Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 263 - The Devil Monsters

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THE DEVIL MONSTERS
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," February 1, 1943.
The Shadow's prowess as master over all crime is challenged to the utmost
when he meets the strangest creatures that ever walked the earth!
CHAPTER I
WHEN HORROR STALKED
GREAT, swaying trees loomed monstrous in the night, like creatures
beckoning humans to disaster. Tossed by the tempest, those shapes were living
things, hurling themselves forward in fantastic fashion, only to stiffen, then
lunge with new threat.
Veering suddenly, the roadster drove straight for the mass, as though
inviting its embrace. Momentarily, the headlights were blotted out; then a
gateway opening showed a curved drive beyond. Passing beneath the swooping
boughs, the car was literally swallowed by the blackness.
It was like entering a giant's mouth, for from all about came a grinding
sound resembling the champ of mighty teeth. But the driveway continued its
curve as the headlights illuminated the course; while the grind was only that
of intermingling boughs grating under the power of the wind.
High above, the shriek of the storm was lessened, muffled by the very
trees that furnished the horrendous groans. At least, the gale itself seemed
far away, which was helpful. It was soothing here beneath the interlacing
branches, and the car's slackened rate was a pleasant contrast to the high
speed with which it had raced the approaching gale.
Lamont Cranston spoke to the girl beside him. His tone was easy, smooth
as
the motor's purr:
"Still scared, Margo?"
There weren't any lights to display the glance of indignation that Margo
Lane promptly gave. Still, it was an even break for Margo, because Cranston
would easily have seen that her expression wasn't genuine. The girl's face was
still pale, and justifiably so, considering how the car had roared across
shaking bridges and skidded through the mud of landslides on its way to
Glendale.
It was like Cranston to ignore all hazards in reaching a destination. His
policy of speed, hair-raising during the process, had justified itself by its
conclusion. For the road behind was getting worse under the combined fury of
wind and rain. There hadn't been a safe stopping place anywhere along it.
Since Cranston couldn't see Margo's face with its forced expression of
bravado, the girl spoke in a tone which was really firm.
"Scared?" she repeated. "Why should I be, Lamont? We're here, aren't we;
riding along Farman's driveway?" A moment's pause; then, with a light laugh,
Margo added: "If this is Farman's -"
The shriek that interrupted was Margo's own. All her forced courage
vanished as she clutched past Cranston's arms to reach his shoulders. Carrying
herself half across the wheel, Margo wasn't helping Cranston's driving, but
she
didn't care. She wanted him to stop the car, and quickly, what with the
creatures that were rising up to overwhelm them.
Things that sprang from the ground and lurched forward across the car,
their eyes sharp, brilliant dots that blinked from blackness. Shapes from a
nightmare, that brought to reality all the fearful rumors concerning Glendale
and its surrounding terrain.
Margo's cry stifled as the car jerked to a stop. She was in a grip that
she recognized and appreciated: Lamont's. There was security in the pressure
of
his arms, and his quiet laugh, though obviously at Margo's expense, was filled
with reassurance. Lifting her eyes, Margo looked for the monsters.
There weren't any.
Those rising things were tree trunks, situated on an embankment, which
accounted for the sudden way in which they had sprung up. As for the blinking
eyes, they were just the lights of Farman's sprawling house beyond the
tree-fringed terrace. They'd seemed to go on and off because the driveway's
curve allowed the trees to intercept them.
So quiet was the motor, that Margo could hear new sounds from the woods.
Creeping sounds, that were probably caused by the rain as it sifted through
the
interwoven boughs; scurries as of little animals seeking deeper shelter
against
the storm. Curious noises that might be the hoot of owls or the distant calls
of nocturnal beasts. Those weren't things to be feared, even though they were
strange.
EASING back to her own side of the car, Margo expected Cranston to drive
on. She felt that her action was sufficient, and she didn't want to add a
verbal request in a tone that she knew would be too choky. Her fright was over
and she wanted to forget it.
But Cranston didn't start the car. Instead, he stooped his head toward
the
wheel, pressing Margo's shoulder so that she would bend forward, too. Then in
the most natural of tones, Cranston said:
"Keep watching, Margo. Above Farman's house."
It came again, the thing that Cranston had noticed - a flare of greenish
light, like a puff from a blast furnace. It couldn't be sheet lightning, not
that color; besides, it was too low and too close. It might have come from the
roof of Farman's house, which etched its assorted gables against the green
flare.
The strange gush disappeared, as though the gale had snuffed it. Again
there was blackness, save for the lower lights that represented Farman's
mansion, feeble glimmers compared with that vanished wave of vivid green. From
above, trees moaned, as though their waving tops had played a part in wiping
away the eerie glow. Margo shuddered, brought her fingertips into a tight
clench on Cranston's arm.
"Whatever it is, Lamont" - odd how the sigh of the trees encroached upon
Margo's whisper - "it makes me think of those... of those devil monsters
they've reported here at Glendale! The creatures that we've come to
investigate!"
Cranston's laugh was singular. It had a creepy note that should have
increased Margo's shudders, but didn't. It was the mirth the girl wanted to
hear - the tone that identified Cranston as that most mysterious of all
humans,
The Shadow!
Such a pronouncement was an antidote to the present situation. Certainly
no horror that stalked by night could outmatch the prowess of The Shadow,
whose
own ways of mystery surpassed belief. Even the fury of the elements faded from
Margo's thoughts as she heard the reassurance of The Shadow's whispered laugh.
Again the green flare flickered beyond the thickness of the weaving
trees.
This time it was brief, evasive, as though the wind smothered its first
efforts.
Cranston's voice spoke calmly:
"Take the wheel, Margo; drive up to Farman's. The house is just past the
next turn in the drive. Wait for me there; Farman is expecting us."
"But I've never met Farman," began Margo. Cranston's return to his own
self worried her. "What's more, you don't know him very well. It may be that
he
doesn't want us -"
The laugh of The Shadow intervened, more expressive than words. It
covered
the very point in question. If James Farman, Cranston's only acquaintance in
Glendale, happened to be the man responsible for rumors of queer monsters seen
in this vicinity, he would naturally be discouraging visitors, although
pretending to welcome them.
The Shadow was taking the best possible measure to nullify any claptrap
on
Farman's part. Should that green flare be a mere preliminary, things more
weird
would happen as soon as Cranston's car came within sight of the house. But if
the car contained only Margo, while The Shadow was watching from some better
vantage point, all efforts at synthetic horror would be nullified.
More than that, Margo would have the backing of The Shadow as an outside
force. Her trip to the porte-cochere that fronted Farman's mansion would be a
convoyed expedition, once she swung past the last curve in the drive and
reached the open stretch.
A hand had drawn Margo behind the wheel. She heard the swish of a cloak
and knew that Cranston had donned the black garb that distinguished him as The
Shadow. Looking toward where Cranston's face should be, Margo saw only
darkness. She knew that her companion's features were hidden by the brim of a
slouch hat.
In this setting, The Shadow was quite as invisible as legend claimed he
could be. His whispered tone was like something gathered from the wind, to
fill
a voice beside the car:
"Count ten, Margo... slowly. Then start!"
Margo counted ten as slowly as her nerves would let her. Across the path
of the glowing headlights, she saw a singular streak of darkness that
stretched
suddenly upward to merge with the trees of the embankment. Confident that The
Shadow was taking the short cut to open space in front of Farman's house,
Margo
finished her count quite calmly and thrust the car into gear.
Ahead, the drive showed its last wide sweep, skirting the embankment. A
swing around that turn and the goal would be reached, under The Shadow's
guidance. What might happen after that, Margo could accept without concern.
The
Shadow would handle whatever could occur.
But the last twist in the driveway was the nerve-taker. Despite herself,
Margo let the accelerator travel to the floor just after she pulled the gear
into high.
Timed to the car's lurch around the final bend came another burst of
eerie
green, like a torchlight stabbed into the sky itself. For one breath-holding
moment, Margo saw Farman's mansion loom against the emerald setting; then,
with
equal swiftness, the whole picture was blotted out.
It wasn't that the green flare ended. That vivid burst had not reached
its
peak. Something came between it and the lunging car; something bigger than
Farman's house, that swooped down from the sky itself, a monstrous mass of
furious blackness that lived!
MARGO'S own shriek was drowned by the brakes, which she jabbed too late.
Already the thing had the car in its grasp and was ripping away the stout top
of the roadster like so much tissue paper. Fierce was the clutch of claws that
jabbed through to seize their human prey.
The car itself was lifted by that grip; then, as it jounced back heavily
to earth, Margo was struggling in the air, fighting at talons that carried her
helpless. Her dress ripped as she twisted in the pincer grip, but the creature
did not let go.
Amid the whirl, Margo saw two things like eyes, orbs that had the fury of
living coals. From somewhere else she saw two stabs of flame, that might have
come from the treetops for all that Margo knew, though they were accompanied
by
bursts like those of guns, lost quickly in the rising roar of the wind.
With a final twirl, Margo received a forcible blow upon the head, as
though the clawed creature had purposely crashed her against something solid
to
end her pitiful struggle. With the jolt, the talons closed tighter, completely
ending all resistance.
Her scream ending in a hopeless sob, Margo Lane was enmeshed in utter
blackness that swallowed her within its mighty maw, her only solace being the
fading of her senses, nature's one remedy against this horror of the night!
CHAPTER II
GONE WITH THE GALE
TWO vivid eyes, as green as the fading flare, blinked off as The Shadow
jabbed his gunshots. Coming out from the trees as the car's motor ended with a
choke, The Shadow was wheeling around in the space that fronted Farman's
house,
seeking to cope with a menace as black-hued as himself.
A great, weaving bulk, the thing first seemed to be much like the swaying
trees; but those blinking eyes were low, far closer to the ground than they
should have been, considering the creature's size. It was that very fact that
gave The Shadow the impression of a monster on the lunge. Accordingly, he
reversed his course with a long swift stride, intending to outflank the
creature.
Whatever the beast, it had taken Margo as its prey. Its size, its power
could not, did not, matter. All The Shadow wanted was another sight of it, to
jab more shots at something as vulnerable as its eyes. Given the right angle,
he might be able to distinguish Margo from the creature that had seized her -
an important point, where The Shadow's gunfire was concerned.
Whatever the creature was, its behavior was most erratic. Swinging to
look
for it, The Shadow couldn't see the thing at all. Whether it had leaped,
flown,
or spun away in gyroscopic fashion, The Shadow could not tell. For all he had
to go by, the monster, if such existed, might have burrowed underground.
There were whirring sounds that might be just the wind whistling among
the
trees. Swoops of blackness could be simply the bending trees themselves. What
The Shadow wished for was another flash of that green flare - which might help
somewhat, even though Farman's house blocked it. At least it would give The
Shadow a skyward view, which seemed more important than a look along the
ground.
Light came suddenly from an unexpected source, giving The Shadow the
opposite of what he wanted.
Farman's front door was flinging outward and the light came with it,
accompanied by voices. Taking direction from the glow that was partly obscured
by the porte-cochere, The Shadow made another turn that ended in a quick,
instinctive drop.
Blackness wasn't coming from the sky; it was lower, almost at The
Shadow's
shoulder, lunging in what seemed a massive kitelike shape. So odd was the
illusion, that it wasn't credible. Though huge, it lacked the utterly
tremendous bulk that The Shadow had gauged earlier. If real, this blackness
could only be a portion of the first, assuming the original to be existent!
Rather, this growth of blackness might be a fleeting shade caused by the
sweep of light from Farman's front door. That it was such seemed proven when
The Shadow, lunging in the opposite direction, heard a snarl that brought him
to his feet, thrusting his gun straight ahead.
Though the bulging blackness was behind The Shadow, the glowing eyes were
in front!
Higher than his head, those eyes faced The Shadow; eyes that belonged to
the snarling monster of the night. A creature which, by present proportions,
must be a dozen feet in height! Not only that, the thing had seen The Shadow
and was already springing in his direction with a speed and power that would
render a close-range gunshot useless!
The Shadow made a low, quick forward dive that carried him right beneath
his hurtling foe. Ending in a roll, he brought up against something solid as
he
came about with his gun, intending to blast the creature that had overleaped
its
mark. What The Shadow saw against the vague light from Farman's doorway was
even
more amazing than all that had gone before.
The thing that had leaped for The Shadow was a great beast that could
have
been aptly described as a hell-hound or a werewolf. It wasn't a dozen feet
high,
though it was plenty large enough. Its stature had seemed enormous because the
thing was springing from a high embankment, against which The Shadow's roll
had
ended.
Having missed The Shadow, the mammoth hound was after something else, as
was apparent by its leap. Again, The Shadow saw the vivid glow of eyes, more
yellow than green due to the difference of the reflected light. They belonged
to blackness that seemed to spread like bat wings. Reaching that mass, the
hound lurched high in air, as though encountering something solid.
Turning his gun toward the enfolding blackness, The Shadow fired.
Seemingly, that one shot dispelled the whole illusion, like a pin point
bursting a bubble. The hound was gone as completely as though it had been
summoned back to some infernal domain. The folding blackness had turned itself
into a void. It was gone too, like something traveling into another sphere of
space!
THERE was just one argument to shatter this fourth-dimensional concept.
The eyes still remained, but they were no longer part of the thing that owned
them. Spread apart, they were close to the ground, with a space of twenty feet
between them.
Sharp, yellow eyes, focusing on The Shadow as if in new challenge to the
cloaked fighter who was rising from the ground. Eyes that might incredibly
gather themselves together and come boring in The Shadow's direction, bringing
the monster with them!
It wasn't strange that The Shadow should gain the wild impression,
considering that first Margo, then the hellhound, had been gathered into space
by this creature that dematerialized the victims it gulped, only to come back
for more.
Timely shots might cause it to disgorge its double feast, and The Shadow
hoped that the party of the first part, Margo, would still be intact and
alive.
So instead of waiting to see the thing materialize, The Shadow blazed
quick shots at the spot where it most probably would be, between the brilliant
and converging eyes. His bullets whistled through space and chipped the stone
of Farman's portico. That was bad in itself, but the sequel was worse, and for
a few brief moments more startling and incredible than all that had gone
before.
The eyes of the creature answered The Shadow's fire with gunshots of
their
own!
Fortunately, the first bullets peppered wide. Before more came, The
Shadow's wits were back. Those glowing things weren't eyes; they were
flashlights carried by two of Farman's servants, who had rounded the ends of
the portico and were rushing to the scene of trouble. They were thinking in
terms of monsters and living blackness, but they were identifying The Shadow
as
both!
Away with quick, elusive strides, The Shadow was leaving the servants
quite as baffled as himself, when they stared toward the spot where he had
been
and saw only the blank embankment. If his own evanishment had been his only
worry, The Shadow could have completed it with ease. But he still was thinking
of that other blackness more massive than himself, and there was a bulk of it
that seemed to whirl beyond the corner of Farman's house.
Pausing in his tracks, The Shadow fired. The wind rose in a gleeful howl,
as though relishing the effect of the gunshots. For those jabs from The
Shadow's muzzle produced the biggest result yet.
One blast and the blackness beyond the house was gone. Another, and a
terrific crash sounded; with it, a whitish ghost appeared, ten feet high and a
dozen feet across, literally to explode in a spray that included splintering
posts and a collapsing roof.
There wasn't anything ethereal about that object. It was a solid
structure
that broke apart as though The Shadow's bullets packed the power of half-ton
bombs. Apparently the cloaked fighter had wrecked a pergola on Farman's lawn,
a
well-constructed summerhouse that was painted white.
At least the servants gave The Shadow credit for the deed. They dived
away, not wanting anything to do with a marksman whose bullets were nothing
short of dynamite. There were others, however, who didn't view the singular
catastrophe around the corner.
One was James Farman, in person, a rangy man who was toting a shotgun as
he came out from the portico; the rest were guests at his house party, and
were
similarly armed.
They spied the dodging servants, saw the motions they made in The
Shadow's
direction. Shouting for the weaving fighter to give himself up, Farman and two
friends drove forward to surround him. They were almost upon the vague,
crouching figure when it gave a lurch straight toward them. Without arguing
further, all three let rip with their loads of buckshot.
The figure didn't even reel. It simply swayed, remaining erect. Farman
and
his friends were dropping back, too startled to let their shotguns fall, when
the servants, thinking the monster had been slain, arrived with flashlights to
disclose the facts. The charges from the shotguns had done some trifling
damage
to one of Farman's prize forsythia bushes, with which the lawn was well
fringed.
A simple deception on The Shadow's part of a dozen shrubs would have
attracted mistaken gunfire, considering how lifelike they looked under the
continued sweep of the gusty gale. Having made a few mistakes of his own, The
Shadow was leaving further errors to others while he tried to rectify his own.
One fact was certain: in this medley of real and fanciful, where the
nearest thing to an actual monster might prove to be nothing more than a large
hound, Margo Lane had disappeared. When The Shadow had last seen Margo, she
was
in the roadster; therefore, the next step was to find the car.
DIM headlights still were glowing before the embankment at the last turn
of the driveway. Springing down from the bank, The Shadow was caught in
midair,
much as Margo had been in the final stages of her nightmarish adventure.
Clutching talons caught his cloak and ripped it from his shoulders, while his
slouch hat was swept from his head. But the claws were nothing more than tree
branches that covered the stalled roadster.
Sliding downward, The Shadow settled into the car; as he did, he heard a
moan above him. Finding a handy flashlight, he turned it up through the ripped
top and saw Margo perched most uncomfortably among the boughs of the fallen
tree. The girl was much disheveled, but apparently unhurt.
Instead of climbing up to rescue her, The Shadow hauled down his cloak
and
hat, stowed them deep in the car, and settled behind the wheel to wait for
Farman and his companions, who were coming in this direction.
Reaching the car, Farman helped Cranston out and heard him mutter
something about a crash. The scene apparently explained itself: a tree
uprooted
by the gale had fallen across the bend of the driveway and Cranston had driven
into it. The ripped top wasn't much of a surprise, considering that the
branches could have hooked it.
But when Cranston groped about looking for someone else, and finally
ended
by staring blankly upward, other faces began to show surprise. The roadster
must
have made a sudden stop indeed to pitch Cranston's girl friend clear through
the
wrecked top into the branches on the upper side of the fallen tree.
The servants climbed the car and helped Margo down. Cranston caught her
as
they slid her from the side of the car. Her dress dangling from one arm, Margo
rubbed her hand against her head, where she had bumped the tree trunk. To her
returning senses, things seemed more bewildering than ever.
Apologizing for his oversight in not checking the condition of the
driveway, Farman led the way into the house, the servants following with the
luggage from the roadster. While Cranston was relating a simple but coherent
story to the guests, Margo went upstairs and changed to another dress.
Rejoining the group, Margo took Cranston's cue and told a simple story,
too. They'd struck the tree so suddenly, she hadn't realized what it was. Of
course, she'd been tossed higher than Cranston, because he was at the wheel.
Cranston himself had already advanced that simple explanation for Margo's
surprising flight.
Warming his hands at the fire, Farman laughingly turned the conversation
to the subject of monsters. There'd been talk of such things around Glendale;
"devils," the natives termed them. Imaginative people, the local townsfolk,
and
superstitious, too.
Still, Farman couldn't blame them. Farman was from New York, like other
residents of Glendale, and all were owners of large estates. Being from the
city, he didn't believe the outlandish tales he heard. Nevertheless, Farman's
own imagination had run riot this evening, and his servants had shown even
wilder trends.
"Fancy it!" laughed Farman, turning his sharp eyes about the group. "I
thought I saw a fellow in a black cloak shooting at something around the
corner
of the house! A ghost that turned out to be a forsythia bush!"
Even Cranston smiled at Farman's account.
"But the servants" - Farman peered through the doorways of his broad
living room to make sure that none were within earshot - "do you know what
they
thought they saw? They imagined that they saw it change itself into a big bat
that became a man!
"The old vampire stuff; they probably heard it wherever they came from
originally. But they said the thing had a gun that could curve bullets around
the corner of the house. When the gale ripped the pergola, they thought the
creature's gunfire did it!"
One listener, at least, could credit the last part of the tale. Knowing
the ways of The Shadow, Margo recognized that he had been in action and that
the servants had exaggerated his performance. But Margo was quite willing to
discount her own impressions of the things that happened earlier.
AFTER they left the living room, Margo waited for Cranston on the landing
of the stairs.
"What a fool I was," confided Margo, in an undertone. "Actually, Lamont,
I
thought a great creature seized me with its tremendous claws. And all the
while
there was nothing out there!"
"Nothing at all," assured Cranston. "Nothing except a hound the size of a
wolf that tangled with something three times bigger that snatched it off to
nowhere."
Margo's eyes went startled.
"You're serious, Lamont?"
"I ought to be, Margo. Those creatures mixed it up just long enough for
me
to get out of range. But if you want proof, think this over. I wasn't behind
the
wheel of the roadster, as I said. You were driving the car."
Slowly, Margo nodded.
"Then what did you do?" queried Cranston, in a whimsical tone. "Crawl out
and climb to the top side of the tree yourself? You couldn't have been tossed
that far, you know. Not from behind the steering wheel."
There was sheer desperation in the sudden clutch that Margo gave to
Cranston's arm, but the return pressure of his hand was soothing. He assured
Margo that whatever the menace that lay abroad, it could hardly penetrate
indoors.
As if to corroborate Cranston's statement, a green light flickered from
beyond the window of the stair landing. Brief but weird, the glow showed a
mass
of distant treetops waving against the night sky; then the flare vanished.
Cranston's good night was a whispered laugh, an echo from the past. When
one mystery could produce another and return to the starting point with both
unsolved, The Shadow had found a fitting challenge to his skill at unraveling
strange riddles!
CHAPTER III
MATTERS OF MONSTERS
MORNING dawned crisp, clear and cold, for this was the late autumn
season.
At breakfast, Farman showed himself the perfect host; he was more than glad
that
Cranston and Margo had become guests at his extended house party. But while he
spoke, Farman was suggesting a fact that he didn't mention: namely, that some
of last night's guests had left.
Gradually, Farman worked around it, though he still hedged the question.
"Never a dull moment here at Glendale," he asserted. "I should have told
you that before, Cranston. Perhaps you would have paid an earlier visit here.
You like adventure."
Cranston nodded. Noted as a world traveler, he couldn't deny Farman's
statement. Both men were members of the Cobalt Club, one of Manhattan's most
exclusive men's clubs, but Cranston had previously side-stepped Farman's
invitations to visit Glendale.
What Cranston didn't state was that his sudden willingness to join one of
Farman's house parties was because of recent happenings in the vicinity.
However, Farman was shrewd enough to take that for granted. He immediately
brought up the subject.
"Whatever is going on around these parts," declared Farman, "it's really
serious. When two men are killed on two successive nights by something that
literally mangles them, it's bad business, even if the victims did happen to
be
trespassers."
Cranston's quizzical stare took Farman's attention from Margo's sudden
shudder.
"Trespassers?" queried Cranston. "On whose property?"
"One was on the Grebb estate," replied Farman, gesturing toward a corner
of the dining room. "Over to the northeast of here; a big place owned by old
Dariel Grebb. He's a retired banker, who owns about half the county."
"And the other?"
"That was on Althrop's place," informed Farman. "You've heard of Roscoe
Althrop, the big shipping man. He lives to the northwest" - Farman made
another
gesture - "and he owns the other half of the county. No, I guess I'm
exaggerating." Farman shook his head. "Let's call it a third of a county each,
otherwise there wouldn't be room for the rest of us."
Breakfast being over, Farman suggested that they go outdoors and view the
terrain from his rear lawn. Once outdoors, they postponed other matters to
look
at the tree, which the servants had sawed in sections to remove from the
driveway. Going around the wide, old-fashioned house, they made another stop
to
look at the remnants of the pergola.
"That wind was heavy last night," observed Farman. "I'm not surprised
that
it ruined the summerhouse. It must have come up inside the roof and turned it
inside out, like an umbrella."
The estates owned by Grebb and Althrop occupied distant hills in the
directions that Farman had specified. Their houses, however, were not visible
among the thick woods that topped the slopes. But straight to the north,
beyond
a valley behind Farman's property, was a house atop a midway hill, a mansion
that looked old but sizable. Cranston casually inquired who lived there.
"A fellow named Leonard Thull rents it," explained Farman. "Why he picked
it, I don't know, because it's been empty for years. Maybe Thull rented it
cheap. Still, they say he's worth a lot of money. He's some sort of a
promoter."
"He might be working on Grebb or Althrop," suggested Cranston. "Promoters
usually sell ideas to wealthy people."
"Not to those two skinflints," returned Farman. "Whatever they promote,
they do on their own."
"You mean they are partners?"
"Partners!" Farman guffawed at Cranston's question. "Say, if any two men
hated each other, Grebb and Althrop win first claim. They both picked
properties in Glendale so they could make their grudge last longer. In a
couple
of years they'll hold a silver jubilee.
"I wouldn't want to be Thull, living halfway between that pair. He's
liable to get caught in the middle if Grebb and Althrop try dirty work on each
other. Suppose we go downtown to the coroner's inquest this morning. They'll
both be there, exchanging mutual glares."
While Farman was getting the car out, Margo put a question that was on
her
mind. Eagerly, she asked:
"That green glare last night, Lamont - whose place did it come from,
Grebb's or Althrop's?"
"Neither," was Cranston's reply. "I'd say it was on a direct line with
Thull's house. Let's hope he's at the inquest, too."
ON the way downtown, Farman kept pointing out trees, fences, and even
bridges that had suffered from the storm. Either he was trying to justify his
own fallen tree that had nearly ruined Cranston's roadster, or he was trying
to
prove his theory concerning the destruction of the summerhouse; perhaps both.
Whatever Cranston's opinion, he didn't express it; but Margo was bored by
Farman's endless chatter on the same subject. However, things promised to be
interesting when they reached the county courthouse. Quite a crowd was
assembled to hear the coroner's verdict on the double inquest. Getting the nod
from one of the attendants, Farman ushered Cranston and Margo inside.
Grebb and Althrop proved to be very much alike, despite their personal
differences. Each was seated at the opposite end of a long table, and both had
lawyers as spokesmen. Looking them over, Margo couldn't choose between them.
Both were stoop-shouldered and crab-faced; but Grebb had a crop of
short-clipped gray hair, whereas Althrop was quite bald.
If anything, Grebb's features were more wrinkled, but it looked the other
way about, because Althrop's greater range of forehead revealed more furrows
simply on the basis of a larger visible area. Another difference was the way
they glared. Grebb did it with deep-set eyes that narrowed darkly, while
Althrop pushed his whole face forward and opened his eyes wide.
Each was obviously trying to prove something on the other. Neither would
admit that trespassers were common on their respective properties, the
implication being that the other might sent a snooper over to see what was
going on around his rival's place. But they couldn't afford to press such
accusations, Grebb or Althrop, because both were in the same boat.
They left most of the testimony to their servants, and there wasn't much
to choose between. Grebb's servants said that they had heard screams shortly
after dusk, four nights ago, and had found a dead man, his throat badly torn,
his body twisted and broken, lying by a stone wall near Grebb's house.
Althrop's men spoke similarly of a death one night later; but the victim
on Althrop's premises had been found in the rocky bed of a small brook below
an
old mill dam. His throat was likewise torn, his skull fractured, with both
legs
and one arm broken.
摘要：

THEDEVILMONSTERSbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"February1,1943.TheShadow'sprowessasmasteroverallcrimeischallengedtotheutmostwhenhemeetsthestrangestcreaturesthateverwalkedtheearth!CHAPTERIWHENHORRORSTALKEDGREAT,swayingtreesloomedmonstrousinthenight,likecreaturesbeckoninghuman...

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