The Creeping Death by Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson

Author:Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson [Grant, Maxwell & Gibson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780515042061
Amazon: 0515042064
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1933-01-15T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII. THE SHADOW THAT LIVED

JOSE'S task was completed. The powerful henchman of Alfredo Morales had applied the sinking stones to the ropes which bound Vic Marquette. Crouched over the form of his intended victim, the squat, greasy-faced man paused to listen.

There was no sound from the woods behind. Long minutes had gone by. Morales and Armagnac had not returned. Obviously they had found the road deserted, and had gone back to the cottage. There would be no witnesses to the death of this bound man. The judges had washed their hands of it.

Jose grinned. This task was to his liking. A push—a long wait—a clunk from the water beneath. How easy it was to kill, and how pleasant! Jose was a villain who liked variety in methods of dealing death.

Vic Marquette moved feebly. His eyes stared straight up and saw the cruel, merciless face of Jose. This was a man with whom he could not treat. Jose was a creature who obeyed one master. That master had decreed death.

Jose sneered as he saw those eyes. He wanted to see the victim plead; but all he received was a cold, firm gaze.

Jose had encountered men before who had not feared death. There was no use wasting time with them. Stepping back, Jose leaned forward to raise the body on its way.

Then the clutching hands that gripped the body of Vic Marquette paused in response to Jose's gaze. Looking over the body, to the brink of the precipice a scant five feet away, Jose saw a flat shadow in the moonlight. It lay there, a long, gruesome shade, projecting from the edge of the precipice, directly over the path where Jose intended to roll the victim's body!

That wide streak of black was motionless, but it made Jose tremble; for it was almost identical with the black shape that Jose had seen upon the floor of the main room in the cottage!

Jose's hands trembled; then, with an angry snarl, the villain pressed the body forward. Why should he fear shadows? Even such shapes might move. This one seemed to be swaying now. What of it? Morales was right; no danger could lurk in moving patches of blackness.

The lust for murder was stronger now in Jose's mind than any superstitious reasoning that might normally dominate him. The intended killer rolled his victim's body forward as he raised his head to sight the edge of the cliff.

Then came a gargling cry from Jose's greasy lips. It was the low, snarling whine of a hunted, beaten beast.

Leaping backward, Jose forgot the mission that he was here to perform. Then his trembling limbs failed him. He cowered on the mound of rock, staring across the body of Vic Marquette, that lay face downward in the moonlight.

THERE, before Jose's bleary eyes, was a shadow that lived! It no longer lay as a substanceless shade across the flatness of the rock. It was a real form, a solid form, rising like a grim specter from the limitless depths

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