Against the shutting barrier. Lois saw the pasty, haggard face of Edward Barcla!
THE man gave a snarl that carried fear with its challenge. Wildly, he hurled a missile toward Lois. The thing was a big ball, black and twirling, that some people would have mistaken for a bomb; but Lois had seen a similar thing at one of Scorpio's lectures.
The sphere was a star globe, showing the constellations, like a map of the world. Barcla had evidently grabbed it as an improvised weapon.
Glancing from the wall, well wide of Lois' head, the globe bounded with a tinny plunk and struck the ground. By then, Barcla was in full flight, tearing through the underbrush like a maddened deer.
Lois hadn't a chance to follow him. She extinguished the flashlight and listened to his dwindling crashes.
He was keeping to the back woods, traveling as if he expected a horde of demons on his trail.
It wasn't all cowardice on Barcla's part, though Lois did not realize it. Barcla simply thought that he had met the living ghost of the night before; otherwise, The Shadow.
As for Lois, she was considerably scared herself. She started to run, but she did not follow Barcla. Her feet simply took control and chose the easiest path-past the Castle and down the slope. Next, Lois was stumbling, rolling, fortunately escaping the trees. She wound up, laughing half-hysterically, near the water's edge.
Sounds from the lake sobered her. Feeling safe, she considered what she had learned. This much was certain: Professor Scorpio had been harboring Edward Barcla, a fugitive from justice. Barcla was one of Scorpio's tools; probably the most important one.
It wouldn't do to stay here for the meeting. Lois needed help; the one person she thought of was Niles Rundon. He was across the lake, at his cabin, expecting friends for a poker game. They always came on nights when Scorpio gave lectures, after leaving their wives at the community house.
There was a way to get to Rundon's in Scorpio's speedboat. Lois knew the craft well; she had driven it when it belonged to Paula. It had no ignition lock, merely a switch that anyone could press.
There it lay waiting some twenty yards from shore, a canvas already removed from the cockpit and lying over the stern. Probably Scorpio had intended to use it this evening, before the cabin cruiser came for him.
Reaching the dock, Lois looked for a rowboat and found one, but it was chained and locked. There was a quicker and quieter way to reach the speedster: by swimming to it. Once in the motorboat, Lois could come back and scoop her clothes from the end of the dock.
Lack of the dark dress wouldn't matter, for the lake, like the dock, was almost black and Lois expected no lights to come her way. She felt quite secure while preparing for her swim, for it was easy to watch the lake and make sure that no one approached. The speedboat was only twenty yards away; Lois could reach it easily.
Lights of moving boats all were distant; in fact, the nearest of such craft was loitering at Paula Lodi's dock, almost a mile away. Lois heard its idling motor throb louder just as she was diving into the water.
With the splash, there were sudden shouts from the shore, close by. Coming to the surface, Lois saw a flashlight lick from the direction of Scorpio's Castle toward the dock that she had just left. Some of the crooks had arrived for the meeting!
They were rushing out along the dock while Lois made quick strokes to the speedboat. Nearing the boat, the girl took an underwater dip, came up beneath and gripped the boat's far side. The mooring rope was handy; Lois worked at it.
She knew that the men with the flashlights had spotted the garments that she had left on the dock; but she had dived from the end and was sure that they would look in that direction first. They wouldn't know that she had veered to the left when she began her swim.
The boat that had been at Lodi's dock was throbbing this way, but it wasn't operating its searchlight. Lois still had the benefit of blackness all about her.
Two men were growling from the deck; Rufus and another. They had flashed their light straight out; deceived by the ripples, they thought that Lois had gone under the pier, as the nearest hiding place.
Their light did sweep the speedboat while the girl was undoing the mooring rope on the other side; it moved away again. They did not think that Lois could have reached the boat so quickly.
Then the rope was loose. Rolling over the low side, Lois drew back the sheltering canvas as she kicked the starter. The craft snapped into motion. There were snarls, as the light came its way. Over the stern, the men could see Lois' sleek back and shoulders as she crouched at the wheel. They yanked out revolvers and began to fire.
Bullets ricocheted from the water like skipping stones. Rufus and his crony were hoping to explain murder by claiming that they were preventing the theft of Scorpio's boat; but they didn't come anywhere near a hit. The speedster was a whisking thing, as it shot out into the lake under Lois skillful guidance.
The girl knew the boat. She veered it one direction, then the other. Even the flashlight lost its course temporarily. Then the foiled marksmen spotted it, whipping off to the straightaway, out of range. Over the stern, a girl's long, slender arm gave them a derisive wave.
Lois wasn't going back to the dock. The canvas tarpaulin could make amends for her scarcity of raiment when she reached Rundon's. The sooner she brought back aid, the better. Though Barcla was gone, there still might be time to trap Rufus and another, if they were foolish enough to stay near the Castle too long.
Perhaps it was the swim that had cleared Lois thoughts. At any rate, reason told the girl that she wasn't out of danger. There could be crooks on the water, as well as on land. Looking back over her shoulder, Lois saw something that fulfilled her conviction.
A speedboat had whipped in beside the Castle dock, from the direction of Paula Lodi's. It was the craft that Lois had seen while preparing for her swim. Spurts came from it-the jabs of guns. Foolish shots, thought Lois, for she was far from range.
The flashing light was gone from the dock; the large craft, veering, was turning after Lois' boat. Its own lights went off, too, which made Lois think that the men on the dock had exchanged shouts with those in the pursuing craft, telling them to take up the chase. She didn't guess that they had exchanged shots, not shouts, to the detriment of the men on the dock.
Lois needed no light. She was bearing on a darkened stretch of shore cater-cornered across the lake; that marked the location of Rundon's cabin. She was sure that she could outdistance the craft behind her.
She looked for other boats, saw only one, indicated by tiny specks of light.
It was coming from the community house, a slow boat, bringing Rundon's friends, which meant that it must be close to nine o'clock. That boat would take at least twenty minutes to reach Rundon's; Lois could make the trip in half that time. She recalled again that this speedster she was in was the fastest thing on the lake.
Not quite. There was a craft that Lois did not know about-a slinking, silent thing that could slither through the lake with scarcely a wave behind it and touch speeds that would make it seem other than a man-made device.
It was more like a fabulous sea monster, rampant in the waters of Lake Calada; a low-built streak, awash with the very surface that it sliced. The ghost, perhaps, of some prehistoric denizen from a forgotten age.
Yet it was real, that monstrous craft, and it was actually in sight, had Lois known where to look and how to detect it. The thing was coming from another angle, gaining on the speedboat, as though hungrily seeking to devour it.
The mystery ship had been bound for Scorpio's Castle, when it veered; its hidden crew were taking up Lois' trail. Only foamy ripples revealed that men of crime were again on hand, this time seeking to thwart a rescue before The Shadow could arrive!