Grant, Maxwell - The.Salamanders

VIP免费
2024-12-04 0 0 733.35KB 89 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
1
The Salamanders
THE SALAMANDERS
As originally published in “The Shadow Magazine,” April 1, 1936
In dead of night a flaming monster
rears its drooling head and bellows
forth its challenge with searing
breath! It was a terrible menace The
Shadow sought to overcome as he
went forth to combat the dragon of
Fire!
CHAPTER I
FIRE OF DOOM
FIRE! FIRE!”
The shouts rose hoarsely on the
midnight air. The glare of rising flames
showed wild-eyed men as they dashed
to spread the alarm.
Madness had gripped the town of
Riverport; excitement of a sort that the
little Southern city had never before
known. The crackling blaze that had
come into sudden life was a threat that
promised great disaster.
The fire had started in the Capital
Hotel - the principal structure that
adorned the main street of Riverport.
The blaze had arisen like a living mon-
ster coming out of hiding.
A burst of flame; smoke pouring
bodily through ground-floor windows;
then demonish tongues of fire, lapping
upward, crackling on to fury.
The Capitol Hotel was a fire trap.
“Fire!”
Faces were answering the shouts.
White faces peered from upstairs win-
dows. Staring eyes saw the flickering
reflections of the flames. Faces disap-
peared from sight. Occupants of the
hotel were hastily preparing for escape.
The wail of a fire siren split the night
air. The alarm had been given. The
clanging of bells told that Riverport’s
fire engines were emerging to fight the
flames; Those engines were coming to
a hopeless task. Nothing could stop that
fire. The flimsy, wooden walls of the old
frame hotel were perfect fuel for the
devouring flames.
Within the burning building, commo-
by Maxwell Grant
“
2
The Salamanders
tion reigned. Men were dashing about,
pounding upon doors, shouting
through corridors. Their one hope was
to arouse their fellow guests, then
make a dash for safety. There was no
time to linger.
Nevertheless, in all that bedlam,
there was one man who acted with
calmness. He was the occupant of
Room 408. His name was Harry
Vincent. Aroused by a hammering upon
his door, Harry had shouted his re-
sponse. Out of bed, he was donning his
clothes by the light of the fire that
other buildings reflected through his
window.
There was a reason for this man’s
precision, his ability to avoid the panic
that had overtaken others. Harry
Vincent was an agent of The Shadow.
He was a man trained to remain calm
in the face of danger.
Though he knew that speed was nec-
essary, Harry had other thoughts than
those of escape. He was remembering
the mission that had brought him to
the city of Riverport, to register at the
Capitol Hotel.
Chester Woldorf.
THE name drummed through
3
The Salamanders
Harry’s brain, more vividly than the
clanging of bells, or the wailing of the
shrieking siren. Woldorf was the cause
of Harry’s presence here. Like Harry,
Woldorf was a guest at the Capitol
Hotel.
Harry had seen Woldorf in the lobby
last night. He knew the man’s room
number: 411, almost across the hall
from Harry’s own room. Woldorf had
retired at eleven o’clock. He had left a
call for seven in the morning. Harry
had left a call for the same hour.
Harry had guessed that Woldorf
would take the eight o’clock train to
New York. It had been Harry’s plan to
do the same. Woldorf, for some reason
not yet determined, was a man who
feared a threat.
That fact had been learned by The
Shadow. Threats indicated crime; The
Shadow, always at war with men of
evil, had delegated Harry to take up
Woldorf’s trail.
Bells were clanging from the street
below. Water from fire hoses was fizz-
ing uselessly, drowned by the increas-
ing crackle of the flames. The light of
the fire had become a ghoulish, crim-
son glow. The glare outlined Harry
Vincent as he yanked open the door of
his room.
Dressed, Harry was ready for depar-
ture. An overwhelming cloud of black-
ish smoke greeted him in the corridor.
Harry was prepared for it. Burying his
face in the bend of his elbow, he groped
his way across the hall. His free hand
found the knob of Woldorf’s door.
Smoke had cleared partially, thanks
to the draught created when Harry
had opened his own door. The flames
had not reached this floor. There was
time to make sure that Woldorf had
heard the alarm. Harry pounded furi-
ously upon the door of Room 411.
There was no response. Smoke thick-
ened as it floated along the corridor.
Holding his breath, Harry backed
away, then launched himself like a
battering-ram against the door of
Woldorf’s room. Shoulder first, he splin-
tered the rickety barrier. Stumbling,
Harry caught himself before he
sprawled upon the floor.
Smoke had followed Harry’s charge.
Clutching like a shroud of doom, it was
filling Woldorf’s room. The opened win-
dow sucked smoke outward. Flickering
flame light became dim, but the glow
remained enough for Harry to view the
room. Steadied by the broken door, The
Shadow’s agent gazed in horror.
On the floor, beside the bed, lay an
upturned figure clad in pajamas. Harry
saw a pale face, with lips half opened,
fishlike beneath a droopy mustache.
Below was a mass of crimson, splotched
and streaked across the front of
Woldorf’s pajama jacket.
That blotted mass of crimson was
Chester Woldorf’s lifeblood. The man
had been stabbed in the heart!
A CRACKLING drilled Harry’s
numbed brain. Yellowish flicker weaved
across the inner walls of the room.
From somewhere came the muffled
crash of falling beams. Harry turned
4
The Salamanders
about toward the corridor.
The fire had reached this floor. Brief
minutes would make the room a trap.
There was no aid for Woldorf - no time
to search for clues. Harry had gained
enough. He had learned what some
assassin had sought to cover; namely,
that Chester Woldorf had been mur-
dered before the fire had begun in the
Capitol Hotel.
Springing from the room, Harry
chose a direction away from the
flames. Smoke had lessened. Though
he was choking, Harry knew that he
would be safe if he could reach a stair-
way or a fire escape.
Smoke destroyed the lighting effect
of the flames. It was only by pressing
his hand along the wall that Harry
found the stairway he wanted.
Harry stumbled as he struck the first
steps. He caught himself against a rail
beside the heated wall. A fist clamped
his arm; he heard a gasped voice be-
side him:
“Steady, friend. Take it easy. We’ll get
out this way.”
Harry coughed his thanks. He turned
his head as they descended. The flick-
ering flame light from a stairway win-
dow showed the features of the man
whom he had encountered. Harry took
the fellow for another guest who had
blundered toward this path to safety.
The man on the stairway was sallow
of countenance. His hair was dark; his
eyes, bulging, carried a blackish glit-
ter. Seeing the man’s profile, Harry
noted a solid, out-thrust jaw.
As the man’s face turned and
grinned toward him, Harry observed
a hardness of the lips that was matched
even by the wrinkles of the furrowed
forehead.
“We’ll make it.”
The hard-faced man spoke raspily, as
they reached a landing and continued
downward.
“Easily,” returned Harry. “The smoke
has thinned. We are almost to the sec-
ond floor.”
“We’re there. Keep your head down.
it’s going to be smoky the rest of the
way.”
The hard-faced man was right. He
and Harry continued their descent
blindly, clutching to the rail. Harry took
a false step as he reached the bottom.
His heel clanked stone. He knew that
he had struck a side exit on the ground
floor of the hotel.
Blinking in the smoke, he saw his
companion. Ruddy light from the inte-
rior of the burning hotel showed the
hard-faced man stumbling toward an-
other flight of steps.
“Hold it!” coughed Harry. He sprang
across to block off his companion. “Don’t
go any farther! Those steps lead down
into the basement!”
The hard-faced man no longer wa-
vered. He straightened. His grin was
livid as he saw Harry, arms out-
stretched, at the very top of the stone
steps. A hoarse gasp came from Harry’s
lips. At that instant, Harry knew who
this man must be.
The hard-faced man was the mur-
derer of Chester Woldorf!
Harry’s cry told what he knew. It was
5
The Salamanders
all that the hard-faced man wanted.
Before Harry could bring his arms up,
his leering companion swung a tough,
swift fist. The punch clipped Harry’s
jaw.
WITHOUT an outcry, The Shadow’s
agent tumbled backward. Slugged clear
of the top step, he went tumbling, roll-
ing to the bottom of the stone stairs.
Leering, the hard-faced man saw the
final crash. Rolling over twice, Harry
Vincent lay still and helpless, deep in
the basement of the doomed hotel.
Smoke enveloped the prone body. The
hard-faced man turned about. As he
stumbled toward the exit, it was
wrenched open. Rescuers from outside
grabbed the murderer and helped him
to the outside air. Coughing, two fire-
men clattered inward and stared
through thickening smoke.
“See if there’s any others,” ordered
one. “Maybe down those steps -”
“There’s nobody there. That’s the
basement.”
Smoke had totally obscured Harry
Vincent’s unconscious form. The open-
ing of the outside door had brought the
smoke upward. Peering through the
dense smoke, the firemen saw nothing.
They stood, shouting at the exit. They
heard no answering calls. While they
waited, the finish came.
Fire crackled wildly from above. Walls
trembled. Beams burst with a roar.
Downward, a flaming mass, came the
whole interior of the old hotel. As the
firemen leaped to outside safety, the
walls crumbled.
From a blazing framework, the hotel
was transformed into a pitlike furnace,
where flames rose rampant and sparks
soared high into the night.
The bed of that furnace was the base-
ment where Harry Vincent had
sprawled. No human being could have
lain there and survived.
Crushing timbers, ablaze from end
to end; masses of flaming woodwork;
an entire ruin that crackled anew like
a mammoth bonfire - such was the re-
mains of the old hotel.
Survivors had scattered. Other build-
ings were ablaze. The fire had reached
an office building; it had swept to a
garage in back of the hotel. Automo-
biles were being removed by frenzied
owners. Puffs of flame formed twenty-
foot torches as gasoline tanks ignited.
Firemen were everywhere, working
like madmen to save other buildings.
Riverport’s small police force was on
hand. Tumult reigned as the holocaust
continued. Volunteers were joining in
the fight against the flames.
The ruins of the Capitol Hotel were
forgotten by all men except one. He
was the hard-faced murderer, the last
to grope his own way out from the in-
terior of the hotel fire, alive. A block
away, he was standing beside an auto-
mobile. His face showed an evil gloat,
his dark eyes surveyed the spreading
flames.
The hard-faced man was pleased. He
had slain Chester Woldorf. He had re-
moved Harry Vincent - the only man
who had learned that Woldorf was
6
The Salamanders
murdered. All evidence of crime lay
buried in that fire-seethed pit that had
once been topped by the old Capitol
Hotel.
The murderer’s leer showed that he
expected no reckoning. In that, the
gloating killer was to find himself mis-
taken.
Crime would soon receive its chal-
lenge from The Shadow.
CHAPTER II
THE LONE TRAIL
SMOLDERING RUINS MARKED
the business section of Riverport.
The spreading hotel fire had not been
curbed until dawn. Twelve hours more
had passed; at last the fiery pit had
cooled sufficiently for searchers to ap-
proach it.
Just outside the fire-devastated area
was an undertaker’s establishment that
had been called into service as a
morgue. There, searchers were bring-
ing whatever objects appeared to be
human remains.
They had made few finds. The prin-
cipal exhibit at the morgue was a type-
written list of guests who had been at
the hotel.
This list had been prepared by a ho-
tel clerk who had a good memory. The
hotel register had been lost in the fire.
One clerk, who had gone off duty ear-
lier, had perished in the blaze. As near
as could be guessed, there had been
about a dozen victims. The names of
the survivors had been checked with a
red pencil. The other names stood bar-
ren on the list.
Among the persons who studied the
list of names that afternoon was a tall,
calm-faced stranger who had arrived
at Riverport on the later afternoon
train. Though distinctive in appear-
ance, he had attracted but little atten-
tion, for his quiet manner rendered him
inconspicuous.
This arrival was The Shadow.
In New York, The Shadow had read
of the holocaust at Riverport. There
had been no word from Harry Vincent.
Though the newspapers had classed
the fire as accidental, The Shadow was
sure that it had been designed.
Two names - unchecked in red -
showed on the list to prove The
Shadow’s belief.
One was the name of Chester
Woldorf. Though the public did not
know the fact, Woldorf had been a man
of considerable wealth - a shrewd
speculator who had kept his affairs
strictly to himself.
Woldorf had moved out of sight some
months ago, to bob up at intervals in
unexpected places. He had shown by
his actions that he feared some men-
ace. That was why The Shadow had
decided to learn more about him.
The other name was that of Harry
Vincent.
Fire had struck the hotel where
Woldorf was located. That, in itself, was
significant; yet The Shadow could con-
cede that Woldorf might have perished
through an accident. But with Harry
7
The Salamanders
also named on the death list, the as-
pect changed.
Harry, alert and on duty, ready for
any emergency that might arise, would
have learned of the fire soon enough
to leave the doomed hotel.
THERE was only one answer. Some-
thing had happened to Woldorf. Harry
had investigated. He had met with
trouble before he left the hotel.
Walking from the morgue, The
Shadow approached the ruins of the
hotel. A small group of men were clus-
tered at one corner. Their discussion
told that they were officials who had
taken charge of the search. The
Shadow paused close by the cluster.
Unnoticed in the settling dusk, he lis-
tened to the conversation.
“Some of the victims may have blun-
dered into the basement,” one man was
saying. “A couple of firemen told me
they found one fellow who nearly
stumbled down there.”
“That sounds likely,” came the com-
ment, “except that there haven’t been
many human remains picked up.”
“There won’t be. That fire lasted long
enough to burn them to a frazzle. It
was hot enough inside that fire to melt
that old safe that was in the hotel!”
“Who says that? A safe won’t melt!”
“This one must have. There’s no sign
of it. Nobody could have lugged it
away.”
“What was in it? Anything impor-
tant?”
“No. Old Millick, who owns the hotel,
says the safe didn’t count for much. It
wasn’t often that folks put things there
while stopping at the hotel.”
The speakers moved away. The
Shadow gained an immediate deduc-
tion. One hotel clerk had survived the
fire, to give from memory, the names
of registered guests. The inclusion of
Woldorf’s name was proof of that clerk’s
honesty.
But there had been a second clerk -
off duty - who had presumably died in
the blaze. It was possible that Woldorf
had given the dead clerk valuables for
deposit in the hotel safe. To The
Shadow, the absence of a safe amid the
ruins was a matter of high importance.
Could that safe have been removed
during the fire?
The Shadow’s answer was yes. His
decision, however, was modified to suit
the circumstances. The safe could not
have been carried away openly. It must
have been removed in some secret
fashion.
STARING across the ruins of the ho-
tel, The Shadow saw the grayish-white
outline of other crumbled walls. They
represented the garage that had ad-
joined the Capitol Hotel. Skirting the
smoldering pit, The Shadow reached
the site of the garage.
Between the hotel and garage was
an elongated pit, half filled with de-
bris. A man in overalls was poking
about with a long stick, dislodging
chunks of charred wood and stone.
The Shadow approached the man
8
The Salamanders
and spoke an affable greeting. When
the man looked up, The Shadow made
a casual inquiry.
“Was this the storage tank,” he ques-
tioned, “where they kept the gasoline
for the garage?”
The searcher shook his head.
“The storage tank was up there, sir,”
he replied, pointing to the remains of
the garage. “This was the cellar of an
old annex that used to run back from
the hotel. They tore it down a couple of
years ago.”
“And left the cellar covered over?”
“Yes, sir. ’Twouldn’t have done for
gasoline storage. Too close to the hotel.
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered
much, though. The hotel burnt like a
tinder box as it was.”
In the dusk, the man noted that The
Shadow was well dressed. He looked
like a stranger who might have been a
guest at the burned hotel. The man
questioned:
“You had a car, sir? In the garage?”
The Shadow nodded.
“Maybe it was saved, sir,” informed
the man in a hopeful tone. “You’d bet-
ter inquire down at the Southern Ga-
rage, just past the depot. That’s where
they took what cars they could.”
The Shadow headed for the South-
ern Garage. Strolling toward that des-
tination, he checked his new informa-
tion. The old cellar in back of the Capi-
tol Hotel had existed as an unseen
route from the hotel to its garage.
Through that underground passage,
men could have easily carried the miss-
ing safe.
To do so, they would have been forced
to dare the flames. A dangerous task;
one so formidable that it seemed almost
impossible. The hotel had burned with
amazing rapidity; and the interval of
action had, therefore, been brief. These
facts pointed definitely to a scheduled
fire. They were bringing The Shadow
along a trail that showed crime.
ARRIVING at the Southern Garage,
The Shadow entered to find a crowded
floor. Cars were jammed into every foot
of space. No attendants were about.
The Shadow pressed his way between
crammed automobiles and found an
office.
There, a grimy-faced man was seated
at a battered desk, going over account
books. He looked up as The Shadow
entered.
“Good afternoon,” greeted The
Shadow, quietly. “You are the manager
here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I came for my coupe,” remarked The
Shadow. “It was brought here from the
garage at the Capitol Hotel.”
“You were in the fire, sir?”
The Shadow made no response to the
manager’s question. Instead, he merely
continued his statement.
“Unfortunately,”’ he said, “I no longer
have the owner’s card. Of course, I can
identify the car. It was a green coupe,
with a New York license -”
“I know the car, sir. It’s right inside
the front door. You can drive it out with-
out any trouble -”
9
The Salamanders
The car in question was Harry
Vincent’s. It actually belonged to The
Shadow; hence his statements were
correct. The garage manager took
them at their face value. Riverport was
a town where most men were accepted
at their word.
The manager accompanied The
Shadow from the office. As they pressed
their way between stored cars, The
Shadow made a quiet comment.
“Odd that you have no trucks stored
here.”
The garage manager turned quickly.
He had reached the side of Harry’s
coupe; an overhead electric bulb
showed a troubled look on the man’s
face.
“Why did you say that, sir?”
“For no special reason,” replied The
Shadow. “I suppose that few trucks
choose the route through Riverport?”
“There was a truck here,” declared
the manager, biting at his lip. “It came
from the burned hotel garage last night.
The men who brought it wanted stor-
age here; I told them that there was
no space. They kept the truck outdoors
until early this morning.”
“And then?”
The Shadow’s query was impressive.
Almost in spite of himself, the garage
manager answered. His tone was cau-
tious.
“I overheard one of the truckmen
making a telephone call,” he stated. “He
was in my office, without permission.
He was telling some one that he would
bring the truck on to Westhampton,
about fifty miles from here.
“He was arranging storage at
Westhampton, sir. To keep the truck
there all day, in a garage. He said
something about driving on to New York
tonight. It sounded like they didn’t
want that truck to be seen by day. Right
after that, the truck left here. It wasn’t
daylight; they had time to reach
Westhampton before dawn. Maybe I’m
suspicious, sir, but -”
With an amazing spring, The
Shadow leaped into action. Coming
from the front of the coupe, he inter-
rupted the garage man with a wide,
swinging left arm, that sent the aston-
ished fellow sprawling to the running
board of Harry’s car.
His right hand jabbing upward, The
Shadow stopped a swinging arm that
was coming downward. A huge,
sweatered thug had sprung from be-
hind a parked car.
A MASSIVE monkey wrench in his
clutch, the hoodlum had delivered a
vicious swing for the garage manager’s
head. Only The Shadow’s swift inter-
vention had prevented the crushing
blow. With one stroke, The Shadow had
hurled the garage manager from the
path of the deadly bludgeon, had
caught the thug’s arm in the middle of
its drive.
The attacker writhed. With a harsh
oath, he wrested his sweatered arm free
and took a sweeping sidewise swing at
The Shadow’s head. The wrench
whisked space. Dropping, The Shadow
ducked the sweep by a clear inch.
Bobbing up, he drove a hard fist
10
The Salamanders
straight across the thug’s arm before
the attacker could recover and ward off
the punch.
Knuckles landed just beneath the
thug’s chin. An ugly gargle told how
deep The Shadow’s fist had driven into
the attacker’s windpipe. The thug thud-
ded floorward, his head cracking
against the coupe’s bumper.
The garage manager came to his feet
and blinked. The Shadow was stepping
aboard the coupe; the
thug was lying sense-
less on the stone floor.
“Inform your local
authorities,” ordered
The Shadow, quietly.
“You will have ample
time. That fellow will
not recover within the
next fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say nothing about
the truck that went to
Westhampton.” The
Shadow pressed the
coupe’s starter as he
spoke. “I shall investi-
gate the matter.”
“I understand.”
The garage man-
ager was impressed by
the hawk-visaged
stranger who had
saved him from a mur-
derer. He thought that
The Shadow must be a
Federal agent, who
had trailed the missing
truck to Riverport. He
saw no connection between the hotel
fire and the truck.
The coupe rolled from the garage. It
swung toward the road that led to
Westhampton. The garage manager
scurried forth and dashed toward the
local police station, which was less than
two blocks away.
AN approaching pedestrian had
A massive monkey wrench in
his clutch, the hoodlum had
delivered a vicious swing for
the garage manager’s head.
摘要：

1TheSalamandersTHESALAMANDERSAsoriginallypublishedin“TheShadowMagazine,”April1,1936Indeadofnightaflamingmonsterrearsitsdroolingheadandbellowsforthitschallengewithsearingbreath!ItwasaterriblemenaceTheShadowsoughttoovercomeashewentforthtocombatthedragonofFire!CHAPTERIFIREOFDOOMFIRE!FIRE!”Theshoutsrose...

展开>> 收起<<
Grant, Maxwell - The.Salamanders.pdf

共89页,预览10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！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：89 页 大小：733.35KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-04

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 89
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注