Maxwell Grant.........................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. TEN GRAND ....................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II. CRANSTON BUYS A GARDENIA ...............................................................................6

CHAPTER III. A MILLION IN CASH .................................................................................................10

CHAPTER IV. SMART BLONDE.......................................................................................................14

CHAPTER V. FIVE AND ONE........................................................................................................18

CHAPTER VI. THE CEILING GUN ....................................................................................................22

CHAPTER VII. THE SAND PIT..........................................................................................................26

CHAPTER VIII. MOONLIGHT MADNESS.......................................................................................30

CHAPTER IX. LEO BARRY RETURNS............................................................................................34

CHAPTER X. THE SECOND MURDER............................................................................................38

CHAPTER XI. THE PHOENIX ............................................................................................................42

CHAPTER XII. A DANGEROUS WOMAN.......................................................................................47

CHAPTER XIII. THE SHADOW'S TWIN ...........................................................................................52

CHAPTER XIV. DEATH SPARK ........................................................................................................55

CHAPTER XV. THE VOICE IN THE WALL .....................................................................................60

CHAPTER XVI. "STRIP OR DIE!"..................................................................................................66

CHAPTER XVII. "I AM THE PHOENIX!".........................................................................................70

CHAPTER XVIII. SIXTY SECONDS TO LIVE! ................................................................................74

CHAPTER XIX. THE END OF PETER LANE...................................................................................77

A MAN was walking slowly along the fashionable section of West End Avenue. The morning sunlight was

not very strong, yet this furtive little man kept his hat brim turned down as though to protect weak eyes from

His eyes were neither weak nor nearsighted. On the contrary, they blazed with a ruthless light. He knew he

was about to do something that would place his life in terrific peril. But his avarice and the itching desire for

ten thousand dollars was stronger than his fear. He intended to deal himself into a grim criminal game in

The street sign at the corner was marked Du Pont Place. Leo Barry turned into a quiet street that was, if

anything, more fashionable than West End Avenue. Except for a florist shop on the corner, there was no

evidence of business or trade. Private dwellings lined Du Pont Place, the homes of people of wealth and

Midway down the block was a house owned by the most notorious racketeer in Manhattan: "Duke" Duncan!

Duncan lived there openly, sneeringly. He had thought it a great joke to house himself and his henchmen in

such a spot. He had purchased the property through a dummy. He owned it free and clear, paid his taxes

Wellknown killers conferred with Duke Duncan and his lieutenant, "Snap" Carlo. A staff of shrewd lawyers

took care of the legal end for Duke. He and his gang had turned racketeering into a fine art. A score of brutal

It was this powerful figure of crime that Leo Barry was planning to visit. He was going to force a private

interview for himself. More daring than that, he was going to put the heat on Duke Duncan. To the tune of ten

There was a hollow post at the foot of the front stoop next to Duncan's brownstone headquarters. Leo Barry

crouched warily as he passed it. With a quick flick of his hand, he drew a gun out of a shoulder holster and

He breathed a shuddering sigh as he walked unarmed up the steps to Duke's front door. He was taking a

desperate chance. But to make his impudent blackmail demand with a gun on him would have been absolute

His jaw clenched stubbornly as he thought about the document in his inside pocket. He rang the bell.

The door was opened by a butler. The servant said nothing at all. He merely closed the door behind the caller

At one side of the hall, Leo could see a billiard room through an open door. Half a dozen welldressed men

were knocking the polished balls about. None of them took the trouble to glance up as Leo passed the

But there was one other man who did. He was seated on a chair near the foot of the staircase. At his elbow

was a small table on which rested a telephone and a .45 automatic. He looked like the mildest man who ever

Leo recognized him instantly. He was Tommy Parr, the most trusted and ruthless of Duke Duncan's three

PARR came forward so noiselessly that he seemed to float on the balls of his feet. The .45 was gripped in his

Parr grinned by pulling his lips briefly away from even white teeth. His free hand took ten seconds to make

"You better call Duke on that phone," he muttered. "It'll be tough for him if he refuses to see me. Tell him I

want to talk to him, personally! About a murder job the one for which a guy named Jack Skelly is waiting

Parr's face was suddenly like a cold slab of stone. His finger tightened on the trigger of his pointed weapon.

He stood motionless for a breathless second. Then he turned and went back to the table with the telephone.

His voice rustled over the wire. When he hung up, there was almost a trace of humor in the rasp of his voice.

Barry ascended slowly, his feet making no sound on the rich carpet. On the top floor, Parr turned him down a

long hall. Passing an open door, he was startled to see a breathlessly beautiful woman in a filmy lace

negligee, reclining on a lounge. Her hennastained toes were extended lazily in front of her on a small

footstool. A maid was clipping her toenails. This was Dolores Maguire, Duke Duncan's woman.

She yawned as Barry's gaze flicked toward her. She made no effort to draw the parted negligee across her

The next instant, Tommy Parr was knocking on a steel door at the end of the corridor. It slid open. The inside

was an anteroom to a closed chamber beyond. Two gunmen were sitting on hard chairs, their faces alert. At a

desk, a heavyset, swarthy fellow lifted lidded eyes and gave Barry a cold scrutiny. Then:

Leo didn't need to be told that. Snap's grim photograph was in the newspapers almost as much as Duke

Duncan's. He was Duke's chief lieutenant. According to veiled rumors in the underworld, Snap Carlo had his

ambitious eyes fixed on Duke's leadership and the shapely Dolores Maguire as well.

Leo Barry repeated his cool demand to see Duke. Snap listened. Then his thick lips writhed briefly over a

The voice was Duncan's. It issued apparently from the smooth surface of the rear wall. The wall slid suddenly

aside, revealing a square opening. The two gunmen made up the rear of the grim little parade.

THE private office of Duke Duncan was flooded with harsh, blinding light that fell full on Barry's face and

made him blink. But the glow where Duncan sat was soft and diffused. His pink, closeshaven face looked

almost sleepy. Snap Carlo was a big man, but he looked small alongside the sinister Duke.

The two gunmen moved respectfully into the background. Snap remained at Barry's side. A knife appeared in

his swarthy fingers. Snap rather fancied himself as an expert with cold steel. He was not a stabber, but a

Barry took a bulky envelope from his pocket. He laid it on the desk in front of Duke Duncan. He knew that a

single false move, a wrong intonation in his voice would doom him to instant death.

Coolly, he accused Duke of committing the murder for which a young man named Jack Skelly was now

awaiting death by electrocution. The proof of it was in the typewritten document lying on the polished desk.

The original of those photostatted pages was in a bank vault, where Barry had secreted it under an assumed

name. The price for the copy and the original was ten thousand dollars, payable at once. In cash!

"Blackmail, eh?" Duncan breathed. "You really think you can get away with it on me?"

"I think so," Leo said shakily, "or I wouldn't have been stupid enough to come here."

Carlo leaped forward with a hiss of murderous pleasure. His stubby fingers clutched Barry by the hair, bent

his head back. The blade of the knife glittered above the drawn flesh of the blackmailer's throat.

Barry made no effort to fight his executioner, but his yell was like the bleat of a terrified animal.

The knife blade nicked Leo's gasping throat. A trickle of blood ran down inside his collar. Then Duke

Carlo's mouth snarled. The two gunmen looked puzzled. But there was no disobeying Duke's command. Leo

Barry rested a trembling palm on the desk in front of him. He watched Duncan reading the typewritten pages.

He saw Duncan's eyelid twitch as the racket chief read the final paragraph of the document. It was on that

"Looks like you've got the goods on me. You're a smart guy, Barry! What's your price for the original

"Ten grand." Leo mouthed huskily. He had thought over the price, too, during that last tense week of nerving

SNAP CARLO stared, openmouthed, at his chief. But Duke apparently did not notice his anger or disgust.

He pulled open the drawer of a filing cabinet and lifted out a thick roll of currency tied with a heavy rubber

band. Every one of the bank notes was a crisp thousanddollar bill. He stripped off ten and pushed them

"Tony Rocco you two guys go with this fellow to the bank. Make sure he doesn't hand you blank paper.

"If it's exactly like this one, let this mug go free and bring the envelope back here.

The pair nodded. But their gaze flicked questioningly toward Snap Carlo. Snap's face was white with fury.

"What's the idea, Duke? You going soft or something? Don't you know that if you knuckle down to a punk

He got up from his desk and walked leisurely toward his henchman. There was disloyalty in Snap's swarthy

face, murder in the rigid manner in which he gripped his knife. But Duke's open palm swept swiftly above the

"When I want advice from you, I'll ask for it! In the meantime, do as you're told!"

The mark of Duke's palm made a crimson splotch on Snap's skin. His knuckles tightened on the knife. Then,

with a convulsive effort of his will, he managed to force a smile. He put the knife away and bowed with a

cringing duck of his head. He pretended not to notice the sneer on the faces of Tony and Rocco.

The two gunmen slipped in on either side of Leo Barry. They walked him to the wall. The panel slid open;

Duke grinned at Snap. His tone was entirely friendly, as if nothing had happened between them.

"Take a look at that blackmail evidence. Maybe you'll see why I think it's a cheap buy at ten thousand bucks."

Snap Carlo read it swiftly. The document riveted the guilt of murder on Duke Duncan. It exonerated

completely a young "fall guy" named Jack Skelly, whom Duke had framed for the rap. Skelly was now

The police and the newspapers were convinced of Skelly's guilt. The real truth was known only to Duke's

"I don't! What I'm after is that original document in his bank vault. When I get the original I'll have

SNAP CARLO was suddenly excited. The innocent paragraph over which he had skipped in the first reading

took on a grim importance. It linked John Marsley with a killer named "Spud" White, and placed both at the

scene of the crime for which the unfortunate Jack Skelly was now awaiting execution.

Snap realized now that the document Duke had just purchased doomed John Marsley to the chair unless he

was willing to buy his safety from Duke Duncan. Leo Barry had apparently failed to realize the significance

of that innocently worded paragraph. He had sold for ten thousand dollars something that in the hands of a

For John Marsley was a multimillionaire banker. He controlled steamship lines, railroads, industries. He was

"You should have socked me harder than you did," Snap Carlo grinned. "I missed the play completely! I hope

you forget the dumb way I shot off my mouth. From now on, I'm taking orders and liking it!"

His flattery blended with Duke's complacent chuckle. But his hand rubbed instinctively at the cheek where

Duke had struck him. But Snap didn't utter any of the ugly thoughts that seethed back of his smiling eyes. He

was thinking of a crooked multimillionaire named John Marsley and a chance at a milliondollar take.

LAMONT CRANSTON was purchasing a gardenia to place in his lapel. He stood close to the window of the

florist shop, to satisfy himself that the flower looked well enough in the bright morning sunlight.

The clerk didn't mind his distinguished customer's delay. He was well aware that this tall, handsome

gentleman was Lamont Cranston, millionaire sportsman and wellknown manabouttown.

The clerk stood discreetly in the background. For that reason, he was completely unaware of the scrutiny that

Cranston was giving a certain house a few doors away on the opposite side of Du Pont Place.

Cranston's interest in Duke Duncan's headquarters was born of a shrewd knowledge of crime and criminals.

For Lamont Cranston was The Shadow, crimefighter extraordinary! Mysterious being of blackness, his very

Lamont Cranston had been driving slowly along West End Avenue when he had noticed the furtive figure of

Leo Barry. That much was coincidence. The rest was a product of exact knowledge.

Cranston knew Barry was a slippery and successful crook who specialized in blackmail. He watched him turn

the corner into Du Pont Place. He saw him hide his gun in the hollow post at the foot of the front stoop

Barry's queer behavior interested Cranston. It seemed incredible that any one even a desperate crook

should have the nerve to try to blackmail a killer like Duncan in his own guarded headquarters. Yet there was

no other explanation. The hiding of the gun confirmed The Shadow's theory. Leo Barry knew he was facing

Meanwhile, Cranston waited in the florist shop, through whose window he had such an excellent view across

the street. He tried three gardenias before he was satisfied. Before he paid for his purchase, Leo Barry

Barry was grinning triumphantly. Two men walked with him. They were the two henchmen, Tony and

Rocco, who had been ordered to accompany the smart little blackmailer to the bank.

Cranston, of course, knew nothing, as yet, of what had happened inside that sinister house. But Barry's grin

was the tipoff that his daring feat had been successful. He bent furtively and regained the gun he had cached

in the empty stoop post. Neither of his two guards interfered. The trio walked calmly onward to the corner

He used the fast little car he had parked at the curb. It was a dangerous type of tailing, but The Shadow's car

could be throttled down almost to a crawl. And the trio ahead of him hurried along with brisk strides. The

The goal of the thugs was the stone portals of the Midtown Trust Company. Leo Barry went in alone. Rocco

But not Lamont Cranston. He had left his car a block away. He walked calmly into the bank, almost on the

heels of Barry. The little blackmailer went to the rear, to the safedeposit vaults.

Cranston drifted across to a table and pretended to fill out a deposit slip. He was able to see Barry over the

slant of his arm. The blackmailer had already emerged from the vault with a tin box. He opened it and

withdrew a bulky envelope. Then he returned the box to the attendant and started forward.

He was terribly nervous. In stowing away the envelope in his pocket, he dropped a roll of bills to the floor.

One of them was visible as Leo clutched at it. It was a thousanddollar denomination!

The Shadow's eyes grew grimmer. He was aware of Duke Duncan's weakness for thousanddollar bills. It

was added proof that blackmail money had been passed to Barry, and that the envelope contained information

Through the bank window, Cranston saw Barry rejoin Tony and Rocco. They slid in on either side of their

Tony tore open one end and examined the contents. He and Rocco were apparently satisfied. They allowed

Barry to walk alone to the corner and hail a taxi. They themselves turned and retraced their steps toward Du

The Shadow slid swiftly into his parked car. But this time, he didn't follow the two gunmen. He sped ahead of

them. He knew exactly the route they would take to return to their grim employer.

The Shadow had a daring plan in mind. He intended to intercept them and read the contents of that

mysterious envelope. And he meant to do so without having Duke Duncan realize that The Shadow had

The swift little car halted near a garage a block or two away from the corner of Du Pont Place.

The garage was empty. It was due soon to be torn down to make room for improvements. Its doors were

locked. Skeleton keys took care of that. The Shadow peered inside, made sure the watchman was nowhere in

By the time Rocco and Tony appeared along the sidewalk, Lamont Cranston was pleasantly drunk. It would

have taken an experienced eye to detect that his drunkenness was a sham. Tony and Rocco grinned as they

Cranston beckoned to them. He was clutching at his pocket for a visiting card. As he drew it out, he spilled

his wallet to the sidewalk and the green glint of currency became visible. He picked up the money with

Rocco glanced at Tony. Tony nodded. Dough was dough to these two worthies and a sap was a sap! They

felt even surer of it when they heard Cranston's drunken request. He was seeking an address. The address

Rocco attempted to hold on to Cranston as they entered the dark interior. But with drunken petulance,

"It's O.K.," Rocco rejoined. "He's paralyzed! Wait till I find the light switch."

A click sounded. An overhead light filled the garage with brilliance. But a quick gasp of rage issued from the

lips of the two gunmen. Their intoxicated victim was gone. He had vanished completely.

AN instant later, Rocco gave a cautious exclamation. His stubby finger pointed. Across the bare floor of the

deserted garage was a small boxedin office. It was near the corner where the men's wash room was located.

Either one of these two hiding places must be where the wealthy drunk had staggered. He had no time to

Both thugs darted toward the office, threw open the door. Instantly, they yelled with surprise and fear. They

A black robe covered the tall figure from head to foot. The brim of a slouch hat screened burning eyes that

seemed to writhe with a piercing flame. Blackgloved hands held twin automatics. Sibilant laughter made a

Not for an instant did he or Rocco dream that the figure who confronted them was the drunken gentleman

they had lured into the garage. Cranston was apparently lying on the office floor in a stupor. His clothing was

dimly visible, his hat jammed over the spot where his face should have been. The effect was entirely

The voice of The Shadow issued a grim order. Rocco and Tony elevated their arms. In Tony's uplifted left

hand was the envelope he had taken from Leo Barry. He had drawn it from his pocket at the order of The

Shadow. Cursing, he opened the envelope and held the papers wide so that The Shadow could read the

The keen eyes of The Shadow read every word of the blackmail evidence. It was impressed indelibly upon

his memory. Again, the sibilant laughter of The Shadow made rustling echoes in the garage.

His laughter was abruptly cut short. He threw himself sideways with a rapid motion. A shot had roared from

the darkness at the foot of the rear garage stairs. A bullet whistled past the body of The Shadow.

The bullet came from the gun of the garage watchman. He had heard the intruders from above. He had

descended silently, to discover what he thought was a holdup of two innocent citizens by a robed criminal.

THE watchman sprang forward with a yell as The Shadow whirled and fled. The door of the wash room in

the corner slammed and locked. The Shadow was availing himself of the only cover left to him. He didn't

Rocco reached instantly for his gun, but Tony restrained him with a whisper. Tony was a wise crook. He

pretended fright as the watchman ran forward. He told a glib story. He and Rocco had been lured into the

As the watchman listened, Rocco stepped casually behind him. The butt of a gun struck the man a terrible

Over his fallen body, the two mobsters leaped. They raced toward the locked door of the men's room, to

The roar of gunfire filled the garage with thunderous echoes. Splinters flew from the door. No human being

From inside the tiny room, a shuddering groan echoed for an instant. Then there was silence.

Rocco had reloaded his gun. His face was pale with the knowledge that the uproar would bring police racing

to the garage. Tony also was aware of their peril. But both gunmen were savagely ready to take a chance with

They had to make sure that The Shadow was dead. It was the opportunity of a crooked lifetime. It would

bring them prestige in the underworld, and a juicy reward from the delighted Duke Duncan.

The lock burst away from the door under the ripping impact of bullets. The door was wrenched open. Tony

His route was easily discovered. He had wriggled to freedom through a tiny overhead window in the rear of

TONY skipped across the floor of the garage and locked the front door. He was, barely in time. Police clubs

began to smash at the barrier. The shooting had been heard. The alarm of pedestrians outside had brought a

Tony and Rocco went headfirst through the narrow window to the alley outside. They swarmed over a rear

Cops were already converging on the rear entrance to the alley, but they found no prisoners; By the time a

thorough search of the premises had been made, Rocco and Tony were six blocks away, panting and

The envelope that Tony had received from Leo Barry was still in his possession. It was the only reassuring

Both crooks knew the grim treatment they would get, if Duke Duncan suspected the truth. They dared not

admit to him that they had allowed The Shadow to intercept the blackmail evidence and read it.

They decided to conceal what had happened between the bank and gang headquarters. They would merely

This was exactly what The Shadow had foreseen. His grim laughter issued from a trim little car that scudded

innocently through the sunlight of a quiet avenue far to the south of the garage. The clothes he had left in that

garage to be found by the police could in no way implicate him. There were no tailor's marks in those

The suit that Lamont Cranston was now wearing had come from a small recess under the seat of his car. The

The name of a wealthy and socially prominent international banker made a vivid glow in the mind of The

Shadow. Like Duke Duncan before him, The Shadow realized instantly the value of the evidence that linked

The Shadow had never been convinced of the guilt of Jack Skelly, who was now awaiting death in the

The enormous private office in which he sat had been designed for comfort and convenience. Opposite his

desk was a tall window that gave a splendid view of New York harbor. Without moving from his chair he

could see ocean liners, steamships and tugs, many of which belonged to his farflung empire of finance and

Yet John Marsley was far from happy. The hand that toyed with a pencil quivered. He rose from his ornate

Two objects in his office seemed to engage his attention. One was an electric clock, the other was a calendar.

His gaze kept moving from one to the other, as his restless feet carried him up and down the length of his

He drew a black pencil line across a date on the calendar. All the dates preceding it had been so marked.

Turning the page, he exposed the sheet underneath. One of the Tuesdays was circled in red ink. He counted

the days between the redinked date and the last pencil mark he had made. There remained an interval of

In thirtyseven days a young man named Jack Skelly was doomed to be put to death for a murder he had

never committed. Marsley could save his life by picking up one of his telephones and speaking a dozen words

He muttered harshly to himself, as he halted opposite the clock. The hands pointed to seven minutes of ten. It

John Marsley shivered. He expected a visitor. Duke Duncan himself was about to pay a business call. Few

visitors ever penetrated to this swanky skyscraper office. But Marsley knew he was going to receive Duncan.

The thought made him grind his teeth with rage. A sudden knock at the door changed his expression. He

"Visitors?" Marsley chopped out the word. He glanced toward the closed drawer of his desk where a loaded

Hoskin was startled by the savage tone of his employer. But before he could reply, a girl's laughing voice

"Is there a rule against women, dad? Come on in, Stanley. Dad won't eat us up. His bark is worse than his

A VERY pretty girl came into the room, accompanied by a goodlooking young man. She darted across to

Marsley, kissed him with mock anger, rumpled his hair. Under cover of the confusion, he managed to get a

"That's what we dropped in to see you about," Stanley West grinned. "We're going to play a round on the

Fairlawn links in New Jersey. Viola had a happy idea that perhaps you might join us "

Viola Marsley chimed in impulsively, "Come on, dad! Be a sport! Play eighteen holes with us. The links are

Viola pouted, but her father had little trouble getting rid of his daughter and her companion. He escorted them

to the door and gave Viola a brief kiss. He held Stanley West's hand a shade longer than was necessary.

This young man puzzled the banker. West had plenty of money, and moved with ease in the best circles. Yet

Marsley had a definite feeling of peril the first time he had laid eyes on him. He couldn't exactly tell why.

He never mentioned this feeling to his daughter. Viola was quite fond of Stanley West. There was danger she

might unconsciously warn West that her father mistrusted him. And Marsley preferred not to put West on his

He watched his daughter and her escort until they vanished from the outer office into the corridor.

He told Hoskin, his secretary, with a grim snap to his voice: "I'm expecting another visitor. When he arrives,

MEANWHILE, Viola Marsley and Stanley West had descended to the lobby of the skyscraper. Viola was

laughing at a joking remark West had made. He was witty, as well as handsome. He laughed with her, but his

eyes were alert. Viola's friendship with him had ripened rapidly, but he was eager to go farther than that.

He was desperately anxious for Viola to fall in love with him. When that happened, he'd be ready to make his

first move against her father. He had waited patiently. Now, he was almost ready.

So closely did he watch Viola that he was entirely unaware of another pair of eyes near a newsstand in the

He studied Stanley West's crisp, curly hair, his straight nose, the line of his mouth and chin. The gray eyes

gave an impression of steadiness and dependability but they were set quite close together with an expression

Cranston drifted toward the street entrance and saw the laughing couple get into a superb creamcolored

roadster and drive off in the direction of the Holland Tunnel. Cranston uttered an almost soundless chuckle.

A few moments before Viola and Stanley West had appeared from aloft, a more interesting figure had gone

up in an elevator in an adjoining shaft. The man was Duke Duncan. Cranston was not surprised. He had

He pretended to examine the bronze directory of tenants on the wall. He glanced at his tiny wrist watch. The

The electric clock in Marsley's private office also pointed to ten. Marsley turned with a start, as his door

opened without a knock. It was Hoskin, and he was very disturbed. That was why he had neglected to knock

"Your visitor, sir, is here!" Hoskin stuttered excitedly. His face was pale. "He's a criminal, sir! I I've seen

his pictures in the newspapers. His name is Duke Duncan! I thought you might not be aware of of "

"Duke Duncan, eh? A criminal, you say? Stuff and nonsense! I expect to talk with him concerning a routine

Hoskin cringed at the fierce gleam in his employer's flinty eyes at his last words. He backed out hastily. A

Duncan wasted no time getting to the point of his visit. His voice was crisp. After a brisk interchange of

Marsley studied it word by word, sentence by sentence. His face was haggard when he finished.

"One million dollars! Cash! Delivered to me by yourself in person. Alone. At midnight tonight."

There was an ugly pause. Marsley eyed the drawer of his desk, where a loaded gun with the safety off lay

within reach of his muscular hand. But he made no move to snatch for the weapon.

"You know well I dare not say no," Marsley grated. Every bit of color had faded from his cheeks. "I'll pay,

and I'll pay tonight. But I reserve the right to dictate the terms of the transfer."

"An even exchange of the document and the money. No witnesses. I come alone to the rendezvous. So do

"And the place of the transfer must be picked by me. I don't dare to take the slightest risk of discovery!"

"In a cottage I own in New Jersey. It's situated on a lonely lane that runs past the eleventh hole of the

Duncan nodded. "It's a deal. And it'll be too bad for you, if you try to doublecross me!"

"And Heaven help you," Marsley said in a husky undertone, "if you try to hold back on that blackmail

WHEN the racketeer had left, Marsley muttered under his breath: "Fourteen hours until midnight."

He glanced at the calendar which he had marked so queerly. He was still staring at it when his secretary

"I want a million dollars made available for me before bank closing this afternoon. In cash, do you

"You heard me." His purring words were like velvet. "Are you good at arithmetic, Hoskin?"

"Then I need scarcely explain to you that fourteen hours is a hell of a lot shorter than thirtyseven days."

Left alone again, Marsley walked to the window that overlooked the busy activity of New York harbor.

Again he thought of his vast business that was linked by steam, gasoline and electricity with every quarter of

He dictated a cablegram in code to one of his banking representatives in the Far East. The message seemed to

He took his pistol out of the drawer of the desk and examined it carefully with eyes like flint.

LAMONT CRANSTON observed Duke Duncan emerge from a descending elevator. The big racket chief

looked supremely satisfied with the result of his interview with John Marsley. He strode toward the exit.

Cranston didn't delay an instant. Careful plans had been made. He himself moved rapidly to the sidewalk,

Cranston sauntered toward the curb. His fingers fumbled with a slightly wilted gardenia in his lapel. Over his

shoulder, he was aware that Duncan and Snap Carlo were now conferring in a hasty whisper. A broad smile

Cranston instantly threw his gardenia into the gutter. He turned lazily on his heel and walked away.

Almost before he had vanished, a taxicab slid slowly along the curb toward the spot where Cranston had been

The two crooks climbed into the cab. They had a little trouble giving the address to the driver. He was quite

deaf. From his left ear, a tiny wire descended along his lapel to the pocket of his coat. The driver tapped his

The driver of this cab was the shrewdest hack driver in Manhattan. His name, printed on the license card in

the back, was Moe Shrevnitz. It didn't mean anything to either Duke or Snap. But it held plenty of meaning

Moe had been waiting patiently to receive that gardenia signal. He was aware of the dangerous passengers he

was carrying. Information concerning the preceding day's events had been relayed to him. He knew that the

address he had been given was the hotel where a wise little blackmailer named Leo Barry was registered

Moe was, of course, far from deaf. The wire that descended from his ear to his pocket was a dictaphone

The wire passed under Moe's coattail, through the upholstery of the front seat and backward under the floor

Details of the blackmail arrangements between Marsley and Duncan became evident to Moe Shrevnitz. He

learned that a million dollars in cash was to be passed at midnight, in exchange for evidence that threatened

Marsley's security. He became aware of the lonely cottage owned by the millionaire opposite the Fairlawn

"You sure are!" Duke replied. "I told Marsley I was going alone. But I ain't taking no chances on a frame."

His tone grew lower. He gave Snap instructions how to find Marsley's lonely cottage in New Jersey.

"No. I want you to check up on this wise little louse, Leo Barry. I'll drop you off at the corner nearest his

hotel. I'm puzzled about that guy. Barry may be wiser than we figure. He's disappeared, since he got his ten

"Stick around the hotel and if Barry shows, I want you to trail him and find out where he goes and who he

meets. I'll see you at twelve tonight in front of Marsley's cottage out at Fairlawn. I've written the directions

The paper passed between them and was stowed out of sight in Snap's pocket. A moment later, Duke ordered

Snap got out; Duke gave Moe Shrevnitz a second address this time, the mobster's own headquarters on Du

SNAP walked into the corner cigar store and bought a pack of cigarettes. In doing so, he failed to realize a

very important fact: another taxi had been cleverly trailing the one driven by Moe.

A girl alighted, paid her fare. Then she walked slowly toward the door of the cigar store.

She was a blonde, and very pretty. Her figure was flawless, her mouth a provocative scarlet. She looked as if

she might be a pleasant and easy girl to know. That was exactly the impression she hoped to convey to

As Snap came out of the cigar store, she stepped forward so quickly that she bumped awkwardly into him,

Her body brushed Snap's for an instant. He became aware of her warmth and the perfume of her hair. Snap

"That's all right, babe! Did any one ever tell you that you're a blond knockout?"

She laughed gaily. "Thanks for the compliment, mister. I'm really just a secretary. My name is Alice Dodge. I

Snap Carlo's eyes blinked. Here was a stroke of luck he hadn't figured on a chance to get a new line on the

banker and his daughter through this gay, dizzy, blond secretary, who looked as if she was probably

Snap forgot his usual caution. He consented to have a drink with Alice Dodge in her nearby apartment. The

They had one drink. Then another. Snap's arm slid around Alice's pliant waist and he kissed her. Then the girl

eluded his clutch. She skipped across the room and turned on the radio. Swing music filled the room.

"Pour another drink," she murmured. "Then we'll dance. Excuse me a moment. I've got a cute little house

But the moment the door closed behind her, her whole attitude changed. She became at once cold, grim, alert.

She pulled off her dress with a swift gesture. From a closet she took a robe a daringly lowcut garment that

revealed the curves of her figure in a candid way that made her blush with embarrassment.

She was deliberately using this gauzy robe to draw attention to her figure, rather than to her hand. In her left

hand was a hypodermic needle and syringe which she had taken from a drawer of her bureau. She concealed

Standing in front of her mirror, she took a deep, shuddering breath. But she conquered her fear with a grim

effort. When she skipped gaily out to the room where the radio was noisily playing, she was a picture to set

Snap didn't even see the handkerchief in her hand, let alone the hypo needle concealed in its folds. His eyes

They danced. Snap held the girl unpleasantly tight. But Alice Dodge endured it stoically. She was waiting for

THE chance came as they whirled in a corner of the room. The balled handkerchief fluttered from her hand

that rested light on the back of Snap's hunched shoulder. The hypo needle crept to the spot on Snap's neck

where the drug would most easily enter his blood stream and paralyze his muscles.

Snap gave a shrill yelp of astonishment and pain, as the strong needle rammed home. A colorless liquid was

He sprang at her, his eyes black with rage. Too late, he realized that he had been played for a fool. His

clutching hand missed Alice's throat and ripped the frail robe from her shoulder. But it was a weak and

impotent gesture. The drug which had passed into Snap's blood stream converted him almost instantly into a

He fell in a squirming huddle on the floor. For a moment, his eyes opened and closed convulsively. Then a

Alice Dodge bent swiftly over the fallen mobster, searched him thoroughly. She found the paper that had

She had known that at midnight a million dollars was to be passed in exchange for a document that she was

ready to risk her life to obtain. Now she knew about the lonely lane that ran outside the Fairlawn golf links,

Alice Dodge rushed swiftly back to her bedroom and stripped herself of the tatters of her robe. Then she

dressed rapidly, making a complete change of garments. The rest of her clothing and belongings went into a

suitcase. She had rented this apartment under an assumed name. There was nothing left to trace her real

SNAP CARLO didn't recover his senses for nearly an hour. Slowly, his glassy eyes opened. He gave a weak

Rage and fear whipped away the cobwebs in his brain. He rushed through the apartment, seeking some trace

Snap cursed in a spasm of helpless rage. Then he saw a telephone on a low stand in a corner of the room. It

"I know that," Snap gasped. "The girl I'm asking about lives there. She's Viola Marsley's secretary."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid some one has been er spoofing you. No one named Alice Dodge lives here. And

The servant hung up. Snap Carlo stared at the useless receiver in his hand. He had already searched his

pockets and knew that the paper that Duke Duncan had entrusted to him was missing. The wise little dame

Who the hell was this Alice Dodge? He made one more phone call, one that cost him a grim effort. It was a

confession to Duke Duncan that a woman had made a complete sap of him. Duke's savage comments on the

He cursed Snap in a way that made the ears of the henchman tingle with rage. He ordered Snap to get back on

the job and keep his eye on the hotel apartment of Leo Barry. To Duncan, the whole thing looked like a

THE blackness of midnight had settled on the lonely countryside of New Jersey. The figures of two crouched

men made formless blots in the gloom. They stood together under the thick branches of an elm that grew at

Bordering one side of the lane was a low stone wall. Beyond the wall was the deeper blackness of the

Along the opposite side of the rutted lane was a picket fence. It closed off the lawn of a cottage set a hundred

feet back amid a protecting screen of shrubs and trees. This was the cottage which John Marsley had selected

The men waiting under the elm swore viciously. It was already past midnight. Marsley was late for his

One of them was Duke Duncan. The other was Snap Carlo. They made no effort to lower their voices. They

were sure they were unobserved. Duke had examined the stone wall of the golf links and the rough ground

that lay beyond. Snap had taken a swift survey of the cottage and the lawn. They were grimly content with

However, their fancied security was merely the result of overconfidence. Keen ears listened to every syllable

of their conversation. A hidden watcher was directly over their heads, screened by the leafy branches of the

Even had Duke lifted his eyes he would have been unable to detect that figure above him. It was robed from

head to foot in a cloak of inky black. A broad slouch hat covered the figure's head. Its brim shadowed a pair

of burning eyes. The eyes and the strong beaklike nose were the only indication of humanity in the man

Moe Shrevnitz had done his job well. The Shadow was aware of what was arranged for tonight. He was here

to learn more of the hidden motives that linked Leo Barry with Duke Duncan and the millionaire John

The talk of Duke and Snap didn't make things much clearer. They were worried because Marsley was late.

They were puzzled about a mysterious woman named Alice Dodge. The Shadow learned for the first time

After a brief interchange of talk, the two crooks under the tree separated. Snap climbed over the picket fence

Suddenly, Duke gave a hissed exclamation. Far down the rutted lane, two bright lights glowed. They were the

headlights of an advancing automobile. A moment later, they disappeared. But the automobile continued to

THE car halted almost directly under the branches of the elm. Its headlights flashed on. So did the dome light

inside the car. John Marsley was clearly visible behind the wheel. He was exposing himself deliberately, so

Duke appeared like a tall wraith in the glow of the lights. There was a big automatic in his watchful hand.

He climbed to the running board and rode with the car along the narrow driveway entrance to the cottage

grounds. The car vanished behind the house and its lights snapped off. Silence followed in the bleak

The Shadow dropped swiftly, silently from his concealment among overlapping branches. Like a part of the

night itself, he glided across the road. He crept cautiously toward the rear of the house.

No lights showed in any of the windows. Marsley's parked car was empty. Footsteps in the soft earth showed

where the millionaire and the racket chief had gone. The prints led straight to the closed rear door.

Trying the knob with infinite care, The Shadow discovered that the door was locked on the inside.

He moved onward to the other side of the house, toward the kitchen wing. His plan was to gain access to the

house by means of the pantry window. But when The Shadow reached it, he found the pantry window wide

Some one had jimmied it cleverly. There were marks on the wooden sill that showed where pressure had been

The Shadow had anticipated that three men were now inside the dark cottage. He had seen Marsley and

Duncan enter the grounds in the car. He knew Snap Carlo had already sneaked inside, probably with the aid

The Shadow had no answer to this important question. He determined to wait a moment before entering the

He glided silently toward the protection of the encircling shrubbery. He barely vanished when he heard the

stealthy sound of feet. The Shadow's interest grew. The trespasser's face was clearly visible as she crossed the

The Shadow noted her prettiness; her blond hair. Remembering the snatches of talk he had heard from Duke

and Snap, he was convinced at once that this girl was the smart and dangerous Alice Dodge.

ALICE wasted no time. A lithe leap lifted her to the sill of the pantry window. A moment, and she was gone.

All that was left to The Shadow to prove that a girl had passed so swiftly from his sight was the memory of

He knew that she was nerved to a desperate pitch to a pitch where she would kill, if necessary, to gain

Alice Dodge made the fifth visitor to enter this lonely cottage. Four men and a woman converging in the

The Shadow made himself the sixth. His entry through the window was soundless. He found himself in a

room floored with squeaky boards. But he managed to reach an open door without betraying his presence,

The darkness was profound. Not a sound echoed anywhere in the house. But The Shadow took no chances.

He searched every inch of the ground floor. His eyes, accustomed to darkness, satisfied him that he was

He climbed a flight of stairs to the floor above. Here, his progress was infinitely careful. It was justified, for

suddenly his sharp ears caught the low inflection of a human voice. It was the voice of John Marsley. It came

A hairline of yellow light showed under the door. The rumble of Duke Duncan's voice added itself to the

Gently, The Shadow crouched. He applied an eye to the keyhole; he could see both Marsley and Duncan.

They were standing in the center of a lighted room. There was no sign of the furtive Snap Carlo, nor of the

The voice of John Marsley sounded crisp, and oddly triumphant, to the attentive ear of The Shadow.

"I told you that I'd come here alone and I've kept my word. The money is here, every penny of it! It's yours,

Marsley laughed softly. "I expected you to say that. The money is in three suitcases hidden in a small niche

behind the east wall of this room. If you'll notice, the baseboard that circles the wall just above the floor is a

rather ornate one. It's decorated with carvings of leaves and flowers stained the same color as the wood."

"Those carvings were put there to serve a purpose." Marsley explained, patiently. "One of the flowers is

slightly larger than the others. It is, in reality, a knob that controls the action of a hidden spring. By turning it,

I am able to open a section of the wall and expose the suitcases that contain the ransom money. If you will

He stepped forward. But Duke Duncan caught at his arm with a tigerish gesture, pulling the banker back on

"Not so fast, wise guy! If you don't mind, I'll turn that knob! And if you've got a dick inside there, with a gun,

A PISTOL glinted in Duke's big fist. He approached the wall warily. Dropping to his haunches, he swayed

his body aside so that only his extended hand was in front of the panel where the carved flower was clearly

At the sound of the click, Duke Duncan darted swiftly aside from the panel. He waited for the hidden roar of

He peered cautiously into the open niche. It was black inside the wall, but the dim light from the room itself

"You act as if you were afraid of a million dollars! Pull one of those bags out and have a look."

Gingerly, Duke slid the nearest of the heavy suitcases out onto the floor in front of himself and Marsley. His

There was a gasp from Marsley, a roaring yell of alarm from Duke. It was followed by the echoing thunder of

The Shadow, crouched at the keyhole of the hall door, recognized the nature of that grim explosion: the roar

of a shotgun. He could hear the impact of the scattering leaden pellets that cut short the strangled cry of Duke

The Shadow sprang to his feet. His gloved hand sent the hall door flying open. Into the blackness of the room

he sprang, both hands extended grimly before him. His right hand held an automatic. From his left darted the

The beam fell upon a horrible sight. Duke Duncan lay at full length where he had fallen. Buckshot had torn

There was no sign of John Marsley. He could have vanished into only one place: the dark niche in the wall.

The Shadow bent over the body of the slain Duncan. Blackgloved hands swiftly searched his pockets. There

was no envelope where one should have been. The document for which Marsley had offered to pay a million

In an instant, The Shadow hurdled the dead body. His flash filled the niche in the wall with brilliant light. He

saw what he expected to find: a flight of narrow stairs inside the wall. The stairs led downward into

The light of The Shadow's torch winked out. Stealthily, silently, he began to descend the staircase inside the

FOR almost a full minute after The Shadow had vanished through the panel opening, the pitchdark room he

had quitted remained as silent as a grave. Then a faint creak echoed from the door leading to the hall.

Some one had slyly turned the knob and was cautiously entering. Then the beam of an electric torch glowed.

The torch was held in the quivering hand of a girl. Her eyes gleamed like frozen stars under the curling wave

She cringed as the light fell full on the shattered head of Duke Duncan. Her left hand jerked to her mouth,

choking off the cry of horror that bubbled from her throat. The dead man was a ghastly object to contemplate.

There was no sign of the suitcase Duke had dragged out from the open niche. Nor were the remaining two

suitcases visible. All three had been whisked away by the cunning murderer of Duncan.

Conquering her horror, Alice Dodge forced herself to kneel beside the body of the almost headless racketeer.

She searched Dukes body. Her fingers explored every pocket of the bloody corpse.

She rose to her feet, had barely straightened her bent legs, when a tiny noise across the room turned her face

She saw the outline of a door that, in her excitement, she hadn't noticed before. The door was set flush into

the wall. Its inner side was plastered white exactly like the wall. And now the camouflaged door was partly

A man's face peered into the room. The light of Alice Dodge's torch fell full on his swarthy countenance. The

Recognition was mutual. Snap recognized the girl who had drugged him earlier in the day. Now he saw her

His hand moved aloft so fast that the gesture was a swift blur. There was a knife in that poised hand. A swift

toss, and the knife would fly like a steelshod arrow toward the rooted victim, turning over once in the air

The moment it left Snap's hand, Alice doused her light and dropped it. She gave a bubbling scream that was

SNAP began to creep forward. His low chuckle of murderous delight sounded ghoulish in the black void of

Alice Dodge heard the laugh. She was flat on the floor, where she had dropped a splitsecond before the

thrown knife reached its target. Its handle was still quivering on the wall above Alice's head. But the blade

She crawled silently across the floor to where the body of Duke Duncan lay. Snap was moving in a straight

line toward the unseen wall where he expected to find the girl pinned in bloody death.

Alice was no longer terrified to the point of paralysis. Danger acted like a splash of cold water on her nerves.

As Snap approached the spot where she lay waiting, her icy hand reached quietly outward. A creak of the

floor boards helped her to gauge exactly where Snap had planted his foot. She caught hold of his ankle and

Snap's feet went out from under him. He fell heavily to the floor and Alice Dodge dived silently at his

For a second or two, there was a grim lifeanddeath tussle. It was over, almost before it began. Snap had

recovered his nerve as he recognized the soft pressure of a woman's body. His strength was no match for

Alice. He wriggled sideways and his hand darted from his hip pocket with a gun. He reversed the weapon, as

It struck only the floor. The loud thumping echo disconcerted Snap. He had expected to kill the girl with one

Alice Dodge was substituting brains and guile for the strength she lacked in a battle with a powerful brute

like Snap. At the moment Snap had raised his gun, Alice had wriggled silently away from him on her

stomach. It was so swiftly done that before the uplifted gun of Snap crashed against the empty floor boards,

Alice Dodge's questing fingers had touched the baseboard of a shadedrawn window.

Curtains draped the sides of that window. Their stiff folds swept the floor. Alice stepped instantly sideways

She had hardly vanished when there was a faint click. Light flooded the room, from the torch Alice had

dropped when the knife was thrown. Snap had found it and was moving the bright oval nervously about the

SNAP gasped shrilly as the yellow beam exposed the bloody pulp of what had been Duke Duncan's head.

Shuddering, he cringed away from the crimson horror beside him. His motion sent the bright beam of the

It was a purely involuntary action, but it sealed the doom of Alice Dodge. The toe of one of her slippers

Snap Carlo charged forward with a yelp of triumph. He was reaching for the curtain, when his hand froze in

midair. Something happened outside the room to disconcert the snarling murderer. The crash of a pistol made

The explosion came from somewhere below. From the ground floor, apparently, in the region of the kitchen

and pantry. The sound whirled Snap around on his heels, his mouth agape with surprise.

She did the thing Snap had intended to do. She ripped fiercely at the window curtain that shrouded her body.

Her strength was equal to the emergency. The draped material was torn from its support and fell in a heavy

billowing mass. But it didn't drop about the head and shoulders of the girl. She threw both arms outward and

Caught off balance, his ears still tingling from the echo of that pistol roar downstairs, Snap fell a victim to the

The curtain swathed him like a mummy. He bent, trying to tear the folds away from his head and eyes and

He went down, in a heap, writhing in agony. But the pistol still quivered in his clenched hand. He tried to fire

into the soft body of the girl who stood over him. Alice's heel smashed down on the hand, pinning it flat to

the floor. Fear gave her strength. She wrenched the gun from Snap's momentarily slack grip, lifted it high and

Snap collapsed. He lay motionless on the floor, not six feet away from the body of his dead chieftain.

FOR an instant of reaction, Alice was unable to move. Then, abruptly, she heard the roar of a speeding

automobile from somewhere in front of Marsley's cottage. It was followed by the crash of splintering wood.

Intuition told the startled girl what had happened. Some one was escaping in a car from the murder scene.

The automobile had driven at full speed into the picket fence that divided the property from the lane outside.

The fence had gone down like matchwood. The hum of the disappearing car vanished in the distance like the

Uncertain what to do, Alice hesitated. The creak of a man's footsteps roused her from frozen paralysis. It was

from that black wall niche opening that the whisper of ascending footsteps came. Someone was climbing

Alice whirled back toward the window with a gasp of terror. But she didn't hesitate. She threw herself

outward through the window in a jangling of broken glass. Her body struck a slanting roof and slid at

She plunged partly over the rusty gutter before her fingers caught the frail hold for which she was clutching.

She felt thin, curved metal under her tense grip. The metal creaked, but it held. Her body lowered itself from

the sagging gutter. She hung at full length over the black turf somewhere below. She had no idea how far the

WHEN The Shadow had descended those narrow hidden steps inside the wall, his movements were silent,

but as swift as the wind. He found an open panel at the bottom of the long flight. Stepping cautiously

There was no sign of the fugitive millionaire, nor of any of the other intruders in this house of mystery. But

there were bulky leather objects on the kitchen floor that made The Shadow's eyes gleam with understanding.

Three suitcases. All three had been burst recklessly open, exposing their contents. There was no sign of the

money that Marsley had supposedly crammed in those bags. All that was visible were neat packets of

The rear door of the cottage was open. A quick look convinced The Shadow that Marsley couldn't have fled

out the rear door because of the nature of the prints in the soft earth. They all pointed inward toward the

house. Also, the millionaire's car still stood empty and dark where he had parked it.

A narrow hallway led forward from the kitchen to the front of the cottage. The light was very dim from the

single ceiling bulb. The Shadow approached the beginning of the narrow hall with wary attention. He

Across the width of the passage, about a foot above the floor, a taut black thread had been stretched. It was

almost invisible. The leg of a hurrying man would instantly snap that frail barrier.

Darting across the kitchen to the stove, he picked up a long metal poker. He stood with his cloaked form

carefully bent aside from the hall passage. His arm stretched outward. A quick jerk of the hooked poker broke

Instantly, from the ceiling of the dark passage, a shot roared. A bullet thudded into the floor at the exact spot

The Shadow would have stood, had he advanced as recklessly as a cunning murderer had intended him to do.

The Shadow's sibilant laugh made grim, clipped music. Once more by quick thinking he had anticipated and

outguessed his mysterious foe. Was that foe Marsley? The Shadow was not yet prepared to answer the

question. Convinced that the way ahead was clear, he raced to the front of the house.

It was the explosive report of the ambushed pistol that the frightened Alice Dodge had heard upstairs. The

Shadow's brains had actually saved the girl's life, but, as yet, he was unaware of the tense drama that had

Through the open front door of the house, The Shadow leaped into the blackness of the open grounds.

An automobile was racing into view from behind a tangle of bushes. It sped straight for the picket fence,

smashing it flat under its spinning wheels as it whizzed to the black lane outside the golf course.

The escaping car vanished down the black lane with a hum of power that rapidly drifted into nothingness.

THE SHADOW had no chance to halt that desperate flight. He knew, however, the identity of that crazy

motorist. He had caught a revealing glimpse of a pale, ratty face, twisted with triumph.

It was the little blackmailer who had started this whole train of conspiracy and murder by his daring visit to

Leo Barry. He was the cunning fugitive who had fled into the shrouding darkness of the New Jersey

The Shadow could have stopped that car with a swiftly aimed bullet into one of the spinning tires. He

deliberately refrained from doing so. The Shadow wanted Leo Barry to escape. The case had not yet

He was turning on his heel to glide back inside the house, when another unlookedfor event changed his

A window on the top floor of the cottage had been shattered to pieces with a loud jangle of falling glass.

Through the broken window, a dark slender body hurled itself. It rolled over and over, down the steep slant of

THE crash of glass that had drawn The Shadow to the south side of Marsley's cottage came from Alice

The Shadow witnessed her swift, rolling descent down the steep extension roof. She was preparing to drop to

Her clenched fingers let go their grip. Downward through space she whizzed, struck the dark earth with both

feet. She was clever enough to bend her silken knees in an effort to cushion the fall. But the impact was

Alice managed slowly to regain her feet. The Shadow watched her chafe circulation back into her numb

ankles. One of them seemed to be slightly sprained from the impact. But, obviously, no bones were broken.

Alice Dodge began to hobble away, increasing her speed with each faltering step she took. Her goal was the

thick tangle of shrubbery that lined the side of the cottage property. The black woods swallowed up her

The Shadow did not attempt to cut her off. He could easily have done so, but he had a double purpose in

mind. His first was to find out if possible the unknown leader of crime for whom this desperate girl was

The Shadow eliminated the dead Duke and Snap as her possible confederates. Could it be John Marsley? By

The second restraining factor in The Shadow's mind was the matter of geography. From the direction of

Alice's flight through the woods, he calculated that she would break through to the road at almost the exact

The Shadow took the clear, unimpeded route through the cottage grounds, rather than the brambletwisted

path the girl had taken. No sound came from his feet in the rutted lane. He reached the car and found it

Far back in the tangled shrubbery, he could hear the approaching feet of the girl.

In a trice, The Shadow opened the door of his car. His slouch hat and his black robe slid away from him. The

disguise was thrust into a hidden compartment with one swift gesture. The Shadow was now Lamont

But a ripple passed over his mobile face. His mouth and features seemed to writhe. Without changing

anything save the habitual expression of his face, Lamont Cranston also vanished.

In his place was a smiling stranger. A man whose mouth looked weak, whose expression seemed almost

timid. Welldressed, faultlessly groomed, he seemed like a harmless, goodnatured citizen whose car had

THE next instant, bushes crackled and waved. Alice Dodge sped breathlessly into the open. A gasp of delight

burst from her lips as she saw the motionless car. She sprang inside. Her trembling foot pressed viciously

But before the engine could catch, she was restrained by a soft clutch at her arm. A nimble gentleman had

slid out of darkness to the seat beside her a very peaceable and inoffensive man in a lightgray suit of

"Peter Lane is my name. I hope I didn't frighten you. I got out to look at my gas tank. What's wrong? Are you

"Yes!" The Shadow was conscious of her sharp, shrewd glance at his mild face. He could see her mind

"My name is Marie Endrick," she said, glibly. "I went to a countryclub dance tonight with a boy friend. He

asked me to take a drive afterward in his car. He he said that cottage back yonder was his, and he invited

me in for a drink. He he tried to to make Oh, it was horrible! I broke away and fled through the woods.

The sound of a heavy body threshing through the bushes was distinctly audible. The Shadow thought

instantly of Snap Carlo. Snap must have seen the girl make her leap from the topfloor shed roof, and was

"Place your head on my shoulder!" The Shadow whispered, gently. "Perhaps we can fool this fellow."

The pursuing figure appeared suddenly from the dark screen of shrubbery. It wasn't Snap Carlo. In spite of

the fact that he was panting and his face was scratched by brambles, there was nothing of the criminal look

Marsley blinked and hesitated. He saw Alice Dodge's head reclining amorously on the shoulder of an

"Who are you?" he growled. "What are you doing, parked here on a dark road like this?"

"Peter Lane is my name. This is my fiance, Marie Endrick. We stopped here for a moment for personal

Marsley's answer was vicious. A gun whipped from his pocket with lightning speed. He held the muzzle

"You're a liar!" he snarled, "You're both liars! The girl is Alice Dodge! She's a thief! She tried to rob me back

there in that cottage! Get out of that car with your hands up high, or I'll blow your head off!"

THIS last savage injunction was addressed to Peter Lane. The Shadow obeyed. He could see pitiless death in

the banker's cold eyes. He stepped obediently from the car, and under the menace of the gun, moved slowly

The gun barrel followed him like the needle of a deadly compass. So intent was Marsley on his captive, that

he failed to keep his mind on the girl. It gave her an opportunity that she was quick to use.

It leaped forward with a swift jerk that almost crunched The Shadow beneath its wheels. He threw himself

headlong aside, rolling over in the dirt. The car roared away with a screech of accelerated speed.

Marsley didn't fire a single shot after the vanishing girl. He had a double choice of victims, and he made it

with criminal instinct. His gun muzzle was a pointing circlet of death, as The Shadow sprang to his feet.

"Don't move, Mr. Peter Lane! Walk ahead of me!" Marsley growled, "Straight ahead! Climb slowly over that

The Shadow obeyed. He was seeking additional information about this sinister John Marsley, who seemed to

The strange procession led through unkempt grass and weedy patches of underbrush. The Shadow was forced

to advance toward a deep sand trap near the eleventh hole of the golf course. He halted at its lip.

The Shadow descended, feetfirst, in a cloud of dislodged sand particles. Marsley followed. There was a

queer smile on the banker's pale face. He had barely reached the bottom when he did a strange thing.

He placed the gun back in his pocket and began to laugh with a shrill, nervous tone.

"The grimmest joke you will ever come in contact with in your whole life!" Marsley rejoined. "I have no

intention of killing you, Mr. Lane. I was afraid only of that girl in your car. I wanted to get rid of her. I

brought you here, to this lonely spot, because I've got to talk confidentially with you. I've got to entrust to you

a secret that affects the wellbeing of our country, perhaps the peace of the entire world!"

It was impossible to guess whether Marsley was serious or lying. He pointed toward the soft bottom of the

sand trap with a quivering finger. The clouds in the dark sky overhead had parted momentarily. The rays of a

Marsley's finger was pointing toward something that looked like a golf ball half covered with loose sand.

"That golf ball you see lying there is hollow," he whispered. "It contains a secret that must be forwarded to

Washington tonight! The ball is a thin metal container, and the top unscrews. Inside it is a single sheet of

onionskin paper that contains a message written in Oriental characters. I have no longer any real hope of

getting it to Washington, alive. I want you to take this secret message to a man whose name I will give you."

Marsley reached down to pick up the golf ball. But he didn't touch it. Turning, he clutched at The Shadow

THE SHADOW saw something else in the sand. A slight lump was evident below the spot where his foot

was descending. But he had no chance to regain his balance. The foot came down hard, and there was

Jaws of tough metal closed over The Shadow's foot. Those jaws were edged with sharppointed teeth. They

bit through the leather of his shoe and sunk with bloody persistence into the flesh of his foot.

He went down as if he had been shot. Pain wrenched upward through his leg. It brought the sweat of agony to

The Shadow's brow. He rolled over and lay perfectly still, knowing that useless twisting might snap his ankle

The device that held him was a steeljawed animal trap. It had been cleverly planted near the golf ball. A

John Marsley bent over and disarmed The Shadow. Again, the banker's whole manner had changed. He no

longer looked terrified. The fright and fear in his eyes when he had bent for the golf ball was now replaced by

"I don't quite know who you are, Mr. Lane, and I don't much care. I'd kill you right now, only I can't afford to

"Unless I'm mistaken, Snap Carlo should be somewhere in the vicinity. He's a handy man with a knife, they

He went clawing up the steep side of the sand pit, squirmed over the edge and vanished. For a moment the

The Shadow managed to writhe painfully to his knees. The bone of his ankle was not smashed, as he had

He reached for the golf ball. In spite of Marsley's lying speech, it was exactly what it appeared to be: an

ordinary pitted golf ball. The Shadow clenched it in strong fingers. He hoped to be able to use it as a lever to

Suddenly, over his head, The Shadow heard a low chuckle. Lifting his face from the sand, he saw a dark,

murderous countenance peering down at him from the edge of the pit. Moonlight glittered on the blade of a

SNAP leaped grimly over the pit's edge, came sliding down in an avalanche of sand. He rushed toward The

His eagerness gave The Shadow a slender opportunity. The golf ball he had picked up was still in his hand.

He leaned backward, his elbow bent. When the arm straightened, it was like the crack of a whiplash. He

It landed exactly where The Shadow aimed against the left eye of the charging killer.

Snap was temporarily blinded with pain. Reeling, he clapped a hand to the damaged eye.

The steel jaws of the trap kept The Shadow from gaining his feet. But his long arm snaked out with a

The fierce exertion had taken grim toll of The Shadow's waning strength. The bite of the steel jaws on his

A wave of nausea swept over him, loosening his grip on the criminal. Before he could recover, Snap was

The knife lifted in Snap's grasp. He clutched The Shadow by the hair, holding his head tilted so that the

The knife descended. The hand of The Shadow moved so fast that it was a blur in the pale moonlight. He

stopped the plunge of the knife, but only for an instant. His strength was no match for his fresh and vigorous

This time, Snap himself halted the death blow. A shrill, triple sound made the tense killer swear with sudden

fright. The sound came from the lane that ran past the stone wall of the golf links. A police whistle! The three

It changed the cocksure Snap from a merciless killer to a cowardly fugitive. He had no desire to tangle with

State cops. He knew that the corpse of Duke Duncan in the cottage would give the police a longsought

Snap beat a cautious retreat. He clawed quietly up the side of the pit, bellied over the edge. His bent figure

vanished noiselessly into the darkness, toward the opposite side of the deserted links.

THE Shadow, too, was desperately anxious not to have himself found by State troopers. His fake identity as

Peter Lane would be hard to maintain. His real personality was in danger of complete exposure.

He did what he had planned to do before the savage attack of Snap Carlo. He used the golf ball which had

fallen to the sand, after striking Snap's eye as a lever to help him pry apart the closed steel jaws of the trap

It was hard work, but The Shadow was nerved by his immediate peril. Bit by bit, he managed to force the

notched jaws slightly apart. He jammed the golf ball into the aperture and rested for an instant.

His stiffened fingers cracked under the effort he was making. The golf ball dropped loose to the sand, but

before the jaws of the trap could spring back again, The Shadow pulled his shoe loose from the notched steel.

Squirming over the lip of the crater, dizzy from pain and exhaustion, he moved silently through darkness

toward the road beyond the stone wall. He was able to rest his weight on both feet now.

He could see the tracks of footsteps in the soft turf. They were his and Marsley's, made when The Shadow

had been forced toward the sand pit by the wily banker. The Shadow avoided making return prints by

He reached the stone wall, dropped low. There were chinks in the loosely piled stones and The Shadow was

A police roadster was parked in the lane outside the grounds of Marsley's cottage. Beside it stood a State

trooper. He was still holding in his hand the whistle on which he had blown three signal blasts.

The signal had been meant for the ears of the trooper's comrade. A second uniformed man was hurrying out

"I was afraid something was wrong," the trooper with the whistle said. "Nobody came out since you went in.

"No fake, Tom. There's murder inside that cottage and a pretty dirty job of murder, too! Whoever Stanley

The Shadow, listening intently behind the wall, creased his forehead in a thoughtful frown. Stanley West was

the sleek boyfriend of Viola Marsley. The pair had passed The Shadow that very morning in the lobby of the

banker's skyscraper on their way to these same golf links! Was West, too, in this murderous riddle? And

It seemed ridiculous to suspect a daughter of trying to betray her own father, but The Shadow never

eliminated anyone from suspicion, until he was certain of his facts. Emotion or guesswork played no part in

He added Stanley West and Viola to his list of people to be investigated, while he listened to the whispered

"I found tire marks outside the back door. A big car left there in a hurry after a swift change of tires."

There was an exclamation from his big partner. But the trooper who had searched the cottage cut him short

with a quick recital of what he had found inside the house. He swore excitedly, ended his story with:

THE SHADOW agreed with him but the next instant, he was ducking his head and flattening his body on

the soft grass behind the stone wall. His motion was a second too late. The trooper, turning his head, had

"Come out of there with your hands up, or we'll blow you apart!" yelled the second trooper.

The nearest trooper began to advance, slowly, zigzagging as a precaution. His companion darted aside and

ran toward the shaggy outline of the elm tree. Screened by its massive trunk, he leaped over the low top of the

The Shadow had not wasted a second. While the troopers were calling uselessly for him to surrender, The

Shadow had made his swift way along the inner side of the wall. The barrier bent sharply a few yards

onward, following the course of the crooked country lane. When the trooper went over the wall from behind

the protection of the elm, The Shadow went over it in the opposite direction. He dropped into the dust of the

black road. The darkness and the curve in the lane protected him for the moment.

They did what The Shadow hoped they would do. A cry from one of them indicated that they had found

footprints in the soft turf of the golf links. They were the marks that John Marsley and "Peter Lane" had

The Shadow rose from his concealment at the outer side of the stone wall. Crouching, he saw the

disappearing backs of the stalking troopers. They had separated. They were approaching the sand pit like

It was all The Shadow needed to know. His cautious flight along the road made no sound. He ran straight

toward the parked car of the troopers. In a single bound, The Shadow gained the seat and slid behind the

wheel. He awoke the engine to life. The car shot forward under the grim pressure of The Shadow's unhurt

At the noise of the motor, there came a double yell of alarm and rage from the two troopers in the sand trap.

Orange flame spurted in the darkness. Bullets whistled toward the flying car. One of them struck with a loud

thwack! But it missed The Shadow's bent head as it ripped through the metal side of the car. The rest of the

The car was too far away in the blackness now, for a lucky shot to pierce one of the tires.

THE SHADOW'S desperate purpose had succeeded. He had gained a method of escape and he had left his

pursuers stranded on foot in a country road. Their only recourse was the telephone.

The Shadow had seen no phone in Marsley's cottage. If his observation was correct, it would mean

But ahead of him lay also his greatest opportunity. He was thinking of the mysterious Alice Dodge and the

Alice had fled down this same road, taking the exact route that The Shadow was now taking. There was an

excellent chance that The Shadow might, by high speed, overtake her before she could vanish completely.

As soon as the country lane swerved into the highway leading toward New York, The Shadow forced every

atom of speed the police car could muster. Every once in a while he swept through a tiny sleeping village. He

had a hunch he was going to find his own car empty and abandoned in one of these dark villages.

Alice Dodge would be afraid to stick to it too long. She'd be apt to rely on the surer protection of a train ride

The fourth village in which The Shadow slackened his speed showed him what intelligence had already

anticipated. There was a railroad station on the left side of the road, a mere shed with a platform. Behind the

platform was the dark shape of a parked automobile. One that The Shadow recognized!

Grinding to a quick stop, The Shadow changed cars. He was now in his own. The police knew nothing of this

The Shadow continued through the darkness at a more reasonable pace. Shortly, he gave a lowtoned

chuckle. He had noticed the pale glint of white paper in a crack at the side of the seat upholstery. A small

envelope and a sheet of white paper had slid downward and become jammed out of sight, with only its corner

Alice Dodge, in her fear and excitement, had failed to notice her loss. The Shadow knew the letter was hers

the moment he glanced at its outside. It was addressed to her, in care of general delivery.

The note inside was typewritten and very brief. Just two sentences. But those two typed sentences and the

Again the name of the sleek playboy friend of Viola Marsley was popping up in this tangled case. The

Shadow hadn't forgotten that it was Stanley West whose telephone warning had brought the police racing to

The girl had made a proposition and Stanley West had accepted. Was this the true explanation for Duke

Duncan's murder? Alice had escaped in The Shadow's car before he had much chance to study her

The girl's clothing was significant. She had seemed to him to be queerly like Viola Marsley. That was

because she was wearing clothing that was almost the exact counterpart of the costume the banker's daughter

had worn when she had left her father's office early in the morning to play golf at the Fairlawn links. Was

The Shadow had plenty to think about, as he drove steadily back to New York with an aching and badly

A LITTLE after nine o'clock on the following morning, a sleek roadster halted in front of the imposing

There was a pleased smile on his handsome face. He acted like a clever young man who was thoroughly

satisfied with the world and himself. He crossed the sidewalk with brisk strides and rang the bell.

The butler who answered his quick, positive ring seemed a trifle ill at ease. But West's cheery smile and his

"I suppose so, sir." The butler hesitated. "She's in the library with her father. Perhaps I'd better "

He clicked blithely down the hall and knocked at a closed oaken door. Marsley's voice called out, "Come in!"

He seemed surprised at the pale, unhappy look on Marsley's usually impassive face. Viola, too, seemed

worried. Her glance moved from the young man to her father. Then it returned to a pile of newspapers on the

Flaring headlines covered the front pages. The mysterious murder of Duke Duncan in New Jersey the night

"Where in the world have you been all morning, Stanley?" Viola cried, anxiously.

"I tried to get you on the telephone. Your line has been busy for the past two hours!"

"I don't wonder at that," West grinned. "I've had reporters and detectives buzzing around me like flies! They

all seemed to think I had something to do with the murder of that fellow named Duke Duncan."

"The papers say it was you who telephoned the tip about the killing, from a pay station in New Jersey, last

"Some rascal impersonated me," West replied, quietly. "He was afraid to give his own name to the police, so

he picked a name at random from the phone book. Unluckily, he happened to pick mine. But, luckily, I have a

complete alibi. I was in Manhattan all last night, and I have friends to prove it. Don't worry about me. How

She didn't answer Stanley. She seemed to have forgotten him. She was again gazing at her father.

"Dad. I'm going to ask you something that may seem silly, even crazy. But I have a reason for asking. Do you

Marsley didn't seem annoyed by his daughter's accusing question. On the contrary, he forced a wan smile.

"If you mean, do I have an alibi like Mr. West, my answer is yes. Like him, I was lucky enough to be in

Manhattan last night. I have witnesses to prove it, if necessary. Why do you ask?"

"Thank God." she murmured. "I knew that woman was lying! I could tell it from the sound of her shrill voice

"WOMAN?" Marsley echoed. His face seemed to turn gray in an instant. Fear showed in his eyes. "Who

"She said her name was Alice Dodge. She declared that she had evidence that would send you to the chair for

murder! She she accused you of killing Duke Duncan! She said you were talking to him at the cottage when

he was murdered. She promised to keep quiet, if I meet her at a tea room uptown. She has a proposition she

"Exactly! Alice Dodge is a criminal! Had you gone to that tea room, she'd have kidnapped you and held you

as a pawn to force me to do certain things things I have no intention of doing!"

"How can you be so sure this Alice Dodge is a crook?" Stanley West asked, quietly. His narrow eyes

regarded the older man cunningly. But he masked it with a polite shrug that turned his face away.

Marsley walked abruptly to the closed door of the library. He opened it quickly with a sudden gesture. The

butler was nowhere in sight. Closing the oaken door, Marsley returned to face the polite West and his

"I was in the cottage last night," he said in a low voice. "My alibi story is not true. That cottage was

purchased by a dummy employed by me. I went there last night to pay Duke Duncan one million dollars in

cash! He had certain information I wanted to obtain. I tricked him and didn't pay but I failed to recover the

"No. It was done in the dark. I don't know who fired the shotgun that ripped his head apart. I'm I'm in a

terrible spot! I dare not go to the police. And unless I can regain a certain blackmail document from the

crooks, I'm literally faced with the unpleasant fate of death in the electric chair!"

Stanley West shook his head with a slow gesture that was meant to be reassuring. Marsley raised his hand to

"I want you to know certain facts in case I'm killed," he continued. "The blackmail paper to which I

referred contains seeming proof that I was involved in another murder some months ago, for which a young

man named Jack Skelly is now awaiting death at Sing Sing. That particular murder was arranged and carried

out by Duke Duncan. I give you my solemn word that I'm innocent as innocent as Jack Skelly."

"But if Skelly is innocent," Viola cried, "why can't you clear his name and stop his execution?"

"Because to do that, I'll have to expose a secret that I've sworn I'll never do. If saving him means the exposure

"Call it what you like," Marsley growled, his eye on West. "In the vast network of conspiracy into which I've

"I THINK you had better tell me exactly who were present in your Jersey cottage last night," West said, in a

His hands were clenched behind his back. He didn't want Marsley to realize the eagerness that was flooding

him. But Marsley was in no condition to detect anything unusual in West's manner.

"Duncan, of course, was there," he said. "So was Snap Carlo. Alice Dodge makes three. The fourth was a

smooth scoundrel in a parked car by the name of Peter Lane. And a thinfaced little fellow named Leo

"Personally, I'm convinced that Leo Barry is the man back of the whole conspiracy. I've had private

detectives on his trail. I know he visited Duncan the day before Duncan came to see me. I've found out the

"Leo Barry has disappeared since he saw Duncan, two days ago. But I'm sure he'll return. When he does, I'll

take care of him! I'm going to kill that crooked little rat without hesitation!"

For an instant, the banker was like cold stone. Then the mood passed. He patted the arm of his shivering

"I want you to leave town, Viola. Stay away until this horrible danger blows over. You've got to!"

"I fancy Viola will be safe enough if she remains indoors," West remarked, placidly.

Viola took the cue West offered. In a tearful voice, she refused to leave New York. Marsley was unable to

West smilingly agreed not to leave his own apartment for the next few days, when Viola insisted that he

himself might be in peril because of his association with her. When he left, it was with a lowvoiced promise

His smile at the butler, who let him out, was as cheerful and bright as when he had entered. If anything, it was

But for a gay and carefree young man, his actions were peculiar. He drove to a garage and parked his car.

Then he walked a couple of blocks and engaged a taxicab. He changed cabs twice on the relatively short trip

he made. His journey took him in a roundabout route back toward the same neighborhood where John

Stanley West walked the last two blocks to his apartment or, rather, the apartment of a friend of his. It was

in a building that attracted no particular attention to itself. It was neither swanky nor dilapidated. The elevator

He knocked on a smooth door with a casual rattat of his knuckles. The sound was so quickly made that what

The door opened promptly. It swung wide in the hand of an eager and very pretty girl. She had soft

honeyblond hair and deepblue eyes. Her figure outlined under the silken robe she wore was as lovely as a

Snap Carlo would have ground his teeth after one quick look at this demure beauty. She was Alice Dodge.

STANLEY WEST grinned at her, as he stepped across the threshold and shut the door swiftly behind him.

He didn't seem downcast. His eyes radiated a glow of satisfaction. "But something else happened that made

my visit to Marsley a most fortunate one. The old boy was so scared, he talked. I've found out the address of

Leo Barry! And I repeat what I've promised all along: If you'll help me, I'll help you."

Alice shot a harsh question at him. But he shrugged and shoved past her. He picked up the phone book, found

the number of a certain West Side hotel. When he had it, he spat the number over the wire like a bullet.

His talk was brief and peculiar. He got the man he was calling, but he didn't converse with him. He merely

listened to the sound of the voice and murmured quickly, "Excuse me wrong number." Then he hung up.

"Leo Barry has returned to his hotel suite," he told Alice tonelessly. He jammed on his hat and started for the

"I'm going to pay a call after some minor arrangements are made on Mr. Leo Barry."

His whispered words were like velvet. "You stay here, darling. Barry has stolen something that I need very

much, if I'm to conquer John Marsley. So I'm going to finish Mr. Leo Barry, once and for all!"

DARKNESS filled a mysterious room. It was a blackness akin to that of a closed grave or a sealed burial

Suddenly, a sibilant laugh echoed. It was followed by the sudden glow from a single, shaded blue light

The Shadow was in his sanctum! secret abode in the heart of Manhattan. His laughter signified that a period

of almost deathlike concentration was now over. He was now ready to summarize his thoughts concerning

The hand of The Shadow moved purposefully to the rear of the desk. When the fingers returned, they were

The Shadow picked up one of the pens and wrote. A name appeared on the white paper: "DUKE DUNCAN."

Through that name, a black line was instantly drawn. The line was a symbol that death had already removed

The Shadow thought about the queer blackmail setup that had preceded Duncan's death. Obviously, Duncan

had been used as a cat'spaw in a conspiracy that aimed itself at John Marsley. The Shadow knew the nature

of the blackmail evidence that Duke Duncan had bought for ten thousand dollars from Leo Barry. He was

But was this evidence the basis of the carnival of crime that had since developed? The Shadow did not

He bracketed with the name of Duke Duncan, the name of his chief lieutenant in crime: Snap Carlo. Snap was

a disloyal henchman. The Shadow knew Snap's ambition to take over Duke's power and profit. To Snap's

greed was added the more ruthless motive of desire. He wanted Duke's woman and Dolores Maguire

Yet The Shadow did not believe this was the answer. The names of Duncan and Snap Carlo faded from the

paper. The calm laughter of The Shadow indicated that his suspicion of the womanchasing Snap had faded,

He wrote now the name of Leo Barry. He was convinced that the little blackmailer was the key to the whole

puzzle. The Shadow knew that, behind his unimpressive physical appearance, Barry was a man of brains. If

Marsley had a guilty secret that promised rich pickings, Barry would be clever enough to use Duncan and his

The Shadow had no proof that it was Barry who had fired the fatal gun shot in Marsley's cottage in New

Jersey. But he suspected he was the one who had attempted to steal the three suitcases; and the one who had

planted the gun which had failed to kill The Shadow in the dim passageway beyond Marsley's kitchen.

Again, The Shadow inscribed a name on his sheet of paper, a woman's name with a question mark

There was no proof yet as to who this Alice Dodge really was. The note found in the seat lining of The

Shadow's car seemed to link her with Stanley West. But Stanley West already seemed linked with another

woman: John Marsley's own daughter! The Shadow's busy pen showed the relationship between Stanley

The name of John Marsley finished the list. The Shadow had personal experience that the banker was ruthless

to the point of murder. And he was willing to let Jack Skelly go to the chair in Sing Sing.

In the sand pit on the golf links Marsley had hinted at foreign intrigue that involved the safety of the United

States. This seemed to The Shadow to be a lie to divert the true course of investigation. Marsley had tried to

He was almost at the racketeer's side when the shotgun had roared. He could easily have snapped the light

But when Marsley's name had faded from the paper, one of the preceding names still remained, black and

clearly defined. The Shadow had written that name with a pen he had not used for any of the others. The

The Shadow's immediate suspicion had narrowed down to the foxy little blackmailer, quartered slyly out of

sight in one of the city's West Side hotels. It was against Barry that The Shadow intended to move.

THE SHADOW'S move was immediate. The light above the desk vanished. Silence and darkness returned.

Even the sound of breathing was absent. The Shadow had departed his sanctum. The Shadow proceeded

He went neither as The Shadow, nor as Lamont Cranston. The inoffensive Peter Lane took that journey

A quick survey of the hotel led The Shadow to the rear court in the gloom of a brick wall. He didn't attempt

to climb the hotel fire escape. He took the darker route of the slanting steel fire ladders on the rear face of the

The court was narrow. Only five or six feet separated the two buildings. A jump could be made by a resolute

man at the proper level; and the fact that the rear rooms of the hotel were dark and airless, made it hard to

He made the leap across space successfully. He already knew the room Leo Barry occupied. Lifting the

window with a small but tough steel implement, he slipped silently into the dark suite. Barry was evidently

The Shadow drew down the shade and prepared to make a thorough search. He found the light switch and

With the click of the switch, he froze into immobility. He stood for a long time perfectly rigid. His gaze

A man was huddled there in ghastly death. Death had come to Leo Barry in exactly the same way it had come

to Duke Duncan. Scattering lead pellets from a shotgun had all but torn off the blackmailer's head.

He lay twisted in a pool of blood. Evidently, he had realized his doom a second too late. He must have

thrown up his arms to protect his face, for wrists and hands were terribly mangled by the charge from the

shotgun. They hung in red shreds of flesh. The Shadow made an instant deduction. The murder could not

possibly have happened in this hotel room. The noise of the shotgun blast would have been terrific. Guests

would have heard it; an alarm would have been instantly given. Yet the hotel was drowsy and calm.

The killing had been done at some other spot. The dead man had been brought to this room inside a

THE SHADOW had not attempted, as yet, to figure who might have killed Barry. A glance at the paper on

the wall near the corner where the lavatory was built provided a partial answer to that question.

It was a grim, boastful answer that plunged the case into deeper mystery than ever. Death had exonerated Leo

Barry from guilt. The real criminal was selfexposed in the redscrawled signature of a peculiar name "The

Such was the name the burning eyes of The Shadow saw on the papered wall. The message above it was a

challenge to The Shadow himself! He read the two lengthy sentences with rigid attention:

The message was proof to The Shadow of what he already suspected. He was warring with a conceited

Marsley was the name that first occurred to The Shadow, because of a small object he found wedged in the

dusty crack at the edge of the bedroom rug. It was a stickpin with a tiny emerald. It had evidently fallen there

from the shaking hands of a man who had washed his hands at the lavatory sink and rearranged his tie.

The gray fluff adhering to the edge of the rug had hidden the telltale flare of the emerald. It glowed like cold

green fire in The Shadow's palm. He himself had seen that stickpin ornament in Marsley's tie, on the night of

Was this clue a real one? Or was it the cunning device of a shrewd murderer to lead the trail to the banker?

No answer was visible in The Shadow's eyes. He let himself softly out of the room to the deserted corridor

outside. He was trying to recreate for himself the probable path the departing murderer must have taken. He

There was a freight elevator shaft there. It was selfservice, for the convenience and speed of busy porters.

The Shadow pressed a button alongside the shaft and stepped swiftly into the empty car when it appeared.

He pushed the "basement" button on the inside panel. The murderer must have come and gone that way. So

did The Shadow. But before he left the elevator, he found another clue to a man's identity, that brought a cold

This clue was not one readily recognized, as was the emerald pin. It was a cigarette stub, smashed flat under

the foot of some smoker. It was not a popular brand. On the contrary, The Shadow had seen it only once in

That was the time he had watched Viola Marsley and Stanley West leaving the corridor of Marsley's office

building for a round of golf. Both of them were smoking this expensive imported brand.

THE cellar exit from the freight elevator was a concrete passage that led to a side alley. Adjoining the alley

The Shadow slipped silently over the fence, as he believed a cunning murderer had done before him. The lot

was covered with unkempt weeds. Near the street side was the empty shack of an abandoned filling station.

But the first thing that caught the observant eye of The Shadow was a closer object amid the weeds. A

wardrobe trunk! The Shadow wasted no time forcing open the lid. He knew that the killer would be smart

enough to leave no prints. The gloved hands of The Shadow gave him similar protection.

It was a grisly sight. It was soaked with blood. The inside was lined with a double layer of rubber sheeting,

which explained why no blood had seeped through to betray the killer's ghastly freight.

The Shadow had barely glanced inside when he heard a shout. His torch in the darkness had attracted

attention. A policeman was racing across the weeds from the filling station entrance.

The Shadow snapped off his torch and whirled. He fled. His action convinced the cop that he was dealing

with a criminal. Bullets whizzed through the darkness. But The Shadow had gained the rear fence. He melted

into obscurity, using a convenient cellar entrance and a maze of back yards to cover his trail.

The cop had caught a glimpse of the bloodstained trunk as he passed it. He raced back. His own flash showed

He waited for the appearance of a second patrolman, before he dashed off to a police alarm box. He was able

to give no clear description of the man who had fled. But his report to headquarters created instant

The Shadow, too, was making swift use of a telephone. A quarter mile away, he stepped timidly into a public

booth in the character of Mr. Peter Lane. He made two hurried calls. One was to the swanky town house of

John Marsley; the other was to the apartment occupied by Stanley West. Neither were at home.

The Shadow was not surprised. His sibilant laughter echoed faintly in the closed booth.

Leo Barry was no longer a menace. Death had removed him in the same bloody manner as Duke Duncan. An

anonymous supercriminal had at last been forced into the open. The Phoenix admitted the commission of

both crimes. From now on, it would be grim and unrelenting warfare to the death.

It wasn't that he feared the police. He had been away from his home most of the previous night, but he was

satisfied he had covered his movements perfectly. It was the accusing gaze of his daughter Viola that he

Viola knew her father had not been home last night. He refused to answer her anxious questions.

The morning newspapers were again black with headlines. The discovery of Leo Barry's shotguntorn body

linked him at once with the similar murder of Duke Duncan. The redink message on the wall, from The

In his spacious living room, John Marsley puffed moodily at a cigar and tried to parry his daughter's worried

questions. He succeeded, until she mentioned The Phoenix. Then his own intense excitement forced him to

Viola said faintly, "Do you think The Phoenix is the one who's trying to send you to the electric chair for a

"Forget that! It was only the beginning of the conspiracy. It was a method used to force something else from

me. The Phoenix is not interested in railroading me or the innocent Jack Skelly to the electric chair. He

"I expect a coded cablegram today from a banking agent of mine in the Far East. If I can get that cable and

"That should be simple enough," Viola said. "If the cable is on its way now, and you have the code book..."

"But, I don't!" her father groaned. "The code book was stolen from this house, two days ago! Without it, the

message will be meaningless. Worse than that, I suspect The Phoenix may already have the code book."

"I'm explaining this for an important reason. I want you to stay here and take that cable message when it

TWENTY minutes after Marsley departed, the doorbell rang. Viola hurried to answer it. But quick as she

was, the butler, Craig, was even quicker. He had already signed for a yellow envelope. He was slipping it

"I'll keep it for your father," Craig muttered. "There's no need for you to bother. I'll lock it for safekeeping in

"Very well," Craig said, quietly. His voice was submissive, but the gleam in his eye was ugly. He handed

Viola had always taken Craig for granted as a meek servant. Now she found herself suspicious of him. She

decided to hide the important missive, not in her father's study, but in the wall jewel safe in her own

She was lifting her hand to the combination of the safe when she heard a creak outside her door. She turned

suddenly. Her footsteps on the thick rug made no sound. Throwing open her door, she peered quickly into the

hall. Craig was a few feet away, toward the head of the stairs. He seemed disconcerted as he saw the girl's

"No. I'm tired and I want to sleep. Please don't disturb me, for any reason whatever!"

He descended the stairs. Viola trusted him less than ever. She had a feeling he would sneak back, the moment

her bedroom closed. Again, she went to her wall safe. But this time it was for purposes of deception.

She no longer desired to hide the cablegram in the safe. But she wanted Craig to think she had. To this end,

she opened the safe noisily, waited a moment, then closed it with a metallic bang. The envelope remained in

Viola decided on an entirely new plan. She would not stay in this house another moment. She would ignore

the warning her father had given her. Craig's behavior convinced her that the envelope would be safer if she

She thought of a haven immediately. She would wait at the apartment of Stanley West until her father

The thought spurred her to speed. Her fingers lifted to the fastenings of her dress. In a trice she began to

disrobe, throwing her garments recklessly aside. She stripped completely, as if preparing for a bath. But a

Like a slim pinkandwhite wraith, she tiptoed naked to her garment closet and rummaged with nervous

She donned the suit. The daring little wisp of yellow fabric emphasized the charms of her boyish figure. But

Viola didn't glance at her mirror with approval for her slim curves. Her eyes in the glass were wide with

She pulled the zipper on a small pocket near the belt of the swim suit. This zipper pocket was her reason for

the change of clothing. The cablegram went into the pocket and fitted flat and snug.

She dressed, and slipped on hat and coat. There was triumph in her face, as she hurried downstairs. Had she

A FACE had witnessed Viola's swift disrobing. Watchful eyes saw the yellow swim suit slip snugly over her

white body. A man had poised outside the curtained window, on a narrow stone ledge that ran along the flank

His eyes saw the cablegram disappear into the zipper pocket of the bathing suit. Before Viola was fully

dressed and unlocking her door, the figure outside the curtained window had disappeared.

Craig was nowhere in sight when Viola, downstairs, rang for him. He appeared presently, panting a little.

Viola told him that she had changed her mind and was going shopping. She asked Craig to have her father

"As soon as I make a purchase or two, "Viola said steadily, "I'm going to the apartment of Mr. Stanley West.

Stanley West's apartment was at no great distance from the Marsley home. Viola reached it by taxi in a few

minutes. She was smiling with relief when she rang his bell. But her relief changed to quick disappointment.

She was afraid to leave. She could think of no other place where she could be safer. But after three fruitless

The door of the automatic elevator was opening. Stanley West emerged with brisk strides. His face was grim

at sight of the pretty girl outside his apartment house door. But the expression was a fleeting one. It was

She followed him inside, and up to his apartment. Her explanation for her visit was vague and a bit

breathless. But West didn't seem very curious. He was a little breathless himself.

It was Viola herself who finally brought up the real reason for her call. When she came to the subject of the

cablegram for her father, and the peculiar behavior of the butler, West frowned.

She told West about her happy idea of the swim suit. She explained to him that the envelope was concealed in

West laughed admiringly. He seemed startled that so clever a device, and so simple, should have solved

Viola's difficulty. He fidgeted for a moment, then he uttered a polite exclamation. He glanced at his watch.

"By jove! I'm terribly sorry but I wonder if you'd mind my deserting you for a moment or two? I meant to

stop in at the tailor's down the street. He has a suit I particularly want this afternoon. I'll be back in a jiffy. Do

It didn't occur to Viola that tailors maintain delivery service. Her mind was on the envelope she had

concealed. She nodded. West fixed her a drink and handed her a magazine. Then he deftly excused himself

A curious feeling of uneasiness began to possess her. She wished that she had accompanied Stanley West to

the tailors. She was afraid to wait here alone. The air of the apartment seemed surcharged with a cold chill of

Suddenly, she had an inspiration. She hurried into the adjoining bedroom of the suite. She had a nervous

desire to rid herself of the dangerous document she was carrying. She looked swiftly about for a better spot to

In an instant, she made up her mind. Her silk legs showed candidly as she lifted her skirt. She fumbled at the

zipper pocket of the bathing suit and removed the cablegram. She shoved it under edge of the rug, far enough

Viola felt better, as she tiptoed back to the living room and reached for a magazine on the low table.

Her fingers halted before she touched it. She swung around to face the foyer leading to the apartment door. A

"Stanley!" she cried. "Back so soon? You're fast! You must have run all the way!"

No answer came from the foyer. The hall door closed. Then feet padded forward with an odd, stealthy

An eerie figure in crimson was confronting her. A man robed from head to foot in a metallic red cloth that

glittered when he moved. Red slippers peeped from under the hem of his robe. An automatic pistol jutted

There was nothing human about this strange figure, except the glare of slitted eyes. An enveloping hood gave

No sound came from Viola's parted lips. Terror paralyzed the cords in her throat. She stood rooted as the

A voice snarled at her. It was husky, blurred, a sound like that of a tonguetied man.

"The cablegram quick! I have no time to lose! If you try to delay, I'll kill you like Duncan and Barry!"

"I I haven't it," she gasped. "I gave it to Stanley West for safekeeping! He took it with him when he left!"

"You lie!" A grim chuckle made the crimson hood ripple. "It's hidden on your body. Remove your clothing!"

The gun pointed ominously. Modesty made Viola hesitate. Also, she thought that delay might bring help

She fumbled deliberately at the fastenings. She removed her dress and let it flutter to the floor. Reluctantly,

her slip followed. With flushed face, she stood attired only in silk stockings, shoes and the little swim suit.

The Phoenix sprang closer. His hand jerked open the zipper pocket. He cursed as he saw that it was empty.

VIOLA shrank back, her pale arms crossed desperately. Fingers thrust her protecting hands away. With a

furious gesture, The Phoenix caught at the narrow yellow strap across the girl's white shoulder. He was

The telephone bell began to ring. At the same instant, Viola found her voice and raised it in a piercing scream

The Phoenix fled. He raced with thudding feet through the foyer to the apartment door. The door opened and

How long she sat there, she had no idea. No help came to her from outside. The soundproof walls of the

Presently, a key grated in the hall door lock. Stanley West hurried into the living room with a smile on his

His jaw dropped as he saw the halffainting Viola sitting weakly in a chair. She was clad only in the yellow

swim suit, with one shoulder strap hanging loose. Viola replaced the strap with a shaking hand, as she noted

She swayed to her feet and the young man ran forward. He supported her with a strong arm.

WEST'S voice was tender, full of solicitude. But Viola no longer trusted this man. His sudden leaving of her

was queer; his quick return even queerer. Instead of describing what had happened, Viola asked him a

"I had a queer feeling that something was wrong. I telephoned to see if you were safe. When there was no

His story sounded fishy to Viola. Had he framed it because he knew the phone had rung while The Phoenix

Slowly, Viola described the attack on her. She lied about the cablegram. She told West that the crimson

apparition had found it in the zipper pocket of her swim suit and had fled with it.

West didn't question her further about the loss. He merely suggested that she remain at his apartment until she

Viola declined. Suavely, he insisted. The shrill ring of the telephone created a diversion. West took a quick

step forward. But Viola, who was closer to the instrument, beat him to the table. She was overjoyed to hear

"Viola! What are you doing in the apartment of Stanley West? Craig just told me. Make an excuse and come

"I'm just about to leave, dad," Viola replied. Her quiet laughter gave West no clue to what was being said on

She picked up her outer clothing from the floor. West made no effort to stop her as she walked toward the

bedroom. But she knew now he had lied about the phone bell. It was her father who had called!

With the bedroom door locked behind her, Viola tiptoed to the edge of the rug and found the envelope she

had hidden. She tucked it back into the pocket of her swim suit. Then she dressed hurriedly and emerged.

Viola left West standing in his doorway, staring after her. With beating heart, she summoned a taxi and sped

to her own home. The thought that she still had the cablegram filled her with a tingling thrill. But the moment

she saw the pale, drawn face of her father, she knew disaster had struck from another quarter.

"Burglars were here while you were away. They opened the wall safe in your bedroom. Craig was asleep and

Viola shook her head. She explained the trick she had played on Craig. The butler thought the envelope had

gone into the safe and had promptly burglarized it himself, throwing the blame on outside crooks.

"You're wrong," Marsley replied. "The butler has been with me too long to suspect him of disloyalty. I

He listened to Viola's account of what had happened at West's apartment. But there was no elation in his eyes

at the fact that she had managed to outwit The Phoenix. He took the cablegram envelope from her with

"You've got both the message and the code book now," she cried, eagerly. "All you have to do is compare the

"I haven't the code book," he admitted. "My suspicion of its whereabouts was wrong. The person I suspected

He took the envelope, however, and placed it in a drawer of his study desk. Viola, peering, saw something

else that was jammed inside the drawer. The sight of it brought a startled cry from her.

Marsley tried to close the drawer, but the girl was on her feet pointing with a rigid forefinger. Rolled tightly

together in a shapeless mass, was a bundle of red cloth. Viola clutched it and drew it out.

She recognized the color and the peculiar metallic sheen of the stuff. It was an exact duplicate of the crimson

"The Phoenix must have been the one who tried to rob the safe upstairs," he muttered. "He left his robe here

A dozen questions trembled on Viola's lips, but she choked them down. Her father's face seemed to reflect

guilty confusion. The girl's shoulders slumped. She was suddenly very tired. Without a word, she moved

Her father let her go without raising his head. He was still staring at the red cloth from the open drawer of his

His whisper was inaudible to the girl ascending the stairs in the hall: "Fool! What a fool I've been!"

Viola was so deathly tired that she stumbled over the threshold of her bedroom. She thought that if she didn't

try to rest, she'd go mad with worry. She locked the door and went to her wardrobe closet for a negligee.

But the closet door opened of itself. A pistol pointed at the pale face of Viola. She found herself confronted

"Quiet or I'll kill you instantly!" It was Alice Dodge. She backed her victim to the bed and forced her to sit

"I want that cablegram!" she snapped. Exhaustion fled from Viola at sight of her feminine foe. Here was a

fleshandblood criminal whose lurking presence in the house seemed to clear her father of suspicion. Viola

didn't make any attempt to grapple with Alice. She knew that would be suicide. But her voice was hard and

"You ought to know whether he has it or not. You're in cahoots with him! You know he's The Phoenix, don't

Viola's scorn seemed to infuriate Alice Dodge. Her blue eyes flashed; color flamed in her pale face.

"You can't pin the death of Duke Duncan on him," Viola cried. "The Phoenix killed Duncan and Leo Barry,

"I'm not talking about Duke's murder," Alice Dodge said, tensely. Her low voice was so menacing that it

"I mean that John Marsley killed a man three months ago and framed another victim to take the rap. That

innocent victim is in Sing Sing, right now. His name is Jack Skelly. He's doomed to the chair unless your

crooked father exonerates him by confessing. That's why I'm here. I intend to force your father to confess!"

"You'd have to live a million years to convince me of that. I love Jack Skelly! I know the fine man he is. He's

not going to die to protect a wealthy criminal like your father. He's going to be exonerated before morning.

He's going to walk out of Sing Sing a free man and I'm going to marry him. Proudly!"

Her left hand jerked forward, dragged Viola from the bed. Her gun pointed toward the bedroom telephone. "I

happen to know that you brought the cablegram back here with you from West's apartment. You gave it to

your father, downstairs. I want you to pick up that telephone and call your father's study."

"And be sure it's the study switch that you set. I'm perfectly familiar with the way these house phones work."

"Tell him to bring the cablegram up here, to your bedroom. Tell him you've suddenly thought of a way that it

VIOLA hesitated. Death faced her unless she obeyed, and she knew it. But more than that, was her unwilling

realization that Alice Dodge was not a crook. The blonde was a desperate girl fighting to save the life of a

She picked up the phone and summoned Marsley. She was impelled to do so by Alice's tense whisper, that all

she really wanted was to save the life of her sweetheart. Alice disclaimed any real interest in the contents of

Footsteps sounded down the hall. Alice softly unlocked the door. As the banker stepped in he saw only the

pale face of his daughter. Viola's arms were lifted stiffly above her head. She was staring past Marsley's

Marsley whirled. As he did so, Alice Dodge sprang at him. She snatched the yellow envelope from his hand.

"It won't do you a bit of good," Marsley said. "Without the code book, you can't translate the message." Alice

began to laugh stridently, her weapon poised to spit death at the slightest move of either of her prisoners. All

the smooth beauty seemed to vanish from her face. Murder crawled in her blue eyes.

"I've got the code book!" she jeered. "I'm the one who stole it! I've got the whiphand at last, you damned

"You're going to confess to the police that Jack Skelly is innocent, and that you're guilty! Unless I hear the

newsboys shouting the extras on the streets before midnight, I shall decode the cablegram and have your

secret published in every paper in town! You can have it back unread if you exonerate Jack Skelly. The

"Turn around! Both of you!" The shining gun made resistance hopeless. "Walk slowly ahead. Into that

With father and daughter in the recesses of the clothes closet, Alice locked the door on them.

Alice sped to the bedroom window and peered out. The coast was clear. The shadowy lawn below the

window offered an easy escape. She reached it without trouble by making use of a knotted rope that hung

As she fled across the lawn toward a low masonry wall flanked by evergreens, she met unexpected peril. A

figure rose from concealment directly in front of her. A fist struck her in the face, dazing her. The gun was

SNAP searched her with grim haste. He snatched the envelope which Alice had risked her life to obtain. A

quick upward leap, and Snap was over the stone wall that paralleled the sidewalk outside.

A car was waiting close by, its engine running smoothly. Snap slid behind the wheel. The car sped away. It

Inside Marsley's stone wall, Alice Dodge staggered dizzily to her feet. She was moaning faintly. She no

longer had a single hold on John Marsley. Her story, that she had stolen the code book, was a lie. She had

never seen it. Now the cablegram, too, was gone. Her sweetheart, Jack Skelly, was doomed!

Heartsick, she pulled herself over the low wall and dropped to the sidewalk, began to walk slowly toward the

corner. She was still sick with nausea from the vicious blow Snap had dealt her.

Suddenly, her heart jumped as she heard a faint sound behind her. Stealthy footfalls! Turning, she saw a

But unknown to Snap, the watchful interest of The Shadow was concentrated both on the car and the crook.

A second car was following Snap's. The timidlooking Peter Lane was behind the wheel of that innocent

coupe. He had watched Snap's every movement for the past twelve hours. He was still grimly interested in

this ambitious henchman of the late Duke Duncan. He suspected a new tieup between Snap and The

The trail wound in and out of streets, went east and west without apparent sense. Snap never took chances,

Finally, Snap paused, made a phone call from a drugstore booth. Emerging, he sent his car racing ahead

again. The car no longer dodged around corners. It took a straight course at high speed.

The Shadow guessed almost at once where the crook was heading: the Triboro Bridge!

The calm Peter Lane instantly divined the truth behind this change of tactics. The phone call and the straight

route Snap was now taking convinced The Shadow that his trailing of Snap had finally been noticed. Snap

had called up The Phoenix for instructions. He had obviously been advised to feign complete innocence, and

The Shadow's sibilant laughter eddied from the quiet lips of Peter Lane. He was willing to take the risk of

falling into a trap if it would lead to personal contact with the supercriminal who called himself The

The trail led to the Triboro Bridge as The Shadow had expected. Snap crossed the East River to the Astoria

terminus in Queens. Through the gathering dusk, he drove mile after mile past frame twostory houses and

Almost to Sunnyside, the grim chase proceeded. The Shadow knew every section of the city like a book, from

his constant study of accurate maps in his sanctum. His forehead frowned as he saw Snap's car halt in front of

a group of magnificent apartment buildings. Could this unusual spot be the secret hangout of The Phoenix?

The Shadow didn't think so. Hardworking and successful business executives lived here. A criminal would

Snap's actions proved this deduction correct. He had paused merely to encourage further pursuit. The Shadow

In the bright light of an ornamental entrance lamp, Snap was pretending to read the address on the cablegram

envelope. He held it out the window of his car as he studied it. Then he drove abruptly away.

A few blocks onward he slowed. Ahead of him was a twostory frame cottage, dark from cellar to roof

except for a single dim light on the top floor. A vacant lot flanked it on either side. There was a third weedy

As Snap drove nearer, he dimmed his headlight swiftly. The light on the top floor of the cottage went out.

A moment later, a bedroom upstairs glowed with light. Snap began to undress. The uplifted shade showed

that. A moment later, the shade was pulled down. The silhouette of Snap was clearly revealed drawing a

bathrobe over his naked body. The bedroom light went out and then the groundglass window of the

The watchful Shadow was not deceived by these maneuvers. He knew what was expected of him. He was

being encouraged to sneak into the cottage and steal the cablegram while Snap was busy taking a bath.

Circling the dark cottage, The Shadow found a rear cellar window conveniently open. But he didn't make use

of this inviting route. Returning to his car, he took certain objects from a concealed space under the seat. He

Instead of taking his black cloak and Slouch hat, he took two cloaks and two hats!

He made his entrance into the cottage from the vacant lot on the south side. Projections of timber and a squat

extension roof offered no real resistance to the silent upward climb of the master sleuth.

Like most carelessly protected upper windows, the metal catch of this one was only partly shoved into its

slot. Rust had prevented that. The Shadow worked the catch noiselessly aside and lifted the sash. He was in a

His movements were infinitely cautious. No sound indicated that a cloaked intruder was now inside the

cottage. No noise came from the rubbersoled feet that tiptoed to the hall doorway. The hall itself was clearly

Snap was not taking a bath. He was not even naked. He had dressed rapidly after his cunning attempt to

Rigid, silent, Snap was at the head of the staircase, glaring downward. He didn't seem to be watching he

was listening. His very ear lobes seemed to quiver with murderous concentration.

A gun glittered in Snap's hand. He was ready to race down those stairs at a moment's notice. The signal for

Remembering the conveniently located cellar window, The Shadow was fairly certain what Snap anticipated.

He saw the metallic sheen of a bell on the wall near the door of the bathroom. If The Shadow entered that

Snap would dash swiftly downward, his luring job done. He would join The Phoenix in the cellar, and both

would gloat over the helpless figure of the captured Shadow. Murder would follow with grim speed.

The Shadow's brain had ordained otherwise. He began to creep silently forward behind his racketeer foe.

Snap's profile was partly turned, but the strong light from the bathroom doorway was in his eyes. The

Shadow had a narrow margin of safety before he could get close enough to spring.

But the ears of the crook were like that of a wild beast. He heard the almost inaudible movement of The

Shadow's feet. He whirled, his teeth bared like fangs. The gun in his heavy hand pointed.

THE SHAD0W'S rush blanketed the gun and twisted it from Snap's hand. The weapon fell to the floor before

Snap went backward under that savage onslaught, reeling against the smooth wall of the passage above the

stairs. Before he could clutch for his dropped gun or launch himself forward, The Shadow averted both perils.

His gloved hand sank into the flesh of Snap's throat, choking off the cry that bubbled from wideopen lips.

He bent the mobster backward across the wooden rail of the stair well. Almost mad with the agony of that

spinesnapping pressure, Snap tried to scream aloud. But, the gloved fingers on his throat prevented even a

Soon his face began to turn purple. His tongue protruded. No longer was Snap trying to scream. The agony of

Soon even the twisting ceased. Snap was unconscious. The Shadow let Snap slump to the floor of the hall.

The crook lay there motionless, his unconscious eyeballs staring, his swarthy features bluish.

He was lifted immediately in a strong grasp. The Shadow carried his prisoner along the hall and poised him

From under The Shadow's robe, a strong, light rope appeared. Snap's body was lowered to the darkness of the

A waving jerk of his hand, and the special knot he had tied aloft came loose. The rope fell to the weeds and

Then the reason why The Shadow had brought a second disguise with him was made clear. He dressed Snap

Carlo in the counterfeit appearance of himself. He turned up the collar of the robe to hide the killer's chin.

The brim of the slouch hat shrouded forehead and eyes, leaving only the nose and mouth exposed.

To a casual observer, two Shadows waited in the darkness one of them limp and unconscious, the other

Back to the cellar window in the rear went The Shadow, carrying Snap's inert body. The grass deadened his

footfalls. Standing prudently to one side, he held Snap upright as if the crook were standing alone, attempting

FOR a second or two, there was no sound of impact. Then the delayed echo came. Not from the cellar floor

but from a spot much deeper. The unconscious Snap had fallen into a pit dug directly inside the window

The Shadow was not surprised. He had expected some sort of reception like this, prepared cunningly in

advance for himself. As he waited, he heard the faint clangor of the bell upstairs. The trap had been sprung,

the signal given. But it was Snap who lay helplessly in the dark cellar pit not The Shadow!

No sound came from the cellar itself. The Phoenix was evidently hidden prudently somewhere else. Perhaps

The tiny beam of The Shadow's torch probed through the window into the cellar. The place was empty. There

was no sign of a yawning hole beneath the window. However, The Shadow had heard the faint sound of a

Entering the cellar, he found that the lid of the shaft was painted to resemble the concrete that floored the rest

of the cellar. Lifting the wooden cover, he exposed the pit. His light showed him the inert figure of Snap

Cleats were nailed into the side of the shaft, to allow a man to descend from above with safety. The Shadow

He noticed instantly that the square sides of the pit were enclosed with boarded timbers. He noticed

something else. At one side was the unmistakable outline of a door without a knob. The Shadow took one

From the other side of the flat door he became aware of the shuffling of approaching feet. Some one was

moving through a tunnel toward the enclosed bottom of the pit. Faint light flickered through the tiny cracks

The Shadow did quick, noiseless things with the limp body of Snap. Then he backed away from his captive

It was held in the hand of a figure dressed from head to foot in a robe and cloth helmet of shimmering red.

The light from the torch made the metallic cloth seem to writhe and twinkle. There was nothing human about

that awesome visitor from the depths of the earth, except the baleful glare of slitted eyes behind the tall,

The Phoenix chuckled, as he saw The Shadow sprawled with his back to the wall, apparently unconscious.

Then he heard a sibilant whisper of mocking laughter. He whirled, and a yell of amazement bubbled from his

AT the same instant, a cry came from Snap Carlo. Snap had recovered consciousness. He had kept his eyes

closed and had played possum, in a crafty effort to regain his strength. His shout was uttered in an effort to

A bullet ripped past The Shadow's hawklike profile. Another flicked like a redhot razor slash across the

But The Shadow had not allowed himself to be flurried by the cry of Snap behind him. His own gun roared.

The bullet that left the steady muzzle sped straight toward its target. It was aimed to disable, not to kill. The

A paralyzing blow struck the weapon in the archcriminal's grasp. It flew end over end and landed on the

The Shadow whirled. Snap was drawing a hidden gun. His brain was tuned to swift murder, but his muscles

were weak. The Shadow's second bullet pierced the soft flesh of the thug's upper arm.

The menacing weapon fell. So swift was The Shadow's defense that Snap hadn't fired a single shot.

Both crooks were defenseless and they knew it. They remained with impassive faces, listening to the stern

Calm words were addressed to The Phoenix. He was told to lower his uplifted right hand and rip the red hood

from his head. Indomitable eyes emphasized that order. The Phoenix dropped a reluctant hand to obey.

He was crafty to the core. His lowered hand moved to the hood that concealed his head then with a gesture

Instantly, he vanished! So did Snap. Darkness covered the pit at the touch of that finger on a concealed

button. The Shadow could see nothing. He fired flaming spurts that showed him by fitful gleams that the pit

He noticed something equally strange. The bullets he pumped at the wooden shaft wall where The Phoenix

had vanished did not pierce the soft timber. On the contrary, they struck with a brittle ping and rebounded.

Something a lot tougher than wood now intervened between The Shadow and his foes.

It was glass! A strong light had suddenly glowed. The figure of the Phoenix was disclosed standing upright

and unhurt behind a thick panel of bulletproof glass. The powdery spots where The Shadow's bullets had

Snap Carlo was crouched on trembling knees, where The Phoenix had dragged him to safety.

A VOICE issued sneeringly from behind the glass panel. The words were hoarse and slurred. The Phoenix

was as usual, taking no chance on vocal recognition. He was talking through a tiny microphone sunk flush

He demanded that The Shadow produce the code book stolen from John Marsley. The Shadow did not reply

Physical torture, he admitted, was useless. That had been tried, vainly, by countless other crooks. The

He revealed a hideous fact. Alice Dodge was a helpless prisoner in a crypt adjoining that where The Phoenix

now stood gloating. He repeated things of which The Shadow was aware: namely, that Alice was not a

criminal, but a loyal and innocent girl, desperate to save her doomed sweetheart from execution.

"She was captured and brought here to bring pressure on you," The Phoenix growled. "Her hands and feet are

bound to a table of my own invention. She has been stripped naked from head to foot, so that certain

"Unless you produce at once Marsley's missing code book or tell where it is, so that agents of mine may

recover it immediately Alice Dodge will die slowly from unspeakable torture to her body! It's up to you.

The Shadow's head moved slowly from left to right. His answer to the challenge was negative.

Instantly, through the wooden wall of the shaft, came a shrill scream of human agony: the high shriek of a

The light behind the plate glass went out. But the shrieks from the partition beyond continued. It was a sound

that quivered in The Shadow's ears like the plea of a soul in hell. He sprang toward the wooden wall of the pit

His shoulder smashed against the timbers. They were frail and they cracked under the savage onslaught of his

hard, athletic body. Again he hurled himself forward. With a ripping of smashed wood, the barrier fell

He was on his knees in an instant, whirling to regain his feet. Two figures prevented that. They dived grimly

to the attack. Bludgeons smashed at The Shadow's skull. The blows were delivered with paralyzing strength

WHEN he recovered, The Shadow was standing upright. But his feet and arms were immovable. He was tied

to a stout wooden pillar that rose vertically between the earthen floor and ceiling of a large, windowless

He heard the cold laughter of The Phoenix and the yapping of Snap Carlo. The two thugs who had smashed

The Shadow into unconsciousness were there, too. He recognized them as a couple of Snap's mobsmen.

There was no sign of Alice Dodge, naked or otherwise. The Phoenix had lied. The Shadow realized the nature

of the cunning trap that had been set for him, when he saw a huge phonograph cabinet with a record on its

The whole torture story was a fake. Alice had not been captured. Her supposed voice was a mechanical

The hand of The Phoenix replaced the record with another one on the turntable. There was something grim in

the manner he adjusted this new disk. He examined the inner rim attentively. He was careful to replace the

The Phoenix proved it with a snarling explanation. He declared savagely that he already had the cablegram.

He expected to recover the code book after The Shadow's death. In the meantime, he was now ready to get rid

He went into boastful details. There was nothing recorded on the flat disk now in the machine. The needle

would travel to the inner rim in silence. But instead of stopping there, a groove had been cut so that the

needle would hop to a small metal tray alongside the disk hole, which was slightly enlarged.

An electrical contact would be made. A spark would ignite a powder train. The spark had been calculated to

run at the proper rate of speed to enable The Phoenix and his henchman to escape the imminent blast. That

The powder line led across the floor to a tiny opening in the earthen wall. Far back of that hole, under the

foundations of the house, the explosives were stored. Once the spark passed inside the hole, no power on

As The Phoenix talked boastfully, The Shadow watched him. He paid particular attention to the

archcriminal's crimson cloth helmet, and his shoes. Either alone might have escaped the shrewd analysis of

a deductive mind. Together, they afforded an instant clue. It was the first definite due to The Phoenix's

In a flash, he guessed the identity of The Phoenix! It was an identity that defied logic and general

appearances. The Shadow, however, was certain he was right. The shoes and the helmet proved what he had

THE SHADOW was given no chance to meditate. The Phoenix started the deadly needle whirling in the

The crooks fled. They raced with frightened steps through the opening in the wall, which The Shadow's

plunging attack had made. They vanished up the cleated steps to the top of the cellar pit. The lid banged

The Shadow heaved mightily at the pillar to which he was tied. It was merely a loose brace between the earth

floor and ceiling. The needle on the whirling phonograph record continued its deadly path to the inner rim of

the disk. It was a race between the human strength of The Shadow and the mechanical perfection of an oiled

Chunks of loosened earth dropped from the ceiling. The pole was moving slipping sideways. Suddenly, it

came free altogether. It fell with a crash to the floor, carrying the trussed figure of The Shadow with it.

At almost the same instant, the needle hopped from the inside of the record and dropped into a metal tray. An

electrical contact was made. A spark flared like a tiny star. The star grew to a bud of crimson.

Flame had touched the end of the powder train. It began to crawl lazily along the floor.

The Shadow paid no attention to that powder chain. His desperate eyes veered for an instant to the floor near

where he lay. He saw a small pebble lying close at hand, but too far for his trussed fingers to reach.

Grimly, The Shadow began to inch his bound wrists downward along the pillar. He did the same with his

kicking feet. He was racing against time, to slip his feet and his hands from the butt of the fallen pole to

Sweat dripped into his eyes. Splinters tore his flesh. But not for a splitsecond did his sliding exertions cease.

Across the earthen floor the sputtering spark of the fuse was like a darting crimson willo'thewisp.

It was perilously near the hole in the wall when The Shadow's joined ankles slid bleeding from the end of the

pole. His hands followed. He made a convulsive grab forward with his trussed wrists. He clutched the small

stone which he had noted earlier, heaved it with all his strength at the smoldering spark of the powder trail.

The spark was almost out of sight. It flickered less than an inch from the tiny tunnel in the earth wall that led

The pebble struck the glow of the spark. But it was not a perfect shot. It hit glancingly and bounced away.

For an instant, the spark dimmed and seemed to go out. Then it ate greedily into the dry powder of the fuse

With almost the same motion that sent the pebble whirling toward the burning fuse, he rolled to his side. His

joined hands dipped into a pocket of his twisted robe. They came out with a flat silver object. Pressure

brought a keen blade jutting from the sheath of that deceptivelooking knife. The blade was as thin as a

Bending double, The Shadow slashed it across the cords that confined his ankles. It was harder to free his

Freed, he sprang to the shaft in the earth and raced like a madman up the nailed cleats to the cellar. A

battering of his sinewy fists and the flat covering of the pit shot upward. In two jumps, The Shadow was past

the sill of the rear window and racing away with pumping heart and straining muscles.

He was crossing the open lot in the rear of the doomed cottage. Tangled weeds tore at his feet and threatened

to trip him headlong. His panting breath and the swish of the weeds were the only sounds in a queer stillness.

BEFORE his falling body could belly the earth, The Shadow was hurled a dozen feet by a roaring wind like a

hurricane. It was followed by a gush of flame from the cottage. The cottage seemed to rise in a single mass in

the heart of spouting flame. Then it dissolved into mist like mud in a spray of water. The roar of a gigantic

The Shadow lay weakly where he had been hurled. An indentation in the ground protected him from the rain

Then there was blank, shuddering silence. The Shadow still didn't move. The blast had temporarily paralyzed

By the time he had staggered to his feet and was able to make his way over the debrislittered ground, the

neighborhood was an inferno of sound. Women screamed. Men were shouting. In the distance came the

A vast blackened crater was the only indication that a twostory house had stood at this spot. In the street

beyond, frightened tenants were racing in all stages of undress from nearby apartments.

The Shadow passed unnoticed through the growing throng. He was no longer robed in black. This was a

limping, apparently timid man who seemed no different from any one else in the street. As Peter Lane, The

A sibilant laugh echoed from his lips, as he drove swiftly from the neighborhood. Behind the face of Peter

He no longer had to temporize or delay. He knew the identity of The Phoenix! He had a plan to draw The

Phoenix out of the obscurity where he had fled. That plan would probably bear fruit promptly as soon as

Peter Lane crossed the bridge to Manhattan. He stopped at an allnight newspaper advertising agency. He

inserted a lastminute "personal notice," to appear in bold type in every New York paper.

The Shadow was now ready to move swiftly to a climax. He was preparing for a final clash with the most

MORNING sunlight flooded Manhattan. It touched every spire and peak of the greatest skyline in the world.

But there was one spot in Manhattan where sunlight didn't penetrate: The Shadow's sanctum!

Underneath the blueshaded light, The Shadow's longfingered hands were sorting newspaper clippings.

There were six or seven of the clippings. They lay in a neat pile. All were exactly alike. They had appeared in

The Shadow's keen eyes scanned the sample clipping he had selected for reading. It was as follows:

Grim laughter eddied from the lips of The Shadow. He had baited a trap to lure The Phoenix into the open.

The newspaper was the trap. The innocentlooking "personal" was the bait. The name of Peter Lane was no

longer a secret to The Phoenix. He would know instantly that the ad had been inserted by The Shadow

But like most cocksure criminals, The Phoenix would not be content with mere knowledge. He would be

tempted to guess. The ad was intended to encourage him to guess. It looked like an undercover device by

which The Shadow could get in touch with one of his agents. The Phoenix would immediately assume that

The chances were excellent that The Phoenix would regard the message as a stroke of pure luck. He would

pretend to be the mythical "Henry." He would telephone Peter Lane and attempt to hoodwink him.

Such was The Shadow's sure belief. It was based on accurate psychology. He waited grimly for a tiny

indicator light to wink at his elbow. The rapid winking of that light would mean that Hudson 72119 was

It would do a criminal no good to attempt to trace that telephone number. It belonged to an office in the

building next to the shrouded sanctum where The Shadow sat. The phone was connected by a temporary

hookup to the instrument before which The Shadow waited. His sanctum telephone was a private wire,

Suddenly, The Shadow's rigid pose changed. The tiny signal light was winking furiously. Tapering fingers

The voice was crisp. It carried the respectful intonation of an underling addressing his chief. The Shadow

"Report acknowledged. Important developments ready to be acted on. Where are you now?"

The voice told him swiftly. Too swiftly. There was an undercurrent of eagerness in the racing reply. The

The address he gave was that of a private house in the suburbs. Its location was far up in the Bronx, just

across the Westchester County line. It was a dreary, undeveloped spot in a region of scrub oak and unpaved

The Shadow made a note of the address. He tested his telephone caller by one more question. The question

Again, eagerness was apparent in the clipped voice. The Phoenix didn't know it, but he had committed a

blunder. No genuine agent of The Shadow ever suggested time or place when meetings were necessary.

Obedience to The Shadow's will was their first requisite. They never suggested or advised. They listened and

He broke the connection. The headphones were removed and replaced in their desk cradle.

He consulted the dictionary for a queer reason. He used it to amplify the clue the shoes of The Phoenix had

suggested to him. Again, logic was triumphant. The facts fitted together. Without knowing it, The Phoenix

The documents The Shadow now studied formed a complete life history of the suspect. They had been

gathered and assembled by Rutledge Mann, an insurance broker, a clever and loyal agent of The Shadow.

The documentary evidence was not only a man's history; it was an expert character analysis. The suspect was,

as The Shadow had surmised, a warped and dangerous genius. He had turned his talents to illegal ends. He

had amassed plenty of wealth in the process, but it was power he wanted. Power was the sinister star that led

The Shadow sat a long time, musing over that strange case history. Tonight at nine, the riddle would be

solved. Two men of superior attainments would meet: The Phoenix versus The Shadow! All the cards in the

game were seemingly in The Phoenix's hands. He had selected the time and the place. He had prepared his

But there was one compensating factor. The Phoenix was completely deceived by his cunning telephone call.

RAIN slashed out of a black sky over a dreary countryside. The long roll of thunder echoed above tossing

The man who verified the time was parked under a dripping covert of leaves at the edge of a lonely clay road.

He watched through a partly opened window the black shape of a house across the road. Not a light showed

in the cottage. But the darkness might be misleading. Shutters were tightly closed on all the windows.

It was the house that the fake "Henry" had selected for his meeting with The Shadow.

The Shadow was watching for arrivals at the lonely house. He anticipated more than one visitor tonight. Nor

was he deceived. Presently, a car drew up out of the fury of the storm. A man alighted. He was enveloped in a

black raincoat, but The Shadow had no trouble identifying him. It was John Marsley.

The banker hurried through sheets of rain to the front door of the house. He rang the bell.

The door opened immediately. But no one stood on the threshold to welcome the furtive visitor. Light from

within showed an empty hallway. Marsley stepped inside and the door closed at once behind him. The

Marsley's gaze dropped to the floor. It was bare of covering. But a few feet in advance of the spot where the

dripping banker stood, a strange symbol was visible. It had been drawn neatly with chalk, so that it pointed

down the hall as a silent marker. It was a combination of the letter "P" and an arrow tip.

Marsley followed the unusual marker as if he were not at all surprised. Down the hall was another symbol

like the first. It led to a third, which pointed to a closed door of solid wood. Seemingly, the arrowtipped "P"

Marsley had no need to turn the knob of that locked door. As he stepped in front of it, it unlocked and opened

of itself. It closed at once behind him. The click of the lock seemingly made him a prisoner in the room.

But no fear was evident on Marsley's face. He was staring calmly about him at the interior of this

Like the hall, the floor was bare of rugs. On one side of the room a queer device was fitted into the wall. It

was a tiny metal flap, exactly like the cover of a mail box. But it was large enough for a fairly big object to be

passed through the slot. Marsley lifted the flap, saw only darkness, and closed it.

To the left of this peculiar adornment was a square metal grille set in the same wall. The grille was intricately

carved, the metal design so closely traced that it was impossible to see through it into the darkness beyond. It

Marsley smiled. His eyes lifted to the ceiling. There were flat brackets set along the molding. The ceiling was

high, well out of reach of Marsley's arm, but the nature of those brackets was immediately evident.

On each bracket, a pistol was poised. Ten of them! Three on each of the side walls; two on the end walls.

Their motionless and silent muzzles covered every inch of the floor below, except a single spot opposite the

Marsley moved at once to this protected spot. He had barely reached it when the door of the chamber again

opened. It closed swiftly behind a second visitor. Marsley cried out hoarsely as he recognized who it was.

VIOLA'S face was pale with fright. Her clothing dripped from the soaking rain outside.

"I followed you," she cried, tensely. "You sneaked away from home like a thief! Dad, what is going on

Marsley seemed hesitant, shaken. Finally, he drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to Viola. It was

unsigned. It promised Marsley he could have the stolen cablegram and code book which meant so much to

him, if he came to this particular house at nine p.m. and exchanged information with his unknown host.

Snap glared at the banker and his daughter. A gun in his hand menaced them both. He turned warily, as if

meditating an escape through the electrically controlled door, but the heavy barrier was already locked.

"So it's Marsley, after all!" Snap snarled. "Are you The Phoenix? Don't try to kid me, pal! I'm jittery and I

Marsley denied the halfadmiring accusation. He asked Snap if he had received a letter and the mobster

nodded shrewdly. He showed the banker the message. It was a replica of the one Marsley had shown his

daughter, except that it promised Snap ten thousand dollars as a goodwill payment to bind his partnership

Again, footsteps were heard in the hallway outside. A fourth visitor entered, stared an instant, screamed.

ALICE, too, had a letter from The Phoenix. After she had fought off her terror at the unexpected sight of

Snap had leaped forward to strangle the blonde who had twice made a fool of him, but a grim warning look

Marsley nodded, smiling a little. The note to Alice promised her the life of her condemned sweetheart, Jack

"For the love of mud," Snap growled uneasily, "how many people are coming here tonight? There's four here

He had barely spoken when there were five! The smiling and very debonair Stanley West entered the

electrically guarded chamber. Like the others, he was soaked with rain. The smile whipped from his face for

"I suppose you received a letter, like the rest of us, Mr. West?" Marsley said, softly.

"None of your damn business!" West snapped. He was no longer concerned about his polite playboy mask.

The voice was a bland murmur behind the group in the room. It was punctuated by the closing click of the

door. A smiling man stood with his back to that door. He looked as meek as a mouse, except for a certain

AT sight of him, Marsley gave an oath of rage. Alice Dodge looked frightened. Her glance moved

Stanley West didn't quiver a muscle. He was as calm as Peter Lane, but the expression of his closeset eyes

He echoed Marsley's grunt of rage. He crowded forward, his gun a dull glitter in his fist.

It infuriated Snap. But West's calm hand on the mobster's shoulder prevented him from springing forward in

attack. Peter Lane had made no move to draw a gun. For reasons of his own, he had come into this sinister

"Let him alone." West advised suavely. "I rather think The Phoenix will take care of him."

"Yeah?" Snap grated. "The hell with The Phoenix! I'm sick of being lied to and doublecrossed! I was told

there would be no one here but me. And what do I find? five of you punks! Which one of you is The

Viola emphasized her father's accusation. She was pointing with a quivering finger at Peter Lane's smiling

"The Shadow that's exactly who he is! And he's no detective, as he claims. He's a crook, a murderer! He's

Alice Dodge gave an unintelligible cry. Her blue eyes were blazing. Like the others, she had crowded

"He was in that Jersey cottage the night Duke Duncan was murdered!" Alice charged. "He was at the hotel

when Leo Barry was killed. I saw him race away from a cop in the parking lot outside. I was watching!"

Snap Carlo's bull voice roared out an oath of satisfaction: "Get back, everybody! I'll handle this mug!"

His free hand struck out sideways, driving Marsley and West back on their heels. Viola crouched with a cry

of fear beside her father. Alice Dodge threw up a defensive arm. The only perfectly calm person in the room

He stared at the muzzle of the gun in Snap's jutting fist. His body was tensed, ready for instant action. But

"The Shadow, huh? I've always had a yen to kill you! A wise guy, butting in to help the cops. Can't mind his

own damn business. Always sending good guys to jail, some of 'em pals of mine! O.K., wise guy! You're

Still The Shadow didn't move. He had seen that peculiar metal grating in the wall. His eyes turned toward it.

He could see nothing behind it save darkness. But as the murderous finger of Snap Carlo began to squeeze his

The thug's mouth flew open with a gasp of wonder. His face turned. So did the face of every person in the

"Drop that pistol or I'll riddle you with bullets from those bracket guns! When The Shadow is to be killed, I'll

"Who the hell are you?" Snap roared. His pistol muzzle was pointing toward the mysterious loudspeaker

Laughter gurgled from unseen lips. The blurred and familiar tonguetied voice that Viola Marsley had heard

"I am your unseen host. The power that brought all you fools here tonight! I am The Phoenix!"

SNAP CARLO hesitated. The Shadow saw doubt, rage, fear blur together in his crafty eyes. Snap no longer

trusted the good faith of The Phoenix. He believed now that he had been betrayed, brought here like the

But the slug that sped from the kicking muzzle did not penetrate the grille that protected the loudspeaker. It

slanted harmlessly into the ceiling. A second pistol report covered the explosion of Snap's.

A bullet had struck Snap's extended gun whirling it out of his grasp. The same bullet could just as easily have

Snap was quick to realize his peril. He stood, whitefaced, his jaw agape with terror.

"There are ten pistols on those high brackets. They cover every inch of this room," the voice reminded its

victims. "You will do well to obey orders promptly. Snap Carlo, pick up your weapon from the floor. By the

If ever a man wanted to kill, it was Snap. But he walked to the metal flap, lifted it, and allowed his gun to fall

into darkness. There was a thump as it landed in a hidden container. Snap started away. But the voice was not

Again, Snap unwillingly obeyed. A derringer a tiny, deadly little thing appeared in his fingers, was

"I know the exact number of weapons carried by each of you. A photoelectric eye searched you automatically

as you passed through its invisible beam in the hallway outside. With the exception of Viola Marsley and

Peter Lane, every one in this room is armed. You will deposit your weapons, one by one. John Marsley first!"

One by one, they did what Snap had been forced to do. All dropped their arms in the slot except Alice Dodge.

She had a small, thinbladed knife, and the voice sneeringly told her exactly where it was hidden.

With a flushed face, Alice was forced to lift her dress to her thigh to remove the weapon. She drew a knife

The Phoenix laughed as the knife vanished into the wall slot. His next statement was a verbal bombshell.

"Perhaps it will interest you to know exactly where I am. It wouldn't be polite for a host not to mingle with

his guests. And I am a most polite man. My voice, as you have probably guessed, is issuing from a

mechanical device in the wall. But not my body; I am one of the four men now in this room!"

THE effect was startling. Viola backed away from the strange expression on her father's face. Alice Dodge

It was these two men that the eyes of The Shadow studied. He paid no attention to the brutal Snap Carlo.

Marsley was glaring at Stanley West. The millionaire banker looked as if he were about to fly at the fake

playboy's throat. It was a grim tableau interrupted only by the husky intonation of the hidden Phoenix:

"One of you guests has a certain code book. If the owner man or woman will drop it in the same slot

where you were kind enough to deposit your weapons, you will be permitted to leave this house unharmed. If

not, every living being within this room will die! Except, of course. myself. I will give you two minutes to

A feverish argument started between West and Marsley an argument in which Peter Lane took no part. He

had moved closer to the wall toward a spot where he had noted the bracket guns did not cover.

"You lie! You are! I suspected you from the start. I should have killed you when I "

West's words were interrupted. Snap Carlo's sudden rush toward the locked door brought a murderous

climax. Snap's courage had cracked under the terrific nerveracking tension. Like all ignorant men, he was

terrified of forces he could not see. And he was wildly afraid that he had been doublecrossed by a criminal

Snap threw himself against the door with an attack that made the stout timbers creak. Twice, he tried to

smash his way to freedom. The second time, the thud of his body was drowned by the stunning roar of a

Snap staggered backward. A gush of blood dripped from a hole between his shoulder blades. He whirled, his

face stupid with the glaze of death. He went down to the floor in a heap. He had been killed instantly.

The savage suddenness of Snap's end brought silence into the room. The glow of the ceiling light showed

strained, watchful faces on the remaining men and the two women. Then every face vanished with startling

There was a scream from Viola. Alice cried out in fear. A hoarse exclamation came from one of the men.

Then, with the same swiftness with which light had vanished, it reappeared. The room was flooded with

The light disclosed an ominous figure with two steady guns pointing from outstretched hands. The hands

were gloved in red. A crimson robe and a tall, pointed hood concealed the face and body of that figure, but

THE PHOENIX was standing erect and motionless, with his back to the wall. The shimmering cloth of his

crimson robe twinkled faintly. Mirth crawled in the eyes behind the slitted openings in the hood. But it was

John Marsley found his voice first. There was rage in his shaking cry, accusation in his pointing finger:

It was true. The handsome playboy with the grim mouth and haggard eyes was gone. The same interval of

darkness that had produced The Phoenix, had removed all bodily traces of Stanley West.

The Phoenix chuckled, and did not deny the accusation. His voice rasped a command for silence.

"You see, I am determined to recover that missing code book. I am certain that one of you has it. The way to

find it is to search each of you separately. And when I say search, I mean that literally and exactly! I am

Alice Dodge paled. Viola Marsley swayed closer to her father. His arm was hooked protectingly about her.

Peter Lane was closest to The Phoenix. But he was unarmed. A forward rush was hopeless at this time. It was

But the relaxation of Peter Lane meant no surrender of his will. It was deliberately done. The halfbent knees

were poised for action. The slightly retarded left foot was planted solidly against the floor, in anticipation of a

Peter Lane suspected what would necessarily have to happen, and was preparing to take advantage of an

"As a gentleman, I will follow the usual course in emergencies. Ladies first! I will begin my search with the

ALICE was standing with frozen despair, midway between Peter Lane and the hooded criminal. She

The Shadow gave no encouragement to the appealing glance she shot toward him. Apparently, he had

"Alice Dodge, step forward!" the thick voice ordered. "Your modesty is praiseworthy, but you needn't worry.

My search will be conducted in privacy. Your charms will be revealed only to me. Stand directly in front of

A faint smile of relief flickered for an instant into the keen eyes of Peter Lane. He had gambled on the fact

that The Phoenix would attempt to take Alice from the room for her ordeal. His quick stare signaled to the

She backed up until she was directly in front of the redrobed figure. One of his guns dug with painful

pressure into her spine. The other peeped over her soft shoulder and menaced the rest.

The Shadow's bent knee tensed. His muscles were quietly ready to send him hurtling forward in a headlong

dive. So imperceptibly was it done that The Phoenix had no suspicion that the mild Peter Lane was about to

What happened next was a wild melee of lightningswift events. Behind the crimsonrobed killer, the wall

seemed to suddenly slide apart. As it did, the body of The Phoenix pivoted. The gun above Alice's shoulder

flamed. She was shoved so brutally that she spun around, almost falling to the floor under the thrust of that

But her falling body was caught in midair. The Phoenix sprang backward, through the wall opening, with

At the exact instant that The Phoenix caught the toppling girl, The Shadow dived forward. The bullet that had

flamed from the robed criminal's gun was aimed directly at Peter Lane. His twisting advance, however,

He ducked a halfinch under the leaden slug. Almost before the echo of the shot had roared, The Shadow had

It was a tight squeeze one that would have met with failure had The Shadow been a fraction of a second too

slow in his calculation. The closing panel struck him. The impact, however, was against his left shoulder

blade. The rest of his wriggling body was already through the opening. The blow threw him forward in the

When the lock of the panel snapped, John Marsley and his daughter were the only living persons left behind.

They stared with bulging eyes and wordlessly open jaws at the smooth surface of an unbroken wall.

Peter Lane was on the other side of that wall. He was at grips with The Phoenix!

THE room on the other side of the barrier was a dimly lighted square chamber, with heavily draped walls. It

But there was neither microphone nor signs of machinery of any kind. Not a stick of furniture was evident in

the strange, padded interior of the rooms. The floors were covered with the same thick material that hung in

The Shadow did not consciously notice these details. They flooded into his eyes with the automatic

perception of a trained observer. He was conscious of them in the splitsecond that hurled him through the

The Phoenix dropped Alice Dodge to the floor. Her body struck with a thump. As she writhed, her dress

climbed high on her shapely limbs. Silken legs and clutching arms made a wildly gyrating blur. The

courageous girl was attempting to grab at The Phoenix and drag him down to the floor with her.

He was too deft to be caught that easily. But his twist and his backward leap above Alice's sprawled body

threw him off balance. He was able to fire both guns as The Shadow darted at him. However, he was not able

The Shadow's bent head struck his opponent in the stomach. It knocked the breath partly out of The Phoenix.

But it was not sufficient to hurl him to the floor. The Shadow accomplished this second victory by a swift

One of the guns was knocked from a crimsongloved hand by the force of the impact. The second gun

flamed again. The Shadow had no time to protect himself from certain death. It was Alice Dodge who came

She had crawled like a silkenlegged serpent across the floor from the spot where she had been hurled. Her

teeth sank into the murderous wrist that held the gun. She tasted the warm, salty wetness of blood.

The Phoenix screamed. His arm jerked wildly and the searing passage of the bullet speckled The Shadow's

Almost blinded, The Shadow did not flinch. He took advantage of the opportunity Alice's courage gave him.

He twisted it from the killer's grasp. He rolled to his knees, whirling the muzzle around to point at the

redhued criminal. The Phoenix, however, was just as fast as The Shadow. He leaped to his feet as he felt the

gun tear loose from his grasp. As The Shadow pivoted on his knees, The Phoenix dealt him a vicious kick in

The Phoenix fled toward the unbroken surface of the draped walls. He lifted a loose segment of the heavy

material and it dropped smoothly into place behind him. His escaping feet had made no sound on the padded

WITH a bound, The Shadow was after his foe. The sight of the crook's swift retreat galvanized The Shadow's

aching body into grim strength. He lifted the cloth where The Phoenix had vanished.

There was no wall behind that section of the drapes. Instead, a narrow doorway showed the exit through

The opening led to a narrow hall. No doors or windows showed along its dimly lighted length. It was

completely enclosed. But the swift race of The Shadow's feet brought him to another unsuspected exit at the

A closet door was partly open. Swinging it wide, The Shadow peered. One of the guns The Phoenix had

dropped was now in the grim clutch of The Shadow. It jutted as his blazing eyes examined the interior of that

It was a closet without a ceiling. It extended far upward, like the empty shaft of an elevator. There was no

platform, rope or cable by which a man might scale that shaft. But The Shadow knew the feat had been done,

In an instant, he saw how. Wooden circles like enormous curtain rings had been nailed, one above the other,

against a side of the shaft. They formed an easy ladder aloft for a man of active muscles. The Shadow went

The top was open. It was the dim light filtering down from this upper opening that had enabled The Shadow

He bellied to the floor of an upper room a bedroom. The bed was in the center of the chamber. One or two

chairs and a bureau were against the wall. Curtains blew fiercely in the draft caused by an opened window.

Rain poured in from the storm outside. The flash of lightning and the roll of thunder showed that the storm

To a casual observer, it was plain that the fleeing Phoenix had dived recklessly outward and down into the

But The Shadow was not a casual observer. He knew the window had been lifted to deceive him, and to cause

him to waste precious time by racing to a false clue. His eyes jerked back to the floor of this innocent

It was bare except for a single small rug. The rug didn't look quite right on so large an uncovered surface. It

The Phoenix had not left by the opened bedroom window. He had descended to the lower floors of the house

The Shadow followed. He climbed swiftly downward on more of the circular wooden cleats.

He emerged in a narrow passageway that extended a few yards and then bent sharply. An open door led to

The Shadow took one look and his eyes glinted with grim understanding. There was a familiar appearance

about this dim corridor. It was the same one through which The Phoenix had fled on his way to the bedroom

A wily criminal had cleverly doubled on his tracks. He was returning to the same draped chamber in which

he had left the sprawled figure of Alice Dodge. Confident that the deluded Shadow was stumbling through

the rainswept darkness outside the cottage, he was grimly returning to finish his enemies and insure his own

DOWN the long hallway The Shadow could see vaguely the opening behind the concealing drapes of the

room where Alice Dodge had been dragged. Somewhere beyond a paneled wall, John Marsley and his

daughter were also trapped helplessly. They were in the room with the loudspeaker grille and ten grimly

The Shadow, however, did not race heedlessly forward. He had seen something that had eluded his attention

A small, horizontal opening was dimly visible in the baseboard of the hallway wall. Dropping on his knees,

The Shadow found that a flexible, shutterlike device was concealed in the wall. A touch of his fingers lifted

it like a compressing accordion. A space was revealed through which a man might easily crawl to a chamber

But The Shadow did not pass through. Only his grim gaze darted through that aperture. It was enough to

show him how The Phoenix had been able to send his voice through the loudspeaker grille in order to taunt

The inside of the grille was visible. Electrical connections joined the speaker with a phonograph machine of

unusual size and design. A flat record lay on the turntable. It was not in motion.

An empty chair was behind a flat and narrowtopped desk. There was a row of black buttons across the

surface of that desk. The Shadow counted the buttons from where he lay peering. There were ten of them.

A faint rustle drew The Shadow's face away from the opening. Turning noiselessly on his knees, he saw a

stealthy shape at the far end of the hall in which he was crouched. A crimson shimmering robe glistened.

The Phoenix was peering down the long hall. But he failed to see The Shadow. Darkness protected the master

Rigidly alert, The Shadow saw The Phoenix pass through the draped entrance and vanish. The heavy curtain

Instantly, The Shadow darted forward. In a few rapid strides, he reached the curtain and passed through on

But The Phoenix had seemingly evaporated into thin air. It was the room where Alice Dodge had been left.

A CLICK in the paneled side wall, however, revealed where the nervy Alice had gone. The panel opened. It

At that time, she had been terrified, half fainting, in the ruthless embrace of a killer who had sworn

desperately to strip her stark naked in a search for the missing code book. Now, Alice was courageous again,

Behind her stood the wondering figures of John Marsley and his daughter Viola. Relief swept over their faces

at sight of Peter Lane. They no longer feared him as a criminal. They had seen him risk his life in a

To Peter Lane, the triumphant Alice showed the secret of the panel mechanism. A spring concealed in the

baseboard was operated by a brisk tap of the heel. The Shadow had observed the mechanism when The

Phoenix had worked it. But he did not spoil Alice's triumph by mentioning that fact. He merely asked a swift

The question puzzled them. They shook their heads. None of them were aware that The Phoenix had returned

Peter Lane smiled. The answer narrowed his search. Stepping quickly back to the curtainshrouded room, he

began to circle the walls. His hand plucked at the heavy material. For half the circuit of the room, nothing

happened. Then a portion of the drape came away. It disclosed a shallow recess in the wall.

A man was lying there in a limp huddle. His pale, frightened face brought an oath of rage from John Marsley.

He wasn't as weak or exhausted as he pretended to be. He fought viciously as Marsley clutched at him. The

two men reeled in silent combat about the room. Then Peter Lane's muscular arm came between them and

West was wearing the same expensively cut suit which he had worn when he had first appeared in the

cottage. There was no sign of the shimmering red robe of The Phoenix. With an ugly snarl, West denied that

His story was simple. He claimed that at the moment the lights had gone out, following the swift murder of

He had had no warning. Dazed, he fell to the floor. A powerful arm scooped him up and carried him to the

curtained niche. He had collapsed there, helpless, while The Phoenix had made his appearance in the sudden

Such was West's story. Marsley didn't believe it. Nor did Viola or Alice. They stared at the dapper young

WEST began to splutter unintelligible thanks for this new, and welcome, ally. But Lane's next words drove

the smirk from his lips and changed his smiling eyes to the muddy glint of murder.

"You are not now, and never have been, The Phoenix," Peter Lane declared, calmly. "But you are almost his

equal in devilish cunning. You're a vicious criminal in your own right! You're an international spy, a

freelance killer, and you've been working for the same ugly purpose that brought The Phoenix into this case!

"You're an enemy of the United States and of humanity! To gain dirty millions, you were prepared to plunge

the world into another blood bath of an international war. You came here from Europe to steal Marsley's code

book. But you failed for I have that code book and the cablegram from the Far East! Marsley's secret is

But he was fighting a man prepared. The Shadow had expected that assault. His rippling muscles made short

work of the frantic spy. He broke the hold on his throat. With calm dexterity, he converted his foe into a

sodden huddle of flesh, a man moaning and semiconscious from scientific punishment, intelligently applied.

A light, pliable cord, taken from West's own pocket, trussed him tightly. He twitched feebly on the floor,

Marsley echoed that wondering question. So did Viola. Peter Lane bent over the prisoner, to make sure that

Before Lane could reply, the question was answered from a totally unexpected source.

Jeering laughter met them as they whirled. A figure in shimmering crimson was standing ominously on the

The Shadow, glancing at the shoes and the hood of the robed figure, knew that true words had been spoken.

The Shadow uttered a warning hiss to his companions to remain quiet. He himself did not move for an

instant. The Phoenix had no guns in his gloved hands. What he held brought a gasp of terror from Marsley.

It was a frail glass bottle, swung high in the air so that a single gesture of The Phoenix would bring it

The fluid in that bottle was colorless. It looked like dirty and stale water. But The Shadow was not deceived.

THE sight of that deadly highpowered explosive held in the uplifted hand of a ruthless criminal, at bay, was

There was desperation, madness, in the eyes that glowed through the suited openings in the crimson hood.

"I want that code book! One of you is going to produce it and toss it over here at my feet. If you don't, it

means death for all of us! I'll admit I'm cornered; but the same is true for you. I'll give the person who has

that code book sixty seconds to obey. At the end of that time, I shall smash this bottle on the floor and blow

John Marsley began to plead hoarsely. His voice rose in a terrified scream as the figure in red began to count

"I haven't got the code book." Marsley pleaded. "It was stolen by Snap Carlo! He "

"Search Snap's body," Alice Dodge begged. "Snap doublecrossed you! Stanley West never found the book.

The ugly voice behind the red hood continued counting like a mechanical metronome of death. The muscles

of the robed arm that held the frail bottle of nitroglycerin aloft were tensed to hurl the deadly fluid at the end

The Phoenix had sensed his doom. He was staking his own life against the fear of death in the hearts of his

enemies. Laughter bubbled in the intervals of that slow counting. The Phoenix had a will of chilled steel. He

He failed to notice an important fact. Peter Lane was no longer in the anteroom with the others. The Phoenix

Slitted eyes glared at the tied and helpless figure of Stanley West on the floor of the curtainshrouded

chamber beyond the panel opening. Behind West a crouched figure seemed to belly out one of the curtains.

The Phoenix thought that Peter Lane, terrified for his life, was squeezing himself into a ridiculous hiding

PETER LANE, however, had left the chamber under cover of the confusion caused by that first snarling

challenge of death. He slipped noiselessly into the corridor down which he had pursued The Phoenix after he

His flying feet made no sound. His goal was clearly distinct in his mind, his purpose accurately formed.

Crouching close to the floor of the corridor, he wriggled swiftly through the opening he had discovered

earlier. He entered the chamber where the loudspeaker apparatus of The Phoenix was located.

He glided like a ghostly apparition to the desk behind the dark interlacing of the grille in the wall. The grille

was so contrived that from the outer room, it was impossible to see through the metal tracery.

But The Shadow could see with clear fidelity the shoulders, the crimsonswathed back and the uplifted hand

of the mastercriminal. A clever use of a lightrefracting device produced this uncanny oneway view; It

explained why The Phoenix had been able to see his victims without their being able to see him.

On the flat desk surface, under the eyes of The Shadow, was a row of ten polished black buttons. They

controlled the triggers of the guns mounted on the wall brackets of the outside room. But not one weapon

He had stepped to the spot in the chamber not covered by those carefully pointed gun muzzles. Their snarling

The Shadow knew that only quick thinking and bolder action could save the lives of Marsley and the two

girls. It involved the risk of The Shadow's own life. He took that risk immediately as he had done countless

He waited for the full effect of surprise, by delaying grimly for the psychological moment when the wings of

death brushed closest. The uplifted clenched hand of The Phoenix was quivering. The bottle in his grasp was

The voice of Peter Lane issued clearly from the black grille of the loudspeaker. There was calm command

in it. There was insulting derision, too. The Shadow had called his foe a "stupid fool" deliberately. He was

IT worked! It produced the exact reaction The Shadow had been praying silently for. With a gasp of rage,

The Phoenix whirled toward the voice behind the grille. He had recognized the calmly superior tones of Peter

Their very calmness infuriated The Phoenix. It told him that there was one man in the world who did not fear

He took a leaping step forward. The hand with the bottle whirled to throw the explosive in a shattering crash

But that one leaping step forward brought The Phoenix away from the safe spot where he had stood. He was

now in accurate line with the rigid barrels of ten bracket guns connected with ten buttons on the desk behind

The palm of The Shadow slapped down on all ten buttons with a single impact. Every gun in the adjoining

The Phoenix tottered, pierced by a barrage of steeljacketed slugs. The rip of those bullets through flesh and

bone, paralyzed the murderer. The fingers holding the bottle did not relax for an instant. They closed tighter,

The Phoenix slumped to the floor as one knee buckled under him. With a last dying effort, he tried to hurl the

bottle from him toward his hidden conqueror. His hate was incredible. But it was unequal to the task. His

The dead fingers, opening jerkily, allowed the bottle to fall toward the hard polished boards.

John Marsley uttered no sound as he saw the deadly liquid drop. He was too far away to dive forward and

catch the missile in soft hands. White as paper, he waited a splitsecond for annihilation.

But the frail glass container didn't shatter on the hard floor. The Shadow had known from his study of

ballistics and gunshot wounds exactly how that riddled criminal would collapse and fall.

The bottle landed with a soft thud on the prone body of the dead Phoenix. It rolled gently to the floor beside

The irony of fate had used a criminal to achieve its just ends. By the interposition of his own dead body, The

Phoenix unwittingly saved his victims from the horror of being torn to bloodspattered fragments in the ruins

IT was the very calm Peter Lane who picked up the deadly little container and placed it gingerly in a safe

Viola had fainted. Marsley was frozen on his feet, incapable of motion. Alice Dodge was moving chalky lips,

"There is no need for further alarm," a quiet voice told them. "This case is ended."

They stared at Peter Lane. The piercing flame that had seemed to leap from his eyes as he raced back to the

room and picked up the deadly explosive, was now gone. His eyes were again timid, his manner almost

He bent over the crimson robe and concealing hood of the dead supercriminal on the floor. He sounded like a

mild professor expounding a lesson in a college classroom. Tapering fingers clutched at the border of the

"Allow me to present to you the man who started this whole carnival of crime, beginning with the death of

Duke Duncan. A man who was clever enough to fool even me, in the beginning. Blackmailer of John Marsley

killer of Duke Duncan and Snap Carlo false murderer of himself in a hotel room: Mr. Leo Barry!"

A ripping motion tore the mask away from dead, waxen features. The snarling face of The Phoenix was at

John Marsley's voice was shaky. He had recovered slowly from the shock of deadly terror. His arm was

around his daughter, holding her trembling body close to him. Viola had recovered from her swoon.

Alice Dodge was tremulous, too. She leaned against the wall, one palm flat against its surface, as if she

The even tones of Peter Lane filled the chamber. There was a soothing quality in them that calmed the people

who listened. His words brought clarity and knowledge out of darkness and confusion.

He had, Peter Lane declared, suspected that Leo Barry was The Phoenix, from the very moment of Barry's

supposed death in his hotel room. The shotguntorn head of the victim and particularly the mutilated hands

and finger tips suggested a substitute corpse. Probably an unfortunate bum, picked up on the Bowery and

Peter Lane pointed toward the hood The Phoenix had worn. It was tall, pointed too tall for any real purpose

except deception of those who encountered him on his attacks. The shoes on the body were queer, too. Their

soles were much thicker than the soles on normal shoes. They were equipped with high heels. The reason was

Barry, a man slightly less than medium height, wanted his victims to think he was taller. He had cleverly

managed to simulate the height of John Marsley and Stanley West. He knew both were deeply implicated in

He was handed a small sheet of paper. It was a typewritten sentence or two taken verbatim from a dictionary:

Peter Lane smiled grimly. He had suspected a pun on the name, the moment he had read on Leo Barry's hotel

wall the strange pseudonym of the unknown criminal. The name was too unusual not to have hidden

Rutledge Mann, The Shadow's agent, had found out the facts of Barry's earlier career, after The Shadow had

put him to work uncovering the truth in a small New England university town, where Barry had taught. Barry

had apparently murdered himself, only to rise from his dead ashes in the guise of another personality.

He was aware of the ancient legend of the Phoenix. He took the name as a sneering challenge to opponents he

considered stupid and of inferior intelligence to himself. A business man like John Marsley would not have

remembered the classical allusion to the fabled bird. Nor was the name in character with what The Shadow

PETER LANE continued his calm analysis of the case. Hours of concentrated thought in the secluded

Leo Barry, he declared, had started the web of murder and intrigue. He had come into possession of facts that

seemed to prove John Marsley a murder. An innocent youth named Jack Skelly had been condemned to the

The document Barry possessed riveted the guilt on Duke Duncan; but there was also a paragraph that

Barry saw possibilities for huge profit. He decided to use Duncan and his gang to get at Marsley. So he took

the blackmail evidence to Duke's hangout and pretended to sell it to Duke for ten grand. What he really

wanted was for Duke to realize the case against Marsley and Duke did. Duke paid ten grand to Barry for a

chance at a million from Marsley. He went after the banker at once and Barry's plan began to work like a

It was Leo Barry who killed Duke from the dark recess in the wall of the New Jersey cottage. But Marsley

had stuffed the suitcases with newspaper instead of money, and Barry was foiled. However, he was able to

escape from the cottage and to flee in his car, not forgetting to telephone the police from a lonely pay station

He mistrusted and feared West, and hoped to frame him by this device. But he failed, because West had an

Barry's fear of Stanley West was justified. The man was an international spy, posing as a playboy. West was

after even bigger profit than Barry. He knew something that, in the beginning, even Barry didn't realize: John

Marsley was a trusted secret agent, working without pay for the United States government! The president had

summoned Marsley to Washington and had asked him to perform a tremendously important service for his

"It's true," Marsley whispered. He explained hidden things that the patient investigation of The Shadow had

A new and terrible war threatened the peace of the world. It was being deliberately fomented in the Far East.

The United States was one of the victims to be attacked. But government agents found themselves blocked.

So John Marsley used his vast network of international banks and trusted employees abroad as a private

He succeeded! The evidence was in a long, coded cablegram sent to him from one of his branch banks in the

Far East. But before he could receive it, Duke Duncan had accused him of murder and had asked a million in

He knew he was innocent of the murder for which Jack Skelly had been convicted. But to prove his

innocence and Skelly's would be to publish prematurely the diplomatic secret the president had entrusted

to him. Marsley preferred to die and to let Jack Skelly die rather than do that. An advance leak of the

"IT was then that my code book was stolen," Marsley cried. "I never was able to discover who took it. But I

knew that The Phoenix had made an attempt to steal the cablegram from my daughter in the apartment of

Stanley West; and failing, had sent Alice Dodge to my home to snatch it. It was Alice who finally got hold of

Peter Lane shook his head. Facts that puzzled Marsley were as clear as crystal to The Shadow.

"Leo Barry," he declared, "was the crimsonrobed figure who subjected your daughter to so embarrassing a

disrobing scene in West's apartment. He entered and escaped with a passkey before West returned. He had

searched West's private papers and had learned the vast war secret the spy was after.

"From that moment on, Barry was no longer concerned with blackmailing a single millionaire. He was now

From an inner pocket of Peter Lane's coat, two objects appeared. One was the missing code book; the other a

"It has been sent," The Shadow informed. "A copy of the decoded message reached the president of the

United States this afternoon. The president has already called a defense conference of the threatened

democratic nations. War had been averted because its success depended on a surprise aerial attack without

a second's warning. You need worry no longer, Mr. Marsley. Your patriotic job has been done, and done

"What about Skelly? I've got to notify the governor and arrange a pardon for him. Skelly is one of my agents.

He he begged me to let him die, rather than expose the secret. Now I I can talk and save him without

"He has already been saved," Peter Lane said. "A message went to Albany from Washington one hour after

the receipt of the cablegram. Jack Skelly will be released quietly, on a technicality. No foreign nation will

"Thank God!" Alice Dodge cried. "I knew he was innocent! I did the ugly things I did, because I thought Jack

"You're a brave, loyal girl," she breathed. "In your place, I'd have done the same things you did!"

Her glance veered with a quick motion toward the trussed and vicious figure of Stanley West on the floor.

"A foreign spy!" she gasped. "I might have married him! Thanks to Peter Lane, my eyes have been opened to

MARSLEY was gazing with awe at the face of the quiet man who had wrought all these miracles.

"You call yourself Peter Lane," he said, slowly. "I thought you were a thief, a murderer I don't know what!

He received a wordless answer. Sibilant laughter filled the room with rustling echoes.

Without moving from the spot where he stood, Peter Lane disappeared forever. His timid face seemed to

writhe and change. The lips were tightly compressed. The eyes blazed with a piercing inner flame. His face

He seemed to grow inches in stature. Tall, masterful, he gazed with reassurance at the innocent persons

whose lives and happiness he had saved. There was no anger in him, as he stared calmly at the dead face of

Leo Barry. Nor did he frown at the profanity that bubbled in a foul stream from the lips of Stanley West.

The Shadow was above personal feeling. He had met the challenge of crime and conquered it. That was all

A hand lifted in a gesture of farewell. On a finger of that hand, a precious stone glittered. It was a girasol, the

only one of its kind in the world. It flamed yellow, crimson, and changed to a deep purple as The Shadow

He had taken a key from the pocket of the dead Phoenix. He unlocked the door, and no one made a move to

detain him. The flashing girasol on his finger was the hallmark of a dread identity.

Outside the cottage, a roaring hurricane of wind still flung sheets of drenching rain from a black sky.

The figure that emerged into the storm was blacker than the sky and the tempest. He moved majestically

Rain slashed at the brim of his slouch hat. His black cloak fluttered witchlike in the wind. But his step was

human and steady. He glided to where a car was hidden under a covert of leafy boughs. He slid behind the

wheel and the car shot out of concealment. It raced onward down the muddy road. Headlights bored into the

When new crime threatened and the police were powerless to prevent it, The Shadow would once more

appear from the enveloping darkness that now swallowed up a car and driver on a lonely country road.