Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 310 - Death on Ice

VIP免费

2024-11-24 0 0 116.8KB 48 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

DEATH ON ICE

by Maxwell Grant

As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," December, 1946.

Violent death, set high in the wintry mountains where vacationers revel,

confronts The Shadow - as the weird fool killer stalks his helpless victims.

CHAPTER I

IT was as close as a human can come to really flying. Body bent forward,

the man's figure split through the air like some huge prehistoric bird. His

wings were on his feet.

His arms bent behind him were as carefully placed as a tight rope

walker's

pole. The extensions of his arms trailed him. The eyes that followed his

flight

were fixed. It didn't seem possible that he could land safely.

It was the last jump of the afternoon and by far the best and longest.

Peter Gohan was living up to his international reputation as a ski expert.

The platform from which he had taken off made a backdrop behind him. His

black figure jet-like in contrast to the snow, flew forward. He was fifty feet

from the ground when it happened.

The clear crisp air magnified the sound till it reverberated like a

cannon

shot. Almost magically the flying form of a man crumpled in mid-air.

Such a short time before the scene had all been frivolous and gay.

Brightly clad spectators, lining the sides of the ski jump, gay with

excitement

and with joy of the crisp clean air washing out their city bred lungs, had

been

laughing and exclaiming.

Then, the excitement had mounted as jumper succeeded jumper. Each jump

seemed a little longer, a little better. Finally when all the amateurs had had

their innings, the pros, the ski instructors, had taken over and then the

jumps

really became magical. It did not seem possible that a human being could glide

through the air defying gravity with nothing but some slats of wood.

Jim Thompson, one of the instructors at Chez de Silbis, a resort, had

made

the longest jump of the afternoon. There was only ore man who could possibly

beat him and that was his best friend, Peter Gohan.

It was Peter who had taken off just now. It was Peter who had looked as

he were setting a new record as he took off from the inclined plane and flew,

swifter and swifter and further and further through the air.

But now, all that was ended and like a bird, shot down from the sky by a

random hunter, the flight was over. The man was no longer one with the sky. He

was now of the earth, earthy!

His forward momentum carried him along although his body was lifeless.

His

hands relaxed their grasp on the poles. They dangled from the wrist straps.

All grace gone, the broken black thing smashed down onto the concrete

hard

snow. The white particles flew up around his body as the skis snapped under

the

impact. The wooden crack served to reanimate the statue-still spectators. It

had come like a bolt from the blue and had left them as defenseless as would a

lightning flash.

The shot had come from the close packed blue-green firs that made an

avenue next to the ski jump. The trees made it impossible to see who had

fired.

The people exchanged frightened glances. You could see that they were mentally

tabulating who was in sight and who not.

Tight-fitting ski suit making it impossible to determine her sex,

Patricia

Stone made her way to the fallen flyer. She looked down at him. She had been a

nurse for too many years to even bother feeling for a pulse. She knew death

when she saw it. Who had done this? Why? Peter had been so likable... so

unlike

that old harridan he worked for, and the husband. What a pair the de Silbis

made!

Peter had been so nice to her when he was teaching her the elements of

skiing. He almost made her feel young again. Never by a flicker of his mobile

face had he made her know that it was an impossible task she was setting him.

Her muscles were too old, too tired to ever learn any new tricks. That sort of

kindness had been rare in her old maid existence.

Looking down at his tanned good looking young old face, she promised

herself that the matter would not end in a coroner's report of death at the

hands of some unknown person or persons.

She knew the power that the de Silbis couple held in this small town

winter resort. She had seen it in operation. She knew too that they would do

their best to keep this quiet just as they had the unexpected "suicide" of

that

nice girl two weeks earlier.

The people she was thinking about came up to her then. She watched Mrs.

Silbis' face. It was so pleasant, so red, so rosy cheeked. She looked so much

the middle-class good woman that it was difficult to think of her in any other

way.

Her husband, lean as she was stout, razor thin mouth drawn over

protruding, badly-fitted false teeth, was furious. His sallow cheeks were

drawn

in. He looked from the body of his ski instructor up to the nurse and glared

her as if she had something to do with the death.

Anger tightened in the nurse like a real live thing. She could feel

nausea

in the pit of her stomach as she tried to restrain her feelings. Aloud she

said,

"Well?"

"Well?" He glared at her again. "What's well? This is terrible! Terrible

tell you! Think of my hotel... the resort!"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather think of this poor boy here, dead so far

away from home and from all his friends..."

"Tcha! Let the dead bury the dead!" He turned on his heel and ambled off

in his deceptive slouch. He seemed to barely move his feet but he made good

time over the hard snow.

Mrs. de Silbis said, "Now, now... you shouldn't upset him. He has so many

worries, Miss Stone!"

This time the nurse managed to control her anger. She made no answer but

instead turned away. She was so grimly trying for control that she almost

knocked over the tall thin wisp that was Steven Haight.

"Oh," she gasped, "I'm sorry, Steve."

"It's all right. Think nothing of it." Haight looked worried. "What

happened? I was up at the lodge."

With unseeing eyes they looked right through some posters which screamed

in many colors, "Monster Ice Carnival! Come One! Come All! Come Dressed as the

Historical Character You Would Most Like to Be!" Almost hidden by all the

lettering was a very badly drawn scene of what the artist obviously imagined a

Roman orgy would look like on ice.

"It is quite obvious, is it not? Peter was shot. Killed by someone who is

trying to ruin my poor husband and me!" Mrs. de Silbis ran her hand over her

beet red face and muttered under her breath. "Someone is jealous of the little

success that we have... jealousy, that's what!"

Haight put his arm around the nurse. "Hey, take it easy kid. You're

shaking." He led her away from the scene.

Once in the darkness that was the beauty and the majesty of the towering

trees she managed to shake herself back into some semblance of normalcy. "I'm

sorry. Didn't mean to carry on like a two year old."

"I'm afraid," said Haight, "that twenty years investigation into

Americana

and folksay has not equipped me as much as I would like with experience in

violence."

She looked up at him and managed a smile. "Wipe your head off. It has

snow

on it."

With unquestioning obedience he twitched his hand through his hair and

was

not surprised to see snow descend like a veil around him.

"Hmm... wonder how long I've been going around looking like a snowman."

"Probably for days. You'd better have your wife come back again to take

care of you."

"Wish she could. But she has too much to do back in New York."

"Steve," the nurse's voice was serious, "what are we going to do? You

know

Sheriff Bradley. He's a fat oaf."

"I don't know. He can be unexpectedly shrewd despite his bumbling ways."

"Tut. You know as well as I do that the de Silbis elected him. They run

this place."

"What would you suggest?"

"I'd suggest some investigator who the de Silbis can't bribe to take it

easy and just hush the whole thing up."

He thought a moment and then said, "If you were to ask me whom to call on

to find out what town the legend of the Fool Killer emanated from, or if you

wanted to know how many brothers Jesse James had, I could either find out

myself or know precisely whom to call on. But now... with a situation like

this..." He held his hands out in a helpless gesture.

She snapped her fingers. "I've got it. When I was in training I had a

supervisor who knew a man who specialized in crime detection. What was his

name?"

Brow furrowed in thought, she walked beside the little man through the

cathedral of trees. "Cranley... no... Cranston! Something Cranston. That's

who!

Let's see... I'll call her and ask her to call on him!"

Head held straight now, narrow back firm as a queen's, she walked beside

the man. Once she had come to a decision there was little that could deter

her,

or make her turn aside.

So it was that on a day when Lamont Cranston had made a vow to himself

that nothing would get him out of the warm comfort of his home into the drab

grey misery of the New York streets, the phone rang.

He eyed it for a moment as the bell sent out its clarion call. He sat in

front of an open fire with his feet up in the air propped comfortably on some

andirons of which he was inordinately proud.

Perhaps if he didn't answer it immediately it would stop its clamor. But

no. The bell rang on and on. He sighed and getting to his feet slipped the

phone off the base.

It was not Burbank. Burbank, the man who got most of the tips that set

Cranston on the trail of crime. Burbank was really his good right arm. But who

could also be a nuisance on a day like this?

Perhaps, thought Cranston when he heard a woman's voice say hello,

perhaps

it's just a social call. The voice said, "Lamont?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"Mrs. Harris."

"Good grief... it's been ages. Are you in New York?"

"Nope, unfortunately. Still out on Long Island and still on duty for that

matter."

"Oh?"

"Yes, Lamont. You see this isn't a polite call. I'm going to have to ask

you for help."

"Oh."

"Now, please, don't sound that way. One of the girls... well it's

stretching it a bit to call Patty a girl, but she trained under me and they'll

always be girls to me, is in trouble... or thinks she is..."

"Who? Take it easy and let's start from scratch. What's happened?"

"Patty has a job up in Lake Violent. You know the winter resort... It's

the Adirondacks."

"Umm... yes, I've been there."

"Well, there's been a murder there and Patty's afraid that justice in

this

little town is not only blindfolded, but her ears are plugged up too."

"I see. What would you like me to do?"

"If you could meander up there and see what's in the wind... Patty is no

spring chicken to get all tied up in knots about nothing at all. If she says

it's bad, I believe her."

Cranston tried to tell himself that he had been needing some vacation at

that, but looking around the comfort of his room he could not lie to himself.

He could not kid himself. He was tired and that was unusual for the

inexhaustible man who was known as Lamont Cranston. He picked himself up and

not even wondering what was behind this hurried call for help from Lake

Violent, he made his way into the bedroom and threw some odds and ends into

his

suitcases.

Packed, he looked around the comfortable rooms that were his refuge from

the world of crime and picked up his inevitable briefcase. In it, as always,

were the cape and hat of that sombre color that so well symbolized the other

side of Cranston's nature. For these were the accoutrements of The Shadow.

He tucked it under his arm and picked up his suitcases. He cast a last,

almost wistful look around the warmth and comfort of his rooms and locked the

door behind him.

The elevator boy was surprised to see him. "Going away again, Mr.

Cranston?"

"Mmm. Going up to Lake Violent for some winter sports. Figure it'll tone

up my system."

Pretty soft, thought the boy, pretty soft, to be rich enough to wander

off

to the swankiest winter resort in the country just to "tone up his system."

The

boy watched Cranston's long, lean, fit looking, broad shouldered body make its

way out through the door to the grey, grim muck that is New York after a snow

fall.

Cranston lingered under the canopy for a moment hoping against hope that

cab would come along. But he wasn't too surprised to find his hope blasted.

The

doorman was not in sight. Neither was a free cab.

Picking up his burden, he walked across the slushy street. The slush was

almost black already.

Ice somehow insinuated itself up over Cranston's shoe tops as he made his

way across the dirty black muck that was all that New York had left of a snow

storm. Almost coal black in spots it was no blacker than the devious scheme

which was coming to slow and evil fruition up in the mountains.

Cranston sighed as he shook his feet and stepped up on the curb. Shrevvie

was out of town visiting a sick relative so there was nothing to do but take a

chance and try to hail a cab.

Ten minutes later and with train time a matter of minutes away, Cranston

thought that this made him really appreciate Shrevvie.

Almost hopelessly he flagged a cab that looked empty. It was. He fell

back

into the seat and gave the driver directions.

"Wassamatter, ya think I'm a hick or someting?" The driver was irate. "I

know where the station is, see!"

All the way to the railroad Cranston was forced to endure a mumbled

soliloquy about the "noive" of some passengers. The cab made it through the

congested New York traffic with but seconds to spare. The tall figure of

Cranston looked like a broken field runner as he made his way through the

people who ambled along seemingly aimlessly.

Once on the train, tired, annoyed and almost regretting having answered

the phone, Cranston leaned back and looked out the window. Now, surely he

would

have a chance to get his thoughts in order. But it was not to be.

The man sitting next to him folded up his paper and leaning forward

looked

inquisitively into Cranston's face. "Sleepy?"

Cranston sighed. There were days like this. But did they have to come so

often?

He grunted sleepily in answer to the man; but it did no good. The man

said, "Glad you're not sleepy. I hate to take long trips with no one to talk

to."

Cranston gave up. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath and said, "What

business you in?"

But he was wrong. The man was not a salesman anxious to talk about his

wares and his troubles. As it turned out, the man was named Crispin and he was

going to the same winter lodge that Cranston was at Lake Violent.

"So you see, I couldn't let him get away with that, and yet I didn't want

to expose him to shame in the printed page..."

Cranston, by a super-human effort managed to decipher what the man was

talking about. It seemed he had a twenty-year-long feud on with another

Americana expert. A man named Stephen Haight.

"I know Haight's hypothesis is wrong and yet I can't be so small as to

rush into print without giving him a chance to retract."

More to be polite than anything else, Cranston asked, "Retract what?"

"Why, you must know about it, his idiotic idea that the origin of the

Fool

Killer legend goes back to ancient Aramaic times."

Like most specialists, the man assumed that everyone else in the world

was

interested in what he was. Cranston turned his head a trifle and looked at the

man in the reflection in the window. Thin, wispy-bearded, high foreheaded, he

might have posed for the standard caricature of the absent-minded professor.

"The Fool Killer? I'm afraid I don't know anything about the gentleman."

The little man said, "Oh, the Fool Killer was no gentleman. In a way he

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 310 - Death on Ice.pdf

共48页,预览5页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 310 - Death on Ice

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: