
looked baggy. His wasted face was apish, with lips so drawn that the hiss must
have come from between his teeth. He was, in a sense, a human reptile, for his
thin limbs were as restless and as twisty as those of a serpent. His eyes,
moreover, had a snake's glitter. Harry noted that when the creature turned.
The Hindu had literally packed himself into the special box, with a skill
that outmatched any contortionist that Harry had ever seen. The man's egress
from the box was another marvel, so astonishing that Harry was too amazed to
budge.
Had those snaky eyes looked into the cabin, they would have spotted The
Shadow's agent. Fortunately for Harry, the uncoiled Hindu was otherwise
concerned.
The snakish creature turned about; pressed the front of the opened box
back into place. He was making it appear to be an ordinary box of canned
goods,
from which the contents had for some reason been removed.
The Hindu did that task carefully, with no degree of haste. That was a
break for Harry.
Shoving his hand to the hip where he carried an automatic, Harry eased
back toward the door beyond the bunks. He was crouched there when the snakish
Hindu came creeping through the cabin. Harry heard hissed breath, scarcely
audible, when the fellow stopped close by the door.
This man was Welk's murderer!
OF that, there was no doubt. In this emergency, it was Harry's job to
apprehend him. Caution, alone, compelled Harry to await the Hindu's next move.
Harry saw gritted teeth glisten in the dim reflection of the light from the
forecastle.
Those teeth ejected another hiss. The sound was not answered. The Hindu
crept toward the companionway.
Satisfied that the man on the deck had gone, Harry made a lunge from his
hiding place. It was a silent surge; but the Hindu sensed it. He spun about,
rapid as a dervish, made a wide fling away from Harry's clutch. A sleek arm
slipped from Harry's fingers.
Given a larger space, the coily Hindu would have easily nullified Harry's
attack; but the cabin was too small for the snakish tactics to succeed.
Pouncing sideways, Harry trapped the wiry man beside a bunk; he jabbed the gun
muzzle against the Hindu's thin-skinned ribs.
It seemed a sure capture, until Harry heard a padded thud behind him. It
was his turn to wheel; too late.
A second Hindu, almost the twin of the first, had sprung from the steps.
He was the one who had produced the outside signal; he had not departed, as
Harry supposed. He was making a long spring, his scrawny arms above his head
forming an oval frame for his grinning monkeyish face. Between his hands he
held the ends of a slender cord.
The Hindu by the bunk made a grab for Harry's gun hand. Before The
Shadow's agent could fire, the man from the deck finished his swoop. The thin
cord looped around Harry's neck; he felt the same effects that had been Jack
Sarmon's, only the night before.
There was a gurgle deep in Harry's throat. His hands numbed; the gun went
from his grip. A crackle roared through his ears; his bulging eyes seemed to
view those murderous attackers as brown-faced demons. With all that, a hideous
thought beat through Harry's brain.
He knew what these murderers were. They were dacoits - fanatics who
strangled victims without mercy. Each was a follower of Hindu thuggee, of that
evil caste who consider murder by the cord to be a deed of virtue!
Harry's head went backward. His eyes were fixed upon that short
companionway that led down from the deck. Like Jack Sarmon, last night's
victim, Harry experienced a surge of blackness, that swept upon his vision
like
a blotting being of life.
It was the forerunner of death, that blackness; but doom was not for
Harry
Vincent. As Harry's tortured eyelids went shut, he heard snarls in the dizzy
whirls about him. He slumped; but the pressure from his throat was gone. His
fingers could feel his flesh; the cord was no longer there!
Lashing bodies struck Harry's shoulder. He rolled sidewards, toward a
bunk; opened his eyes, in the direction of the forecastle. There, he saw the
dacoits struggling viciously with a black-cloaked fighter who was swinging
them
about like puppets. Harry remembered that downward surge of blackness.
That had been a living attack, directed against the murderers who held
Harry in their clutch.
摘要：

SERPENTSOFSIVAbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"April15,1938.TheShadowisensnaredbythemysticpoweroftheEast,whenSerpentsofSivaentanglehimintheirdeadlycoils!CHAPTERIWALLSOFDEATHTHEtaxicabswungfromtheavenue,rolledpastthelightedfrontofabigapartmenthouse.Withthat,thebleakdarknessoft...

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