Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 171 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XI. THE CAPTURE BELOW

CLUTCHING a curved iron bar that he found beneath the dock trapdoor, The Shadow let the trap come shut. Dangling from the bar, he lowered his feet into the cockpit of the Z-boat.

Feeling the rung of a ladder, he lowered himself beside the half dome.

The lantern was only a few feet above him. Raising the glass, The Shadow blew out the flame. That, he imagined, was a duty expected of Rusty, when The Shadow began a downward grope into the Z-boat.

Instead of a cockpit, he found the space more like the conning tower of a submarine. That

fitted with his own observation, the night when the Barracuda had vanished in the bay. By the time The Shadow had reached the bottom of the ladder, he heard a slithery noise above.

An inner part of the dome clamped downward, completely sealing the space at the top.

Immediately afterward, slow gurgles were audible from the darkness within the Z-boat.

Someone had heard The Shadow's arrival and had mistaken him for Rusty. The ship had started to submerge.

The walls at the bottom of the ladder were rounded, like the sides of a giant cheese box.

Probing them, The Shadow could feel no opening. The darkness was clammy in its thickness; that steady gurgle, combined with the slow sinking of the floor, would have caused the average adventurer to wish he had remained on shore.

There was something insidious about the entire situation.

To begin with, the Barracuda was supposed to be miles out to sea, trusting to fog or ocean depths to hide her. Yet here was The Shadow aboard Prew's Z-boat, sinking in the fringe of San Francisco harbor!

The dock above was the cleverest of camouflage. The pier in Sausalito had been high enough to hide a boat that floated on the surface; this dock was not. But the Z-boat, when submerged, could be tucked almost anywhere. That was an angle the searchers had evidently overlooked.

It all indicated devilish ingenuity on the part of Felix Sergon, the master of modern piracy. It made the sudden submerging of the submarine seem like a snare, a planned event in case some challenger like The Shadow came on board.

Like anyone else in his present position, The Shadow had reason to be qualmish, but he wasn't. He still retained a well-formed theory, which, if correct, would work to his advantage.

First sight of the hidden Z-boat had shaken his theory; but added thought had told him that it could even yet be correct.

If it proved to be right, it would work out even better than he had originally hoped.

The ship had settled to the bottom by the time The Shadow at last solved the secret of the circular wall. Reaching high, he found a crevice that formed a level line all about. It meant that the entire wall was a solid cylinder that could be lowered, to give access to the interior of the Z-boat.

There was nothing in the way of a hidden switch to start the cylinder downward, but The Shadow fancied that he would not have long to wait.

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