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

CHAPTER I. CREATURES OF THE MIST..........................................................................................1

CHAPTER II. MR. EAST AND MR. WEST ..........................................................................................6

CHAPTER III. THE HAUNTED BALCONY ......................................................................................11

CHAPTER IV. INTERVIEW WITH A BLONDE...............................................................................16

CHAPTER V. LUNCHEON WITH CHIP ............................................................................................20

CHAPTER VI. TWO WAYS WITH A ROPE ......................................................................................23

CHAPTER VII. MURDER BY ACCIDENT ........................................................................................28

CHAPTER VIII. TRIANGLE OF TREACHERY................................................................................34

CHAPTER IX. THIEF IN THE NIGHT...............................................................................................38

CHAPTER X. BURGLAR BAIT ..........................................................................................................44

CHAPTER XI. THE MAN ON THE GIRDER .....................................................................................47

CHAPTER XII. CAR OF DESTINY....................................................................................................50

CHAPTER XIII. DOUBLE DOOM ......................................................................................................54

CHAPTER XIV. HOBSON'S CHOICE ................................................................................................59

CHAPTER XV. LIGHT IN DARKNESS.............................................................................................62

CHAPTER XVI. CARDONA'S MOVE ................................................................................................67

CHAPTER XVII. A SLICE FOR MILTON ..........................................................................................70

CHAPTER XVIII. INVITATION TO DEATH....................................................................................73

CHAPTER XIX. FIRE AND STEEL ....................................................................................................78

CHAPTER XX. HEART OF HORROR...............................................................................................81

THE late afternoon fog curled sluggishly across salt marshes that skirted the unseen waters of Long Island

Sound. Between the marshes and the lowlying flats beyond ran a double line of ghostly railroad tracks. The

Occasionally the fog swirled and thinned for an instant. In those fleeting moments the glimmering curve of

other steel rails was visible. There were two freight sidings at this point. Both spurs joined the main line by

On one of these sidings two sealed box cars, coupled, waited motionless. The car farthest from the main line

was there for a legitimate purpose. A train was due along presently, from Boston, to pick up that car and haul

it onward across the Connecticut line into New York. Its waybills were in order, its consignment lawful.

The box car nearest the main line was a different proposition. It had been rolled there by experienced

criminals, working under a blanket of fog for an unlawful purpose. Its doors were properly sealed. A placard

pasted against one of its steel panels bore the printed inscription: "THIS CAR CONTAINS POOLTEX."

Everything about this second car was normal except its contents. It did not contain "Pooltex." It was loaded

with sodden bales of hay, whose weight was calculated to the last pound. The purpose of the invisible thieves

was to substitute this cunningly camouflaged car for a similar one on the expected freight train.

A mastercriminal had laid his plans with infinite patience. He was ready now for the swift climax one that

His figure appeared suddenly through the tendrils of fog. He moved cautiously from beside the fake box car.

He crossed over to where the legitimate car was waiting to be picked up. The sound of his faint chuckle was

After a quick inspection, he stepped across dripping rails to the barely visible tracks of the main line.

He was dressed in a long black raincoat and pulleddown hat. The face of the man was completely covered

by a black mask. His eyes were mere ruthless pin points, glaring watchfully through narrow slits in the mask.

He took a small flashlight from his pocket and stood calmly waiting on the shadowy ties. His shrouded head

bent grimly forward in order to hear the first distant warning of the approaching train.

THE masked man's ears were sharp. He heard the faint sing of the ghostly rails long before he heard the train

itself. Instantly his flashlight glowed once and became dark again. His signal was answered similarly from

The laboring puffs of a distant locomotive became audible. The beam of a headlight grew like a fuzzy white

The masked figure glanced swiftly at his watch. The time was 4:00 p.m. He ran with agile speed toward the

wet blur of nearby bushes. He was now as invisible as the four henchmen to whom he had just signaled.

The long freight train halted with a tortured squeal of steelflanged wheels. There were more than thirty cars

in the string. On the roof of one of the center cars, a brakeman stood widelegged on the flat catwalk. A

He was a young man, hardly more than a kid. As the long train ground to a wheezing halt, he swung himself

down a vertical side ladder and leaped to the ground. The side of the box car which he had just quitted was

Watching the kid brakie from behind his covert of bushes, the masked leader of the crooks knew that his

scheme was working out accurately. The Pooltex car on that motionless train was consigned to New York.

The train would have to be broken behind this particular shipment, because the legitimate car waiting on the

siding was also consigned to New York. It would have to be coupled on in front of those rear ones that were

Warily the masked observer stole forward from his hiding place. The young brakie had already parted the

coupling between the Pooltex car and the rear of the train. He turned in the fog, lifted his lantern to signal the

Before the dangling light could wave, the masked man leaped behind his victim. He swung the butt of a

There was an ugly crack as the weapon smashed against the unsuspecting brakie's skull. The victim pitched

forward without a groan. Blood poured from his broken head. His lantern fell to the ground.

The killer sprang away. He vanished between the Pooltex car and the one in front of it. He broke the coupling

mechanism with swift efficiency. The whole thing took less than a minute. When he darted back to the fallen

body of the brakeman, the box car which the thieves intended to steal was now a complete unit in itself,

The brakeman's lantern still lay where it had fallen. The masked man snatched it up and swung it in the

In the dimness far ahead the whistle of the locomotive tooted a reply. The forward part of the train drew

ahead in the mist, leaving behind it the rear section and the uncoupled Pooltex car. It halted, waiting for the

THE mastercriminal ran like a dark streak to the empty siding that paralleled the occupied one. He unlocked

The Pooltex car was already beginning to roll. Four thugs were impelling it from the main line into the empty

siding. Each of them was using a long pinch bar. The handle of each implement was twice the thickness of a

pickax, and the steelshod curve at the lower end fitted under the wheels of the car like levers. Powerful jerks

Up ahead, the strange delay was irking the engineer. He couldn't see what was happening in the fog, but he

knew the job was taking an unusually long time. He tooted his whistle impatiently for the signal to back up.

The leader of the gang turned, his slitted eyes grim. Suddenly he saw the quick code flash from his sweating

confederates. Three brief dots from an electric torch. "O.K.," those flashes meant.

His lantern circled instantly. The trainbegan to back. The switch to the first siding was open and ready. The

train backed into the camouflaged car loaded with hay and the regular car to be picked up. In a few minutes it

was over on the main track again. Another jarring bump and the split train was now coupled together in a

If an inspection had been made, the train crew would have thought only one car was picked up.

The train got under way. As it puffed onward into the fog with gathering speed, the masked killer hung by

one hand from a ladder rung, waving the signal of "all clear." Then he doused the lantern and leaped to the

Crouched in the gloom, the mastercrook watched the train vanish. His crime had worked like a charm. But it

was not yet a perfect crime. There still remained the stolen box car to dispose of and the body of the

The killer laughed as he hurdled the sprawled figure of his victim. He hurried toward the hijacked car.

THE seals were already broken. Four thieves stared at their panting leader as he leaped up into the car and

snapped on his electric torch. Bales of darkbrown cloth filled the interior of the box car.

The four henchmen were chuckling at their cleverness. But the leader didn't take anything for granted. He

could see that the piled bales were actually cloth. But were they Pooltex cloth?

He squatted on the floor alongside a bale. In one hand he held a thick plumber's candle. In the other he

grasped a pint bottle that contained a colorless liquid. It seemed to be half fluid and half writhing gray smoke.

Swiftly the masked man made his first test of the stolen cloth. He held the hot flame against the fabric. He

grunted as he saw neither sparks nor any spread of fire. All that happened was a spreading smudge of carbon

where the licking flame had touched. The smudge was brushed away in an instant, leaving the cloth

The acid from the bottle made a second and even more satisfactory test. It bubbled in a swirling mass in a

wrinkled depression which the killer hollowed in the fabric. Holding the puddled cloth carefully so as not to

spill the dangerous acid against his hands or clothing, he allowed the testing fluid to spill to the ground

The moment it touched the dark weeds alongside the track, the stuff bubbled fiercely, hissing and fuming.

Wherever a drop of the deadly fluid had fallen, the weeds were completely eaten away by the corrosive

But the closely woven cloth in the criminal's hand was entirely unharmed. Like the candle flame, the bite of

In the nearby weeds a gruesome figure still lay motionless and bloody. The criminal who had tested the

stolen cloth jumped from the box car and bent over the inert body of the young brakie. He went rapidly

He found only trivial objects, until his exploring fingers dipped into the inner pocket of the brakeman's coat.

The thing he took out was an old dogeared envelope. Apparently it was nothing to unnerve a criminal as

Yet, as he glanced at the writing on the outside of that crumpled envelope, he gave a quick, incredulous cry.

The four henchmen stared at their chief with puzzled expectancy. They watched him eagerly open the

envelope and read the letter. His chuckle became a harsh laugh. He placed his find back in the dead young

There was no answer from his staring henchmen. He replied to his own question with a single jeering name.

IT was the last name on earth those crooks expected to hear. There was instant confusion, a swift babble of

"You're crazy, boss! This dead punk is only a kid! Joe Cardona is bigger, heavier. A lot older, too."

"Who said it was Joe Cardona?" their leader snapped. "This young sap's name is Anthony Cardona he's

Joe's nephew. That letter I just shoved back in his pocket was from Joe himself. He was writing to the kid to

ask him how he likes railroading as a career. Telling him that some day he'll be a big traffic executive, if he

There was ugly merriment among them. Joe Cardona was the most famous man hunter on the New York

police force. Every one of these four henchmen had sworn at one time or another to kill Joe. They had failed,

of course, because Acting Inspector Cardona was too tough a bird to be rubbed out.

And now his nephew lay stark and bloody at their feet in a swirling blanket of fog somewhere in Connecticut.

A swell bit of crooked luck! Killing a young punk that Joe loved was the next best thing to killing Joe

"Get that box car moving! We've got empty trucks to load and it's going to take time. Squint!"

"As soon as the Pooltex car is safely hidden, drive your empty truck to the spot up the line I showed you.

Yesterday and make it snappy! I want to get back here in a hurry. Come on tool that car along!"

The pinch bars which the thugs had already used with such proficiency again appeared. Muscular shoulders

strained. Then the car began to roll along the track. It passed over the switch from the siding to the right of

way. Then it melted into the misty fog that blew in from the deserted salt marshes of Long Island Sound.

The masked leader didn't follow his men. He turned the siding switch and locked it. Except for himself and

Tossing young Anthony Cardona's body across his shoulder, he melted along the right of way. He crossed the

ties and made his slow way back to where a gasoline hand car was waiting on the northbound track.

He had been safe in leaving it there because he had an accurate knowledge when the next northbound freight

was due. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had a full tenminute leeway in advance of the train.

DUMPING the corpse on the square platform of the tiny car, the murderer started the gas engine. With a

rhythmic throb, the car moved along the rails. It increased its speed. Mile after mile it traveled in the

A white marker beside the deserted track showed that the car had traveled a fraction more than twenty miles.

Abruptly the man at the control slackened his speed. He saw ahead the steel structure of a bridge that spanned

a narrow inlet. This was the place where he had planned in advance to dispose of the body of the brakeman.

The car stopped. Anthony Cardona's body was thrown overboard into the racing waters of the narrow inlet.

The tide at this place was strong and could be depended upon to carry the corpse far out into the Sound.

Watching it for a grim instant, the murderer saw the limp body vanish in a swirl of dark bubbles. He turned

This time he throttled the pace down to a slower speed. He crossed the bridge and kept his keen eyes ahead.

He was looking for a blazed telegraph pole to the right of the track. A quarter mile onward he saw the mark

He threw himself outward and landed with a jounce on marshy land. The empty gas car continued on its way.

It would click monotonously along until the gas was exhausted or it rammed into a halted train ahead the

masked killer didn't much care. All he cared about was a grim triangle of facts: a stolen box car, the body of

young Cardona, and the scene of the robbery itself. Two angles had already been covered; the inlet tides

Crossing the tracks away from the marshes, the murderer pushed his way through brush until he emerged on a

narrow dirt road. An empty motor truck was waiting there. The killer climbed to the cowled seat alongside

the henchman he had called "Squint." The truck returned along the deserted road, jouncing over its rutted

The two men on the seat laughed softly. They were thinking of the grim joke fate had played on Acting

Fate, however, was preparing a different outcome. The corpse of Anthony Cardona was still in the inlet

where it had been thrown by the crafty killer. The current had wedged it into weedcovered timbers that

The force of the current was powerless to spin the body loose from where it was jammed. The backthrown

head of the corpse kept staring with sightless eyes toward the steel structure of the railroad bridge.

Two miles up the foghidden line, a trackwalker suddenly halted his slow inspection tour. He had just seen a

runaway gasoline car speed past him, empty of workers. That car had no right to be there. Something wrong

The trackwalker turned instantly and retraced his steps. As he hurried along the wet roadbed he had an uneasy

sense that a mysterious voice in the fog itself was calling to him. A voice, and yet not a voice calling

Ahead of him the trackwalker could see the dim outline of the bridge over the narrow inlet. He had a

LAMONT CRANSTON was bored. He sat in the ornate lounge of the swanky Cobalt Club, pretending to

read a newspaper. The afternoon and the evening had conspired to ruin his social plans.

A heavy afternoon fog had caused the postponement of a yacht race in which Cranston had hoped to sail his

trim little sloop to victory. Now his evening, too, was spoiled because a worldfamed violinist had been

Cranston yawned, glanced at the clock. Nine o'clock, and nothing in prospect to rescue an empty evening

His vapid yawns, his pose of indifference, were merely parts of a mask to cover a strange being whom

nobody knew. A hint of who that hidden man might be was stamped on Cranston's intelligent features behind

The longbeaked nose denoted virility and strength. The eyes behind halfclosed lids seemed to glow with a

fierce flame in their steady depths. His chin was square and taut, his lips firm.

The Shadow was the world's most successful criminal hunter. He chose the paths of darkness in a grim,

singlehanded warfare against mastercrooks, against whom the ordinary methods of the police had proved

powerless. Never once had the secret of The Shadow's real identity been pierced.

Police Commissioner Weston was Lamont Cranston's best friend. So was acting Inspector Joe Cardona. Both

thought that Cranston was exactly what he pretended to be a wealthy idler with plenty of money, who had

gained somewhat of a reputation as a globetrotter. The Shadow encouraged them in this belief.

The Shadow relaxed suddenly in his comfortable chair and laid the newspaper idly in his lap. A man was

standing at the desk of the lounge talking in quick whispers to the clerk. Two things about the man interested

The Shadow. First, his identity. Second, the fact that he seemed worried, ill at ease.

The stranger at the desk was a personage about whom much had been printed in the newspapers and little

actually known. His name was Edgar Pool. He was a famous inventor and owned many patents.

Up to a few months ago his life had been more or less an open book. But six months earlier something had

happened to change his habits. That something was the invention of an amazing new cloth fabric called

Nothing much was known about the material except that it was to be used for a new type of soldier's uniform.

Its formula was a secret, its manufacture jealously guarded in a plant in Massachusetts. Hints that leaked into

the newspapers claimed that the new cloth was fireandacidproof. Mustard gas and flamethrowers would

And whispers added that although the closely woven cloth was not bulletproof, its light metallic threads

would slow the rip of a bullet and turn an ordinary casualty into a minor flesh wound.

To this vague information The Shadow added a more definite and ominous knowledge gleaned from his own

private methods of investigation. He was aware that two powerful and warlike nations, who were arming

abroad at feverish speed, were interested in purchasing the entire output of Pooltex.

One of these nations had already succeeded in signing a contract with Pool and his financial associate, Roy

Wallace. An agent of an enemy nation had arrived secretly in the United States with unlimited credit. He was

at present engaged in a desperate effort to raise the bid and secure the indispensable cloth for his own

country. On the outcome of his efforts might rest victory or defeat in the coming war which every one knew

A cargo ship from each of these rival nations was now waiting mysteriously at piers on the New York water

front. To The Shadow these facts tied up grimly with the present agitation and worry of Edgar Pool.

The Shadow's sharp ears heard Pool whisper: "It's queer that Mr. Wallace hasn't phoned or sent a message.

He told me definitely he'd be here. Perhaps he'll arrive later. I think I'd better wait. If he comes, tell him I'm at

Cranston delayed a moment or two, then he followed the nervous inventor to the bar of the club. Pool was

standing alone, moodily sipping a drink. Cranston put in an order. Presently he began chatting with his

At first Pool was surly. But when Cranston introduced himself, the inventor smiled and became cordial at

Innocently, Cranston also let drop the fact that he was an old friend of Acting Inspector Joe Cardona of the

police department. He added that he was thinking of killing a dull evening by paying a social call at the

apartment of his good friend Joe, who usually had a fund of hairraising stories to tell about criminals and

Pool rose instantly to the bait. His nervousness was greater than his caution. Before he realized it he was

telling the smooth, smiling clubman at his elbow the source of the worry that was gripping him.

Roy Wallace, his business partner, was mysteriously missing here in New York. Both had intended to arrive

together for a necessary business conference. But Wallace had changed his plans earlier that afternoon. He

His ostensible reason had been a telegram from his daughter Lily, who had just arrived from Washington.

The inventor lowered his voice. He told about a sum of money Wallace had drawn from the bank before he

left the little town in Massachusetts, where their textile plant was located. Five thousand dollars in cash.

Carried in a brandnew alligator bag that Wallace had bought on his way to the bank.

Pool had found out about it quite by accident. By that time Wallace was already en route in the plane. The

two men were supposed to meet here tonight at the Cobalt Club. But there was still no sign of the missing

Pool nodded haggardly. In a troubled whisper he told this newfound friend political things The Shadow

"NATURALLY, I can't refer to these two foreign countries by name," Pool said slowly. "Nor can I tell you

the names of their secret agents who came to the United States to act for them. I think you'll understand the

"We made a contract with Mr. West's government. The cloth was shipped this afternoon. But Mr. East, after

vainly trying to outbid his warlike competitor, has resorted to ugly threats. I'm afraid of theft or worse! Mr.

East swore that the Pooltex will never reach the ship of his rival's government in New York Harbor.

Naturally, a contract is sacred with Wallace and myself. We refused to be bulldozed.

"Now I'm afraid something has happened to Wallace. He acted so queerly before he left me at the plant today.

Why did he draw five thousand dollars in cash? Was it a bribe to save his life from a foreign killer? And

"I'm frightened for his safety, Mr. Cranston and for my own safety, too! I don't need to tell you that Mr.

East's government, or Mr. West's, would go to any length any at all to make victory in this coming war

Cranston set down his glass, paid the bar attendant. When the latter had left them, Cranston's voice was

"Why not come with me to see Inspector Cardona? I certainly think he should know about this. And you'll

feel better about your partner's safety, I'm sure, if the police take a hand. You can depend on Cardona for

absolute tact. The newspapers will never learn a hint of what's going on beneath the surface."

FIVE minutes later the two men were in a cab speeding uptown. The fog that had lain over the city all

afternoon was now gone. Rain was drizzling, and there was a mutter of thunder overhead. Traffic was

unusually thick as if people, held in by the fog, were now pouring out to enjoy the shank of the evening.

Suddenly Edgar Pool gasped and clutched at Lamont Cranston's sleeve. "Quick! Look! That cab that just

Cranston's face peered swiftly. He saw the red taillight of the cab that had just passed them. He realized that

it was an impossible task to overtake it. In the swift instant he watched, the fugitive taxi had already been

"Sorry, gents. It can't be done. The cab's out of sight. I wouldn't know it from a herd of elephants."

Lamont Cranston smiled faintly. His sharp eyes had done something that neither the hackie nor Pool had been

able to accomplish. He had noted the vanishing cab's license number and it was already memorized in his

accurate mind. As Lamont Cranston, the idler clubman, it was out of the question to act immediately on the

He said quietly: "Our driver is right. I'm afraid we can't do anything but continue on to Cardona's. Who was

He explained why the sight of his business associate had so unnerved him. Wallace had seen Pool staring at

him and had tried to hide his identity! He had turned his head away, jerked a handkerchief up in front of his

"He was not alone," Pool whispered. "There was a man riding with him a fellow with the ugliest face I've

"It was no kidnap job," he quavered, his face still white. "Wallace didn't want to be seen! If he was being

kidnapped, he'd have screamed a warning or waved to me to attract my attention. Instead, he tried to hide his

Lamont Cranston didn't reply. He had already spoken to their cab driver, and the taxi was humming smoothly

along on its interrupted journey. It halted presently, and Cranston said quietly: "Here we are, Mr. Pool. We'll

THE meeting between the three men was strange. Cardona was not his usual goodnatured self. His swarthy

face was unsmiling, drawn in hard lines about the mouth. He nodded at Cranston, grunted at the inventor.

Cranston, who knew Joe from long and intimate association, divined at once that some deep trouble was

gripping his old friend. There were tears at the back of Joe's eyes. He was making a tremendous effort to

Lamont Cranston walked over to him, laid a firm hand on the detective's chunky shoulder.

"Something has happened to you, Joe. I'm sorry if we've intruded on anything personal. Would you rather we

"They've killed him, damn them! Crooks, thugs, criminal rats who hate my guts! They couldn't get me, so

they went after a kid a mere boy who never harmed a fly in his life! Smashed his skull and tossed him off a

Cardona nodded. Regaining his composure, he told about the gruesome discovery of a trackwalker, the

longdistance phone call that had brought tragedy over the singing wire. A bright, ambitious kid just out of

technical school, learning railroading from the ground up. Slaughtered without compunction by a gang of

"Thieves?" Cranston echoed softly. "I don't quite understand. Anthony was just a brakeman. He wouldn't

"The poor kid was just a fall guy," Cardona growled, pale with grief. "The thieves were after something big.

Anthony must have discovered them at the actual theft. They stole an entire box car and its contents. It's

"The theft wasn't discovered until the train reached the terminal yards in New York tonight. I had the news

"Cleverer than that," Cardona replied. "He found a duplicate car jammed with moldy hay. The trick was done

at a siding somewhere between Massachusetts and New York. No clue to tell where. All the railroad dick

knows is that the car is gone, with every ounce of Pooltex cloth that it contained."

"I was right! Mr. East kept his word! His ruthless government has stolen what they couldn't buy! And and

Cardona stared at the agitated inventor, who was waving wild arms in the center of the room.

"Sorry," Cranston murmured in a level voice. "I forgot to introduce him. Mr. Edgar Pool, inventor of the

THE expression of surprise on Joe Cardona's face was only momentary. Watching him keenly, Cranston felt

admiration for the stocky detective's selfcontrol. Not a trace of his own personal grief at the death of his

nephew was now visible on Joe's countenance. He was all man hunter now, a trained public servant intent on

How difficult and dangerous this Pooltex case was to prove, Joe as yet had no inkling. But The Shadow

The Shadow sensed the presence of hidden criminal forces engaged in a mighty conspiracy. Pool's fears and

suspicions raised many questions. The strange behavior of the elusive Roy Wallace raised others.

The Shadow possessed the first clue to the tangle in the shape of a memorized taxicab number. He intended

to act immediately on that knowledge. But he would have to act as The Shadow, not as the rich clubman,

The Shadow was eager to take his departure. Yet he tarried a moment, waited quietly while Cardona asked

curt, searching questions and Edgar Pool answered them. There was a possibility that the agitated inventor

might remember some fresh angle he had failed to disclose to Cranston in their earlier conversation.

But the story Pool told differed only in its phrasing. The facts concerning Wallace and the two warlike

nations who were represented by agents known only as Mr. East and Mr. West were the same.

When Pool had finished and Cardona stood frowning, digesting what he had heard, Lamont Cranston smiled

and shook hands with the stocky police official, murmured something about a forgotten engagement.

In another moment Cranston was in the elevator dropping swiftly toward the street level. There was a large

drug store on the corner and he entered the place. He descended stairs to the lower level of the shop, where an

The Shadow turned into one, dialed a number unrecorded in any phone book, and waited. There was a brief

The clipped voice of The Shadow went into the transmitter under the protection of his lightly cupped hand. It

was a voice entirely different from the cultivated drawl of Lamont Cranston. It carried in its tones urgency

The listener at the other end of the wire was The Shadow's trusted contact man. He was available day or night

"Desire information taxi license number," The Shadow said with distinct clarity. "Number follows." He

"Clyde Burke to investigate at once. Want description of cab, name of hackman, location of hack stand. Will

The phone clicked. Cranston passed through the subway turnstile and boarded a train.

TEN minutes later The Shadow was in his luxurious suite on an upper floor of the Cobalt Club. He spent the

remaining five minutes in arranging certain necessary garments and articles in a small briefcase. While he

worked at this task he knew that Clyde Burke was efficiently gathering the information he desired.

Clyde was the shrewdest newspaper reporter in New York, worked on the Classic. He had a wealth of official

friends, and no avenue of investigation was closed to him. The fact that he was, in addition to being a

The Shadow picked up the phone and called the same number he had dialed exactly fifteen minutes

previously. The voice of Burbank replied with the exact information The Shadow had requested.

Again Cranston left the Cobalt Club. In his hand he carried the small briefcase he had been at such pains to

prepare. He traveled south and west to the corner of a busy thoroughfare near the Hudson River.

A cab was parked there. It answered exactly to the description relayed to The Shadow by Burbank. Its license

To make a swift deal with the hungrylooking chauffeur was easy for a gentleman of the sort Lamont

Cranston appeared to be. He radiated wealth and assurance. His fake reason for finding his old friend Wallace

was trite enough to sound convincing. And a twentydollar bill from his wellfilled wallet ended the driver's

Cranston was driven to the same destination to which Roy Wallace had gone earlier in the evening after his

The place was midway down a quiet street. It was a firstclass apartment hotel, with a doorman, a spacious

The clerk behind the desk was excessively polite and excessively stubborn about recalling the name or

presence of a man named Roy Wallace. He flatly denied that Wallace had been at the hotel.

The tactics that had worked so easily with the taxi driver failed to work at all with this oily clerk. He turned

nasty when Cranston showed him the edge of a twentydollar bill, threatened to have him ejected from the

One swift glance at the shifty eyes of the clerk and the experienced Cranston knew that the fellow was lying.

He was undoubtedly being wellpaid to protect Wallace or perhaps the person in whose room upstairs

The twentydollar bill was still creased negligently in his gloved hand. He held it thus for a deliberate

purpose. While he had been talking fruitlessly to the clerk, his eyes had noted a bell hop on a bench near by.

The bell hop had heard the conversation. He had seen the twenty and Cranston had noted greed in the boy's

As Cranston turned away he saw the bell hop nod meaningfully at the bank note and jerk his head slightly to

Cranston smiled faintly as he passed beyond the suspicious scrutiny of the desk clerk. His bait had failed to

Midway down the dimly lit corridor the twentydollar bill changed hands. The Shadow acquired some

Wallace had entered the hotel with a toughlooking guy. The tough guy had whispered briefly with him and

left almost immediately. Wallace had gone upstairs alone in the elevator. He was now in Room 910, occupied

Milton, according to the bell boy, was a smooth, goodlooking young man with plenty of girl friends and

apparently a lot of money. He had been away from the hotel all day long and had returned only a short time

The Shadow nodded grimly. He thought about Mr. East and Mr. West, the two foreign agents who

represented powerful overseas nations on the brink of war. A man like Milton would make an excellent

gobetween. The whole setup suggested greed and conspiracy. Unless Wallace was actually selling out his

There was no doorman on duty in the small side lobby. Only one elevator. It was operated by a

stupidlooking youth. The Shadow rode up to the ninth floor. He paused and lit a cigarette with slow

deliberation until the elevator door slammed and the car descended. Then his motions became swift and

He peered through the keyhole of Room 910. He could see Wallace immediately. The factory owner was

standing in the center of the room, and there was a new alligator bag at his feet. Wallace beckoned and the

youthful, goodlooking face of George Milton came into range of The Shadow's cramped vision.

Instantly Wallace bent and unlocked the alligator bag. He drew something out and showed it to Milton, who

smiled and nodded eagerly. The Shadow, too, was eager. The object that Wallace was showing to his

greedyeyed host was a small bundle of bank notes. The bag was crammed with similar bundles.

Wallace replaced the bundle of currency and closed the bag. The two men whispered, but it was impossible to

catch a word. The panels of the door were thick, and in the cloudy darkness outside thunder was rumbling.

He watched the two conspirators draw chairs toward the partly shaded window and resume their lowvoiced

discussion. The window was open a few inches. Through the gap under the shade The Shadow could make

out something that changed his plans suddenly. He saw the outline of a stone balcony outside Milton's

He moved lightly down the corridor to the door of the adjoining room, 912. A glance through the keyhole

THE briefcase Cranston was carrying now justified its usefulness. From it came a small bunch of skeleton

Once inside, Lamont Cranston became an entirely different personality. From the briefcase came a black

The brim of a black slouch hat covered his forehead. Black gloves slid over the strong whiteness of muscular

fingers. Except for the powerful beaked nose and the fiery glint in his eyes, The Shadow was now practically

He opened the window softly and rain drizzled in his face. Climbing across the sill, he saw that the edge of

Milton's stone balcony was not more than three feet away. He didn't hesitate. A quick leap and his gloved

If he had slipped, his body would have smashed to bloody pulp on the wet pavement far below but The

He could hear the voices of Milton and Wallace through the open gap below the shaded window. The white

shade was drawn to a point about three inches above the wet sill and the voices became clearer as The

"That's part of the bargain," Milton rejoined. "Five grand is cheap pay for what you're getting. If I should

Fate had changed The Shadow's secure eavesdropping into a position of instant peril. From the rainsoaked

sky a flash of lightning had stabbed with dazzling brilliance. On the white window shade the grim silhouette

of The Shadow was thrown with startling vividness. The slouch hat, the beaked profile, the cloaked shoulders

It was this unforeseen accident that had brought the strangled cry of alarm from George Milton. The shade

flew up with a bang. Milton jerked up the window, stared out into the rainsoaked balcony. Then he yelled

THE SHADOW had already leaped headlong toward the sill of the adjoining balcony. His arms drew him up

and inward with almost one motion. Milton saw the dark legs of the intruder wriggle out of sight into Room

The Shadow seized his precious briefcase. He fled into the corridor. As he appeared, the door of 910 was

The Shadow eluded the clumsy rush of the frightened factory owner. His gloved fist struck Wallace on the

A quick whirl and The Shadow was racing toward the bronze door of the elevator shaft. He had almost

reached it when he threw himself flat. A bullet whizzed over his head. The bullet made no sound except a

light plop! George Milton had rushed from his room and was firing from a silenced weapon.

Before he could fire again or The Shadow could spring upward from his prone position, the door of the

The elevator boy darted stupidly forward. It was exactly what The Shadow wanted. He had leaped to his feet.

A straightarm blow sent the elevator operator tumbling backward along the corridor. The woman had

Over her prone body went The Shadow in a grim leap. He was in the empty elevator, his briefcase still

clutched in his left hand, before the onrushing Milton could stop him. The door slammed. The car

The Shadow worked fast on that swift vertical drop. When the bronze door opened on the side lobby at the

ground level, there was no blackclad fugitive in the elevator. Lamont Cranston emerged from the car

There was, as he had anticipated, no one in the tiny side lobby. The dazed operator of the elevator was

marooned for the moment on the ninth floor. No doorman at the side street door to identify Cranston later.

Cranston was out on the sidewalk now. He crossed the street with a haste that seemed almost leisurely.

DIAGONALLY across the rainswept street was the entrance to another hotel. Cranston entered, checked his

He ordered a glass of wine and a light supper. He was sipping the wine meditatively when he heard sounds of

He was faintly amused when his waitress told him the cause. There had been a sneak thief in the hotel across

The waitress giggled. "It sounds crazy. Somebody said he was a tall person in a long black cloak. They claim

Cranston chuckled, dismissed the waitress. It was impossible to determine from his smiling face what he was

He had two very strong reasons for solving this Pooltex tangle into which he had become so unexpectedly

involved. The magnitude of the crime convinced him that railroad dicks or the Connecticut police would be

unable to make much headway. And then there was the personal angle of Joe Cardona.

The death of Joe's nephew had been a crushing blow. Joe's hands were tied by the matter of police

jurisdiction. He would be unable to avenge poor Anthony's death. But The Shadow could and would!

When he rose from the table, The Shadow had his preliminary moves clearly in mind. He would use Clyde

Burke to investigate the liners in port belonging to the warlike nations represented by the mysterious Mr. East

Harry Vincent, The Shadow's most trusted agent, would be notified immediately to get on the trail of the

suave George Milton. A secret fivethousanddollar payoff needed a competent lookinginto!

GEORGE MILTON sat quietly in an easychair in his locked hotel room. Wallace was gone. The house

A queer smile flickered across Milton's rather thick lips as he called, "It's O.K., sweet! Come on out!"

A closet door opened and a young woman appeared. She was very pretty. Blonde, blueeyed, she walked

with an easy sway of her body that indicated she might have had stage experience. As a matter of fact, she

was a star in one of Broadway's current musical hits. Her name was Viola Kent. She was engaged to marry

Her engagement to Pool explained her present prominence in the theater. Actually, Viola was not a very good

actress or singer. But Pool was acting as "angel" for the show, and one of his demands to the producer had

Viola was the first woman who had touched the inventor's rather businesslike heart. Pool expected to marry

her after the close of the show's run. He did not know that Viola Kent had no interest in him beyond his

When the time came that Pool was no longer useful, Viola intended to break the engagement on some pretext

Her real interest was centered on the smiling, goodlooking personality of George Milton.

GRINNING, Milton rose from his chair and kissed her lightly. He was entirely at ease now, but Viola was

nervous. Her impulsive visit to Milton's apartment a few moments before the arrival of Roy Wallace, and the

subsequent appearance of The Shadow convinced her that she was playing with fire.

Not that she didn't know what Milton's game was, or what was back of Wallace's fivethousanddollar gift.

She knew Milton was a crook and she didn't care. She was willing to help him. Coldblooded women usually

Her slim fingers trembled as she lit a cigarette. Milton patted her arm, laughed with throaty satisfaction.

"There's nothing to worry about," he chuckled. "Things are working out like a charm!"

"Probably a professional hotel thief. Those fellows have to wear weird disguises to avoid discovery. He's

probably scared stiff somewhere at his narrow escape; glad enough he got away without a bullet in him."

"It's not a sneak thief I'm worried about," she admitted shakily. "It's about you and me!" She mashed her

"You mean Pool may get wind of the fact that you're going to ditch him for me, darling? Forget it! He's like

"I can handle Pool," she said. "I'm thinking of Pool's technical adviser his confidential assistant in the

factory. That horrible, tightlipped, gimleteyed Doctor Andrew Leach! Leach is devoted to Pool's interests.

I'm sure he suspects me of doubledealing. He's in New York tonight. Do you think he is "

"I think you're letting your fears run away with your common sense," Milton said. "Maybe this Doctor Leach

is a ruthless sort of scientific bird. Maybe he's capable of killing anyone who doublecrossed his employer.

But I'm a pretty ruthless guy myself when it comes to that. And besides, I'm pretty crazy about you, beautiful.

"I'm not letting Andrew Leach or any other screwy scientist spoil our plans for a marriage ceremony. We'll

make a quick fade with plenty of dough to an expensive villa on the Mediterranean."

"Scram, now! We've been lucky. Let's stay lucky by not being seen too much together. Walk down a couple

of flights before you take the elevator. I'll give you a ring on the phone later on, to make sure you reach home

safely. And forget about Leach, will you, beautiful? All you have to do is to continue to kid Edgar Pool

VIOLA nodded. She had recovered her composure. She left the room and the hotel without attracting any

attention. There was a cab at the curb, but she didn't take it. Better play safe, she thought, and pick up one on

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she failed to notice a coupe parked at the curb of the street, midway

between two distant street lights. The lights were so widely separated that the spot where the coupe waited

There was no one in the car. But the quick pad of footsteps on the sidewalk brought Viola whirling about to

A man had darted swiftly from the protection of a dim doorway. His hand jerked briefly from beneath his

coat, and Viola saw the stubby outline of an automatic pistol. The gun itself frightened her less than the cold

"The same! Get in that car or I'll spray lead through you, you crooked little cheat!"

His appearance recalled to her George Milton's grim description of the man. Tightlipped, gimleteyed! A

fanatical friend of Edgar Pool's, devoted to the inventor's interests. Death in every lineament of his cold face!

He shoved her brutally into the coupe. He squirmed past her and slammed the door. In an instant the car was

in motion, driving slowly through the rain. The gun in Leach's free hand was an inaudible reminder that it

was best for Viola Kent not to scream or raise a commotion. He drove with easy dexterity; one hand

"Not at all! I merely want to talk to you and this seems the most satisfactory method."

Leach's voice was the clink of ice cubes against the rim of a frosted glass. He accused the actress of betraying

"I'm not killing you tonight merely because I'm not sure. All I know is that you and George Milton seem to be

much too friendly. I'm advising you to watch your step. If you cheat, I'll find out, and I'll kill both you and

"Not a gunman;" he corrected somberly. "A scientist. With not much respect for the socalled sanctity of

"I don't know why Pool loves you, but he does. Play fair and nothing will happen to you. Doublecross Edgar

Pool as I suspect you're planning to do well, I won't waste my time or yours in threats!"

The door slammed. The coupe sped smoothly away. It rounded a corner and was gone.

On the sidewalk, Viola Kent stood motionless, still cold with fear and rage in the depths of her blue eyes.

She was eager to phone Milton at once and warn him about Andrew Leach. Her intuition had been right!

AT that very instant, Edgar Pool was uttering a choked cry of surprise. He was still in the apartment of Joe

Cardona where Lamont Cranston had left him. He was staring at a man whom Joe had just admitted after a

Pool stared suspiciously at his partner. There was no nervousness or guilt perceptible in Wallace's face. He

was smiling, holding out his hand, with just the barest shade of embarrassment in his manner.

"Hello, Edgar! They told me at the Cobalt Club that you'd gone to Mr. Cardona's apartment with a friend.

"Yes. I had an appointment at the Cobalt Club with my partner, but unfortunately I had to break it. My

daughter Lily is in town, and she kept me longer than I realized. You see much "

"What were you doing in that cab tonight, Roy? Who was that thug with you? Why did you hide your face

Cardona, watching him narrowly, thought that the air of surprise was slightly overdone. He queried:

"You came here straight from the Cobalt Club? And before that from your daughter Lily's apartment?"

"What?" Wallace's jaw hung agape. "The Pooltex stolen! When? How? Are you sure? We've got to notify

"You're talking to a policeman now," Cardona growled, his black eyes still boring into Wallace.

Wallace steadied. Cardona could detect no weakness in him. If Wallace was in cahoots with the gang that had

stolen the shipment, he was handling himself with entire selfpossession. He insisted on hearing his partner's

story about the taxicab in greater detail. He laughed it off promptly as a mistake in identity.

"You can call my daughter on the phone right now, if you wish," he said earnestly. "Lily will verify what I've

"Edgar, you don't really believe this fantastic nonsense about cabs and thugs, do you?"

POOL gulped. He was about to ask about the alligator bag with the five thousand dollars drawn from a

Massachusetts bank, but Cardona stopped him with a sharp look. It didn't suit Cardona to play all his cards at

"We must return to the factory at once," Wallace said. "The theft must have been planned from there. You

"In that case, I'm afraid Mr. Cardona or the New York police can in no way help us," Wallace said with a

"That's right," Cardona, admitted. He seemed to have lost all interest in the case. He glanced at the clock, and

"The man's a fool," Wallace snapped. "We'll hire our own guards and solve the outrage ourselves! We want

Pool nodded. He was worried about the international angle. Two overseas nations had sent secret agents with

bribes and threats to secure the coveted Pooltex in preparation for war. Wallace was right: The case would

But Cardona wasn't. Upstairs in his apartment, he was staring. meditatively at his big clenched fist. He was

Not about Pooltex. About a lad with black eyes and eager, youthful ambitions to be a railroad executive.

Dead, now tossed with a smashed skull into a Connecticut inlet. Joe Cardona's favorite nephew

A groan escaped Cardona's taut lips. He was well aware that the New York police had no jurisdiction in. this

CARDONA'S plans took him the next morning to the private office of Ralph Weston, commissioner of

Between the commissioner and Cardona there was more than mutual respect. There was deep personal

friendship. Weston was already aware of the brutal murder of Joe's nephew. Staring sympathetically at

In a low voice, Cardona asked the first personal favor of his entire police career. He asked to be relieved

temporarily from duty; to be permitted to turn in his shield; to do something as a man that was impractical

"You understand we can't back you up in any personal investigation you may make. You'll be without

"All right, Joe leave is granted. I'd do the same thing were I in your place. Good luck on your hunt. If

JOE CARDONA left the commissioner's office by a rear door and took a private elevator to the street. It was

Weston's own method for avoiding publicity whenever he was directing a big case. Cardona congratulated

A sharpeyed man in a light tan coat saw Joe leave the rear door of the building. His interest in Joe was no

accident. He had trailed Joe from his apartment to headquarters. Now he watched him get into a cab and roll

The sharpeyed man had no difficulty in following, because he himself was in a cab driven by a hackie who

The driver of the second cab had an excellent police record. He was in reality a crook in the service of crooks.

The passenger he was now driving so cunningly on the trail of Cardona was the same thug who had the night

before accompanied Roy Wallace to the lobby of George Milton's hotel. That stealthy ride had been taken in

It had been a bad mistake, because it had enabled The Shadow to pick up the first thread of a perplexing web.

But the thug who now followed Cardona was unaware that The Shadow had already taken a hand.

Like Weston, The Shadow had divined Joe's reckless decision to go to Connecticut as a lone wolf.

Cardona drove to a busy freight terminal. He entered a smoky brick building, and a moment later so did the

The sharpeyed thug fumed at the delay. He had a good idea what Cardona was up to. He knew that in that

smoky building Tom Marvin, chief railroad dick for the New England division of the freight system, had his

That office had two entrances one from the ground floor corridor of the brick building, the other from the

sunken area of the busy freight terminal. Unless the thug's idea was all wrong, Cardona planned to enter

Marvin's office by one door and leave by the other after a careful transformation in his appearance.

The driver returned presently to his cab, and there was eager talk between the two crooks. The sharpeyed

man removed his tan topcoat. He squirmed out of his wellpressed suit and another, dirtier suit was disclosed

underneath. He removed collar and tie, roughed his hair, donned a greasy cap in place of the neat fedora he

Then he drew on the tan topcoat again, and his eyes veered toward a long wooden fence that enclosed the

A DOOR was open in that fence. A man lounged there. He wore laborer's overalls, but he was not a laborer.

The sharpeyed man stepped quickly through the gap in the fence and the door closed. Both men descended a

"Yeah. Red is watching the dick's office. We think the fadeout will be done on Track 17. There's a Boston

freight waiting there and it's been delayed ten minutes already for no good reason."

"Nice work! The boss'll pay off extra on this. You stick here. I'll take the play from Red."

The sharpeyed man handed the tan topcoat to his grinning pal, then vanished like an unkempt hobo between

a stalled line of box cars. He was heading across the yard toward Track 17. No one observed him. He gained

Down the cinder path came two oddly assorted figures. One was the heavyset Tom Marvin, the other was a

shambling tramp. A dirty, wrinkled and disreputable specimen with a mop of tangled gray hair.

The sharpeyed man drew in a quick breath of excitement. He knew the tramp was Joe Cardona, but not from

On the roof of a nearby box car a laborer with a thatch of flaming red hair stretched lazily. He held up ten

Cardona's eyes watched the busy yard for a moment. The redhaired man was no longer in sight. Cardona

ducked low under the train and hurried along the footpath on the other side. He disappeared deftly.

The big freight train got under way. It rolled northward behind the tug of a powerful electric locomotive.

Cardona rode with it. So did the sharpeyed man. He lay quietly, waiting to make his planned move. That

move would not be necessary until the train was well over the New York line into Connecticut.

THE long train halted presently and the electric locomotive was discarded. A steam engine took its place.

Word was passed to the engineer and fireman to ignore the hobo with gray hair. Orders from Tom Marvin, of

Cardona was now dozing lazily in an empty gondola car. But no brakeman disturbed him on that jolting

Cardona turned over lazily as he heard the sudden thud of slow footsteps. A tramp as dirty as himself had

swung down over the lip of the gondola. A sharpeyed hobo with a friendly grin. He had a crumpled pack of

cigarettes, and Cardona took one. They exchanged monikers. The stranger's name was "Chip."

Cardona introduced himself as "Blackie." By the time the train made its first stop it was nearly noon. Chip

"This is the softest village along the whole line for a backdoor mooch," he grinned. "And there's a jungle

Any reluctance now might betray his real identity to the friendly Chip. Besides, Cardona was anxious to get a

look at some of those "swell bos" in the "jungle." He'd never heard of a jungle at this point and he had

made careful inquiries of Tom Marvin back in the smoky brick building. He wanted to look over that hidden

It might be that a chance word dropped from a tramp would give him the first lead on the car thieves who had

Joe swung from the car with Chip and took a dirt road away from the a stalled freight. They avoided the

village and trudged onward to a scatter of rural frame dwellings. Most of them looked weatherbeaten and

empty. But Chip seemed to know his way, and went up a side lane to a cottage he said was occupied by a

"She's a Bible, sharp," he explained with a chuckle: "Likes to feed guys who are out of luck and hungry. All

you do is listen to some guff about heaven, then eat till you bust. Come on, Blackie!"

He rapped on the door, but there was no answer. He turned the knob. The door swung open. It was unlocked.

There was still no answer from inside the house. Chip stepped back, swearing faintly. His move placed

Suddenly his hand moved with the swiftness of light. A gun whirled into view and was swung at Cardona's

partly turned head. It crashed with murderous impact and sent Cardona plunging inside the entry on his face.

DAZED, Joe heard the swift slam of the door and knew that his assailant had leaped inside. He tried to roll

over and clutch for his own weapon, but his arms and body were paralyzed from that crushing blow he had

Before he could draw an agonized breath, another blow struck him and the weight of a muscular body pinned

him down on his stomach. The gun he had failed to reach was jerked from his pocket.

He was dragged to his feet. He stood there swaying, glassyeyed. A kick propelled him forward and he fell

again. Through waves of pain he saw that he was lying on the floor of a room empty except for a few

There was a telephone on a grimy table. Chip grinned as he saw his victim blink feebly toward the

"You didn't think you fooled me, did you, Blackie? Blackie, hell! You're Joe Cardona of the New York cops!

Snoopin' around to find out who croaked your nephew, huh? Well, you've found Hangout No. 1! We're gonna

have three really tough guys here in a little while. They'll come in a fast car and you're going byebye. You're

With his bright eyes slitted watchfully, Chip reached cautiously behind him and unhooked the telephone

THE thug spat rapid words into the instrument, his gun menacing the dazed detective while he talked.

Cardona lay flat on his face, the fingers of his extended hands twitching feebly. His head buzzed with pain,

He heard the swift, snarling words and knew that Chip's triumphant threat was no bluff. Chip was yelling a

lowtoned warning over the wire to three criminal pals, advising them to grab their highpowered car and

Joe's twitching fingers were quiet now. Apparently he had fainted. But his lidded eyes were open on a mere

slit. His fingers were tight at the fringed edge of the ragged piece of carpet on which Chip stood.

The gunman finished his brief phone call with a chuckle. He reached behind him to prong the instrument. For

His hands tugged with a muscular heave. The carpet jerked forward and Chip's heels went out from under

him. With a yell of surprise, he lost his balance and toppled, striking his head on the edge of the table. The

Both men lunged for the weapon. Cardona had the advantage of surprise, but Chip was a shade closer to the

gun. His fist smashed down on Cardona's extended fingers, swept the gun away from him. Again Cardona's

Chip's face was muddy with rage. The lust for murder overcame his desire to hold Cardona alive for the gang

to torture. There were many police secrets Joe knew that would be of immense value to Chip and his

But all thought of caution had left the crook's brain. Cardona's nearly successful trick infuriated Chip. He

When he returned he was carrying a tin dipper filled with cold water. He splashed it over Joe's unconscious

"I want you to feel the slug that croaks you, dick!" he snarled. "Take it and take it right through the guts,

The gun muzzle slanted murderously barely a few feet from Joe's limp stomach muscles. Cardona had no

Chip's hooked finger began to tighten with maddening slowness. The trigger quivered imperceptibly.

Facing him with leveled guns was an awesome figure robed in cloak of black, with slouch hat. The Shadow!

Menacing eyes pierced the gloomy room. Not a word had been uttered by The Shadow. The rasp of his

CHIP, interrupted on the brink of a vindictive murder, lost his head. Rage impelled him to a foolish action.

There was double flame and a double echo. Chip's bullet slanted into the floor. The Shadow's swift shooting

was the cause of that. A round spot of blood appeared on Chip's wrist. His gun clattered to the floor.

Instantly he dived for it. It was swept up by his uninjured hand. Lying sideways, he again tried to kill The

The result was a duplication of what had happened before. Blood appeared on the left wrist of the snarling

Cardona writhed forward and grabbed the fallen gun. The Shadow had crippled his thuggish enemy with two

accurate slugs. His purpose was to capture Chip, not to kill him. Alive, Chip could be depended upon to react

as other crooks always reacted to The Shadow's methods of extracting true underworld information.

Time alone was all that defeated The Shadow's intent. He sprang suddenly toward Cardona, swung the

detective behind the black robe. He had heard something outside. The roar of a fast automobile!

Cardona, too, heard the squeal of brakes as The Shadow swung him around. The front door banged open and

a figure steadied ominously on the threshold. A sawedoff shotgun spewed death as The Shadow hurled

Then the twin guns in the blackgloved hands roared. The gunman in the front doorway leaped backward out

From the rear door of the cottage, feet were audible, racing toward the front room. A window slid up with a

squeak and the barrel of another shotgun was visible, pointing toward the two trapped men.

The Shadow's strong heave forward saved Joe. Joe's feet raced ahead toward the foot of the narrow staircase

that led to the second floor. He was too weak to run at such a pace; The Shadow's muscular arm was

They raced down an empty hallway to a rear room, and The Shadow slammed the door and shot the bolt

Cardona crouched against the side wall, replying blindly to that unseen fire. A nod from The Shadow had

Under cover of the noise, The Shadow darted to the closed rear window and lifted it gently. He had seen

something outside that made his alert eyes gleam. The long, sagging clothesline ran from immediately below

AS The Shadow peered outward he heard a yell from the ground below the window. One of the thugs was

racing around the rear corner of the house. A shotgun slanted upward. The Shadow dropped the man with a

The noise of Joe's crashing gun and the rip of slugs through the locked door from the hallway outside masked

Swiftly he motioned to Joe to approach the window. His own guns replaced the defensive barrage that Joe

had been spraying through the door. A quick whisper from The Shadow acquainted Cardona with the only

Its fastening at the pole was a foot or two lower than the window. Gravity would carry a man hanging from

the lower of the two ropes that ran through strong pulleys. His dangling body would whiz toward the pole

The gunman below was a limp huddle on the ground. Chip was wounded in the living room downstairs, both

forearms broken by bullets. The other two of the murderous gang were still outside the door, trying to blast it

Cardona gestured stubbornly for The Shadow to precede him to the pulley rope. He did not understand why

The Shadow was smiling so strangely. Or why a knife gleamed suddenly in one of the gloved hands.

The Shadow was well aware that it was suicide for both fugitives to leave by the window route. The Shadow

His swift order to Cardona was so grimly authoritative that the detective disobeyed no longer. Joe squirmed

out the window, and in an instant his dangling body was plummeting across space toward the clothes pole.

The Shadow's reloaded guns masked the telltale squeak of the window pulley. He saw Joe reach the pole,

descend, and race across marshy ground toward the hidden curve of a road. Joe was obeying orders. He

THE SHADOW'S plan was to cut off the escape of the two uninjured gunmen. He wanted them captured

before they could race away in their highpowered automobile that still waited in front of the deserted

To this end, The Shadow's knife slashed through the clothesline outside the window. Grabbing the free end,

But his fierce gaze was now on the beamed ceiling of the room. He had seen a square impression there. It was

the outline of a trapdoor that gave access to the closed attic above. There was a stout hook projecting from the

To reach that hook was impossible without climbing on furniture and there was no furniture in sight. But

The Shadow now held the loose end of the strong clothesline in his hand, and with it he made a running

The noose swished upward and caught over the hook. A swift tug tightened it. Hand over hand, The Shadow

ascended. He reached the hook and worked feverishly to thrust open the trap above his head.

He had to work fast, because the ceasing of his fire had told the jubilant crooks outside that something was

wrong in that room. They assumed that The Shadow had been wounded. Their assault on the door grew more

As it did so there was a brief click. The trapdoor in the ceiling was now closed. The Shadow was in the attic,

The two killers rushed to the open window. Yells of rage burst from them when they saw the body of their

confederate lying on the ground below. Beside him was the loosened length of a clothesline cut from its

pulley. The Shadow had tossed that rope through the window a scant instant before he had closed the ceiling

His device worked as he had expected it to. The crooks thought that Cardona and The Shadow had slid down

from the open window, had killed the man on guard in the rear, and were now racing away for help.

Both thugs turned and darted back through the corridor toward the stairs. Their only thought now, was to get

below in a hurry and blast their two escaping victims. The Shadow's plan was to reach the front of the house.

STANDING at full height in the enclosed attic, The Shadow lifted his gloved hands and unhooked a scuttle

in the slant of the roof. A quick heave and the blackrobed body ascended through the opening and squirmed

He was halfway between the chimney and the edge of the gutterpipe. He was on the point of sliding to the

edge and dropping in a desperate attempt to cut off the thieves from their parked car when he halted

suddenly. He pressed his sliding body flat against the slippery surface of the roof.

He could hear the gunmen racing around from the back of the house. Their shrill yells indicated panic. The

Shadow understood when he saw a cloud of dust billowing along the narrow dirt road that led from the

A car was speeding along that road. Cardona was visible, pointing ahead with an excited hand. A policeman

sat beside him. A couple of brakemen from the stalled freight train on which Cardona had ridden were

The crooks were trapped unless they fled immediately. To escape this peril they were already carrying their

The Shadow had no chance to stop them. Nor did he wish to do so now. His own position was precarious.

Clad in his guise of blackness, he had no desire to expose himself to obvious questioning from Cardona and

He wriggled swiftly toward the open mouth of a square brick chimney. He was helped by events below. The

crooks were already in full flight. The whine of their powerful car vanished down the road. It was followed

The Shadow vanished inside the chimney. It was far from a tight fit, and he risked a fatal fall if the

sootchoked interior crumbled under his braced hands and feet. But he gritted his teeth and descended inch

Long before he reached the bottom there were loud voices and, footsteps in the house. Cardona had failed to

overtake the fleeing gunmen, as The Shadow had known. He had returned swiftly to the house, filled with

He searched every floor, including the cellar, hunting for the body of his strange rescuer. He even examined

the roof. But he found no trace of The Shadow. The Shadow at that moment was hidden almost in the base of

the chimney, his feet straddled quietly above the wide firepot of a cold and abandoned furnace.

Cardona didn't waste any further time in a house he decided was empty. The car roared back toward the

A FEW minutes later there was a series of bumps and heavings from the depths of the ancient furnace. The

He was filthy from head to foot, covered with ashes, bleeding where he had wrenched the rusted bars of the

He slipped like a phantom from the back door of the cottage. The body of the dead gunman was gone. The

wounded Chip was gone, too. The Shadow knew that both had been carried to the crooks' automobile and

Reaching into an empty rain barrel that stood under the eaves of the silent house, The Shadow drew out a

small briefcase. Garments of black vanished into the bag. A man wholly different from the mysterious being

to whom Cardona owed his life appeared as if by magic. Only the flaming eyes and beaklike nose were the

The Shadow was dressed now in a neat gray suit such as a moderately successful salesman might wear. The

car he backed out of a covert of bushes not far from the house seemed to fit the salesman idea, too. It was a

The Shadow tossed his briefcase inside and drove quietly away. He did not hit up much speed until he had

crossed the railroad tracks and turned into a concrete highway. Then the special motor job under the dusty

The Shadow followed a sign that pointed north toward Massachusetts. His thin lips tightened as he drove

His goal was a small manufacturing town called Kendall. Kendall was the home of many textile

manufacturing plants. But The Shadow was thinking of only one such plant. Pooltex!

He was very anxious to gain a closer view of the workmen and officials employed by the lovesick Edgar Pool

CLYDE BURKE was standing, motionless at the cobbled end of a waterfront street along the South

Brooklyn docks. His pose was one of aloof indifference, but there was an eager light in his eyes. He was

staring over the stringpiece at a huge freighter that was being loaded with scrap metal from a lighter

The ship was foreign. The flag at its stern was a familiar one, much in newspaper headlines and pictures. The

It was the nation that had tried vainly to bid for Pooltex fabric with which to uniform its soldiers for the

longawaited struggle with its European enemy. The secret agent whom Pool had called "Mr. East" was a

Clyde Burke was acting under the orders of The Shadow, relayed to him by Burbank. He had already visited

another foreign ship in New York Harbor. It belonged to the rival nation served by "Mr. West." The purpose

of Clyde in visiting both these ships was simple. He was endeavoring to trace the stolen shipment of Pooltex.

Getting aboard the first ship had not been too difficult. Clyde, as an ace newspaper reporter, was in the

confidence of many officials high in power. A hint dropped by a Federal attorney told him that there was a

narcotic drive now in progress. Government agents were inspecting every cargo before a ship was permitted

Clyde had used this bluff to get aboard the ship of "Mr. West's" nation. He had come away convinced that the

Pooltex lawfully consigned to that ship had not reached it. The ship was waiting monotonously at its pier,

There was still some faint hope that police might locate the vanished freight car with its valuable uniform

Clyde was now ready to make his fake "narcotic inspection" of "Mr. East's" ship the one so grimly loading

Clyde had no trouble getting aboard. The visit of a government agent was expected. The captain nodded

grimly at his unwelcome visitor. He summoned two sailors and ordered them to guide the supposed

CLYDE felt a quick sense of warning as he studied the faces of the captain and the two seamen. The latter

were ugly, powerful fellows. They carried sharp clasp knives at their belts. The outline of a hidden gun was

The captain looked even more ominous than his crew. His name was Peter Dakker. Clyde had a feeling that

his suave story about drug investigation was not believed. The very fact that Dakker forced a friendly smile

and agreed to let Clyde make a search of the holds for contraband was enough to put the reporter instantly on

However, Clyde returned Dakker's smile and followed his two burly guides down the deck and into a maze of

He had no hope of finding any of the stolen Pooltex. If the stuff had actually been smuggled to this ship, the

chances were that it would be cunningly concealed. Clyde's real intent was something entirely different.

He wanted to gain access to the cabin of Captain Dakker and examine it for papers and documents. He had

The problem was how to elude these two brawny sailors who stuck to him like leeches on his pretended

He found his opportunity in the very bowels of the ship. It was dim in the poorly lighted cargo spaces. Small

doorways connected one section with another. Clyde crawled forward to examine a pile of wooden cases.

The sailors were at the opposite side of the merchandise space, one of them holding an electric torch. The

Instantly he tiptoed swiftly ahead. He had seen a bulkhead opening that led to a narrow corridor beyond. Just

Clyde's action was prompt. He slid the bulkhead door softly shut. He locked its lever. Then he gripped a rung

He knew it would be a few minutes before his absence was discovered. The sailors would assume he was

poking around the cargo in that black, recessed end of the merchandise compartment. In that precious interval

By the time the sailors discovered his absence and rushed aloft, Clyde would have finished his task. He

would be ready with a plausible reason to explain his sudden trip upward to the deck. He would say that he

had seen a seaman sneaking suspiciously from the hold with a small package and had followed him to

AS he emerged on deck, Clyde saw that luck was with him. He was not observed. The huge magnetic crane

was swinging an enormous load of scrap metal from the lighter to the ship. Voices yelled orders.

While this was happening, Clyde Burke was moving swiftly along the port deck, hugging the shadow of the

The door of Captain Dakker's cabin was locked. Clyde took care of the frail barrier with a skeleton key. He

closed the door instantly behind him, stared about the empty cabin with a beating heart.

The desk was against the wall, just alongside an open door that led to Dakker's small bathroom.

Clyde had the deskdrawers open in a twinkling. He searched them frantically, looking for papers or

But it was a disappointment that changed swiftly to hope. The bottom drawer was peculiar. It seemed to be

extraordinarily shallow. So shallow, in fact, that it occupied not more than two thirds of the space it was

supposed to. Clyde suspected instantly the existence of a secret drawer beneath.

Suddenly Clyde gasped with satisfaction. His finger tip had pressed a small knob almost flush with the joint

of one of the massive desk legs. A spring whirred and the secret drawer shot open.

Clyde glanced eagerly through a mass of loose papers. He discarded them quickly as he saw that they were

routine sailing instructions, bills of lading and the like. The thing that drew his attention was a small

lacquered box. The box was locked and there was no sign of a keyhole or a release catch.

Clyde suspected that the lock mechanism was hidden in the crack that divided the ornamented lid from the

box itself. The crack was wide enough for a very thin implement to be inserted and pressed.

Whirling, he darted into Captain Dakker's bathroom. His eyes examined the shelves of a small medicine

Grabbing it, he dashed back to the secret drawer. Inserting the end of the thin razor blade, he pressed and

fiddled with the thing, trying to feel the bottom end of the locked mechanism. In a second or two he was

There was a palegray envelope lying inside the only object in the box and Clyde opened it with a quick

A letter was disclosed, typewritten on cheap stationery. It had neither salutation nor signature. It had been

posted in a small town in Connecticut the morning of the day before. Clyde's eyes raced through the message:

Everything is ready but extreme caution is necessary. Hold ship at New York for three more days to avoid

suspicion. Then proceed to place already agreed upon. The Pooltex will be crated and camouflaged as ships

biscuits. The second shipment of Pooltex is now almost ready. Special guards have been hired to ride with the

That was as far as Clyde's eager eyes read. With an abrupt twist of his body he thrust the message back into

the box. He tossed the box back into the secret drawer. His ears told him he had waited too long!

Heavy footsteps were racing along the deck outside. A fist banged on the locked door of the cabin. Someone

was yelling a fierce string of foreign oaths. The voice was that of Captain Dakker!

THE door shivered suddenly under a heavy impact. It crashed inward. So sudden had been the assault that

Clyde had no time to close the secret drawer in the desk. It yawned open, a damning accusation against the

Dakker came plunging into the room, a gun glittering in his hairy fist. Behind him were the two scowling

But Clyde had time for one brief gesture that went unobserved by his raging foes. His hand slipped swiftly

toward his averted mouth. The razor blade he had been using on the lacquered box dropped flat on his tongue.

He closed his mouth and uttered no word. In all the fierce turmoil that followed his swift capture, Clyde never

The search doomed Clyde Burke. His press card was found, revealing his true identity as a newspaperman.

Fists crashed against Clyde's jaw, rocking his head. But he made no effort to defend himself. His only

thought was the razor blade hidden on his quivering tongue inside his closed lips. He knew the ruthless

methods of his foreign captors. Death would be swift and sure. The razor blade was his only weapon.

He stood reeling with weakness from the rain of blows. His wrists were tied in front of him. No gag was

placed on his mouth, and Clyde wondered about that. But he soon discovered why no gag was needed.

"You are going to die!" Dakker told him in a hoarse snarl. "The roar of the steam exhaust will cover any

cowardly cries you choose to make. There's a lighter alongside, filled with loyal servants of my country.

You're going to die by accident! Crushed under tons of falling scrap iron! That is, unless you confess

Clyde said nothing. The two sailors held him erect between them. Dakker rushed outside, and his voice could

be heard uttering a string of orders. Instantly the hum of the electrical crane ceased.

"Tie him to the port rail," he ordered his men. "Just aft the wheelhouse. We'll lose a section of rail when the

scrap metal crashes. It will damage the deck of the ship but that will make the accident look all the more

"Under the debris will be the bloody pulp of a very foolish spy. The blood will be cleaned away quickly, the

body tossed overboard. It will be a most harmless but unfortunate accident and give us an excellent excuse

CLYDE was hustled along the deck and tied with his body facing the rail. The lighter was moored on the

river side. The scene was hidden from the gaze of anyone ashore. The steam exhaust vent alongside the

A shrill whistle blew. The magnetic crane began to lift a huge mass of twisted scrap metal from the hold of

the halfemptied lighter. The only power that held it from falling was the magnetic attraction of the crane,

Clyde realized that if the switch on the crane was suddenly cut off, the vast weight of suspended metal would

crash to the port rail of the ship, smashing everything beneath it to matchwood.

The crane was now moving high in the air. The load of scrap iron swung slowly toward the doomed man.

But Clyde no longer held the razor blade in his mouth. A dip of his head and a twist of his body brought his

face above his hands that were fettered to the ship's rail. The tying had been done hurriedly. Their haste gave

He began to slice desperately, holding the thin steel between two cramped fingers. His watching enemies

thought the jerky motions were the twitchings of mortal terror. They had had men die before; they were used

But Clyde's motions, though awkward, were the product of courage. He felt a tight loop of the cord part.

Blood dripped from his wrist where he had gouged his flesh in that fierce slash.

The crane swung over the space that divided the ship from the lighter. It was now moving slowly sideways

On the bridge, Captain Dakker was watching. A silver whistle was in his hairy hand. He was ready to clap it

to his lips and blow a shrill blast. When he did, the heavy mass of scrap would be released from its magnetic

Another cord parted. Sweat appeared in big drops on Clyde's pale forehead. His wrists were loose now, but

He dug fiercely with the sharp blade, oblivious to the flesh he was slicing under the remaining cord.

As he did so he saw the silver whistle lift to Dakker's lips. A shrill blast echoed above the steam roar from the

The scrap metal dropped straight downward through the empty air above Clyde's bowed head.

AS it fell, Clyde tore himself free from the last severed strand of his bonds. He threw himself aft along the

deck. Behind him, chunks of rusted metal struck with a tremendous impact. The railing of the deck smashed

Clyde was on his feet now. He was running. His body went over the smashed rail and plunged headfirst

toward the green strip of water between the ship and the lighter. He vanished below the surface in a clean

The vast splash from toppling chunks of scrap metal and deck wreckage made a sound that covered the puny

splash of Clyde's arrowlike dive. He went down, down to the black, slimy mud at the river's bottom. Then,

But he didn't lose his sense of caution. He knew that Captain Dakker had seen him go overboard. He was

aware that men on the pitching lighter had also witnessed his bold leap from the wrecked deck of the

As he drifted upward to the surface Clyde used his cupped palms to slow his ascent. Through the green

glimmer of dirty water he visioned foreign faces staring at the river faces tense with the lust to kill.

Keeping prudently under the surface, he swam to the blunt overhang of the lighter's stern. It protected him

from discovery while he took half a dozen deep, gasping breaths, filling his depleted lungs. Then he dived

He was on the river side of the lighter now. He swam below the surface, following the line of the lighter's

hull. He reached the edge of the pier before he again opened a gaping mouth for air.

The darkness under the pier was welcome. Clyde swam to the opposite side, his ears buzzing with the shouts

He grinned faintly at the wild commotion. Men were rushing there from all points of the water front, drawn

Captain Dakker and his men would be busy with false explanations to police and pier officials. They'd have

Clyde Burke's head poked carefully into the daylight on the other side of the widecovered pier. There was

Swiftly he swam to a ringbolt in the stout stringpiece that closed off the street from the river. He lifted a

A minute or so later the watersoaked figure of Clyde Burke vanished like a sodden rat between mountainous

piles of crates and boxes. He made his way along the water front, farther and farther away from the uproar

There was a car parked on the greasy cobbles. The door on the side nearest the river opened quietly. No one

noticed the car drive slowly away toward the elevated structure a block from the river. Once the shadow of

the "el" structure was reached the slowmoving car made a swift turn. Its speed increased.

Clyde Burke was still on duty for The Shadow. His mission was not yet finished. He headed toward a spot

where he knew he could change to dry clothes and reach a telephone that would be private from curious eyes.

Over that telephone wire would go a quick call to Burbank, to be relayed to The Shadow.

HARRY VINCENT walked quietly along a crowded sidewalk with the absorbed air of a man hastening about

his business. It was a tribute to Harry's skill as a trailer that he seemed to be bustling along like the other

pedestrians. The crowd made walking difficult, and he was forced to slow up many times.

At such times he stared into shop windows or loitered for an instant at the curb. Harry had been doing this

deftly for some time, and neither of the two persons in whom he was interested were aware for an instant that

The two persons were a half block ahead of Harry. They were a welldressed couple who made a rather

attractive picture in the bright sunlight. The man was George Milton. The woman at his side was the

Vincent's movements suddenly became more careful. The trail that had started as a triangle one following

two was now a foursided affair. Across the street, another woman was quietly making her way through the

hurrying crowd. So intent was she on the movements of Milton and Viola that she failed to detect the

She was younger than Viola, and, if anything, she was prettier. Dark eyes, red lips parted slightly with

excitement, a slim boyish figure. Vincent, who had a complete description of her from Burbank, recognized

It was impossible to tell yet whether Lily's interest lay in Milton or Viola. To find out accurately and report

His opportunity came sooner than he expected. The couple ahead of him paused at the street corner. After a

brief conversation the two parted. Milton continued up the busy avenue. Viola Kent crossed to the east and

Harry Vincent stood on the curb in the shadow of a parked truck. He kept his eyes on a jeweler's doorway

across the street. Lily Wallace was in that doorway, pretending to admire a collection of rings in the

Her hesitation was brief. In a moment she was again in motion, following the trail. She turned the corner into

He walked even more slowly now because he knew that Viola's apartment was in a building midway down

The cab was there by design. It contained still another agent of The Shadow: Moe Shrevnitz, best taxi driver

Moe was parked there on the off chance that Viola might call for a cab, in the event she left the building in a

hurry. She had gone out that morning without a glance toward the curb. But Moe was patient and he was still

Vincent nodded warningly to Moe, and then paid the cab no further attention. An unexpected development

Lily Wallace had increased her speed. She walked swiftly until she was abreast of Viola, then glanced

sideways and stopped with a smile of simulated surprise. The two women began to talk with every evidence

Vincent would have given a lot to have been able to hear what was said, but the distance made that

impossible. In a moment the two women continued onward together. They entered the building where Viola

Vincent could depend on Moe Shrevnitz to cover the main entrance. The tradesmen's entrance, on the side

BY not going upstairs, Harry missed the development of another interesting conversation. The conference

Viola sat back, arrogant, scornful, in a deep upholstered chair, and her carmined lips twisted in a sneer. She

Lily Wallace was standing, facing her hostess. If Lily, too, was playing a dramatic role, she was making a

good job of it. There were tears in her dark eyes. Her attitude was one of pleading sincerity.

"You must listen to me! Viola please! I'm telling the truth! You're playing with fire. You'll be ruined if you

"He's not a gentleman," Lily burst out. Her face was deadly pale. "He's a crook! A blackmailer! Do you

"I know he's a blackmailer because George Milton has already worked his dirty game on me. He framed me

with lying photographs! That's his business and he makes it pay well. His next move is obviously to sink his

"You're Poole's fiancee. Milton knows that. He's out to win your confidence and frame you in a scandal, as he

did me. I'm asking you for help and cooperation. Together, we can lure Milton into a police trap and end his

dirty career. I was afraid to speak openly to you before about this but I'm not, now. For a reason that I

"I think George Milton is the brains behind the theft of that milliondollar carload of Pooltex!"

It was the turn of the blond actress to be agitated. She rose from her chair, began pacing up and down. Her

But a change took place in her lovely face as she walked. She smiled. She patted Lily's arm with a trembling

"Perhaps you're right, my dear. I I have noticed a certain ruthlessness about George Milton that has always

worried me. Our friendship was perfectly harmless on my part or so I thought. Thank you for warning me. I

shall drop him at once. I couldn't bear the thought of anything coming between my happiness with with

THE choked sob in her voice carried conviction. Viola Kent was acting a smooth role, smoother than any she

had ever played on the stage. As she paced up and down, she kept talking steadily. She wanted to distract Lily

with the flow of her repentant words. But she kept listening for a sound she had every reason to expect to

It came in a moment or so a sharp rap from a bronze knocker on the rear door of the apartment.

"Excuse me for a moment. That's the knocker at the service door. I ordered some roses from the florist and

She picked up her bag from a console table and hurried down a corridor. Turning swiftly as she walked, she

made sure that Lily could not see her. She took from her bag not the money to pay for pretended flowers, but

a pencil stub and a scrap of paper. On the paper she wrote hurriedly: "She's here. Living room. Left of

Passing through the kitchen, she opened the service door. A man stood there, his handsome face bleak, his

eyes asking a cold, pitiless question. He dared not speak because of the fear that his whisper might carry

He was George Milton. He nodded as he read the note Viola held silently in front of him. She shut the service

door and locked it. Milton squeezed noiselessly past her and tiptoed along the corridor.

There was a handkerchief in his left hand. With his right he passed a small corked bottle backward to Viola,

A sudden leap carried Milton around the casing of the door and straight toward the chair where the

Her back was toward him. She had no warning whatever. Before she knew what was happening, Milton was

at her like a panther. Muscular fingers choked off the scream that rose in her throat. The fingers tightened.

Viola sprang forward. She had uncorked the bottle that Milton had handed to her. She was holding it out to

him eagerly. He grabbed it, spilled some of the contents on the handkerchief that was pressed over Lily's

A sickening reek filled the warm air of the room. Lily's struggles lost their youthful strength. Her waving

Milton held her for a few seconds longer, then he let go with a barking laugh. The drugged girl slid from the

Viola picked up the reeking handkerchief and ran to the bathroom with it. Milton opened the curtained living

"I told you she was trailing us," the blond actress snapped. "Lily knows a lot more than we thought she did.

"We've got to get rid of her! I was afraid of this. She's got to be snatched out of here right now! I'll keep her

MILTON swept up the body of Lily Wallace in his strong arms. Viola cautiously opened the service door.

The arrow of the elevator shaft showed that the service lift was motionless at the basement level.

Viola led the way down the dim staircase that boxed in the shaft. She was as cool as a cucumber, nodding

The elevator door was closed at the bottom of the shaft. The two kidnapers crept swiftly past it, down a long

whitewashed passageway that led to stone steps. Sunlight from the sidewalk splashed the top steps with

Viola paused in the sunlight and beckoned to her companion below her. At the same instant, a sleepy taxi

driver stepped on the starter pedal of his engine. Moe Shrevnitz had seen Viola. So had Harry Vincent, who

George Milton emerged from the basement entrance with the lax body of Lily Wallace in his arms. The taxi

Vincent's sprinting feet made practically no sound, and Milton didn't hear him. But Viola's scream warned the

Staggering, he let go his hold on the unconscious Lily. Vincent caught her limp body as she fell.

His instinctive action gave Milton the ugly opportunity for murder. A pistol whipped from his pocket.

Milton's finger pressed the trigger. But the flame that spat from the muzzle slanted downward toward the

The roar of the shot came from the taxicab of Moe Shrevnitz. Moe's bullet had struck Milton's weapon and

While the echo of two pistol shots still roared, Moe came diving forward like a stubby tornado. His swift

appearance and the paralysis of Milton's gun hand ended the battle with startling suddenness.

Viola was already in the closed coupe, screaming shrilly to her companion to follow. He sprang beside her,

The street had become a bedlam of confusion. Men were shouting, women dodging into nearby doorways.

Vincent thrust the limp form of Lily Wallace into the taxicab. Moe Shrevnitz leaped behind the steering

The lurch sent Harry to his knees on the floor, sliding Lily beside him. But the cab was roaring into flight

under control of the city's smartest hackie. Moe took the corner on two wheels before the pursuing cop could

By the time the outdistanced cop had sprung to a police box and was spreading the alarm, Moe was doing

very nicely at a more respectable speed. Less than a mile away, over to the east of Manhattan, was a garage

where no questions were asked whenever Moe showed up in a desperate hurry. Lamont Cranston owned that

The taxi was lifted on an elevator to an upper floor, with Moe still behind the wheel and Vincent and Lily

The streets outside echoed with the wild sirens of police cars racing blindly in pursuit of a vanished taxicab.

But on the upper floor of the garage, all was quiet except for the beat of Harry Vincent's heart and the faint

THE waterfront information that Clyde Burke had secured was transmitted to The Shadow within an hour.

But Clyde would have been amazed had he known the distance that message traveled over the telephone wire

The report was received in a hotel room in a small manufacturing town in Massachusetts. The name of that

town was Kendall. The Shadow had driven there at top speed after his rescue of Joe Cardona.

In Kendall was located the Pooltex plant. It was the purpose of The Shadow to know more about the factory

Having received Clyde Burke's report and digested the facts contained in the letter that had been hidden in

Captain Dakker's secret drawer, The Shadow changed thought into action. He left his hotel and hurried to the

It was late in the afternoon of a dull, gray day. Workmen were leaving the factory in droves by the main gate,

their labor for the day finished. The Shadow had little trouble making an entrance through a small window on

Only a single dim light burned in the whitewashed ceiling. Machines were silent now, covered neatly with

The Shadow moved stealthily, yet with speed. He had been in this building twice since he had arrived in

Kendall. He knew exactly where he was headed. His goal was the locked laboratory where Edgar Pool

In this room was a small, strong safe. The aim of The Shadow was to open that safe and observe the contents.

His blackclad figure crossed a corridor and descended narrow stairs. He was very different now from the

innocentlooking salesman who had registered in the hotel a mile away from this factory.

The figure who now approached the laboratory where Pool and his assistant, Doctor Andrew Leach, spent

most of their time during working hours, was concealed under cloak and hat of black. He tackled the locked

laboratory door. A careful pressure of The Shadow's sensitive ear against the panel had convinced him that

His conclusion was proved correct when the door opened noiselessly under his manipulation. The tiny steel

instrument that had opened the lock disappeared under The Shadow's cloak. Its virtue was that it could open a

lock without injuring the mechanism. The door closed again and the lock clicked softly.

But he altered his plan before he had taken more than a half dozen cautious steps toward the safe and the desk

FROM the sounds, The Shadow could tell instantly that a professional burglar was at work. He had a grim

Darting noiselessly toward the single window of the laboratory, The Shadow lifted a flat metal panel that was

An ordinary observer might have thought it was a trapdoor leading to another room below. But The Shadow,

having already watched this laboratory from the small window that faced the alley outside, knew that the

It was a disused and dusty vat that had been used previously for some of Pool's chemical experiments. It

made a safe place from which to observe the mysterious marauder who was now working so stealthily on the

The door opened almost instantly. The Shadow's swiftness in crouching down into the tank sunk in the floor

had barely sufficed to hide him from the gaze of the man who now entered the laboratory.

But the thief had no notion that anyone had preceded him. He was breathing jerkily, tense with excitement.

He began forcing open drawers in Edgar Pool's desk. His eager fingers examined papers swiftly, then tossed

The Shadow watched from a crack of the lid of his strange hiding place. He saw the man's face pass under the

droplight. The features were revealed with strong detail. He was a man in whom The Shadow was already

The fellow was a workman employed in the Pooltex plant. His name was Paul Dominick. At work in the

factory, his bearing had been quiet and submissive, no different than the hundreds of men who operated the

whirring machines or dipped woven Pooltex fabric into the various baths that made it acid and flameproof.

But The Shadow had not been satisfied about this particular workman. Visiting the factory under his hotel

alias Mr. Arthur Harper The Shadow had taken occasion to scan many things and many men during his

It had been easy to do so, for while the general public was not admitted to the laboratory or certain secret

parts of the factory, it was customary for guides to conduct visitors through the rooms where machines

clattered and huge looms converted metallic thread into the closewoven cloth known as Pooltex.

Arthur Harper's innocent eyes had not been idle on his inspection trip. He had made a mental note to find out

Now he was watching this same Dominick rifling the papers in Edgar Pool's private desk.

DOMINICK grunted as he failed to find what he was after. He turned his attention to the steel safe. But he

had hardly knelt in front of the shining dials when he whirled on his knees. His hand plunged toward his hip.

The laboratory door had suddenly clicked this time from the proper insertion of a key. It was flung open

with a bang and a man darted in over the threshold. The man was Doctor Andrew Leach, technical adviser to

There was an automatic pistol in his hand. He fired promptly as he sprang at the kneeling thief. At the same

Both shots were ineffectual. The thief's awkward kneeling position had thrown him off balance as he whirled.

His bullet slanted over Leach's lowered head. But the same awkward twist saved Dominick from the rip of

The two men crashed together and rolled in a heap on the floor. They struggled desperately, fighting to gain

possession of Leach's gun. Dominick's weapon had been batted from his hand by a fierce blow of the raging

The scientist's face was as dark and murderous as it had been on that night in New York when he had seized

But this time Leach had no fragile woman to contend with. Dominick was strong and desperate to get away.

He had lost his own gun, but he managed to get a death grip on the barrel of his enemy's weapon. His

There was a cry from Leach as the gun changed hands. The scientist staggered back, blood streaming from a

gash on his forehead. Another blow struck him as he swayed dazedly. He toppled to the floor, rolled over,

Dominick had both guns now. He made no further effort to use them. He ran straight for the small window

that cut the end wall of the room, directly above the steel lid of the sunken vat in which The Shadow was

The Shadow had seen every detail of that swift fight. He had made no move to interfere. Nor did he do so

now as the fleetfooted Dominick leaped upward and drew himself to the inner sill of the alley window.

The Shadow had heard loud shouts, the patter of running feet. He knew that help was coming fast. To expose

himself was to court instant death from a bullet. Worse still, it meant the revealing of his presence inside the

He divined that the web of death and intrigue that had brought him from New York had its center at or near

this grim laboratory. He was as much interested in Doctor Andrew Leach as he was in the unknown figure of

THE SHADOW remained perfectly quiet as the door burst open. Men rushed pellmell into the stonefloored

room. Doctor Leach was reeling dazedly on his long legs, his eyes glassy. Blood streamed from his gashed

forehead. He tried to shout, to point toward the window where Dominick had fled.

Four men milled excitedly about the wounded Leach. Two of them were workmen. The other two were the

Roy Wallace looked very pale. There was unmistakable terror in his eyes. Edgar Pool looked more puzzled

Leach put an end to the excitement with a gasping explanation. At his order, a workman leaped up to the

window sill. The man reported that there was no sign outside of the vanished Dominick.

"Quick!" Leach growled. "Double out to the head of the alley both you men! If you hurry across the work

floor through the east gate you may cut Dominick off. If you see him, shoot him down!"

The two workmen raced away. The sound of their heavy brogans diminished. Leach eyed the two Pooltex

Edgar Pool seemed unconscious of that look. But Roy Wallace twisted his face away, pretended to be

watching the empty square of the window through which Dominick had made his escape.

"Treachery," Doctor Leach replied coldly. "That fellow was trying to steal the Pooltex formula."

"Dominick didn't know that. I suspect he was after something more interesting." Leach grinned haggardly.

"He was undoubtedly trying to find information about the car of Pooltex that's due to leave the factory

"There are four competent guards aboard that box car," he pointed out. "They are armed with a machine gun.

The doors are sealed. I myself gave those guards orders to spray lead at the first attempt to open the sealed

door. In fifteen minutes that car will be picked up by the train. After that it's the insurance company's lookout,

"Just the same," Pool replied, "I think I'd like to be there on the siding when the train leaves. Come on,

Wallace nodded. Both partners turned and started for the door. But Doctor Andrew Leach, who had been

staring at the stone floor of the laboratory with a peculiar expression in his narrowed eyes, halted his

LEACH'S steady finger pointed toward the empty vat sunk in the floor below the alley window.

"There's another man hidden in this laboratory," he whispered. "Two of them came in here. Only one got

There were brownish footprints on the floor leading to the very edge of the closed lid of the vat. They had

In the fight a few minutes earlier, a glass retort filled with iodine had been overturned. Dominick had stepped

in the stuff and had left a trail leading toward the sunken vat. Leach's guess about the trail was wrong, but his

Roy Wallace had a small pistol in his shaking hand. Its muzzle was pointed toward the closed lid of the vat.

Leach laid a finger across his lips, backed noiselessly, toward the side wall. There was a small spoked wheel

of metal there. It was attached to a pipe line. The pipe ran across the wall from an overhead tank. It was

The Shadow's eyes were at the slightly parted lid of the vat. He understood instantly what the clever Doctor

The spoked wheel on the wall was a valve. The tank above it contained acid. Leach was about to fill The

Before the tugging hand could wrench the valve open, a streak of flame spat from the slightly lifted lid of the

floor vat. A bullet chipped the wall an inch away from Leach's tugging fingers. He gave a yell of fear and

At the same instant The Shadow emerged from his dangerous prison with a lithe upward jump. His leap

carried him away from the vat's edge. He stood poised, menacing, in the center of the room. Twin guns jutted

Wallace hesitated. The smallcalibered automatic he had drawn still quivered in his slack hand. He dropped

it as he heard the rasping laugh of The Shadow. He knew death was in that laugh unless he obeyed. His

surrender took the heart out of his two companions. They backed up against the wall. Another grim command

made them turn about and face the wall. Their hands were elevated high above their heads with the palms flat

The Shadow's body moved toward the door. He made no sound. The prisoners were unaware that he had

changed his position. Leach was the first to dare to twist his neck and peer. The moment he did so he uttered

THE three men rushed from the room in wild pursuit. They took the only route logically open to The

Shadow. It was a corridor that led to a wideopen doorway in the south wall of the factory.

Outside that door a bright arc light burned in the early night, flooding the open area with brilliance. The steel

rails of a siding were there. A sealed box car waited on the track. It was the car containing the second

As The Shadow's pursuers tumbled outside into the blinding glare of the overhead light, there was no sign of

The Shadow at this moment was still inside the factory. He had not run the full length of the corridor on the

ground floor. He was using shrewdly his knowledge of the plant's layout. Halfway down the corridor was a

The Shadow had flipped it open and closed it behind him with one quick gesture. Stairs loomed in the

darkness above him. The stairs led to the second floor. He sped upward like a black wraith.

While Leach and his two employers were racing out to the railroad siding, The Shadow was crossing the

deserted machine room above. He sped past the covered shapes of automatic looms. On the far side a window

opened and closed again. The Shadow dropped silently into the darkness of a rear delivery area.

The Shadow made a swift and careful detour, rounding the distant corner of the sprawling buildings. He

avoided the siding where the Pooltex car waited. He made for the spur line that connected with the railroad a

The Shadow was prepared now to take the initiative. He intended to ride with the freight train that was due

Preliminary investigation had shown him that trains for this siding always stopped for the necessary track

clearance signals at a point not far from the timbered structure of a railroad water tower. It was at this spot

FIVE men stood in the bright arc light brilliance that made the siding outside the Pooltex plant as bright as

day. Their eyes never left the car in which the precious cloth was sealed. The car was now coupled tight to a

In a moment or two the train would begin its long journey to New York. The faces of the five men were grim.

The treacherous workman, Paul Dominick, had made a clean getaway. So had the mysterious marauder in

Only a criminal miracle could wrest that consignment from the hands of the men locked inside the box car at

Wallace and Pool stood together, conferring in whispers with Leach. The other two men were the factory

watchman and his assistant. Both had pursued Paul Dominick in vain. They had reported that he was nowhere

A railroad brakeman stood near by with a lighted lantern. He kept away from the group under the arc light

His orders were strict. Having made sure that the box car was efficiently coupled, he and every other member

A trainman who approached that box car was taking his life in his hands. At the first indication of tampering

with the seals, the guards within were prepared to spray lead from the machine gun which was set up on a

A sudden toot from the locomotive made a warning bellow in the darkness. The brakie swung the lantern and

the train echoed with ghostly bangings as it got into motion. The brakie swung upward to the steel rungs of a

vertical ladder. Hanging there like a monkey, he rode steadily away into the gloom.

OUTSIDE the factory door, the rails of the siding stretched empty under the strong brilliance of the overhead

light. Wallace and Pool remained there, conferring in low voices. Andrew Leach stood apart from them,

Wallace turned and stared at the watchman. He started to say something, but he was interrupted by Leach.

"I'd like to make a suggestion, if I may. I think I have a sensible plan, and one that ought to be followed."

Wallace hesitated. But Pool nodded with instant interest. Leach's calm voice seemed to reassure him.

"Just this. I think this factory, and not the car that just left, is the spot to be watched for trouble."

"Because those two crooks put to flight tonight are well aware that the car on that train is theftproof. They

won't dare to try what they did on the first shipment of cloth. Unless I'm badly mistaken, one or both of those

"The Pooltex formula," Leach replied. "The formula itself is not kept in the laboratory safe, but Dominick

doesn't know that. Otherwise, why should he and his companion have made such a dangerous attempt to

crack the safe tonight? Mark my words, Dominick or his pal will be back again. I propose to give them a

"Here is my plan. I'll move a cot into the laboratory and lock myself in. I'll sleep there with a .45 automatic

close to my hand. The moment the alley window lifts, or the lock of the lab door clicks, I'll be ready in the

dark to nail our smart visitors. In fact, I'm in favor of encouraging them to sneak in."

"Leave the east door of the factory unlocked. It offers direct access to the laboratory. Dominick will be afraid

to try the window again. But a carelessly, open door will make things a lot easier for him. He'll think that the

excitement made us jittery and careless. Also, keep your appointed rounds so Dominick won't become

Wallace looked doubtful. But Pool was convinced that his assistant had hit upon a scheme that was both

THE two watchmen carried a cot into the laboratory. Leach arranged the catch on the window so that a light

pressure from a burglar's jimmy would force the metal guard easily from its groove.

The locked door of a steel cupboard yielded a .45 automatic. Leach examined the magazine and smiled as he

noted it was fully loaded. He drew a hardbacked wooden chair close to the cot and sat down.

The watchman and his assistant left to begin their monotonous rounds of the plant. Wallace and Pool shook

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I'm looking forward to tonight's party with considerable interest." His

glance dropped toward the heavy .45 in his lean hand. "And pleasure," he concluded grimly.

He turned out the laboratory light and closed the door behind the two partners. They left the plant by the east

exit. They noted that the watchman had left the door an inch or so ajar, according to instructions. They did the

As they hurried down the alley to where their cars were parked they could see the dim flash of a watchman's

light on an upper floor. Satisfied, they climbed into their cars and separated for the drive to their homes.

Each of the partners was now satisfied that every, precaution had been taken. The Pooltex car on the freight

THE SHADOW, however, had no intention of returning to that cleverly prepared trap.

He had boarded the departing freight train as it halted at a switch to pickup more box cars, then await the

signal to roll onto the main line. He was in the last place a brakeman would be apt to search for a stowaway.

Four units ahead of the sealed Pooltex car was the sleek, black roundness of an empty tank car. The Shadow

knew it was empty because he was hidden inside it. His feet rested on the rungs of a short ladder that was

Above The Shadow's peering face was a turretlike projection capped with a tight, metal cover. The cover did

not exactly fit the neck of the turret. The Shadow had propped a flat chunk of stone under it to make an

He could see and hear anything that went on outside his selfchosen prison. There was nothing much to hear.

But beyond the fringe of bushes that lined the siding there was a patch of dark road. On that road The

Shadow's attention was now riveted. He expected something to develop soon in that quarter.

His intuition was correct. Hardly had the main line begun to quiver with the roar of the approaching

passenger train for which the freight was waiting than another sound became dimly audible on the deserted

It was braked to a sudden stop. So hastily were the brakes applied that they squealed a mechanical protest.

But the roar of the passing express drowned out that minor sound. The Shadow heard it because he allowed

He saw the car back out of sight into a covert of brush. A man leaped away from the hidden automobile. He

Watching intently, The Shadow was unable to see the man's face. The stranger was masked in a black silk

The freight had received the proper signal from the cleared switch and was already moving ponderously

ahead. The mysterious figure ran alongside and swung aboard with a muscular heave of his body. He

None of the train crew had seen this happen. The train crew was ignorant of the presence aboard of either The

Shadow or this masked hijacker. The hijacker himself had no knowledge that The Shadow was riding a few

The Shadow alone knew the full facts. Watching, he saw the masked face peer cautiously and withdraw

The train roared into the night with gathering speed. The whistle of the puffing locomotive far ahead was like

FOR a dozen miles or so nothing happened. Lights grew in the distance and waned with a roar in the rear of

the speeding train. Roads crisscrossed and vanished. Marshes spread out in the darkness and were in turn

whisked away by mean clusters of wooden houses along the straggling rear ends of towns.

The Shadow maintained his careful watch on the car where the masked man was hidden. But he did not allow

his attention to stray too much from the rushing countryside. He was by no means certain as to what would

It seemed incredible that one man could successfully overcome four armed guards and steal a sealed box car

and its contents. Was the masked man aboard expecting help from another quarter? The Shadow had no

He continued to alternate his glances between the Pooltex car behind him and the rushing darkness beyond

Suddenly The Shadow saw two things that tensed him for trouble. One was the smooth ribbon of a concrete

road that abruptly began to run parallel with the tracks. The second and more important thing was the

The car was without illumination of any kind except for its tiny parking lights. Its speed was almost an exact

It seemed to hover almost exactly opposite the car where the masked man was hiding.

Suddenly The Shadow saw a tiny flash of light from the train. A brief wink of brilliance that was instantly

gone. He guessed what it was. An electric torch in the hand of the masked stowaway.

The car speeding along the road promptly answered the signal. Its parking lights went out for a second and

then flashed on again. To The Shadow the meaning of this performance was clear enough. It meant:

But what action? The only possible service the crook in the speeding automobile was capable of on a wild

It was absurd to think that a message could be successfully tossed across. The road was nearly thirty feet

away from the whizzing railroad ties. Even with a weighted envelope the thing was impossible, hopeless at

Yet The Shadow expected a message to be passed. He knew that the crooks against whom he was operating

were men of imagination and daring. Some clever method must be ready. He waited to see the outcome.

IT happened sooner than The Shadow anticipated. The automobile suddenly began to speed ahead. Bit by bit

it crept forward, gaining on the train's speed with every revolution of its wheels. Its bright headlights snapped

The Shadow saw that the road in front of the rushing automobile was curving inward toward the train. A

quarter mile ahead the road made a sharp rightangled turn and crossed the tracks. Was the car planning a

Peering cautiously from his steel covert, The Shadow knew that feat was already impossible. The locomotive

was beyond the crossing. The long line of freight cars were thundering past the bloodred crossing light.

The driver of the automobile had a different plan and The Shadow guessed instantly its purpose as he saw

the car halt with a shuddering of its brakes. It was facing the right of way, its white headlights bathing the

The driver of the automobile had leaped swiftly to the roadway and was facing the train. His clenched hand

held a missile, and he drew his arm backward and sent the object curving through the air. The thing landed in

The thrower didn't wait an instant. As the gondola roared onward he dashed back to his automobile and

The automobile's bright lights started signal flashes. The Shadow leaned backward and counted them. Three!

He knew why as he peered ahead toward the coal gondola. It was exactly three units ahead of the car where

The gondola was directly in front of the tank car, but The Shadow made no move to retrieve that mysterious

message tossed aboard with such swiftness and skill. To show himself now would be to act prematurely and

He crouched lower in the turret of the tank car as he saw the masked man's head appear slyly above the roof

of one of the swaying freight cars. The crook was making his way forward, peering behind him to make sure

Fate took a hand at this point. It favored The Shadow. The masked man suddenly bellied flat. He wriggled

out of sight between the cars. He had seen the yellow glow of a lantern advancing in a rhythmic sway from

A brakeman was making inspection of couplings and brakes. He came forward car by car.

THE SHADOW was not deterred by the sight of this innocent intruder. His judgment told him something that

the masked man had failed to take into consideration something that only The Shadow could foresee.

The brakie had been ordered to keep away from the sealed Pooltex car. So when he reached it, he turned, and

The Shadow had not waited to observe this. In a flash he was out of the tank car and making his swift way to

the empty gondola just ahead. Before the brakie had reached the Pooltex car and turned back, The Shadow

He saw the object that had been tossed into the car. It was a small metal tube similar to those used in

department stores to carry cash and coin to overhead cashiers. The Shadow scooped it up; forced it open with

There was a typed message on a folded paper inside. The Shadow crouched in a corner of the gondola and

risked a brief flick from his tiny electric torch. He read the message with photographic accuracy.

Like the message Clyde Burke had seen in the ship's cabin of Captain Dakker, this one had neither salutation

Everything prepared. Watch for 92 marker. Same siding. Same method. No word about Dominick.

The Shadow's gloved hand placed the paper carefully back in the metal cylinder. He tossed the container to

the floor of the gondola and retreated. By the time the brakie with his lantern had reached the caboose at the

The brakie had failed to see the blackcloaked figure on its swift foray after the message. Nor was the

masked man aware that unsuspected eyes had already read that brief typewritten report.

In a few minutes the masked crook came sliding forward. He dropped to the narrow platform that surrounded

the squat curve of the sleek tank car, crossed it with stealthy speed. The next moment he vanished over the

The Shadow could have attacked at this juncture and taken his man without too much trouble. His whole plan

His decision was based on the contents of the note he had just read. He knew, definitely now that the second

Pooltex shipment was doomed to be stolen in the same manner as the first. The crooks apparently had no fear

of the four guards and their machine gun They were planning to steal car, merchandise, and the guards as

Just how the latter part of the miracle was to be accomplished The Shadow did not know. But his reason told

him that he had to leave this train at once. He had to arrive in advance at the scene of the intended hijack, if

THE scene of the holdup itself was no longer a puzzle to The Shadow. A sentence in the message he had

intercepted danced in luminous letters in his brain: "Watch for 92 marker." At or very close to the "92"

marker was the siding where the freight would stop and the Pooltex car would vanish like its predecessor.

The markers were whitepainted posts that flashed by with monotonous frequency alongside the tracks. The

sentence meant that the robbery was planned to take place approximately 92 miles from Boston.

At least six men were clearly implicated in the conspiracy. It would take four men to move the heavy Pooltex

car to wherever it was to be hidden after it was successfully uncoupled. To these four men The Shadow added

the masked figure who was now reading the note in the empty coal gondola. The crook in the speeding

The appearance of a seventh was also expected by The Shadow. This was the stillmissing Paul Dominick,

the workman who had made so desperate an attempt to rifle the papers in Edgar Pool's laboratory. The

Two possibilities were at war in The Shadow's mind. The first, and simplest, was that Dominick was an

inside man for the gang. The second a very remote possibility was sheer guesswork. There was a fantastic

The Shadow had had only a quick glance at Dominick before that desperate battle in the laboratory. The face

of the intruder had been a white blur under a dim ceiling light; and he had vanished with a swift speed

It was possible, though not probable, that Dominick was Cardona, operating on his own in a heartbroken

effort to nab the killers of his nephew. Bodily, at least, there was some resemblance.

While he pondered, the masked man reappeared from the gondola. He crossed the tank car and returned to his

hiding place near the Pooltex shipment. He was completely unaware of the presence of The Shadow, hidden

The Shadow watched over the roofs of the dark swaying cars for a long time. Then, satisfied, he emerged

from his steel covert and slid carefully to the vertical ladder between the cars.

The train was roaring along at a terrific clip. It was impossible to leap to the ground without risking a broken

neck. The Shadow waited, hoping for a grade that would slow up the puffing locomotive and lessen the speed

The uphill stretch he was waiting for came presently. The Shadow was preparing to descend the rungs of the

ladder and hurl himself deftly toward the flying ground below when abruptly he froze.

For the second time on the amazing ride, he made a complete change of plan. He no longer wished to leave

THE reason hung directly ahead of the freight in the windy darkness. A steel bridge spanned the right of way.

Under its crisscross of girders, the locomotive had plunged with a shriek of its whistle. The line of cars ahead

He was hanging from the central girder, coolly waiting his opportunity to drop to the train that was passing

THAT mysterious jumper had displayed iron nerve. The impact of his dangerous fall knocked him flat on his

face. He pitched forward, but his arms spread, wide, and so did his legs. His slide brought him close to the

edge of destruction, but he managed to halt his slipping body before he plunged off into space.

The train, having reached the top of the long grade, was now crowding on speed again.

The man rose slowly to his feet, and The Shadow was able to see him in greater detail. A sinister fact was

immediately evident. The fellow was dressed in overalls and wore a peaked cap. He was disguised as a

It swung from his waist where he had tied it. The fall had evidently not damaged the glass, for the lantern

It was impossible at the distance that separated the pair for The Shadow to determine accurately who the man

was. His face above the yellow glow of the light was a pale blur. He began to move stealthily along the car

The Shadow immediately stepped back to the tank car's base. A quick jerk removed his black slouch hat. A

twist, and The Shadow emerged from his concealing robe. Robe and hat were tossed promptly into the flying

The Shadow was wearing dirty, rumpled clothing under his former disguise. He looked the perfect picture of

a seedy and disreputable hobo. He completed the picture by tousling his hair and smearing his face with dirt

He pretended to hide. He did so awkwardly. He merely wanted to seem to hide. His purpose was to be

The Shadow had definitely recognized the stranger's face. The man from the bridge was Paul Dominick! But

was he, also, Joe Cardona, playing a lone and dangerous game to trap the killers of his nephew?

A second later The Shadow answered that important question in the negative. Whoever this Dominick was,

he was not Cardona! The whole structure of his face was different. The superficial resemblance of shoulder

DOMINICK had halted, holding his lantern high. He glared at the figure he had just detected.

The Shadow obeyed. He pretended fright and dismay. Pinpoint eyes studied him harshly. The fake

trainman's hand remained close to his hip. There was a lump there, and The Shadow knew a gun was ready if

But The Shadow's unkempt figure and his clever acting lulled any suspicion of treachery Dominick might

have entertained. His whole manner changed. He laughed with brutal harshness. He was playing his role of

The gun leaped from his hip. He held it butt foremost, ready for a crushing blow if his order was disobeyed.

The Shadow began to whine. Having proved that Dominick was not Cardona, he was eager to leave the train

and beat these crooks by fast car to the scene of the intended robbery. But the speed of the freight made a leap

He did it so well that by the time Dominick lost his patience and again swung up the gun butt threateningly,

The Shadow squirmed obediently down the rungs of the ladder. A station was visible a few yards ahead and

He hit the gravel just beyond the blur of the station and rolled headlong. But he had landed with muscles

As he straightened he became conscious of the sound of heavy footsteps. Feet were racing around the end of

the small station. The Shadow had no chance to beat a retreat. His pursuer was upon him instantly.

The Shadow recognized the uniform of a local policeman. The cop was panting and triumphant.

"Another freight bum, eh? Dropping off to panhandle on the town! March! And don't try any tricks or I'll ring

His hand twisted in the wrinkled coat of the supposed tramp. He chuckled with satisfaction.

"We'll just stick you in the freight house, till I get a chance to see if any more of your brakebeam pals

dropped off here. You're the ninth hobo in a week, and I get fifty cents a head on every one I round up for the

The Shadow said nothing. Time was flying, but there was nothing to do but play out his role. The Shadow

had to hire a fast automobile somewhere, and a fight with the cop would make that course of action difficult.

He was shoved into a windowless room in the freight depot and the door was locked behind him. The

To a man who had broken out of scores of traps arranged by smart kingpins of the underworld, getting out of

The Shadow piled a couple of crates together and lifted himself to the skylight in the slanting roof. He opened

the rusted catch, after a little work, and wriggled through to starlit darkness.

A slide down a steep incline to the side opposite the railroad, and The Shadow dropped expertly from the low

He melted away toward the lights of the nearby town. He had to hire a car and be on his way before the

There was a watering trough near the entrance to a dark livery stable, and The Shadow washed his hands and

face and combed his hair to a more orderly appearance. The trouble was his clothing. It was still wrinkled and

He'd have to depend upon his cultured voice and his personality as Lamont Cranston to carry him through the

awkward test of hiring a car. He had seen, up the street, the neon sign of a place that rented cars. He entered

In spite of his carefully prepared explanation for his appearance, he met with a chilly reception. The

combination of a roll of bills and his untidy clothing made him suspect at once. The clerk on duty was

regretful but firm. To hire a car, Mr. Cranston would have to be vouched for by somebody known in town.

The Shadow didn't wait to argue. He knew that at any moment his flight from the freight house would be

discovered by the railroad cop. Murmuring a polite promise to return in a short while with proof of his

He turned away from the lights of the main street and began to hurry out of town. As he walked, hugging the

shadows whenever possible, his eyes searched the streets for a likely looking car. Fate had left him no

The minutes were flying, and the freight he had quitted was rumbling down the rails toward Marker 92! It

The Shadow came to the end of paved streets and hurried along a macadam road. He watched both sides of

There were houses every few yards, but it was not the houses that drew The Shadow's urgent gaze. He was

watching for private garages. People usually had a careless habit of leaving automobiles in the open when

The Shadow's vigilance was soon rewarded. White brilliance flooded a gravel driveway to the left of a

dwelling set back from the road. The brilliance came from the headlights of a parked sedan of popular make.

The lights pointed toward the road and the sound of the sedan's engine made a low, rhythmic humming.

The Shadow kept in the line of a thick growth of hedge until the car itself was between him and the dwelling.

Its door was unlocked. A glance showed that the ignition key was still projecting from its slot in the dash.

The gas gauge showed a tank about three quarters filled plenty of energy for the distance The Shadow had

The Shadow turned, his calm eyes sweeping over the gravel path. He saw a heavy chunk of stone and picked

it up. Cash equal to value of the car was stripped hastily from the roll of currency in his pocket and laid in the

doorway of the open garage. The Shadow weighted his bank notes down with the stone.

The light from the bulb in the garage ceiling would make it impossible for the startled owner of the car to

overlook what The Shadow intended to leave as a generous bonus for his means of transportation.

It was The Shadow's inflexible rule never to victimize a decent citizen without recompense, no matter how

THE SHADOW stepped on the gas pedal. The car rolled slowly toward the road, then increased its power in

The car's owner had emerged almost at the moment the car began to roll. He yelled with rage as he saw his

shining sedan whirl out of the driveway and vanish down the road in a hum of power.

With scarcely a pause the car owner turned, dashed madly back into the house. He rushed to the telephone.

"Police headquarters!" he cried harshly. "Hurry, operator! My car has just been stolen. The thief is driving it

The Shadow didn't hear this call, but he divined what was taking place. He had seen the man rush back into

the house and realized what the sequel to his theft would be. Police would be after the stolen car without

Unless he could swerve off this arrowstraight road and double away through back areas, he would be run

down before he had covered more than twothirds of his desperate race against time.

He drove at reckless speed, slowing down to a more innocent pace whenever he passed a car on the dark

highway. There were not many cars abroad at this hour, but there were enough to cut down on The Shadow's

The highway ran straight ahead. On either side was the flat expanse of level pasture land, broken here and

there by swampy inlets from Long Island Sound. As a signpost whirled by, The Shadow caught a glimpse of

The Shadow uttered a clipped sound of exasperation. He was on a Connecticut trunk highway that stretched

monotonously across barren lands for mile upon mile without intersection of any kind.

This thought had barely passed through his mind when he saw the reflection of yellow light in the rearvision

mirror. Turning his eyes for a lightning instant, he saw far behind him a single spot of brilliance like a yellow

He knew what that advancing light meant. A motorcycle cop! The alarm had been given. The nearby town

had sent help whizzing to the raging owner of the stolen car almost before he had time to hang up the phone.

A sibilant laugh burst from the tense lips of The Shadow. His answer to that steadily advancing pursuer was a

Salt wind from the meadows whistled over the speeding car like the boom of a heavy gale. The miles of level

The Shadow would have been less confident of his chances had he known what the cop on the motorcycle

WHEN Paul Dominick saw The Shadow make his forced leap from the freight train he grinned with relief.

To Dominick the fellow he had just gotten rid of was a whining tramp, butting in on a desperate game in

which he had no concern. Dominick didn't know that The Shadow had left that freight willingly.

He craned his neck as the train whisked away from the small railroad station in the lee of which The Shadow

had jumped. He witnessed the swift tumble the tramp took, saw the prompt appearance of the railroad cop.

Dominick crouched in a narrow aperture between the cars until the sparse lights of the town were swallowed

up in the enveloping blackness of the open country. Then he straightened cautiously and stretched himself to

He watched for a long time before he moved upward into the open. No one was visible atop the long,

Dominick stared with particular anxiety toward a car a few units away in the roaring darkness. This was the

Pooltex car, where four armed guards were concealed to repel any attempt at crime.

Dominick began to approach that car, moving with quick caution. He had tossed his lantern into the howling

wind that rushed by the freight. He didn't need it now. If any brakies appeared from the distant caboose, he'd

He reached the gap that separated the Pooltex car from the one on which he crouched low against the sweep

of the wind. He glanced down between the cars. He could see no sign of a figure there.

There was a man there, however, that Dominick had no knowledge of; no hint of his presence was visible. A

small wooden platform, constructed cunningly for just this purpose, hid the figure of the stranger in the mask

That tiny platform on which he lay under the car itself had been arranged by a crooked railroad employee,

The only clue to the presence of man or platform was the end of a flexible wire that projected from under the

Dominick saw the wire and was tempted to investigate it. But he was afraid to delay. With a quick breath of

decision, he jumped the narrow gap between the cars and landed with catlike softness on the roof of the

DOMINICK'S movements were characterized now with extraordinary caution. He advanced on hands and

knees. He was afraid of alarming the four guards separated from him by only the thickness of the roof boards.

He knew that any scuffle or sound from above might bring a blasting spurt of lead through the roof from the

Crawling quietly along the flat catwalk, Dominick kept his eyes open for something hidden beneath the

catwalk itself. Halfway down the car's length he found it. It was an open ventilator, designed to admit air to

the men in the car below. The lid was bent back, exposing a view of the interior beneath.

Dominick applied his eye to the opening. He could see a small cleared space below, where a table stood.

Cards lay on the table. Other cards moved back and forth through the air. The moving cards were held in the

Dominick could not bring their faces into view by craning his neck at the ventilator opening, but he could see

the muscular hands and arms of the four players and something more ominous. A .45 automatic pistol lay

Dominick straightened to ease the tension in his bent knees. As he did so he heard a faint whistle. For a

moment he thought it was a squeal of the racing wheels of the train. But it was repeated, and Dominick

turned and crawled swiftly back toward the gap he had crossed a moment or two before.

As he reached it he glanced downward. He was startled to see the face of a masked man staring up at him.

The masked man was braced firmly against a ladder rung. He shot upward without a word.

Too late, Dominick tried to avoid the murderous hands that clutched at him. He was caught firmly about the

neck and shoulders and yanked downward. The purpose of that grim jerk was to throw Dominick between the

The body of the fake brakeman turned completely over in the air. He catapulted backward between the cars.

But his legs struck the edge of the roof ahead and he hung head downward like an acrobat, clutching

His fingers closed on a metal projection of pipe. It saved him from a headlong fall to the ties that raced

Before the masked man could renew his murderous attack, Dominick managed to wriggle away. He heaved

his body upward to the slanting surface of the adjoining box car to which he clung with instinctive

The masked murderer gave him no chance to recover, or to make a single move to defend himself. Before

Dominick's gasping mouth could draw breath, the heavy body of his opponent flung itself upon him. There

was a flurry of feet and fists. Dominick's dazed clutch was torn ruthlessly away. He was shoved inexorably

During all this swift struggle, neither of the two men had uttered a sound. Whatever Dominick's purpose had

been in keeping silent, he was now anxious to retrieve his error and summon help. He knew he was no match

for the muscular killer who was forcing him over the edge of the car roof into oblivion.

His mouth opened in a despairing yell a yell that was instantly strangled into nothingness by the spread

EVEN had he uttered it, it was doubtful if Dominick's cry would have been heard by the four guards. The

struggle was now going on a car away from the wellinsulated card players. And an endless echoing roar had

The roar came from the crossed overhang of steel timbers. The train had left the mainland and was crossing

one of the many inlets that threaded this coastal region of meadows and marshes. The heavy freight train

Dominick battled desperately with every atom of his waning strength. Under his glaring eyes he could see the

rushing edge of the steel trestle where the ends of stout ties projected like broken teeth. They were teeth that

His head was hanging in space over the edge of the car. He felt himself slipping falling But just under his

clutching hand was the topmost rung of the box car's ladder. He caught at it, held tightly as he plunged

The masked man threw a leg over the edge of the car. A heavy sole stamped with crushing force on the

clenched fingers. Dominick lost his grip in an agony of pain. He swayed outward from his last vantage point.

Through empty darkness, he fell straight toward the line of stout ties that bordered the edge of the bridge. He

missed destruction by a miracle so scant that he felt the searing scraps of timber ends against his plunging

DOMINICK didn't hear that splash. He was conscious only of the coldness of the water against his aching

flesh, the queer rumble of the stream of bubbles that rushed upward from his halfopened mouth. He

He was no longer dropping plummetlike through black water. His hands and feet slithered drunkenly in

Hopelessly mired unless he could tear himself free from the sucking mud into which the shallowness of the

He tore himself free at the cost of most of the air in his gasping lungs. He began to rise in swift ascent. His

upturned face saw the faint glimmer of the surface. He clawed feebly to reach it. His breath was going He

His tight mouth opened. But as it did, his head broke the surface with a plume of spray. Cold, reviving air

But he was too spent to swim. Twisting on his back, he floated feebly. The steel trestle over his head was

now black and deserted. The freight train had crossed the long bridge to the mainland and was already out of

Rested, Dominick swam slowly toward a vertical support of the trestle and tried to hang on. But the upright

steel was slimy with moss and his fingers slipped and plunged his head back under the surface.

Again he fought doggedly for his life. His arms were as heavy as lead. It cost him infinite pain to move them

sluggishly through the cold, strengthsapping water. But by dint of splashing and weak kicks of his

waterlogged shoes, he managed to claw himself under the span of the bridge. He swam slowly toward

The object toward which he floundered was an anchorage of the bridge. At this point it was buttressed by a

heavy timbered support shaped like a wooden boat. The "boat" was filled with mossy green rocks and a thick

Dominick hung there by one arm, then the other, until he felt a little of his strength returning.

He took a long breath, gritted his teeth. Then suddenly he hauled upward on his fingers that were curled over

the massive timber edge. His body rose, teetered for a desperate second then Dominick threw his chest and

The weight of his upper body held him in a jackknife position. It took him years of dull effort to swing his

THE masked man on the train wasted no time in conjectures about what had happened to Dominick. He had

seen the splash in the water and had marked the shudder of his victim's body as it cleared the edge of the

He thought it came from the wrench of broken bones as the body struck the sharp edges of the ties. Just

another body to be fished out of murky water long after its features were bloated beyond recognition

The masked killer began to descend cautiously into the space between the car on which the fight had taken

place and the Pooltex car just behind. He reached downward and grasped the wire that had attracted

The wire came loose and was drawn swiftly outward. At its dangling end was a small, eggshaped object

It looked like a grenade. But it was no ordinary steel grenade filled with explosive and scrap metal to be

released at the pull of a pin. True, it had a pin and the regulation palm lever to be kept depressed until the

object was tossed away. But the grenade itself was made of glass, except for the metal surrounding the pin

mechanism. And it was filled with liquid instead of the usual, deadly cargo of shrapnel.

It was carried in steady fingers to the ventilator opening in the roof of the Pooltex car. The masked man

peered cautiously below. He could see, as Dominick had seen before him, the outstretched hands holding

Softly he released the pin of his queer bomb. He dropped the missile straight through the ventilator. It struck

the table below, and almost instantly there was a flash as the pin mechanism struck a spark in the cap above

An explosion sent slivers of glass flying in all directions. They were promptly hidden in a gush of thick,

The liquid from the burst grenade had been instantly vaporized by its contact with air. It spread out like a

heavy curtain, hiding the overturned table and the staggering forms of the four card players who had leaped

The masked man closed the ventilator lid and waited. When he again opened it he was careful to keep his lips

tightly compressed and to clamp his nostrils with a thumb and forefinger. Some of the vapor curled upward

through the opening in the roof and was whipped away in the breeze roaring over the car's roof.

But the masked man had seen enough. He slammed the cover back and laughed low in his throat.

He had seen the heads of two of the guards and the legs of the two others. They were limp on the floor.

Completely unconscious. Their machine gun as useless as if it had been a block of wood or the plaything of a

THE masked man had accomplished the purpose that had brought him secretly aboard this train. The

All that was left now was to repeat the theft of the Pooltex car, exactly as it had been handled before. Only

this time four drugged guards would be sunk in a grave better than water a grave from which no corpse

The masked man watched the track to catch sight of one of the white mile markers that flitted by occasionally

like slender ghosts. He saw one presently, read the figure on it with a grunt. The numeral that flashed briefly

The masked man stared into the blackness ahead with a twisted grimace. Everything set!

THE SHADOW'S eyes were grim. Every few seconds his gaze left the onrushing highway that whizzed at

frightful speed under the wheels of his commandeered sedan. In his rearvision mirror the reflection of that

The Shadow knew why. The roadbed was no longer smooth. Here and there the surface had been removed

and replaced with a temporary filling of earth and cinders. This section of the highway was under repair.

The pursuing cop had counted on this natural obstacle. His motorcycle was roaring along at undiminished

speed. For him the, bumpiness of the road was a minor matter. He was able to curve in and out among the

But The Shadow had no choice. He had to slow up or go bouncing off the road into crashing ruin.

His foot eased off gently on the gas pedal. Up ahead in the twin shafts of his lights he could see the outline of

One was an oldfashioned wooden structure; the other was raw, red steel and only partly completed. The

road was under repair because of a new approach that was being built to lead directly to this partially

The road curved sharply, went upward over a dirt hump and swung back in a sharp L to the narrow wooden

As The Shadow reached the first curve, the pursuing cop was close enough behind to fire from his unsteady

The Shadow swung his wheel deftly and the sedan roared upward over the earthen hump. It dived down the

An instant later the motorcycle topped the rise. Again the cop's pistol barked with a shattering report. The

slug struck The Shadow's license plate with a sharp ping! But the tires on the spinning rear wheels were still

The road itself did what the hasty marksmanship of the cop had failed to accomplish. There was a coating of

greasy, tarlike sludge on the road to act as a binder for the temporary cinder fill. The front wheels of the

sedan took the curve beautifully, but no driver on earth could have prevented a rear skid on that slippery

The car twisted broadside to the road. It went straight for the low wooden railing of the bridge. The Shadow's

hand stayed on the wheel. But he was no longer attempting to steer. The time for control was gone forever.

The Shadow knew he was doomed to hurtle through the darkness into the waters of the deep inlet. He held

The bridge rail smashed like matchwood. The heavy car shot outward. A tremendous splash arose as it struck

the surface of the water and vanished from sight. The automobile had turned completely over in the air. It was

BRACED desperately in his sealed prison, The Shadow felt himself sinking through utter blackness. Only the

pressure of blood at his ears and temples told him he was no longer upright. Through the cracks of door and

window frames he could hear the hissing pressure of water as it spurted inward in thin, jetting streams. He

There was a soft, sucking bump, and the falling sensation ceased. The car was resting on its top in the muddy

The Shadow drew a deep breath. He knew that in the space of a minute or two the interior of his prison would

be filled with water from the relentless pressure outside. He had twisted himself erect and was standing on his

His hand reached for the catch of the inverted door. It was easy to turn the catch. But forcing that door open

He worked tensely, bracing his feet against the shaft of the steering wheel. The door was forced slowly open.

An inch another inch The Shadow forced his body into that tiny opening. It kept the door from closing

and gave him a powerful leverage with his bent elbows. Another grim heave and The Shadow slipped loose

The buoyant water seized him instantly and bore him upward toward the surface. The Shadow began to wave

It kept him below the rippling top of the water. In the faint grayness that marked the surface he saw a little to

the left a deeper pattern of darkness. It was a broad, straight line. The Shadow knew it came from the

He swam cautiously under water toward this protection. When his head broke the surface he was directly

under the planked flooring of the bridge. Hidden by a wooden support, he was able to see the nearby shore.

A figure was standing there, poised at the top of an earth embankment. The beam of a flashlight played

The Shadow divined what was in the cop's mind as the flashlight illuminated the rising bubbles that frothed

upward from the submerged car below. Nobody had risen from that entombed automobile. The fugitive was

still caught in a watery prison or so the cop thought. His zeal for a capture had disappeared. His only

Swiftly the cop squirmed out of his tunic and kicked off his shoes. He laid the flashlight on the edge of the

bank so that its yellow beam was focused directly on the spot in the water where the bubbles boiled upward.

The Shadow admired the courage of this deluded cop. But there were bigger things at stake to remember. An

important robbery was planned not many miles from this lonely spot; perhaps it was already under way. The

Shadow had lost considerable time. On his prompt arrival depended the solution of a baffling mystery; but

From the careful preparations made for the crime itself, The Shadow knew these guards would be killed

promptly in order to cover up any clue to the vanished Pooltex car or the scene of the robbery.

By the time the submerged cop's head broke the surface of the water, The Shadow had swum to the end of the

The cop took a long breath and dived again. The moment his upthrust legs vanished, The Shadow bellied up

the bank and darted toward the abandoned police motorcycle. He sprang into the saddle, kicked the silent

As he curved away, toward the wooden bridge, the cop's head reappeared. He heard the banging explosions

of the cycle, saw a dripping rider shoot onward across the rumbling bridge; but there was nothing the cop

Long before he reached the shore, the sound of the motorcycle was a disappearing echo in the distance.

The Shadow sped recklessly ahead, watching the mileage signs along the deserted road. He saw one zip past

Two miles onward, in the dark region to the left where unseen freight tracks pointed toward New York, was a

THE SHADOW cut his speed. He could see diagonally ahead of him, across meadows and creek beds, the

black structure of a warehouse. The railroad evidently passed beyond it on the side of Long Island Sound.

The Shadow had anticipated that a warehouse must be in the picture, because the freight would have to stop

at a siding to pick up a legitimate car scheduled for delivery. Without such a stop, the thieves would be

The Shadow dismounted from the motorcycle and sent it splashing into a morass of weeds and mud that lined

the far side of the road. He began to race across the soggy meadow that lay between him and the dark

By the time he had crossed the reedy expanse of grass and ooze, he was muddy from head to foot. But his

He passed a long brick wall and approached the tracks of the railroad. No sign of a freight train! It had come

and gone! The long delays that had interrupted The Shadow's pursuit had ruined his plans as he had feared.

He raced past the front of the warehouse toward the east end. It was at the east end that the sidings were

The darkness was profound. Not an object moved in the night. The Shadow halted suddenly. He had been

watching the warehouse for a clue as to what it might contain. An illuminated sign near the roof answered his

But it wasn't the sign that had halted The Shadow. He whirled to stare down the dark railroad tracks. The

brief flare of an electric torch had caught his eye. He saw the glimmering outline of a man's face and

The beam of the light played for a scant instant on the side of a motionless box car. The Pooltex shipment!

Other figures crowded around the man who held that torch. Four of them. They held queer, longhandled

implements, curved at the ends like enormous hockey sticks. The Shadow knew enough about railroading to

understand their purpose: they were pinch bars used to tool a car along the track by using them as levers

As The Shadow watched, the four figures separated. The light went out. But he could hear the faint sounds of

the moving box car and he knew it was being rolled rapidly along. It vanished into complete invisibility.

The Shadow began to move stealthily forward. He had taken barely three or four cautious steps when again

he halted. This time a human sound rooted him motionless. It was the feeble cry of a man. It came from the

TERROR was in that distant scream. The Shadow recognized in it the despairing wail of a man face to face

with death. He hesitated. It cost him a grim effort to abandon temporarily his pursuit of the car thieves, but

Ruthless as he was in the pursuit of crime, The Shadow was first of all a human being. He had heard only one

man's cry, but he suspected there were three other victims. The four insurance guards!

He raced along a straight siding that extended parallel to the east wall of the warehouse. The spur ended in a

steel bumper. There was a gasoline hand car resting motionless on the rails a few feet from the end of the

The terrified feeble cry in the darkness still continued. It came from a cuplike declivity down below that

The Shadow, peering, could see four huddled figures in the hollow. Three of them were lying unconscious.

The fourth was upright, his arms waving desperately. Something queer about the appearance of those four

The upright man ended abruptly at his waist. The rest of him was buried out of sight. From his struggling

THE SHADOW realized the answer the moment he saw those quivering ripples. Another man would have

rushed down the clay bank, darted heedlessly out to the rescue of the sinking victims. The Shadow

He noted the gasoline hand car on the siding track. He saw also a projecting hook and a pulley in the second

story of the grain warehouse. There was no rope in this pulley that was evidently designed to lift bales of

Lying on the ground, neatly coiled, was something stronger and far more useful to his purpose. A

steellinked chain! It was the chain used to cradle the heavy bales of hay and grain when they were swung

Close to where the chain lay coiled was a stout oaken barrel. It was filled with refuse, but all The Shadow

By itself the barrel was useless for his purpose. The chain, too, was hopeless for one man's strength to haul

four men out of that sucking grave in the quicksand. But, used in combination with the motionless gasoline

car on the siding, it suggested a daring piece of strategy to The Shadow's alert mind.

A tiny implement appeared from The Shadow's pocket. It was a pair of pliers equipped with sharpnicked

jaws for cutting wires. He clipped the wire hoops from the barrel. A thrust of his foot kicked the loosened

He had already coiled the steel chain around his shoulders. Grabbing four of the wide barrel staves, he let

The four victims were sinking steadily into their sucking grave. The Shadow made no effort to rush

immediately to their help. Such a course would inevitably have engulfed him before he could loop their

He laid the four staves parallel on the ground. He looped them together in a double width with wire from the

barrel. They looked now exactly like what they were intended to be a pair of doublewidth skis,

approximately eight inches wide. The Shadow placed a foot on each of them, midway between the slightly

THE improvised skis made ominous, sucking sounds. The Shadow could feel the sticky tug of the quicksand

He skimmed toward the only one of the four engulfed men who was conscious. He recognized the man as one

of the insurance guards. The man's dazed eyeballs were staring, milkywhite from the effects of some

powerful drug. He clutched at the leg of the skimming Shadow and nearly dragged him down.

The Shadow wrenched awkwardly away, keeping his balance by a tremendous effort. He knew that if he fell

he was doomed. Before he could regain his equilibrium, he would be sucked and held tight like a fly on

He circled the clutching man, slid suddenly close behind him and struck him on the skull with the steel

wirecutter. The insurance guard's head sagged. The Shadow had acted with merciful speed to save life, not

to destroy it. He was free now to work swiftly against the grip of the quicksand.

The light, flexible chain was looped about the shoulders of each of the four partially engulfed men. It

tightened, holding them together as if they were bales of hay. When this was accomplished, The Shadow

darted back toward the edge of the bog. Not once did he pause in his movements over the molten sand. To

He reached the foot of the clay bank and ripped the improvised skis from his feet. Holding the end of the

chain, which he had paid out behind him as he retreated, he climbed the bank and ran toward the gasoline car

on the railroad spur. He anchored the chain to the rear axle and started the engine.

There was a shuddering tug, the chain tightened but the car remained in the same spot. Its wheels spun

vainly. The weight of the four men in the bog made it impossible for the car to gain traction enough to move

The Shadow sanded the track in front of and behind the car's wheels. Then he tried the engine again. For a

second or so the wheels continued to revolve uselessly, then they took hold. The steel chain jerked. It began

Instantly The Shadow throttled the engine. He halted the car and ran back. The looped victims at the end of

the chain were lying in a confused mass at the bottom of the slope of clay. But they were free from the

quicksand! The Shadow's clever brain and prompt action had jerked them out of a living grave.

The force of the pull that had yanked them loose was terrific. They were bleeding and unconscious. But they

THE SHADOW made no attempt to carry them up the steep bank. Not once during that daring rescue had he

allowed himself to forget that thieves were racing away through the darkness with a stolen box car loaded

He darted back to the main line of the railroad. He raced through the darkness on the vanished trail of those

murderous hijackers. It was impossible to think that they could be very far away. They were, after all, only

Somewhere near by there must be a spot where an entire box car could be hidden cleverly from prying eyes.

The Shadow hurried nearly a half mile before a possible solution to the mystery occurred to him. He turned

from the track and followed a rusty spur line that wound away through clump of scrub pine and thorny

But just before it ended, the track split. Another spur curved to an abandoned twostory warehouse that rose

Nearly all of its windows were broken. The few that remained were thick with dirt. The siding led straight to

the closed door of this strange structure and vanished inside. The door was plenty large enough to admit the

But had the Pooltex car actually gone into this ghostly building? The siding rails were thick with rust. So

thick, in fact, was the coating of rust that The Shadow became instantly suspicious. Kneeling, he made an

interesting discovery. The rust had been produced by chemical action instead of slow weathering.

The Shadow smelled the reddish flakes he smeared on his forger. He was familiar enough with chemicals to

detect the faint reek of a sulphurated oxygen compound. A powerful reagent had been used by the thieves to

Observation confirmed his judgment that the stolen car had been pushed inside this ancient warehouse with

the shattered windows. The tall weeds and grass growing between the rails had been bent and broken off by

the passage of the box car. All along the siding, right up to the door of the warehouse, the trail was like an

The Shadow had no trouble sliding the entrance door aside on its track. The track on which it rolled was

But inside there was no trace of the box car. Nothing except the empty track that led straight to the side of a

The Shadow snapped on his electric torch. It worked beautifully in spite of his recent plunge into deep water.

He discovered at once a strange fact. Weeds grew everywhere in the earthen floor except for a square space

where the track ended against the loadingplatform bumper. The earth here seemed to be very flat. The

Shadow suspected that someone had very recently patted it neatly down with a shovel.

He worked busily at the edges of this unusual area with probing finger tips. In a moment or so he uncovered

THE crack was undoubtedly one edge of a platform sunk in the ground, camouflaged with dirt to make it

look like the rest of the floor. There was a break in the rails at the outer edge. Someone had filled the tiny

The platform of a car elevator! But where was the controlling mechanism, and how did it work?

The obvious spot was the bumper at the end of the track. The Shadow's glance returned to it after a swift

scrutiny elsewhere. He knew enough about bumpers to know that this specimen contained one gadget too

many. An object like a short length of pipe stuck up from the steel framework behind the buffer.

The Shadow tried to twist it, but it was immovable. Pressing it down brought no better result. But in twisting

it, The Shadow felt the pipe tilt slightly to the left. He pushed it harder, and it bent until it lay flat against the

There was a slight click. The platform under The Shadow's feet quivered. It began to sink gently.

The Shadow went down with it to a gentle stop. His torch showed him that he was in an immense chamber

hollowed out of the ground beneath the warehouse area. It showed him more than that. Directly behind him,

on a curved track where it had been backed from the elevator, was an empty box car.

The Shadow recognized it instantly from the waybill and the chalk marks on the door. It was the car that had

contained the first Pooltex shipment from the factory in Massachusetts. The one that had been stolen on that

There was no sight, however, of the car which The Shadow had last seen vanishing down the freight line a

moment or so before cries for help had sent him racing toward the four insurance guards in the quicksand.

The second stolen shipment was still invisible, but he could guess where it had gone.

He was facing a long, horizontal tunnel cut through the earth. Tracks led along the floor of that tunnel,

But the track's abrupt ending was merely an optical illusion. Following the beam of his electric torch, The

Shadow discovered that the track turned in a sharp curve. The tunnel continued for a hundred yards or so and

then curved again. This time there was no illusion about the fact that the tunnel was ended. It stopped in front

Just inside that barrier, filling the track and most of the tunnel, was a motionless box car. The Shadow had

The seals on the door were broken. The car yawned empty of the precious cloth for which two overseas

nations were willing to pay millions particularly the warlike nation on whose grimly manned ship in New

THE marks of deep footprints in the soft earth alongside the track showed where the hijacked cloth had

No attempt had been made to conceal the mechanism that operated this sturdy door. Apparently the thieves

were convinced that their cave in the earth was detectiveproof from the inside. A wheel and a valve

When The Shadow turned the wheel he heard the faint hiss of compressed air. The heavy door slid sideways

on rollers. It disappeared into a slitted recess cut into the side of the tunnel.

The Shadow had extinguished his torch. For a moment he could see nothing but blackness before him. He

waited, listening intently for the sound of busy feet and voices. But the silence was profound.

Fresh air blew gustily into The Shadow's peering face. He knew he was facing the open air. He could smell

His eyes became accustomed to the blackness in front of him. He saw that it was a leafy screen. Bushes and

vines had been twisted together to form a perfect camouflage for that square opening in the earth.

How perfect it was The Shadow did not fully appreciate until he had wormed his way through to the starlit

He was standing on the side of a clay bluff covered with tangled vegetation. Above his head the bluff rose to

a crest about thirty feet up. Below, the bank descended sharply to a narrow dirt road.

The Shadow scrambled down to the road below and immediately he uttered an exclamation of disgust.

In the clay of the narrow road were the marks of heavy trucks. He could see the turnings where those trucks

had backed under the opening in the bank to receive the stolen cloth. The broad treadmarks of heavyduty

tires were easily discernible. At least three trucks had driven away with the hijacked Pooltex.

The Shadow's dogged pursuit, slowed up by a series of unfortunate interruptions, had been in vain.

But the tiremarks themselves told him a definite story. They pointed, not south toward New York, where the

FROM Clyde Burke's report, relayed to him by the faithful Burbank, The Shadow knew that Captain Dakker

expected to sail for an unknown destination in three days. The truck marks in the soft clay of that rutted

Connecticut lane verified what The Shadow already had deduced from his study of this amazing case.

He divined instantly where Captain Dakker's elusive ship would sail when it slipped away from New York.

No matter what its clearance papers showed, Dakker's ship would sail for Boston! There was no other

One other fact made The Shadow give vent to a harsh peal of laughter. He was still uncertain about the

identity of Paul Dominick. But he was definitely aware of the identity of the masked man who had ridden on

The Shadow had noted the masked man's height, the breadth of his shoulders, his gait of walking and

running. The Shadow had not seen this cunning leader of the crooks since he had left the train in the guise of

a frightened tramp. But he was satisfied he could lay a finger on him now any time he chose.

The Shadow, too, turned his footsteps to the north. He vanished like a black wraith under the pale stars.

JOE CARDONA sat in the spacious lobby of the Eagle Hotel. Joe's appearance and his method of dress were

altered considerably. He bore no resemblance to the stocky detective familiar to loungers and reporters at

Nor did he seem like the frowzy hobo who owed his life to the prompt intervention of The Shadow several

Joe was neither well dressed nor shabby. A man whom it would be hard to remember in a crowd. He was

reading a newspaper and he kept the pages spread in front of his face. He turned the pages, but not often.

For a small industrial town like Kendall, Mass., the Eagle Hotel was unusually large. Its spacious lobby made

Cardona's task fairly easy. An added advantage was the pouring rain outside. As a consequence, nearly all the

Joe had plenty on his mind behind that newspaper. His private investigations had brought him unerringly to

this town where the Pooltex factory was located. Three other people had preceded him to the Eagle Hotel a

He had punctured a tiny hole in the spread page of his newspaper. He was watching the elevator. Suddenly he

saw a man emerge from the car and cross the lobby with careless indolence. But Cardona was not deceived.

The New York playboy went straight to a coin telephone booth and made a call. Cardona dared not listen in

from an adjoining booth, although he suspected the foxy Milton was calling from downstairs in order to avoid

Milton emerged in a minute or two looking more anxious than ever under his mask of indifference. He went

Cardona kept his eyes on the arrow of the elevator shaft. On the floor where the car stopped, Milton had a

ALMOST immediately one of these two persons entered the lobby from the dripping street outside. A

darkhaired girl of an attractive Spanish type. She took her key from the clerk and went upstairs.

The clerk smiled because she was beautiful. Cardona smiled behind his newspaper because the girl's disguise

hadn't fooled him in the least. Her lovely figure and her swaying walk could not be altered as easily as her

There had been no mention in the paper of a postponement of the show in which she was starring. Evidently

an understudy was carrying on in her role while she made this sudden trip to a Massachusetts textile town.

She ascended to the same floor where Milton had gone. Five minutes passed. Cardona never moved. Then a

third figure hurried into the lobby in a wet, shiny raincoat. This was Lily Wallace, daughter of Edgar Pool's

And no doubt about what she was up to. She was trailing the disguised blonde, who had taken a room on the

Everybody seemed to be interested in Milton, Cardona thought grimly. Lily's father had been to the hotel

much earlier in the morning. He had entered by a side door and had gone straight upstairs. When he left

Roy Wallace's handsome face had been white with rage. If ever the lust for murder showed in a man's

Cardona continued to read his spread newspaper. He intended to sneak upstairs at the first quiet opportunity.

He was particularly interested in Lily Wallace. She looked nervous, almost hysterical.

JOE'S guess about Lily was right. She walked to her room with faltering steps and closed the door. The

moment she was inside, she began to tremble uncontrollably. A sob escaped her lips. But she bit it off with a

grim effort at selfcontrol. Her room was next door to the one occupied by George Milton. She crouched

She expected a prompt visit of Viola Kent, and she wanted to listen to their whispered talk.

For a long while Lily heard nothing. Two or three times she altered her strained position against the wall,

stretched her stiffened muscles. Then she heard it! Something totally different from the rustle of whispered

There was a queer double thump, like the leap of heavy footsteps. Milton's voice lifted in a strangled cry:

"Don't! Don't!" It was followed by an ugly thud and the sound of a body falling to the floor. Utter silence

Lily Wallace swayed away from the wall. Terror rooted her legs. The hotel seemed wrapped in a dreadful

A thought broke Lily's paralysis of motion. She tottered to her window and peered out into the rain.

Her room and Milton's faced on a rear alley. Fire escape steps led in a steep slant to the dark pavement below.

As Lily peered she saw a hurrying figure leap from the lowest platform and vanish along the rainswept

A man whose broad back and stocky shoulders made Lily's heart stand still with a terrified surmise. She was

convinced she had just seen her father melt into the shadows along that dim, highwalled alley!

The thing that she had been dreading had happened! Blackness swept before her eyes. When she recovered,

she was lying on the floor near the open window. She saw the hands of the clock on her dresser and realized

The silence next door was gone. Light footsteps were audible. Someone was sobbing. A woman!

The sobbing ceased. A door squeaked. Lily moved stealthily to her own door and opened it gently, inch by

inch. A woman was tiptoeing swiftly down the dim length of the corridor to a room at the far end.

The woman's head and body were wrapped in a hooded raincoat, but Lily had no difficulty recognizing the

IN an instant, Viola Kent's door closed with a discreet little click. Lily's, too, closed. She was out in the hall

almost before she was aware that she had moved. Her heart was beating with a force that seemed to split her

She turned the knob of Milton's room and entered, closing his door behind her. She forgot to lock it. The

sight of the gruesome thing on the floor drove every other thought from Lily's mind.

Milton's head lay in a horrible pool of blood. He had been struck down with a savage blow to the skull. Then

a knife had been drawn swiftly across the unconscious playboy's throat. His clothing and the rug on which he

Milton's right hand was clenched tightly. So taut was his grip that the knuckles were white.

Lily's stilled throat began to breathe again. She remembered why she had entered this room, why she was

taking so insane a chance on being discovered. She forced the taut fingers apart. Lily, staring at the object in

The object in the dead man's hand was a gold cuff link. It was something Lily had seen many times. She

herself had bought these links as a birthday present. The initials "R. W." were engraved in a neat design on

Swiftly, Lily clutched the damning clue from Milton's palm. Blood smeared her hand and the sleeve of her

coat, but she didn't care. Her dress underneath was clean and unspotted. She could dispose of the coat

She turned to sneak back to her own room. As she took a cautious step forward, the handle of Milton's door

Instantly Lily flung herself at the door. Her hand darted out to lock it. If she could throw the lock and race

Too late! The door was flung grimly open before Lily could fasten it. A man stood quietly on the threshold

THE fugitive who had leaped from the lowest platform of the fire escape to the dim, rainswept pavement of

the alley was unaware that the frightened eyes of Lily Wallace had seen him vanish.

He remained perfectly quiet for an instant, resting lightly on the balls of his feet. The wet overhang of the tall

But the rain kept hissing on the pavement at his feet, and he was confident that neither his quick breathing nor

His shoulders were wide and powerful. From the rear, his stocky body was a replica of Roy Wallace's. But

Wallace's broad, rather fleshy face and the sharp countenance of this fugitive from a dead man's room had

nothing in common. This man's complexion was sallow, not ruddy. His nose was pointed and thin at the

He was the faithless workman who had tried to ransack the laboratory safe in the Pooltex factory. Paul

He had made a clean getaway from a nasty spot. Luck was still with him. The drumming rain, beating down

from black clouds overhead, made the alley a dim tunnellike expanse. The exit from the alley opened on a

Dominick was certain the street would be deserted by pedestrians. Or if anyone saw him, they would assume

He began to hasten down the alley, keeping close to the wall. As he passed a group of ash cans piled in empty

tiers near the head of the alley, he veered. His slight sideward motion changed instantly to a wild jump. His

In the slant of the rain, his blackclad figure seemed gigantic in height. His eyes held a fierce gleam. He

DOMINICK was caught in a grip of steel. He was whirled around on his heels and sent plunging headlong

behind the ash cans. He tried to roll over and regain his feet with almost one motion.

But Dominick's motion involved the use of a pistol. He had the weapon partly out as he came to his knees.

That halfcompleted gesture was as much as The Shadow permitted. The crack of a blackgloved fist against

the base of Dominick's ear sent him sprawling again on his face in muddy water. He lay limply this time.

The Shadow bent over him. Both were invisible from the alley as well as the exit to the street, where a grilled

Swiftly The Shadow searched his prisoner. The blackgloved hands missed nothing. But what little they

found drew a rustle of sibilant laughter from The Shadow's lips. He replaced the objects in the same pockets

With a swift, gliding motion, The Shadow turned and hurried to the grilled gate that blocked the alley exit.

The Shadow eased through the gate and closed it gently behind him. He vanished through the dark slant of

Dominick lay inertly where he had fallen. His eyes opened presently, stung into consciousness by the cold,

steady beat of the rain. He groaned faintly. Then his dazed eyes cleared and he uttered no more betraying

Screened by the tiers of empty ash cans, he allowed his worried eyes to stare aloft. His gaze went straight

toward the window of the room from which he had fled. He stiffened as he saw the face of a man looking

PAUL DOMINICK crept from his dangerous hiding place. Pure luck had saved him from discovery. Had he

collapsed a few feet farther after the numbing blow on his skull had robbed him of consciousness, he would

To that extent he was in the favor of the blackrobed figure who had beaten him so grimly to the attack. He

wasted no time in speculating about The Shadow's identity and purpose. Like The Shadow, he made a hasty

He melted past the alley gate. The few pedestrians who were hurrying along in the rain paid no particular

attention to the fugitive. He ran a brisk trot to where an automobile stood parked.

In a moment the engine sputtered and the car drew away from the curb. It continued down the street toward

But this was not the real direction in which Dominick planned to drive. His hands swung the wheel deftly. He

Presently he was headed toward the suburbs of the town of Kendall. His goal was the Pooltex plant.

MEANWHILE, back in the hotel, Joe Cardona was busy with the grim business of the law.

Lily Wallace was standing barely a few feet from where the blooddrenched body of George Milton lay. But

she paid no attention to the gruesome corpse. Her desperate eyes were glued on Cardona and on the object

"I've told you the truth," she gasped. "A man ran down the fire escape to the alley from this room. A man I

"No one else ever did, either," Cardona rejoined. "That strange man is the bunk!" He held out the

bloodstained cuff link which he had snatched from her coat pocket after she had vainly tried to hide it. "Any

"My father is innocent," she said dully. "He was not in this room or this hotel."

"No? I saw Wallace come up to this floor not more than an hour ago. He sneaked back again through the

alley for safety. You covered his getaway. You sneaked in here from your own room to make sure that "

"To make sure," Cardona continued evenly, "that no clues were left to incriminate him. The cuff link was in

Milton's hand. You pried it out. Or do you claim that the fresh blood on your hand and your sleeve is a

Lily's lips tightened. The marks of terror left her pale face as abruptly as though a sponge had passed over her

"I did take the link from Milton's dead hand," she admitted tonelessly. "My father was here earlier this

morning, as you found out. He and Milton had a fight and the link was lost at that time. Milton picked it up

"Are you trying to tell me that Milton picked it up with his throat slit from ear to ear?"

"Because he was a rotten blackmailer! He framed me with lying photographs horrible nude pictures that he

made by superimposing one picture's head on the body of another. The fake picture was then rephotographed

"Milton boasted to me exactly how he had done it with the aid of a crooked photographer pal. He demanded

money as the price of his silence. Father paid him five thousand dollars, but he came back for more. So I I

"You've been using that blackmail gag as a coverup ever since the start of this Pooltex conspiracy. It's a

phony excuse to alibi the payoff made to Milton by your father for his split in the freight car robbery.

Milton wanted a bigger slice. He threatened to squeal. So Wallace gave him his big slice across the throat!"

"Are you sure that this guy you claimed you saw in the alley wasn't a workman from the factory named Paul

"O.K. Forget it! Milton, Dominick and your slippery father are all innocent bystanders!"

THERE was bitter sarcasm in Cardona's voice. He seized the girl by the arm and walked her out into the

corridor. In a few swift steps he led her to the room at the end of the hall that was occupied by Viola Kent.

Impatiently he rattled the knob and to his surprise the door opened. Viola had left it unlocked. The reason

The disguised blond actress had fled from her room in a frightened hurry. Drawers in her dresser had been

pulled out and left open. A pile of blackened ash on the tiled floor below an oldfashioned mantelpiece

Cardona's grim elation vanished. He had expected to confront Lily with this actress whom he knew was a

Hurrying Wallace's daughter along with him, Cardona raced down the hall and punched the elevator button.

He descended grimly in the car, unmindful of the suspicious stare of the operator. The operator heard Lily's

sobs, noted the tight hand on her arm; but there was a look on the face of Cardona that deterred any

Straight across the lobby Cardona strode. He paused at the desk, still holding Lily's wrist.

"Did a darkhaired, Spanishlooking dame check out of here a few minutes ago?" he demanded. "She's

"I'm Acting Inspector Cardona of the New York police and I want some information from you in a hurry!

The clerk changed his tune instantly. He was aware that there was something queer about this Miss Divine.

Her secret comings and goings had convinced him that she was up to some crooked game. In a tremulous

voice he gave Joe all the information he had. Grace Divine had hurriedly left by the front door of the hotel.

In an instant, both were outside in the pelting rain. A cab moved up along the curb, and Joe and Lily got in.

The cab driver answered Joe's curt question. His reply brought a frosty gleam to Cardona's eyes.

A shapely brunette had grabbed the cab just ahead of him, the hacker admitted with a reminiscent smile of

Cardona's voice had the rasp of a heavy file in it. "Take us to the same place. And make it twice as snappy!"

AT the Pooltex plant, the two partners and the technical adviser were in conference.

"Are you sure that there was no mistake about that longdistance call from Connecticut?" Roy Wallace cried

"None at all," Doctor Andrew Leach replied. His face was grim. "The man who called up was Mike

Broderick. One of the guards on the train. He and his three companions were drugged inside the box car en

"Broderick remembers that because he was partly conscious when he was rescued. He fainted when the chain

yanked him out of the bog. After he came to, he was lying near the rear of a hayandgrain warehouse.

Wallace remained silent, gnawing at his lip. He seemed to be laboring under an excitement which he tried to

cover from the other two men. They were standing in his private office at the factory under the glare of an

"This tale of a robed stranger sliding over quicksand on skis to rescue Broderick and his companions with a

long chain it sounds like an alibi, if you ask me," Wallace said faintly. "I don't believe it! Those guards are

"Your plan of hiding in the laboratory here last night, doctor, didn't work out so well," Pool murmured.

"No doubt of it," Leach groaned. "I never closed my eyes once last night. And all the while I was sitting there

like a fool, Dominick was miles away, in Connecticut, stealing the second shipment!"

"No?" A sudden voice rasped from the doorway. "Well, you're going to have police whether you want them

JOE CARDONA advanced toward the startled trio, still holding to the slack arm of Lily Wallace.

Her father recoiled for an instant. Then, as he recognized Lily and saw that she was a prisoner, his face

"Who are you? Oh Cardona; eh? I told you in New York that you had no jurisdiction in this State, and that

"Father, be quiet! Don't talk. He's trying to frame you for a murder!" Lily gasped.

"Yeah," Cardona said. "A man named George Milton. Somebody slashed his throat from ear to ear over in the

"You had a quarrel with Milton," Cardona added curtly. "Your own daughter has already admitted that.

Milton headed the gang that stole the Pooltex. That five thousand dollars you paid him in New York was part

"I do." Cardona didn't add that his knowledge of the transaction had come from an unsigned note shoved

secretly under his apartment door on the morning before he had left town. Cardona suspected that The

Shadow had written that message, but officially he never admitted the existence of The Shadow.

"So you paid him the money," Cardona continued evenly. "He squealed for more dough, threatened to spill

what he knew. And you killed him you and your crooked pal, Dominick, whom you planted in this factory

"Sorry," a voice interrupted dryly. "I was planted in the factory, all right, but not by Mr. Wallace. Get those

His face was etched in watchful lines. The gun that menaced Cardona was steady as a rock. Joe's hands lifted

For a moment there was utter silence. Wallace and his partner backed against the wall. So did Doctor Leach.

But Cardona never moved. He was stiffening himself for a counterattack against the man with the gun. He

knew the odds were against him, but he had no thought of surrender. He was conscious of the little belly gun

PAUL DOMINICK sensed the peril in the eyes of the motionless detective. He laughed thinly.

"Sorry to have to pull a rod on you like this, Cardona. It was the only way to keep you from blowing me apart

before I could get a word in. I was afraid you wouldn't believe my little story."

"Thanks for the bum compliment, but I don't happen to be a crook! I've got a tougher job than that and it

damned near earned me a broken neck last night when I got tossed from a freight car roof! I'm an insurance

Dominick nodded. "My correct name is Paul Donnelly." His left hand flicked a leather folder out of his

pocket and tossed it at the feet of Cardona. His gun remained steady while Cardona bent and opened it.

Cardona scanned the document and the pasted photo with narrowed eyes. The thing was authentic. The

agency manager of Argus Indemnity was a personal friend of Joe's and he recognized the familiar signature.

"O.K. I'm glad you pulled the gun on me. I'd hate to blast you by mistake. Got any idea what's back of all this

"The same idea you have," Donnelly said. "I think the wise guy is Mr. Roy Wallace!"

Wallace was mouthing thickly in his eagerness to talk. Lily tried to restrain him by throwing a desperate palm

Cardona had his belly gun out now. Donnelly, too, kept his weapon leveled. But before anything could

happen, a rapid clicking sound echoed from the factory floor beyond the private office. It was the swift echo

THE door that Donnelly had swung shut behind him was thrown violently open with a force that banged it

against the wall. A woman plunged breathlessly into the room. She was barely able to talk. Rain had streaked

But Viola Kent's lowtoned words were like vengeful bullets spurting from hard carmine lips:

"You sly, doublecrossing rat! You killed him, didn't you? Sneaked into his room and slashed him to death!"

The glare of her blue eyes focused on the group cowering against the wall. Wallace cringed as the eyes

"Who said he did?" Viola's voice rose shrilly. She was pointing with a quivering finger straight at the face of

her startled fiance. "Edgar Pool! Smart scientist! Slimy rat! That's who killed George Milton!"

"Yeah?" Viola's veneer of breeding had cracked under the strain of her rage and grief. She had been born on

Tenth Avenue in a cheap tenement, and it was now evident. She spat oaths until Cardona said grimly:

"Stop that kind of talk and give us some facts! What makes you think Pool killed Milton?" His gun swerved

"I never loved Pool," Viola cried. "I was using him to get ahead on the stage. The man I loved was George

"But Pool got wise! Doctor Leach put him wise. Pool slashed Milton's throat. He took the knife away with

"Was the knife missing when you entered Milton's room?" Cardona asked Donnelly swiftly.

"Yes," the insurance dick replied. "I hunted for it, but couldn't find it. Then I heard Lily in the room next door

and took a quick fadeout down the fire escape. Pool must have scrammed down the hotel stairs to the side

"Ridiculous," the inventor murmured. There was sweat on his pallid face. "Why should I kill a man for

"It wasn't love," Viola cried fiercely. "It was greed! Profits from Pooltex that you yourself stole! You were

foolish enough to drop a hint one night in my apartment after you'd had a bit too much liquor and I told

Milton. We found out what was going on, where you were hiding the stolen fabric. You have the stuff hidden

Cardona's eyes and Donnelly's had been riveted on the cowering figure of Pool. Doctor Leach had drawn

But as Cardona's eyes flicked suddenly sideways, he saw Leach's hand lift. A gun glittered. Leach's finger

Cardona swerved aside, and so did Donnelly. The slug whistled between the two detectives.

At the same instant Leach darted through the doorway. Pool was already ahead of him. Their fleeing feet

They were plunging down a narrow stairway in the rear before Cardona and Donnelly could fire a shot to halt

Ahead was a short corridor that ended in an open doorway. There was a steellined room beyond and another

doorway. The second door slammed as Cardona sped toward it. He wasted precious time wrenching viciously

Donnelly, who was a step or two behind Cardona, whirled suddenly. The door behind them had slammed

shut! Again a heavy bolt clicked. They were caught in the highceilinged room. Trapped for death!

Cardona realized the truth when he saw the piled ingots of copper. Donnelly's voice at his ear was a whisper

of despair. As Paul Dominick, he had made it his business to learn every fact about this remarkable textile

He knew it was woven from metallic threads of drawn copper. The copper was melted in a tremendous blast

Donnelly pointed to the intervening wall. The square outline of a closed panel was evident.

"There's a mechanical device that pivots down from the ceiling and sweeps the copper ingots through that

opened panel into the furnace. There's no way of avoiding it. They're going to start the furnace! They mean to

As he spoke, a hinged section of the ceiling peeled away like skirt. It dropped like a vertical wall on polished

rollers. It moved steadily forward. Files of copper ingots slid remorselessly ahead of the moving barrier. The

room became smaller and smaller. Donnelly and Cardona were forced to retreat step by step.

Suddenly Cardona heard something that convinced him he was losing his mind. From the depths of the cold

furnace came an utterly unexpected sound. The grim whisper of sibilant laughter!

A figure was visible in the panel opening. A face with a powerful beaked nose and flashing eyes. A

blackrobed arm beckoned to the two detectives. They were being ordered to enter the cold furnace by a

FOR an instant, Cardona stood rooted. Donnelly's jaw hung agape. The metal wall behind them shoved them

He was staring dazedly past the figure of The Shadow. He saw with unbelieving eyes what was piled in this

bricklined chamber. Something utterly unexpected. Bale upon bale of graybrown cloth.

In that instant of stark amazement, Cardona and Donnelly forgot their peril. The Pooltex was acid and

flameproof. Edgar Pool had counted on this. Hidden in the heart of a furnace, it would remain unscathed.

The hidden cloth had probably under gone a half dozen flaming tests. It was merely added proof that Pooltex

The Shadow had already discovered this grim hiding place. He knew why Captain Dakker's ship had waited

so patiently at its pier in New York. He was aware the ship was now on its way to Boston. The transfer of the

The perfect crime was now laid bare. The Shadow had proved his case by penetrating to the cold interior of a

But unlike Cardona and Donnelly, The Shadow had not allowed himself to forget that the furnace was about

to roar into flame. Pool and Leach had been forced into mass murder to save themselves from arrest.

The Shadow's voice hissed a warning. He pointed toward the two side walls of the furnace. A horizontal row

of metal nozzles projected. Each of them was a flame vent fed by outside mechanism. Through those deadly

nozzles, vaporized oil would blaze to melt the ingots of copper that lay at their feet.

Shallow gutters in the floor would carry the molten copper to the closed panel at the far end of the firebrick

chamber. From there it descended by a chute to the floor below for cooling and drawing in the wire machines.

Down the barred chute where molten copper would pour presently was the only way out of the sealed

But The Shadow sprang swiftly in the opposite direction. He ran toward the bales of Pooltex. He sent the

cloth billowing on the floor in a tangled mass. Donnelly and Cardona were doing the same.

In a moment all three of them were wrapped like mummies in the closewoven textile. The Shadow made

swiftly sure that every atom of their flesh and clothing was covered by the tightly wrapped material. He made

He didn't do the same for himself. With two blinded men on his hands, The Shadow had to tempt death. He

left one eye his right partly exposed. It was a mere slit, barely wide enough to allow a vague blur of

vision but it was a gap in his armor, and he was grimly aware of the desperate chance he was taking.

ALL this had happened in a few seconds. Cardona's cry of amazement, Donnelly's swift glance toward the

deadly oil vents, and The Shadow's prompt action were almost simultaneous. The Shadow took a shuffling

step. The heavy wrappings of Pooltex impeded his progress. But it was not that which caused, him to stop

A scream echoed faintly from somewhere above the furnace. It was the shrill cry of a woman in mortal terror.

The Shadow had no time to ponder on the mystery of that sudden interruption from above. A louder sound

had now filled the fireproofed interior of the furnace: The hiss of vaporized oil spurting under heavy pressure

The hissing became a grinding roar as the flame of the automatic blower system ignited the oil. Fire spread in

a searing curtain, whitehot tongues of flame were writhing like living serpents over the crouched forms of

The Shadow's body supported them as they stumbled blindly backward like wrapped mummies. He drew

He could feel the searing heat like a bath of living light. His covered ears tingled with the roar of sound. The

THE scream from the stonefloored room above the insulated dome of the furnace had come from the

She had followed the pursuing feet of her father. Roy Wallace had seen Pool and Leach disappear down the

narrow stairway toward the receiving vault for the furnace. He had heard the double clang of automatic doors

bolting behind Donnelly and Cardona. To Wallace, the meaning of that phenomenon was ghastly clear.

He knew that his murderous associates planned to roast the two trapped detectives alive.

Wallace whirled instantly. The controls were in the cutting room. He raced through a corridor to the left.

Instead of descending, he climbed iron steps to a floor built like a mezzanine level in the rear of the plant. It

was here that the cutting room was located a bare area of concrete and steel where the machines stood that

chopped an endless flow of Pooltex cloth into the proper width to be wrapped into bolts for shipment.

Here, also, was the valve that controlled the giant oil blowers for the furnace.

No one impeded Roy Wallace on his mad dash for this spot. The plant had been closed down following the

theft of the second shipment. Wallace leaped through a narrow doorway with Lily close on his heels.

He halted with a hoarse cry. Pool and Leach were ahead of him, as he had feared. Leach was crouched near

the furnace valve, tugging at the mechanism, which seemed to be stuck. Pool was at his side, urging him to

As Wallace halted at the threshold, he swung up the barrel of his pistol. But Pool, warned by the approaching

Lily's shrill scream was cut short by the roar of the inventor's shot. Wallace toppled forward, a spreading stain

of crimson at the junction of his chest and shoulder. He tried feebly to rise, then he collapsed.

In the meantime, Leach had succeeded in turning the valve. There was the panting wheeze of the distant

blowers then a steady, faraway roar as ignited oil spewed under pressure into the furnace on the floor

Leach sprang away. A flying leap brought him across the room to where Lily Wallace was fighting

LEACH understood. He could hear the clicking of high heels on the stone floor outside. He knew Viola was

racing toward the control room. Snatching the terrified Lily, he swung her around, struck her brutally on the

Pool took care of Viola as she rushed through the doorway. Leach was already snatching stout cord from a

Leach tied up Viola first. She was twice as strong as Lily and struggled desperately. But her exertions were in

Leach turned his attention to the dazed Lily. Wallace lay unconscious, with blood from a severed vein

The two trussed girls were jerked stiffly to their feet. Leach darted across to the cutting machine. It was a

shining thing like a guillotine. A razorsharp knife was fixed on a movable shaft that rose and descended to

No guillotine knife was sharper than this blade. It was designed to shear through many thicknesses of cloth

Leach pulled a lever. The knife rose slowly upward. He jerked the lever again and the knife halted motionless

Lily Wallace was dragged roughly forward by the raging Pool. She fainted as he thrust her head in under the

Pool said hoarsely: "With these three fools decapitated, and those damned dicks roasted alive in the furnace

we'll have time for a fast getaway. We'll be on the ship at Boston and on our way abroad! We can trust

Leach nodded. His hand jerked sideways toward the machine's lever. Before he could move it, Pool halted

him. The inventor's eyes were fixed and bloodshot. He turned toward where the trussed figure of Viola was

"Watch closely," he taunted. "I'm leaving you for the last so that you'll have a full knowledge of what's in

store for you! Lily's death will be painless. But you! I'll see that your soft white neck is hacked very slowly

Viola screamed. The room rang with dreadful echoes. Pool nodded to his henchman. Leach's fingers closed

AS The Shadow sank to his knees under the roar of flaming oil inside a sealed furnace, he was conscious of

Cardona and Donnelly rather than himself. Streamers of flame licked and curled over their bent heads, darted

in yellow tongues along the fireproof fabric of the Pooltex. No sparks danced on that brownish cloth; no

smoldering fire ate through to sear the men beneath the tightly wrapped covering.

But the heat was terrific. Except for the nonconducting qualities of the cloth, the flesh would already have

been broiled on their bones. Donnelly swayed. Cardona was fast losing consciousness.

The Shadow shuffled forward. Directly in front of him was a solid wall of flame. Beyond it was the end of

the furnace where the vent was located, down which melted copper would pour presently to the cooling pits

The Shadow was aware that the vent door was insecurely fastened. He himself had forced it open from the

outside when he had ascended to examine the cold interior of the furnace. A quick tug would loosen it, slide

it upward. It was little more than ten feet away. But in those ten feet was a barrier like the flaming cone of a

The Shadow pierced its heart with a grim leap. Barely a second was required for his passage. But in that

second he felt himself blasted and buffeted by a whirlwind of pain. He moved blindly, both eyes completely

covered. His muscles twisted. He was falling and he was powerless to prevent it.

But as he toppled forward his head struck something smooth and hard, and he was dimly conscious that he

Holding his arm bent stiffly beneath the Pooltex covering, The Shadow felt desperately for the loosened catch

of the chute. The wrapped layers of fabric defeated his sense of touch. He couldn't find it!

Again he tried, and again. And then click! The thermostatic release he had previously damaged gave way.

For an instant The Shadow's head projected through the opening. He parted the protecting cloth away from

his mouth, breathing deeply. Then he was on his feet, facing the sheet of flame between him and his

They knew what he expected of them. The Shadow had spat a brief order into their shrouded ears before he

The insurance dick tried to obey, but his will was less strong than The Shadow's. He loomed like a gigantic,

reeling shape in the midst of a crackling inferno. He came a step forward, another, then his body slipped

The Shadow's right eye peered through the tiny slit he had made in his covering. The thump of Donnelly's

body had warned him what was happening. He saw the man fall in the split second it took him to peer and

His eyeball was dazzled with light. The eyebrow was singed away in an instant. But The Shadow had located

He dragged the insurance dick to the open chute and shoved him through. Donnelly's body whizzed

The Shadow's trumpet call echoed with every atom of strength in his scorched lungs. He repeated the name

vainly. No answer came from the depths of the flame. No mummywrapped figure reeled into view.

He found him flat on his face where he had fallen. A quick tug, a straining lift, and Cardona swung upward in

The Shadow's extended arms. The Pooltex fabric hung loosely over those hidden arms like an oversize cloak.

But The Shadow had turned and was staggering back again. He had pierced the flame twice. Could he pierce

it for a third time? His will was useless now. All sense, thought, muscular coordination was gone from him

now in the agonized pain that ripped through flesh and blood and nerve ends. All he had left to guide him was

His body felt like baked stone. Not a muscle moved that he was aware of. He couldn't stir, but he could see.

Millions of miles away from him, bloodred words were emblazoned queerly on a black sky. "You are not

paralyzed. You are moving," the words read. It puzzled him until he felt something hard bump against his

A solid wall! The Shadow realized suddenly that the dazzling words he read were a luminous thought in his

own brain. A solid wall! The end of the furnace! His collision with it had pierced through the black veil of

The Shadow dropped Cardona, felt for the opening of the chute. This time it was directly beneath his hand. If

he had had to grope for it he would have died where he lay. But through that opening came fresh air! He was

able to twist desperately and to shove Cardona's slack body through the opening.

His whizzing descent was stopped by a grinding impact. He lay breathing in painful gasps. Feebly he drew

He was lying flat on his back in a stone trough sunk in an earthen floor. Cardona lay beside him. Donnelly

THE sight of his inert companions galvanized The Shadow into action. Fumbling, he unwound the wrapped

layers of fabric around them. Their faces were swollen and crimson from the tremendous heat through which

they had been dragged. The Shadow's own face felt as though it had been peeled raw.

Donnelly was out completely. Cardona's eyes fluttered open. He began to moan faintly.

The Shadow had risen to his feet. The Pooltex cloth lay in a tumbled mass where he had ripped it away. Not

the slightest evidence of a burn or a scorch was visible on that amazing fabric. The Shadow ran to the stone

base of a cooling fan. He bent and the twin guns he had hidden there gleamed in his hands.

Cardona saw him run with silent haste toward the slant of an apparatus that looked like a motionless

The slanting escalatorlike apparatus was really a series of square metal buckets that ran aloft on an endless

conveyor. The machinery for running it was not in use. The Shadow had no time to search for the lever.

He raced up the motionless incline, springing from bucket to bucket with fierce energy. The buckets were

At the top was a loading space, from which a short corridor led to a closed door. The upper part of the door

The Shadow's gun butt swung. The glass was batted out in a jangling crash. Jagged slivers remained in the

frame, pointing like daggers at The Shadow's throat as he peered through the smashed panel.

His eyes widened with horror. Pool was holding the unconscious body of Lily Wallace under the suspended,

knife of the cutting machine. Her head lolled in the grooved opening like a victim in a guillotine. Leach's

The crash of glass from the door wrenched Leach around. His hand left the lever and dived for his gun. Pool,

too, whirled. His weapon spat flame as he darted backward from Lily and let her unsupported body topple to

The Shadow saw neither the flash of the weapon nor the fall of Lily's body. He had gone headfirst through

the shattered glass the instant he saw Leach's hand jerk involuntarily away from that ominous lever.

Pool's bullet struck the casing of the door with a spiteful thwack! Leach's gun blazed.

But The Shadow was a difficult target. His head had ducked hingelike in midair as he dived, tucking itself

inward against his arched chest. He took the fall on his hunched shoulders and the back of his neck. His body

turned over in a swift somersault and he rebounded to his feet with a single motion.

A BULLET sliced The Shadow's sleeve. Another ripped across his jaw like the passage of a redhot blade.

His rush took him partly past Leach. Before the laboratory man could whirl, The Shadow rammed into his

partly turned ribs and threw him off balance. Both men went down. Edgar Pool's bullet split the air above the

The Shadow's heel kicked backward and caught the onrushing figure of Pool squarely in the stomach. He

heard a shriek of agony and the drumming sound of the inventor's heels as he writhed helplessly on the floor.

The Shadow had beaten Leach to the trigger! A slug ripped into the killer's chest at the exact spot at which

The Shadow had aimed. The kick of the bullet sent Leach backward, his gun falling from paralyzed fingers.

In another moment The Shadow was master of the situation. Before Pool could recover from the kick, he was

Leach was no longer a menace. He was breathing with short, painful gasps, his hands pressed tightly over the

A thump sounded over near the opposite wall. Viola Kent had seen Lily snatched miraculously from beneath

the suspended knife of the cutting machine. The reaction was too much for her horrified nerves. She had

The Shadow bent over Lily's father. Wallace was bleeding badly, but in no danger of death. The Shadow

drew a sigh of relief. Alive, Wallace would form with his daughter and Viola a trio of witnesses whose

The Shadow had all the facts in his possession. All The Shadow needed now was their corroboration and a

confession. He had already decided on a simple police method to extort the latter. Pool and Leach were rats;

The sound of stumbling feet came from the corridor outside the smokefilled room. A man's face peered

Joe had managed to climb the same motionless buckets up which The Shadow had sped. He lurched inside as

The Shadow unlocked the door and threw it open. Joe's face was grim when he saw the wounded Leach and

THE SHADOW'S back was toward Pool. Pool couldn't see The Shadow's lips move, nor could he hear the

"Doctor Leach is dying," he said bruttally. "No use your trying to protect him any longer. He killed Milton,

The inventor's frightened eyes glared. He fell for the trap exactly as The Shadow had planned. He clutched at

the straw of selfpreservation. A dead man couldn't testify! Pool saw a desperate chance to take a prison

"Yes," he gasped. "Leach killed Milton! Leach did it! I I begged him not to. But he he sneaked into the

"You lie, you doublecrossing rat!" Leach's closed eyes had fluttered open. They were stony with hate and

"You're dying!" he growled. "That slug went right smack through your lungs! You got it trying to help Pool.

You die he lives. Do you want to talk now? Or do you want to die, a sucker to the last?"

Leach's lips bubbled froth. He was so eager to talk that his throat gagged. Cardona supported him until the

Cardona had fished a pencil stub from his pocket and an envelope which he ripped wide open. He wrote

Pool kept screaming oaths in a high, cracked voice. The Shadow was no longer in the room. He had

When Leach had finished his confession, Cardona thrust the pencil into his slack fingers. "Sign it!"

When Leach had completed his signature, Joe began to chuckle. Leach's pale face stared up at him

"You aren't going to die, Doctor Leach not yet! That slug through the upper wall of your chest missed the

lung cavity. When you recover from that wound, you're going to die sitting up! In the same place Pool will

"And I hope they burn you last so you'll have time to think it over. Pool killed Milton. But you you're the

The insurance detective was still weak, but there was a quiet elation in his eyes. The strong arm of The

Shadow had guided his wavering feet to the cutting room. Donnelly was listening to Cardona. Cardona was

The Shadow stood motionless and silent in the doorway where glass lay in shattered fragments. His keen eyes

"Edgar Pool was the brains all the way through," Cardona said. "He directed the stealing of the Pooltex and

Leach did the job. It was Leach who killed my nephew. It was Leach who donned a black mask and rode with

the second shipment. That bluff of his about hiding all night with a .45 in the factory laboratory was a fake.

"Milton came into the case first by his successful blackmailing of Lily Wallace. Then Viola tipped him to

something bigger. She got a hint of the Pooltex conspiracy one night when Pool got drunk and let a word or

two slip. Milton came to Massachusetts and demanded his cut on the threat of a squeal. He got his cut from

"Wallace had already been to see Milton that morning in an effort to recover the faked nude photos that were

being held over his innocent daughter's head. There was a fight between them and Wallace lost his cuff link.

"Pool found it on the floor when he killed Milton. He shoved it into the dead man's hand to frame his partner

"You must have climbed into Milton's room a few minutes after Pool made his getaway."

"Yes. I was suspicious of Milton all along, but I thought he was in cahoots with Wallace. I beat it to the alley

the moment I saw what had happened. That's when The Shadow nailed me, and found out who I was after

"I still don't get Edgar Pool's motive. Why did he have to steal the Pooltex cloth? It was his in the first place."

"GREED," Cardona replied. "Greed and patriotism, if you want to call it that. Pool is not a native of the

United States. He's a naturalized citizen. He was born abroad in the same country where Captain Dakker was

born and the man they call Mr. East. That country had quadrupled the bid for Pooltex cloth. But a contract

had already been signed with Mr. West's country, and Wallace, who was the soul of honor, refused to cancel

"That left Pool holding the bag. It left him with the grim realization that if he didn't steal the cloth and get it

to Captain Dakker's ship, his country overseas would lose the war about to be declared!

"So Pool stole the precious fire and acidproof fabric and hid it in the furnace of his own plant. A smart guy!

He planned to sail with the loot from Boston on Captain Dakker's ship. The Shadow found out that Pool or

Poltsch, to give him his real name holds a reserve commission as colonel in his native army. They'd have

used him to produce tons of the marvelous uniform cloth based on the formula which he still has in his

"That's not true about the formula," a weak voice interrupted. Roy Wallace was staring at Cardona. Wallace

was very pale under his bandages. Lily's arm supported him in the chair where he had been gently seated.

"The formula is mine," Wallace went on. "When I advanced the money to build the factory and install the

expensive machinery, Edgar Pool assigned the formula to me as a guarantee. It's at present in a safedeposit

vault to which I alone hold the key. In the event of Pool's death, the transfer agreement states that the formula

"It'll be yours," Cardona promised him grimly. "The electric chair will take care of that angle."

"The formula will go straight to the war department in Washington," Wallace said feebly. "There will be no

further sale to any government but the United States. It will make America the strongest nation in the world

CARDONA'S glance lifted to the glasslittered doorway of the room. The figure that had been standing there

The Shadow had vanished without sound. The reason for his noiseless disappearance was evident from the

floor below. Voices were raised down there in excited yells. The tramp of rushing feet was audible. Cardona

He had no idea in which direction The Shadow had disappeared. Even if he had, he would have remained

loyally silent. The Shadow was a worker in darkness. The good he did came because of utter secrecy in his

personality and methods. Cardona, who knew his need for secrecy, would never utter a word to break that

In the rainy murk beyond the factory a lithe, tall man in black stepped into a parked car and drove quietly

away. A sibilant laugh issued from his lips. The Shadow had finished his work. He was content.

As the taunting laugh faded in the distance, its final echoes gave proof of The Shadow's success. Once again