HUNTING a banshee in Central Park was a shivery sport, even on a warm night. At least Margo Lane found it so, despite the presence of police in plentitude. In fact it was the prevalence of uniformed searchers that made the situation so uncanny. Only a banshee or its equivalent could have eluded the sizeable cordon established around the rock-rimmed pool.
On the jutting rock where Reilly had seen the banshee, there was evidence to support the officer’s testimony. That evidence was a lilac bough which anybody might have wrenched from the tree, but it bore a distinctive mark linking Reilly’s banshee with Sylvia’s Gwrach y Rhibyn.
There was a jagged mark where a portion of the branch had been ripped away and when Cardona fitted the twig that he had brought from the seance room, it corresponded exactly!
Certainly this made it seem that Madame Mathilda had viewed the actual scene upon the cliff above the pool and that in departure, the phantom had projected a souvenir of the occasion into Mathilda’s parlor.
To emphasize his testimony, Reilly led the investigators back to the spot from which he had first seen the banshee. Pointing to the rock, he declaimed:
“‘Twas there she stood, reaching for the branch, which as any eye can see, was a good bit above her head. What she was wearing I wouldn’t know, after seeing her from this distance only, but ‘twas scanty. The moon is higher now, but right then it was bucking traffic over from across the park and against it I could see the banshee’s hair, all waving with the black glisten of a raven’s wings.
“Only half way there I was, when she gave the banshee screech and vanished. Mind you, there is nowhere else she could have gone except into nowhere, as others here will testify. Some saw her from the bridge, others heard her from the bridle path and the drive. It’s their word, not mine that you can take, though nobody lives that has ever questioned the word of a Reilly.”
At Weston’s suggestion, they went around to the bridge and studied the rock from there, only to find the mystery even tighter. Though the top of the rock was dim because of the overhanging tree, the front surface caught the full glisten of the moonlight.
Except for slight crevices and the tough, stunted bushes that grew from them, the rock was almost sheer until it reached the water’s edge. It certainly couldn’t have hidden a random figure, but Weston’s doubts concerned the brow of the rock. With a cautious look at Reilly, to make sure that the patrolman wouldn’t feel that his own testimony was being criticized, Weston spoke to persons who had been on the bridge.
“Regarding the woman on the rock,” said the commissioner. “Are you sure you really saw her there? It’s dark up there from this angle. You didn’t have as good a view as Reilly.”
“There was moonlight then,” returned one of the witnesses. “It was shining straight at the rock top. The lower part was darker at that time.”
Another witness corroborated this statement. In addition there were some who had arrived when they heard the wild departing shriek of the creature that was more and more assuming the proportions of a banshee. Some had heard the crackling of the lilac bough; others had glimpsed the sylphlike figure that had flung the tree branch. All admitted that their view was vague, but that the shape was real until the moment that it dwindled, as if swallowed by the rock itself.
One witness gave a novel bit of testimony. She was a middle-aged woman attired in an out-of-date riding habit and her face was as long in expression and as solemn as that of the horse that stood beside her.
“I did not see the rock, nor the person on it,” this woman declared. “What attracted my attention was the light that blinked very strangely, off yonder.”
The woman stabbed a long finger in a direction at an angle to the rock and on a level a trifle above the trees. Following her point, others saw only the silhouetted outline of a tall apartment building to the west of Central Park.
“That light,” suggested Cardona, suddenly. “Was it like a candle, floating through the air?”
The long-faced woman thought a while, then nodded so vehemently that her horse followed suit.
“The corpse candle,” said Cardona to Weston, “or whatever they call it in Wales. The thing Miss Selmore said she saw, commissioner.”
The commissioner wasn’t impressed. He eyed the long-faced woman dubiously as though wondering if she had played the banshee and then skipped off to acquire her riding habit and her horse. But after a brief appraisal, Weston decided that this witness couldn’t have come up to the specifications of the woodland sprite who had been described in captivating terms.
It was time to tighten the cordon and bring in the banshee. So the commissioner dismissed class and went about his business, which left Margo on the bridge by moonlight, thinking she’d have a few quiet words with Lamont. But when Margo looked around, she found herself alone and realized only too suddenly that she hadn’t seen Lamont Cranston during the past ten minutes.
Somehow this setting was becoming a trifle too spooky. The ripple of the water beneath the bridge, the added tumult where it tumbled into a series of cascades down the lower slope, were sounds that threatened to drown anything less than a banshee’s wail. If such a howl should again disturb the night, Margo didn’t care to be the only person to hear it.
Looking for somewhere else to go, Margo happened to glance beyond the westward trees. A moment later she was riveted by a sight she didn’t want. It was starting again, that blinky light that Madame Mathilda and Miss Selmore had called the Canhywllah Cyrth!
Oddly, the sight stiffened Margo’s nerve. At least this was one mystery that she might solve in her small way. So she started in the direction of the intermittent light, even though it led around to the other side of the rocky pool which was unexplored territory to Margo.
The light was like a will-o-the-wisp, but it served as a beacon even though it might not be leading anywhere. Suddenly its flickers ceased and only then did Margo realize that her path had been guided by the light itself. Now she was suddenly worried, for she was past the pool and practically among the searchers who were clinging around it. If she ran into any of them, Margo might be arrested on suspicion of having impersonated a banshee, which would mean a lot of troublesome explanations.
That thought impelled Margo to undertake a detour further around the pool and the immediate result was grief. The turf gave suddenly and along with a deluge of spilling stones, Margo was precipitated down into a narrow gully which was completely hidden under the spread of overhanging trees.
Though startling, the slide proved brief. As for the gully, it furnished exactly what Margo wanted, an outlet past the cordon. As she crept along, moving away from the direction of the pool, Margo realized that at intervals this narrow passage actually burrowed under solid ground where drives and bridle paths crossed it. By the time the gully leveled off, the crowd of circling searchers was far behind.
Still, the ground was still high here, for as Margo ventured past some large boulders, she saw a downward slope and beyond it some rapid moving lights that flitted a reflection from among the tree roots. She realized then that she had reached a transverse, one of the speedways that cross Central Park below the level of the driveways.
Those were the lights of automobiles, rolling along the underpass. Since there was no way to cross the cut, Margo was about to turn and look for a pathway, when she saw a figure come stealthily from behind a tree near the transverse.
It was a singular figure, lean anal stoopish that could hardly be termed more than an outline of something human, though with a trifling stretch of the imagination it might have been mistaken for an orangutan escaped from the Central Park Zoo. If the thing hadn’t turned in Margo’s direction, she probably wouldn’t have attracted its attention, but it did turn.
Sight of an ugly, darkish face leering into the moonlight brought a half-scream from Margo and that was not only enough, but too much. The figure wheeled, unlimbered to full height, and whipped its arm back to throw.
Right then an avalanche struck Margo.
That avalanche came in the form of human blackness, launched from the darkness of a large rock that Margo had just skirted. Spilled by the drive, Margo sprawled headlong, hardly realizing that her rescuer was The Shadow. For rescuer he was, as testified by a whirring sound that whipped past the spot where Margo had just been, to end with a thud against a stout tree.
From her sprawl, Margo saw a sight that really dazed her. As The Shadow lunged toward the embankment, the stooped man who had thrown the knife made another of his unlimbering motions, but with a complete turnabout. It seemed that he literally scooped himself from The Shadow’s grasp and vanished into the darkness above the transverse which at that moment, fortunately for the fugitive, was devoid of passing cars and their tell-tale lights.
It was The Shadow’s voice that hissed the warning that Margo heeded. Scrambling up past the rocks, the girl found a driveway and ran along it toward where she knew a cab was waiting for Cranston. Finding the cab, Margo popped into it and felt safe at last, for she knew the driver. His name was Shrevvy and his cab was always at Cranston’s service, especially on nights like this.
Five minutes later, Cranston arrived back at the cab to report that the police hunt was still under way and accomplishing nothing. In fact, Cranston seemed rather bored with the whole business until the cab had rolled from Central Park and was swinging along a lighted avenue.
Then, turning to Margo, Cranston queried:
“Remember that mysterious apport business over at Madame Mathilda’s?”
“Of course.” Margo found her voice with a forced laugh. “You mean the sprig of lilac that they found there. But there was plenty more lilac out in the park.”
“And that was only half of it,” reminded Cranston. “There was a dagger that landed on the floor of the seance room. There seems to be plenty more of such out in the park too. I found this as a sample.”
In the light of the passing street lamps, Cranston exhibited the object which Margo realized was the whirring thing that had sped past her and planted itself in the trunk of a tree.
Glistening in Cranston’s hand was the exact twin of the dirk that had arrived so mysteriously in Madame Mathilda’s parlor!