The Shadow - 163 - Shadow Over Alcatraz by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1938-12-21T23:00:00+00:00

The Shadow had chosen a special goal: Lanyon’s torture room.

Again obeying a subtle impulse, The Shadow was confident that the torture chamber must be the deepest of these man-chiseled caverns. Something in Zanigew’s manner—a gesture of his motioning hand, at the time of Lanyon’s seizure—had indicated that.

Of all prisoners who needed aid, Lanyon’s demand was the most imperative.

Turning a sharp corner, The Shadow saw a final slope ahead. It was a curious passage, this one, for although its sides widened, its path did not.

The reason was a huge split in the rock, at the left. Where the passage leveled, that crevasse widened like a letter “V”, until the path on the right became nothing more than a catwalk.

Where the path narrowed to a mere two-foot ledge, The Shadow saw a solitary doorway. The door itself was open, as the last light showed. Beyond the walk blended into absolute darkness, for the rest of the passage was unusable.

Reaching the doorway, the Shadow heard the mutter of an ugly voice.

Peering down a short decline, he saw a cell infused by a ghastly greenish light. There, stretched on a crude-shaped rack, lay Harvey Lanyon.

THE Rainmaker’s ankles and wrists were bound with fetters attached to chains that ran over pulleys. All led to a metal drum beyond the rack. Above the drum was a crude clock, with swinging pendulum. As The Shadow watched, the clock’s long hand—its only hand—marked a quarter hour.

With a sharp click, the chains tightened one link farther. There was a harsh chuckle from beside the rack. The Shadow noted the man who gave it—a rough-clad fellow with a bulldog jaw, who was obviously one of Zanigew’s henchmen.

“Remember me, Lanyon?” gloated the tormentor, staring at the Rainmaker’s scared face. “I’m Elthar, the fellow you fired. I’m the guy that sold your crackpot invention for you, to Zanigew!

“I never did like you, Lanyon! That’s why I came down to see how you were making out. Not hurt much, just yet, huh? Don’t worry, you will be, after a few more hours on this rack!”

A few more hours—and every fifteen minutes meant a click of the chain.

That thought told The Shadow that Elthar was correct. The man gave a thrust of his bulldog chin, turned about to come from the torture cell. Needing immediate concealment, The Shadow found it by working farther along the catwalk. The ledge became so narrow, that he could only keep his balance by clutching the rocky wall.

At that moment, The Shadow’s left foot dislodged a tiny fragment of stone. It dropped into the abyss; after a prolonged fall it struck the bottom, sending up a faint clatter from rocks beneath. Elthar heard that sound as he shouldered through the doorway.

A frightened look swept the fellow’s rough face, proof that he had made this trip without orders. He glanced in The Shadow’s direction, saw nothing in the blackness. Looking the opposite way, Elthar saw no one in the rising passage. He was hasty, however, when he closed the door. His fingers fumbled the bolt, failing to shove it tight.

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