“Let’s hit for the Sound,” suggested Beef. “We can make a quick getaway and scram out of sight. With The Shadow finished, it will be soft.”
“You may be right, Norbin,” responded the professor. “However, I shall decide the matter. Our present work is to load the ship as rapidly as possible. You are in charge, Norbin. You have a dozen men all told. Get all the gold aboard — all the documents — everything that we require. Lester and Shoyer will aid you. I am allowing twenty minutes at the most. If we land elsewhere on Long Island, I am counting upon you getting the automobiles.”
“That will be easy,” responded Norbin with a grin.
“We have until dawn,” remarked the professor. “So our plans are bound to work; but the less time we spend here, the better. Where are my guests?”
Beef Norbin laughed.
“In the grotto,” he said, “entertaining themselves. They’ll be disappointed, I guess.”
“I shall see them,” remarked the professor. “I shall talk to them while you are loading our boat. I shall tell them what I intend to do with them.”
Beef Norbin’s face clouded.
“We’re going to have trouble,” he stated, “if we have to take care of that bunch when we make a getaway. It may mean two trips.”
“Do not worry,” said the professor, with a wan smile. “I shall attend to my guests. My plans for a Utopia have been abandoned for the present. Other suitable subjects will be available if I resume them. There is no dearth of specimens for my experiments. Come.”
BEEF NORBIN followed the professor through the doorway. The other men joined at Beef’s wave. The professor led the way through an upward-sloping corridor. The path diverged. The old man stopped at a barrier while the others went to the right.
“Load rapidly,” ordered Sheldon. “All to work — at once.”
Beef Norbin nodded. Lester and Shoyer gave the same sign. The professor opened his door, and walked down a flight of steps. He came to another barrier and unlocked it. He stepped into the golden grotto.
On the other side of the vaulted chamber were his so-called guests.
They looked up as the professor entered. With smiling face and folded arms, the old man studied them benignly as he walked a few paces into the grotto.
Professor Sheldon began to speak. Behind him, through the opened door, came the tramp of men carrying the first load of wealth to the subterranean dock.
Out beyond — by the deck itself — the scene was deserted. The mystery ship floated easily, moored to its resting place. In the glow from the stone walls, fantastic, shadowy streaks adorned the sides of the cavern. Those shadows seemed to waver in the light as though endowed with life.
A silent, sinister scene it was. When the first of the boat-loaders came through the doorway, his echoing footsteps sounded weirdly beneath the vaulted roof. Others followed; the loading was on in relays.
Soon the work would be complete; then the getaway would follow. Desperate men were busy, using haste. Still, the shadows wavered on the walls beside the dock!
CHAPTER XXIII
THE GETAWAY
PROFESSOR SHELDON had been speaking eloquently for more than fifteen minutes. Standing near the doorway of the grotto, the old sociologist had the air he used in delivering a lecture. His listeners — those whom he had brought here forcibly — were keyed with interest.
Even Harry Vincent, who sensed some impending danger, was forced to admire the ease of the professor’s tone. In fact, the only sullen member of the group was Malbray Woodruff. The artist had joined them this evening, and had been taciturn and morose.
The professor was summing up an oration on his chosen subject — Utopia. As he reached the concluding words, he heard a whistling from the corridor. Professor Sheldon smiled. The mystery ship was loaded. The time had come for the climax of his drama.
“I have talked of Utopia,” declared the sociologist. “It is now time for me to talk of myself — and of you. I hope that you have enjoyed your sojourn in this golden grotto. No others will inhabit it henceforth. I intend to abandon it tonight.”
The professor pointed to the door behind him, and, stepping back, rested his hand upon a lever there.
“The floor of this grotto,” explained the professor, “happens to be below the level of the bay. Therefore, by release of this lever, I can open special sluices and the grotto will be flooded to a considerable depth, preventing entrance in the future.
“I had planned, after our departure tonight, to flood the grotto. I still plan to do so; but I have made changes in my own purposes. I regret, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall have to abandon my present schemes for a Utopia.”
The listeners did not know whether to accept this as a good or evil token. There was something ominous in the professor’s tone. Harry sensed it. Nearer to the professor than the others, Harry was slowly crouching, in the knowledge that the time for desperate action might be here.
“The grotto will flood quite rapidly,” said the professor. “Therefore, I intend to climb the steps in the passage, after closing the door behind me. This door locks automatically. It is my regret that I shall be on one side of the door and you on the other.
“Tonight, my friends, I have chosen wealth in preference to Utopia — and my only excuse is that untoward events compelled the decision!”
Sheldon’s hand was on the lever. Harry Vincent was hopelessly rising to his feet. He was unarmed; so were his companions. It was twenty yards to the professor, who was already in the doorway. A hopeless chance — and Harry refused to take it. For should he drive the professor from the grotto, all chance of safety would be ended!
ONLY the unexpected could save the eight doomed persons — and the unexpected came. A pistol shot sounded from far along the corridor beyond the professor. A second shot — a third — then a volley mingled with startled cries!
Unconsciously, Professor Kirby Sheldon turned to look up the steps. That was Harry Vincent’s cue. With a mad spring, Harry leaped for the professor. The old man turned just in time to see him coming, and made a vain effort to jerk the lever. Harry caught his hand and wrested him away from the doorway.
Cries of approval came from Harry’s companions. Clayton Peale and Roy Darwin were rising. They saw that Harry was winning in the struggle with the old man: their thought was to protect the girls — to hurry them from the grotto.
But would it be safe to rush into the face of fire? Shots were echoing along the corridors without the grotto — shots that were approaching the stone stairs. As Darwin and Peale hesitated, a man came stumbling down those very steps, and staggered into the grotto. It was Lester.
“The Shadow!” The man’s voice was uttered in a frightened tone as he stared with wild, unseeing eyes. “The Shadow! He was in the boat — found revolvers there — came from the wall to attack us—”
Until that moment, Lester had not realized that Sheldon was in trouble. He had not seen the professor, struggling with Harry Vincent, away from the door of the grotto. He had only gasped the dread news — word that was proven by the shots that still echoed from outside, where The Shadow, striking from darkness, had staged the unexpected sortie.
But when Lester noticed the professor, he made a leap in that direction, swinging his revolver to cover Harry Vincent. The threat of the gun had withheld Darwin and Peale. They were powerless, at their distance, when they saw the menace that lay over Harry Vincent.
It was Harry himself who met the attack. Throwing the professor aside, he managed to grapple Lester before the underling had time to fire. At that moment, Shoyer staggered in. He was no menace. He sprawled dead as he reached the floor of the grotto. He had been finished by The Shadow.