Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 118 - Foxhound

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FOXHOUND
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 15, 1937.
In a grim battle of hare and hounds, The Shadow meets Foxhound on the
trail and leads him a bloody chase that ends only at the kill!
CHAPTER I
CRIME WITHOUT PUNISHMENT
THERE was an electric hush in the courtroom as the black-robed judge
leaned forward on the bench. The moment for summing up had arrived!
It was the climax to one of the strangest murder prosecutions in the
history of the grim old Criminal Courts Building. A double murder - yet only
one indictment. A defendant whose evil appearance, as well as his record as a
habitual criminal, proclaimed him guilty - yet he was about to be acquitted.
It was evident in the crowd's hushed attention, in the angry spot of
color
in the prosecutor's worried face. Every one in the courtroom knew that the
smirking Jimmy Dawson was guilty, but no one would have bet five cents on the
chances of convicting him.
The whole dramatic upset in the trial had been brought about by one man.
Alonzo Kelsea. The highest-priced and shrewdest criminal lawyer in the city. A
man whose cheapest retainer was fifty thousand dollars. Yet he was
representing
a petty gunman who apparently had neither friends, influence or money.
A sigh ran through the tense spectators. The judge checked it with a
sharp
rap of his gavel. His eyes were expressionless under knitted brows. For a
second
he stared at Dawson, the defendant; then his glance moved to the smiling
lawyer.
"The court is ready to hear the final summation for the defense."
Kelsea rose, bowed. He turned toward the jury.
His words were slowly spoken, pronounced very carefully.
"Let me remind you that my client has been indicted for the murder of Pat
Malone, the detective who was shot to death on the pier of the America-Gaul
Line. He has not been indicted for the death of Herbert Baker, who was killed
five minutes earlier by persons unknown aboard the Loire, as she lay at her
pier. There have been attempts by the prosecutor, all through this trial, to
link the defendant, James Dawson, with both crimes; but no indictment was
returned for the Baker murder - and with the permission of the learned judge,
I
will ask the jury to ignore that phase of the matter entirely in returning the
verdict. Does your honor concur?"
The judge nodded. "The court directs the jury to confine its attention
solely to the murder of Detective Pat Malone. There has been no proof
established to link the defendant, James Dawson, with the death of Herbert
Baker, killed so mysteriously in his cabin aboard the Loire. Proceed, Mr.
Kelsea."
"Thank you." His eyes moved to the jury. Every man in the box leaned
forward, listening intently. They expected a sensation and they were not
disappointed.
"I am going to speak only one sentence, gentlemen; but that one sentence
will acquit an innocent man. I ask you to remember the testimony of Leland
Payne! That is all."
His gaze held the jurymen for a long instant, then he bowed gravely to
the
judge and sat down. It was the shortest and simplest speech ever made in a
murder trial. Alonzo Kelsea had staked the life of his client on ten words!
ALTHOUGH an eyewitness had testified he had seen Dawson fire bullets into
the body of the pier detective, Malone, Leland Payne had established an
unshaken alibi for the accused man. He swore - and it was impossible to doubt
the word of the aged philanthropist that at the exact moment of Pat Malone's
death, James Dawson was talking with him in his mansion on Riverside Drive.
Cross-examination couldn't shake him. And the eyewitness - a
longshoreman,
with an unsavory police record himself - had faltered in his identification
under the suave attack of Kelsea.
The millionaire, on the contrary, stuck to his story, refusing to tell
what the nature of his conference had been with Dawson, asserting merely that
it had been private, personal business.
Leland Payne was the city's most beloved citizen, honored many times for
his countless charities and his upright life. No one in the courtroom believed
for an instant that he would utter a deliberate lie. And the accusation of the
sullen longshoreman rested on one brief glimpse of a man with a smoking
pistol,
a splash in the river and a speeding motor boat.
Dawson had walked calmly into police headquarters, twenty-four hours
after
the double murder, protesting his innocence. Alonzo Kelsea had taken his case
-
for nothing. Could such a man be guilty?
The jury returned their verdict without leaving the box.
"We find the defendant, James Dawson, innocent!"
There was a murmur in the courtroom like the foaming topple of an
enormous
wave. People squirmed, started to rise from their seats. The sharp bark of the
judge's voice halted them.
The judge was facing the jury, his voice vibrant with bitterness.
Gravely, he told the men in the jury box that under the rules of
evidence,
they had returned the only verdict possible for honest men. The testimony of
Leland Payne, upright citizen, friend of the judge himself, was clearcut and
unmistakable. But -
His eyes swung past the grinning Dawson, toward the discomfited and angry
prosecutor. In clear, biting words he hinted at a miscarriage of justice. He
directed the prosecutor to use all legitimate efforts to get to the bottom of
this strange double murder of a passenger aboard the Loire and the pier
detective, Malone. He did not say so directly, but it was obvious to every one
in earshot that he believed Leland Payne had been tricked, innocently, into
giving a false alibi for a guilty criminal.
Alonzo Kelsea was on his feet instantly, protesting in a loud voice, but
the judge shut him off grimly.
"There are forces shielding this defendant," he snapped, "that, I trust,
will be brought ultimately into the open! Forces that I believe to be criminal
and sinister. I hope Police Commissioner Weston will use every effort to solve
this ugly double murder." His voice hardened. "No reflection is intended on
counsel for the discharged defendant."
His gavel banged like a pistol shot.
"Court stands adjourned!"
A REPORTER, hurrying to the street, paused as he saw the aristocratic
face
of a man who stood with a companion in the rear of the courtroom. It was
Police
Commissioner Ralph Weston. The gentleman with him was known only vaguely by
the
reporter. His name was Lamont Cranston.
The newspaper reporter ignored Cranston. He was too busy to waste
precious
time on a man he considered a wealthy idler.
He confined all of his attention to Weston.
"The judge has hinted at a sensational background to this case. His
remarks would seem to indicate police inefficiency. Do you care to make a
statement, commissioner?"
"No statement," Weston rasped.
Unruffled by the rebuff, the reporter swerved, saw two other men and
dashed across to intercept them. One of them was square-faced, muscular,
obviously a police official in spite of his civilian clothes. This was Joe
Cardona, acting inspector of police, reputed to be the best sleuth in New
York.
His companion was Charles Malone, brother of the pier detective for whose
murder Dawson had just been acquitted. As breezily as he had ignored Cranston,
the reporter paid no attention to Charles Malone.
His glance darted inquisitively at Cardona. Cardona had been in complete
charge of the police investigation of the case.
"You boys sure made a mess of things this time. Any comment?"
"Yeah," Cardona said, grimly. "Scram and don't bother me!"
"But -"
"Listen, son. You go back and tell your editor that Joe Cardona hasn't
quit this case by a long shot! Outside of that, I have nothing to say."
His dark eyes flashed angrily as the reporter dashed off.
Malone said, bitterly: "Dawson is guilty as hell. He shot my brother on
that pier."
"Sure he did," Cardona grunted, in a low voice. "The trick is to prove
it."
"I've traveled a long way to see justice done. I think the testimony of
Leland Payne was honestly given; but, like the judge, I suspect he was tricked
into that alibi."
There was grief in Malone's eyes, cold anger, a colder determination. A
wealthy lumberman from the Middle West, he had hurried to New York at the
first
news of his brother's murder. Cardona had assured him that the case was
open-and-shut. Now, to his stupefaction, Charles Malone saw a grinning gunman
acquitted with the clever help of a high-priced lawyer who claimed he was
working for nothing.
"I intend to hire a private detective," Malone whispered harshly at
Cardona's ear. "You've done your best, but -"
Cardona said, "Wait!" He sprang forward suddenly.
TWO men were coming down the court aisle toward the door: Dawson and the
suave Alonzo Kelsea. Cardona thrust out an imperious arm, blocked the exit of
the acquitted prisoner.
"Can I ask you a question, Jimmy?"
"Sure," Dawson smirked. "What's on your mind, copper?"
"How much did you pay Kelsea to defend you?"
"Not a dime! Believe it or not."
"I believe you," Cardona growled. "You've made plenty at thievery - and
you spend it as fast as you get it. But someone paid Kelsea a fat fee. And you
know who! Don't you?"
Kelsea smilingly lifted the detective's hand from Dawson's arm. "Stop
annoying him," he said softly, a gleam in his steadily smiling eyes. "He's
been
acquitted - or didn't you hear the news yet?"
Cardona faced the lawyer squarely.
"Why did you volunteer to defend Dawson?"
"Because I'm a public-spirited citizen. I hate to see an innocent man
framed." His foxy grin widened maliciously. "Or if that explanation doesn't
suit you, I did it for the wife and kiddies. Come on, Jimmy."
He swaggered out, followed by the leering Dawson.
"He did it for at least fifty thousand dollars," Cardona muttered in
Charles Malone's ear. "He never turns a finger for less than that. I'm going
to
find out what's back of this, and who paid him to get that killer free!"
The two men walked grimly together to the street. Commissioner Weston,
who
was still standing, frowning, near the exit with Lamont Cranston, said
impatiently: "Coming?"
Cranston shook his head vaguely. Weston hesitated, and then followed
Cardona and Malone.
The millionaire sportsman, member of the exclusive Cobalt Club, remained
in the empty courtroom as if he hated to leave. He was staring at the emblem
of
justice above the bench where the judge had sat. His piercing eyes flamed
suddenly with an inner light. A low-toned laugh came from his tightly
compressed lips; but there was no mirth in the sound. It was a menacing,
confident laugh that no fellow member of Cranston's at the Cobalt Club had
ever
heard. Had Cardona heard it, he would have gasped with incredulous amazement.
The Shadow!
This person passing himself as Lamont Cranston was The Shadow! His was
the
unguessed hand that had struck down scores of criminals who had proved
themselves too cunning to be trapped and caught by ordinary police methods. A
lone wolf of justice, striking always to uphold the law. That was why he had
come to this courtroom in a guise that protected his real identity from
discovery.
Staring at the emblem of justice, he mentally asked himself four grim
questions: Who was "Herbert Baker" and why was he murdered aboard the Loire
five minutes before Jimmy Dawson shot and killed Detective Pat Malone on the
pier? Who paid Alonzo Kelsea his undoubtedly huge fee? How was Leland Payne
tricked into his alibi testimony? Who was the real criminal figure back of the
cringing figure of Jimmy Dawson?
The Shadow possessed, as yet, no answers to these questions.
But as he walked slowly to the sidewalk and entered the swanky car
registered and owned by Lamont Cranston, he knew instinctively that he was
embarking upon one of the most dangerous and complicated cases of his entire
career.
CHAPTER II
FLIGHT OF A SURGEON
THE darkness was black, intense - a sightless and soundless invisibility.
With eerie suddenness, a rasping laugh broke the stillness, proving that the
darkness hid the shape of a room, and that a man was in that room.
The Shadow was in his sanctum.
A pale-blue light glowed as though by a will of its own. Under its cold
rays the face of The Shadow became vaguely defined. Had an observer been
staring intently at the spot, all he would have seen was the burning eyes, the
strong, beaked nose that denoted power and strength, the calmly resolute lips.
A tiny wall light glowed without warning across the invisible desk at
which The Shadow sat. The black-cloaked form of The Shadow moved. White,
tapering fingers were disclosed as he picked up the headset of a private
telephone.
On one of his fingers gleamed a precious stone. It was a girasol, the
rarest one of its kind in the world. It flamed crimson, yellow and then a
deeply lustrous green as the headset was placed in position on The Shadow's
head.
He listened calmly. A voice, trained by years of service in The Shadow's
cause, said crisply: "Burbank speaking."
"Report."
"Clyde Burke ordered to trail Jimmy Dawson."
"Proceed."
"Harry Vincent ordered to watch Alonzo Kelsea."
"Stand by."
There were no further words. The Shadow replaced the headphones. The wall
light winked out, leaving the sanctum bathed again in its mysterious blue
radiance. The Shadow laughed softly. Burbank had received and transmitted
swiftly the orders that would start Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke on the trail
of an unknown master criminal. Like Burbank, these two agents of The Shadow
were trained to obey his will implicitly.
IT was the evening of the same day that had witnessed the unexpected
acquittal of Jimmy Dawson. The Shadow, too, had work to do. He was going to
visit Leland Payne, the man whose testimony had ruined a case prepared so
carefully by the usually competent Joe Cardona. As Lamont Cranston, The Shadow
could visit Payne openly and without explanation of his real purpose.
The two were close friends of long standing. Cranston admired the aged
millionaire, knew that his alibi testimony in court had been honestly given.
His task was to uncover a cunning swindle that had deceived an honorable and
well-loved philanthropist into protecting a vicious gunman from the electric
chair.
The hand of The Shadow drew a sheet of white paper across the top of his
desk. On it he wrote two entries in black ink:
Herbert Baker
Pat Malone
The inked names faded slowly into invisibility. Baker's name first, then
Malone's. The paper was again spotlessly white. But the burning eyes of The
Shadow continued to stare at that unmarked sheet, as thought he could read
clear facts in it.
This "Herbert Baker" was the center of the whole enigma. His cabin on the
Loire had been ripped to pieces by a hasty search. Yet, apparently, his
murderer had found nothing. For Jimmy Dawson had been empty-handed when he had
been stopped on the pier by Detective Pat Malone.
Why had he shot down Malone with such grim ferocity? Was the killer
really
Dawson? The Shadow was sure he was, in spite of the fact that an eyewitness
had
faltered in his identification under the snarling cross-examination of Alonzo
Kelsea.
Dawson's escape overboard, his swift flight in a speedy motor boat, and
his smiling surrender later, at police headquarters, in the company of the
suave Kelsea - all this meant to The Shadow a planned criminal scheme of
undoubtedly far-reaching importance.
The passenger, "Baker," had not yet been identified. He had been
traveling
under a forged passport. His finger prints had been hopelessly disfigured by
acid. Neither Cardona in New York, nor the authorities in Washington had been
able, as yet, to answer the question that screamed in newspaper headlines. Who
was "Herbert Baker" - and why was he murdered? And unless Dawson could be
linked with the actual murder of this unidentified "Baker," the whole
conspiracy was closed forever.
The Shadow's muted laugh was grim as the blue light faded in his sanctum,
plunging the room into velvet blackness. There was no further sound. Not the
tiniest creak to disclose that a man was leaving that secret chamber. Yet The
Shadow was already gone.
FAR down in the streets of Manhattan, a taxicab was moving jerkily
through
the crowded evening traffic. The Shadow in the guise of Lamont Cranston, sat
in
that taxicab. He was riding uptown to the palatial Riverside Drive home of the
aged philanthropist, Leland Payne.
Beside him on the seat was a leather briefcase, on which his gloved hand
casually rested. It contained black cloak and slouch hat. Lamont Cranston, not
sure of what he might encounter before this evening was over, was taking no
chances.
He left the cab at a street corner on West End Avenue and proceeded on
foot toward Riverside Drive. He passed the low stone wall that divided Leland
Payne's estate from the sidewalk. Inside were spacious grounds, landscaped and
lovely, in the rear of the massive home of the millionaire.
Cranston's sharp eyes saw something else that made him crouch suddenly,
shielded by the shadow of the wall and the green hedge just inside the stone
barrier. The rear door of Payne's mansion was slowly opening!
In another instant a figure peered cautiously, emerged from the house
with
furtive haste and melted into the obscurity of the grounds.
Cranston's mouth hardened with grim interest. He had recognized that sly
figure. Of all the persons in New York, the man who had just sneaked so
stealthily away was the one least welcome to the home of Leland Payne. Payne
hated and mistrusted this man. He was Doctor Bruce Hanson, a young research
specialist in the field of cancer treatment.
A rather grimly secretive young man, he had risen to prominence only in
the last few years. He referred vaguely to his birthplace as the Middle West.
And if reports current were true, Madge Payne, niece of the gentle old
millionaire, was madly in love with him.
The Shadow was over the stone wall and inside the shadowy grounds a few
seconds after the noiseless figure of Doctor Hanson had vanished. He
approached
the rear door. It was still slightly ajar. Cranston glided inside, closed the
door softly behind him.
Hanson and Dawson! Why should Leland Payne wish to confer with either of
them? Payne was the acme of conservative respectability, yet he had obviously
been conferring with a young man whom he hated because of his radical and wild
political opinions, as well as his open interest in Payne's lovely niece.
Hanson was not wealthy himself, and a match with Madge would give him the
money
he craved for his rather daring and cold-blooded experiments on living animals
-
another reason why the gentle Payne hated him.
THE house was deathly quiet. A dim light was burning in the pantry, but
there was no sign of servants. The Shadow suddenly remembered that this was
Thursday evening, the night when all of Payne's servants except Winslow, the
butler, were off duty.
With the briefcase gripped in his left hand and his eyes hard and wary,
Lamont Cranston moved quietly through the deserted pantry, along a carpeted
hallway to the front of the house. Why was everything so quiet and ominous -
and where was Winslow?
He found his grim answer at the foot of the main staircase. Winslow lay
face upward, his eyes glazed and horrible. He had been stabbed in the throat
with a thin-bladed instrument that had ripped ruthlessly through the jugular
vein. There was no sign of the weapon, but to Cranston's practiced eye the
wound itself suggested the weapon: the thin, razor-sharp blade of a surgeon's
scalpel.
An instant later the crouched Shadow was erect, staring up the wide
staircase. In the perfect stillness of the house, he had heard from above the
faint sound of a woman sobbing.
The Shadow listened intently. Then his briefcase opened with a skillful
twist of his fingers. In the space of thirty seconds, an amazing
transformation
occurred. Without moving an inch, Lamont Cranston was gone. In his place was
The
Shadow.
A black cloak covered this new personage from head to foot, shrouding
from
view all except his eyes and nose. A slouch hat shaded the alert, restless
eyes.
Smooth-fitting black gloves covered the tapering white fingers.
He ascended the staircase, moving with infinite care. Down a long, gloomy
corridor, through a carved archway to a closed door. He was reaching gloved
fingers toward the knob, when, without warning, the door was suddenly flung
open.
Madge Payne stood disclosed. She recoiled with a choked scream as she saw
the ominous intruder. The Shadow made no move to step forward. His eyes stared
into hers, as if reading the very soul of this terrified girl. He saw a lovely
face, twisted, chalk-white with fear. He saw a torn sheet of paper in her
hand,
watched it flutter to the rug from her nerveless fingers.
SWIFTLY The Shadow bent, recovered the sheet of paper. His action removed
the spell that had held Madge Payne frozen and motionless. She sprang past
him,
vanished into the corridor. The Shadow did not pursue her. He had read a
tragic
significance in the wide, terrified eyes of that girl that bade him stay.
His glance dropped to the crumpled page in his hand. The writing was that
of Leland Payne. It was a small, lined page, one obviously torn from a diary.
The writing confirmed The Shadow's deduction:
- queer occurrences, it now seems clear
to me that I was deliberately tricked into
framing a false alibi for Dawson. I was
deceived by the cleverness of an adept at
plastic surgery. Dawson was not at my home,
I realize now all too well. I shall see
Police Commissioner Weston tomorrow morning
and tell him my reasons for suspecting that
a scoundrel, in league with my own niece,
has deliberately -
The writing ended abruptly in a ragged smear of ink, as if the pen had
been dragged violently from the hand of the writer.
The Shadow's breath hissed as he read the damning note, torn desperately
by Madge Payne from the diary of her own uncle. He advanced noiselessly into
the room from which the girl had emerged. It was a small chamber, that gave
access to a larger rear study where the millionaire philanthropist transacted
all of his business affairs.
The connecting door was closed but not locked. The Shadow opened it. He
saw the face of Leland Payne staring at him. Payne was lying in a twisted heap
on the floor, almost in the center of the room. His neck and face were bathed
in blood.
He had been stabbed to death in exactly the same way in which Winslow,
the
unfortunate butler downstairs, had met his doom. A knife as sharp and thin as
a
surgeon's scalpel had ripped through the dead millionaire's jugular.
CHAPTER III
TRAPPED FOR MURDER
THE SHADOW'S instinct as a trained man hunter warned him to proceed
carefully and thoroughly. Whoever had killed Payne had taken the knife away
with him. The Shadow made no direct accusation against Madge in his mind, as
yet. He merely assembled facts to be considered later in the privacy of his
sanctum.
Madge was obviously trying to protect a man who had fled from the rear
door of the mansion, barely a few minutes earlier. Madge loved this man,
perhaps enough to shield him from the consequences of murder. Was Doctor Bruce
Hanson guilty? The Shadow made no effort to answer that question - yet.
There were two doors to the dead millionaire's study, one leading into
the
anteroom through which The Shadow had just passed; the other leading to the
corridor and the staircase. This latter door was locked. Two of the windows
were curtained and bolted; a third was open. Crouching carefully to prevent
his
presence being seen from outside, The Shadow observed with interest that this
window gave easy access to the dark grounds below.
He returned to his examination of the room, and made an immediate
discovery. Under an armchair lay a woman's hairnet. It was an interesting clue
- because the mesh was blond, whereas Madge Payne was a decided brunette. Had
there been two women in this sinister room, or was Madge deliberately trying
to
mislead police investigators with a planted clue? And if so, why should she so
foolishly draw attention to a woman's presence at all? Madge herself didn't
live here with her uncle. She had a small, modern apartment of her own down at
Gramercy Park.
The Shadow was turning toward the desk on which the telephone stood when
his motion was halted by the faint echo of a creak from the anteroom. From the
point where he stood it was impossible to see past the partly closed door.
The Shadow reached the door cautiously and stepped through. The anteroom
was empty. This was peculiar, because his ears had told him accurately of the
presence of a living being in that room a second or so before. Yet there was
no
place where a man or a woman could hide.
A deep groan came suddenly from Leland Payne's study. It came from the
spot where the dead man lay. Instantly The Shadow whirled - to find two
figures
dressed in evening clothes, staring at him through the slitted eyeholes of
black
silken masks. Both of them held pistols. Neither of them spoke.
THE SHADOW'S gun leaped from concealment. But fast as his motion was, the
smaller of the two masked men had already jerked the trigger of his queer,
short-barreled pistol. A stream of ammonia gushed straight into the eyes of
The
Shadow. He fell, apparently blinded, agonized by the raw burn of the liquid on
his eyeballs.
But he was neither blinded nor hurt. His eyelids had closed a second
before the ammonia had touched him. He had recognized the weapon as an ammonia
gun in the split-second it took the smaller man to press the trigger. His
collapse was deliberately arranged.
He was aware that the smaller man was not a man at all, but a woman
disguised in male apparel. He wanted to know more about this pair - and he was
risking his life deliberately by feigning unconsciousness. He wanted to hear
them talk freely, without disguise, over his slumped body.
To this end he endured stoically the vicious blow that the taller man
aimed at his skull as he toppled forward. The Shadow's head rolled cleverly
with the blow, although the movement went unnoticed as he crashed to the rug
and lay still.
"It's The Shadow!" The woman's voice, shrill, ugly. It wasn't Madge
Payne.
"Shut up! This is a piece of luck. Wait here. If he makes a move, slam
him
on the skull!" The man sounded gruff, metallic.
The woman stayed; the man raced away through the anteroom. The Shadow
could have sprung at his female captor, disarmed her in a twinkling, but that
didn't suit his purpose. He had a grim suspicion, borne out by something of
repressed terror in their tones, that these two intruders were tools of
someone
else.
To capture them here and now would be to lose sight of the main objective
in this already fantastic case. There must be some tremendous stake involved,
to pull into the conspiracy Madge Payne and Doctor Hanson; Jimmy Dawson and
the
suave Alonzo Kelsea - and now this murderous pair in the silken masks!
The Shadow lay perfectly still, not a muscle moving in his limp body.
He heard the woman gasp as her companion returned, staggering under the
weight of the dead butler. The butler was pitched headlong to the floor
alongside the telephone stand. The Shadow saw the masked thug grasp the
telephone, dial a number with swift eagerness.
SUDDENLY the thug dropped the phone, sprang like a thunderbolt toward The
Shadow. He had noticed a faint flicker of The Shadow's eyelids. His clubbed
gun
smashed downward. This time, The Shadow felt roaring pain in his head, but he
gritted his teeth and remained as he was without a cry.
The thug sprang back to the telephone. The Shadow fought firmly to retain
his dazed consciousness. He had to hear whom this killer was reporting to over
the wire, and to find out the reason in back of his lugging the dead body of
the butler all the way up from the floor below.
The dimly heard voice of the thug gave him an amazing answer. The man was
calling police headquarters! Calling it with hoarse cunning in the simulated
voice of the dead butler, Winslow. He cried out in a feeble scream: "Help!
Murder!" Then he swept the phone to the floor and closed the dead hand of
Winslow over the instrument.
The amazing boldness of the scheme made The Shadow's muscles tense. They
were going to frame him for the kill.
The woman laughed in her ugly, strident voice.
Suddenly she screamed as she saw The Shadow springing to his feet. She
caught at his gun, wrenched it upward. His bullet streaked thunderously into
the ceiling. Before The Shadow could tear himself loose from the clawing grip
of the woman, he felt a numbing impact back of his ear, and the room and the
masked figures swam in a white-hot dazzle through his brain. The dazzle died
into utter nothingness -
WHEN The Shadow recovered his senses, he was lying alone except for the
dead bodies of Leland Payne and the butler. He felt a weight across his head
and found it was a heavy candlestick. The other end was gripped by the dead
fingers of Leland Payne!
The Shadow rose to his feet, his head throbbing, but conscious of the
peril in which he was now placed. The faked scene was so devilishly complete!
The butler, falling dead as he tried with his last breath to phone for the
police; Payne killed as he struck down his assailant with the candlestick. On
the floor near the dead millionaire was a bloody knife that had not been there
before. A surgeon's scalpel!
And the police were warned and now racing to the Payne mansion to catch
The Shadow.
The Shadow darted to the window and peered cautiously out. Too late for
escape in that direction. He saw the blue glint of a policeman's uniform in
the
darkness. Beside the cop was a heavy-set man in civilian clothes, a gun in his
chunky right hand. Joe Cardona.
Swiftly, The Shadow tried both doors of the room. They were locked and
immovable. He knew that he had no time to force the locks before the police
arrived. Already, he could hear a grim peal of the front doorbell downstairs.
From the rear door, too, came the rat-tat-tat echo of a nightstick.
The small briefcase he had carried with him as Lamont Cranston was still
lying in a dark corner of the room where he had dropped it. He whipped it
open,
drew from it a curious instrument like a long screw driver, except that it had
a
curved ratchet handle.
With this tool he attacked swiftly, not the lock of the door that led to
the corridor, but the hinges themselves. In less than a minute, both hinges
had
been unscrewed and the door hurled aside. Seizing his briefcase, The Shadow
raced silently to the top of the staircase.
He was barely in time. As he reached the lower floor, police were
battering down the front door of the mansion. The Shadow turned toward the
rear
of the house. He heard the front door give way with a splintering crash.
Police
and detectives burst in through the vestibule. In a moment they were running
pell-mell toward the rear of the house.
THEY saw no sign of The Shadow. The Shadow at this moment was in the
cellar of the mansion.
He had flung open a door outside the pantry that his intuition told him
must be the laundry chute. It was. The echo of the crashing door was in his
ears as he dropped feet-first down the black chute.
A pile of dirty linen at the bottom broke the force of his vertical fall
and sent him toppling forward on hands and knees. He was up in an instant,
tiptoeing through the cellar. Here was the huge furnace, fuel bins, and the
metal cover of the coal chute.
Dim cries overhead told The Shadow that the bodies of Leland Payne and
the
摘要：

FOXHOUNDbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"January15,1937.Inagrimbattleofhareandhounds,TheShadowmeetsFoxhoundonthetrailandleadshimabloodychasethatendsonlyatthekill!CHAPTERICRIMEWITHOUTPUNISHMENTTHEREwasanelectrichushinthecourtroomastheblack-robedjudgeleanedforwardonthebench.The...

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