THE WHITE COLUMN ....................................................................................................................................1

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

CHAPTER I. SKY RAIDERS .................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II. THE SECOND FLAME..................................................................................................6

CHAPTER III. PERFUMED DEATH..................................................................................................12

CHAPTER IV. INDIAN 16 ...................................................................................................................17

CHAPTER V. TREASON .....................................................................................................................22

CHAPTER VI. HOUSE OF PERIL......................................................................................................27

CHAPTER VII. PREVIEW OF HELL ..................................................................................................32

CHAPTER VIII. WHISTLING DEATH ...............................................................................................36

CHAPTER IX. THE WHITE COLUMN..............................................................................................41

CHAPTER X. MOB RULE ...................................................................................................................46

CHAPTER XI. HOODED MENACE...................................................................................................51

CHAPTER XII. MURDER AT MIDNIGHT........................................................................................57

CHAPTER XIII. BLACK WATER .......................................................................................................62

CHAPTER XIV. SKY TRICKERY......................................................................................................67

CHAPTER XV. THE SUPREME THRILL..........................................................................................72

IT was snowing heavily in the Adirondacks. The storm had started at dusk. It was now long past midnight.

A worse night for flying could scarcely be imagined. Millions of windtossed snowflakes clouded the

darkness like a dense, milky veil. Every commercial and private airplane along the eastern seaboard had been

It was a transport plane with an enormous wingspread. Twin motors enabled it to ride through the storm with

ease. But it was not behaving normally. It was flying at a dangerously low height. Its course was queer, too. It

There was no airfield within miles of the spot. The transport was in no difficulties, so that a forced landing

was not necessary. A forced landing, in fact, would have been suicidal. The pilots were well aware of this.

There were two pilots. One handled the controls. The other was examining the contour of the hills below

through powerful night glasses. He was looking for a landmark he had never seen before. But that lack of

experience didn't bother him. For days, he had studied an accurate map of this hilly region. Every contour

Suddenly, he rasped a guttural word to the pilot at the controls. Below the big transport, a shaggy hill

whizzed briefly into view and was gone. The plane narrowed its circle. The snowcovered hill swam back

The man with the glasses opened a sliding door and peered into the transport's cabin. There were five men in

that cabin. None of them occupied seats. They sat in a row on the floor, one man behind another.

They didn't look human. All of them were helmeted and goggled. All wore bulky ski suits, tucked into thick,

hobnailed shoes. Warm gloves covered their hands. Each was equipped with a parachute pack and a stout

Their goggled eyes watched the man who peered back at them. They knew what was coming. They were

Suddenly, a signal was given. A startling thing happened. Only four men remained seated on the cabin floor

He was well used to an air jump from a dangerously low height. It was part of his army training. As his

falling body cleared the ship, his parachute opened almost instantly. He began to drift earthward under the

The man who had given the signal saw nothing of what happened to the first man. He was staring grimly at

his watch. Again his hand waved. A hole yawned beneath the crouched figure of the second parachute

The transport plane ceased its slow circling. It headed backward in the direction from which it had come a

route that would bring it in a swift line to the Atlantic seaboard. Its job was done.

THE leader of the five landed with a jarring impact on the slope of the hill. Snow flew upward like a small

geyser. Weighted with his equipment, he struck hard enough to knock the breath out of him. But he recovered

quickly. Like his four comrades, he had been trained and toughened for this dangerous assignment.

He floundered through the snow to a clearing that faced the valley below. Driving white flakes made it

impossible to see for more than a few yards. But the sky raider was prepared for that, too.

He had divested himself of his parachute and dragged it after him. He bunched it into an unwieldy pile and

reached into his pack. He scattered a reddish powder all over the 'chute. Then he struck a match and touched

Flame leaped high for a few moments. It was not an ordinary flame. Its hue was bloodred. The chemical

powder that produced the color had come from the war laboratory of a foreign nation. Traitorous eyes,

watching from the valley below, would be able to see that flame for a long distance.

It burned out quickly. The parachute dissolved into thin ash, which the wind blew away. Strapped to the side

of the airraider's pack were a pair of collapsible snowshoes. He adjusted them and buckled them on.

One by one, his four comrades joined him, sliding along on snowshoes. Their parachutes, too, had been

burned. But not with the aid of the reddish powder. The five men drew guns. They stood backtoback, in a

Suddenly, he saw an answering glare of red. It glowed briefly, then it vanished. The leader of the goggled and

He led the way down the slope of the hill, toward a valley road that skirted its base. The quintet of air

invaders began to follow the road, sliding swiftly along on snowshoes with machinelike precision.

But before they had gone very far, they encountered an obstacle not included in their plans. Two men

floundered into view from a wooded thicket. They were hunters who had been trapped by the storm. They

But their joy was shortlived. Goggled eyes stared. Four of the invaders clutched at small glass spheres about

Glass pellets were hurled at the faces of the two hunters who had accidentally found out something that no

American eyes were to be permitted to behold. The fragile glass shattered. Liquid splashed on terrified faces.

From the dripping liquid rose a pleasant, flowerlike perfume. It penetrated the nostrils and mouths of the

Its effect was deadly. For a moment, the two hunters stiffened, their clawing hands at their throats. Then they

pitched headlong to the snowcovered road. The leader of the parachute men waited. It was dangerous to

approach the bodies too soon. The gas that had killed them was potent even in the open air of the valley road.

Two of the invaders produced collapsible tools from their packs. Handles were fitted into the sockets of a

pick and shovel. The two parachute men disappeared behind a snowwhitened screen of bushes.

Two more picked up the corpses and carried them into the thicket. The leader followed. He carried in his

hand a coppercolored metal can. It looked like a sort of can in which beer is sold. But it was slightly larger

than that. It had a silver tip, like the nipple on a baby's feeding bottle. The leader unscrewed the silver tip.

The men with the pick and shovel completed their grisly job hastily. The bodies of the two hunters were

rolled into a shallow pit. The leader of the parachute men broke the glass tip of his coppercolored can. He

Flames crawled instantly. They were like greenandyellow serpents over the clothing and the flesh of the

dead victims. None of those tongues of flame spouted more than an inch or two high. But their effect was

Intense heat was generated. Snow all around the grave began to melt. In the center of the shallow grave the

Flesh vanished. Bones were consumed. The flame liquid was a wellguarded secret of a foreign power

overseas. It had never yet been used in war. It was being held in reserve as a prelude to the conquest of the

The guttural laughter of the helmeted invaders testified to the power of that deadly agency of destruction, as

No sign remained of clothing, of flesh or bone. All that was left was a reddish hue in the scorched earth. It

The grave was filled. Snowflakes began to cover the spot. The snowshoed invaders shuffled back to the

Presently, the road branched. A narrow private lane led through snowcovered pines and balsams to what

was evidently a private estate. There was a sign at the entrance to the lane. The leader of the sky invaders

The sign announced that the land beyond the highway was private property. It was owned by Henry Norman.

Norman was one of America's biggest industrial leaders. He was many times a millionaire. He owned the

Norman Repeating Arms Co. His factories supplied the United States army with a large part of the rifles and

ammunition needed by America, in its gigantic rearmament program, to make itself strong in the face of

Henry Norman had bought this isolated estate in the Adirondacks as a deerhunting preserve for himself and

his friends. He had built here what he called a "rustic hunting lodge." It was more like a Park Avenue

mansion than a cabin. Wealthy friends of the arms manufacturer came on invitation to "rough it."

The parachute spies snowshoed up the lane toward the lodge. It was from this spot that a red flare had glowed

The lodge door was not locked. The five invaders entered, after removing their clogged snowshoes.

The living room was brilliantly lighted, but there was no one present to greet the invaders.

It was a gorgeous room. Foreign eyes bulged with astonishment at its magnificence. Costly rugs covered the

floor. On the walls were paintings that had been brought by Henry Norman from the most famous museums

in Europe. A log fire crackled comfortably in a fireplace. Over the fireplace, the mantel was a solid piece of

The invaders were more interested in the map than in any object in the room. Guttural sounds came from

their lips. They clustered in front of the map, like flies gathered near a cube of sugar. America was, indeed, a

rich lump of sugar for a hungry warlord overseas. Threequarters of the world's gold was held in America.

Oil, coal, steel, iron! Factories, belching smoke from a million chimneys! America, alarmed at aggression,

No sound indicated the entrance into the room of the host of these five enemies of America who had dropped

from the sky. But there were six men in the room, now. The spies saw their unknown American leader when

The man was garbed in a heavy ski suit, like his guests. Gloves were on his hands. But he wore neither

helmet nor aviation goggles. A hooded mask covered his entire skull. Glittering eyes peered through narrow

There was delight in that snarled word. When the time came that America lay crushed and helpless, this man

would control the destinies of the country. There would be only one man on earth higher than himself. That

was the All High overseas, who had sent these five men dropping from the sky to cripple the rearmament

"No. Two servants. Both are tied up and gagged in the cellar. One of them saw me light the flare, in answer to

There was a grunt, then a harsh command. The ugly routine that had taken place on the mountain slope was

repeated. Three men went tramping down to the cellar. Two of them carried a pick and a shovel. The third

They were gone quite a while. When they returned, they saluted and said nothing. Words were unnecessary.

"Everything is ready. American aviation will feel our strength first. You have come here to receive definite

He strode toward the wall. Eager enemies of America crowded close behind him. The masked traitor stuck a

pin in that map. He stuck it into the dot of a town located in a middlewestern State.

"In this town is located the heart of America's aviation defense. Here were built the factories that are now

turning out the means to make America too strong in the air for a successful attack against her."

"Airplanes, with new liquidcooled engines better than any possessed abroad. A secret bomb sight that

makes it possible to hit a target as big as a barrel from a height of 20,000 feet. Machine guns and light

cannons to arm those monster planes. Oil, piped from distant fields and refined in the Oakmont area as

"You will go at once to Oakmont. You know the man with whom you will cooperate there?"

From a tall cabinet in the living room, the masked traitor to his native land produced six wine glasses. He

The toast was drunk. The empty glasses were snapped, and flung into the fireplace where they shattered to

pieces. The parachute invaders of America left the room. The masked man alone remained, chuckling as he

He knew that his henchmen were changing their attire. They would be no longer soldiers, but civilians. Fifth

All of them spoke perfect English. All had been trained for months for the specialized tasks that awaited them

in Oakmont. A horsedrawn sleigh was waiting outside the rear door of the lonely lodge. The sleigh would

take five ruthless enemies of America over snowcovered road to a railroad station.

Fifth Columnists had secretly invaded a free country. Their presence was unknown. How could police, the

Only one man in America was strong enough to take up this challenge to a nation.

Not a sound was audible. Not even a current of air moved. A human eye could have stared indefinitely into

that velvet blackness without being able to say positively that the room contained a human being. But a

Sibilant laughter hissed through the darkness. The laughter died into silence. Then suddenly a blue light

glowed from a hanging covered globe overhead, and threw an oval of brilliance on the surface of a polished

The hands of The Shadow rested in that pool of brilliance. Part of his face was visible. His hawklike features

betokened strength and power. Thin lips were curved slightly in an ominous smile. The Shadow was

His tapering fingers had drawn two small packets of news clippings into the brilliant oval of light. One was a

collection clipped from various newspapers published in upper New York State. The other items had

The Shadow read the latter clippings first. They dealt with the strange madness and death of a workman in

The man was a trusted foreman in a government rearmament factory. The plant was jointly owned by two

wealthy industrialists named Peter Kirk and Ralph Jackson. Originally, agricultural implements had been

manufactured there. But the United States government had taken over the factory as part of its preparedness

program at the threat of war abroad. The factory now produced one of the most vital weapons of national

defense. From it came thousands of the new airplane bomb sights that had revolutionized the art of aerial

The dead workman about whom The Shadow now read had long been a trusted employee of Kirk and

Jackson. In his charge was the machinery which turned out the most delicate mechanism of the secret bomb

Workmen closest to him had no warning of trouble, until he suddenly screamed with crazy laughter. He

darted at his helper and smashed out his brains with a murderous blow of a heavy wrench. Then he flung

himself at the delicate bombsight machine and began to demolish it with wild blows of the wrench.

Luckily, he was stopped before he could do fatal damage. There were guards stationed in the war plant. They

rushed at the demented foreman. Other workmen aided the guards. The foreman was seized.

He fought fiercely and broke away. A blow of his fist knocked down one of his captors. He seized a pistol

and tried to flee. Two men died before they could get out of his path. Others were wounded. Then the guns of

Insanity seemed the only explanation. The foreman's record had been excellent. He was a native, patriotic

American. His son was a soldier in the United States army. There was no reason to suspect sabotage behind

THE story those clippings told was more vague than the account of the outrage in Oakmont. It dealt with

mysterious rumors and happenings in the Adirondack region. People had reported hearing the buzzing of an

airplane motor during a night snowstorm. A strange red glow had been seen on a hill long past midnight. Two

Every plane in the East had been grounded that night by the snowstorm. The Shadow had checked up on both

commercial and privatelyowned ships. All had been accounted for. No plane smaller than a transport would

have dared to fight that snowstorm. Where had it come from? Where had it vanished?

The Shadow decided that these two unrelated events the Oakmont affair and the mystery in the

Adirondacks were equally important. There was a strong possibility that the activity of Fifth Columnists

might be in back of one or both. The Shadow faced a dilemma. Which of the two should be investigated first?

There was a simple reason for this. In the valley, not far from the hill where a strange signal light had flared

briefly after midnight, was the luxurious hunting lodge of Henry Norman. Norman used this cabin for winter

Lamont Cranston had refused an invitation only two weeks earlier. Social engagements in New York had

forced him to decline. Now The Shadow intended Cranston to accept and to accept promptly by wire,

The newspaper clippings vanished from the bright oval of light on The Shadow's desk. The light winked

abruptly out. The sanctum was shrouded in darkness. Through that darkness The Shadow vanished without

Two hours later, a telegram was dispatched to Henry Norman. It told him that Lamont Cranston had

reconsidered his earlier refusal and was now on his way for a weekend of winter sport.

There was no chance for Henry Norman to advise Cranston that this particular time might be inconvenient.

Long before the telegram was sent, The Shadow was speeding upstate by swift train. He had already changed

to a branch line that connected with the sparselysettled valley in the Adirondacks where Norman's hunting

LAMONT CRANSTON arrived at the lodge in a hired sleigh just as dusk was changing to darkness. His

greeting was friendly. So was Henry Norman's. But there was dismay in back of the millionaire industrialist's

He was a tall man, with powerful shoulders. Power was his keynote. Power and ambition. He had risen from

poverty by a series of ruthless deals that had brought him wealth and leadership in the arms industry. The

threat of war from abroad had increased Norman's power. He not only owned the enormously important

Norman Repeating Arms Co., but he had also been appointed to the president's aviation rearmament board.

A Norman plant had been erected in the defense zone of Oakmont in the middle west. It was turning out

machinegun ammunition to be used in the new pursuit planes and bombers destined to cloud the skies over

The Shadow wondered grimly about Norman's lust for power, as he listened to the millionaire's deep voice.

"I wish you had given me time to countermand that telegram of yours," Norman murmured. "A later time

would have been more pleasant for both of us. Things are rather awkward here, right now. Perhaps you won't

"I brought Giles and Thomas up here with me. They didn't like the solitude. Last night, both of them quit.

They demanded to be sent back to New York. There was nothing I could do. So I drove them by sleigh to the

"Not exactly. I have three local men whom I had to pick up in a hurry. They're not well trained. I really hate

Cranston noticed a quick upward glance that Norman unconsciously made while he talked. Both men were

standing outside the door in the open, where the driver of the sleigh that had brought Cranston waited.

Norman's glance went toward the snowy roof of the hunting lodge. There was a metal rod on the peak of the

Norman was unaware that The Shadow had noticed the direction of his upward gaze. He shrugged, and

Lamont Cranston followed him indoors to a luxurious living room with a vast fireplace.

Norman became more genial. There were drinks, followed by a perfectly cooked and served meal. The three

new servants seemed excellent substitutes for the two missing ones. They didn't utter a word unless spoken

to. The Shadow insisted on complimenting all three of them at various times during the evening. He was

They spoke very precise English. They sounded like men who had learned the language in a university, rather

Yet Henry Norman had declared these three servants were Americans whom he had hired in a nearby town.

The Shadow decided to seek an answer to that question after everyone in the lodge was asleep.

He was particularly interested in two items his keen eyes had noted before he went upstairs to his room. One

was the upright metal rod on the roof. The other was a glint of broken glass below the roaring log flames in

It was well past midnight when the door of Lamont Cranston's bedroom opened softly. The Shadow emerged.

He was robed in black. The upturned collar of his cloak, the tilted brim of his slouch hat, hid most of his face

except the watchful gleam of his eyes. He crept noiselessly down the broad staircase to the living room.

The embers in the fireplace had almost burned out. The Shadow had substituted heavier gloves for the black

ones he usually wore. He poked with swift urgency among the hot ashes, and was rewarded by an interesting

find. He discovered not one broken piece of glass, but many! Some of the pieces were thin stems. There were

six like that. The Shadow divined that six men had drunk a toast here at some very recent date. They had then

The glasses must have been fragile and very expensive. They were the most delicate type of crystal. In the

home of Lamont Cranston there was glassware similar to this. Only a man of means could afford so costly a

Noiselessly, The Shadow glided toward a corner of the living room. He examined a tall cabinet that stood

there. On an upper shelf he found six glasses similar to the smashed ones he had uncovered in the ashes of the

fireplace. Empty spots on the shelf showed where the missing half dozen had stood.

Who were the six unknown men who had drunk a toast before the fireplace? And what was the meaning of

The Shadow sought an answer above the mantelpiece of teakwood that spanned the fireplace. There was a

large map on the wall there, a map of the United States. It seemed out of place as a wall decoration. All the

other decorations were sporting items. Snowshoes, rifles, bows and arrows, the mounted heads of deer and

There was a small stain on the lower edge a wine stain. Someone had leaned a hand carelessly, while he

had pointed out some spot on the map to the other five men with whom he had drunk the toast. The spot was

not easily discoverable to an ordinary eye, but The Shadow soon located what he was searching for.

A pin had been stuck briefly into a town. The pin had been withdrawn, but it had left a tiny perforation on the

glazed paper of the map. The tiny indentation did not escape The Shadow's eyes. Nor did the name of the

Oakmont! Heart of the Midwest territory where the government's airplane rearmament program was in

progress! Where a workman in a bombsight factory had gone suddenly crazy and attempted to wreck

Was there a sinister connection between a secret toast drunk by six men in the Adirondacks and that queer

happening out West? The Shadow had no time to ponder about the meaning of the clues he had found. With a

His quick withdrawal made no sound on the soft rug. The black cloak shielded him from sight as he faded

quietly into a dim recess at the room's corner. Scarcely breathing, he watched the hall doorway. From that

A moment later, The Shadow saw a figure, faintly illuminated by the dim hall light behind it. The man was

tall, as tall as Henry Norman or any of Norman's three huskilybuilt servants. But it was impossible to

He was wearing a mask that fitted entirely over his face and skull, like a cloth helmet. His hands were gloved.

He wore a heavy jacket and bulky ski pants. His shoes, however, didn't match the rest of his costume. Instead

of hobnailed boots, the masked man was wearing thinsoled slippers. They made no sound as he cautiously

As though drawn by malevolent fate, he tiptoed close to the dark recess in the corner where The Shadow

The Shadow wanted no fight with this masked figure. A premature battle might ruin the entire success of The

Shadow's subsequent investigations. The Shadow had barely scratched the surface of what he now believed

The masked man wasn't sure that there was anyone hidden in the dark living room. Suspicion alone had

drawn him here on this midnight prowl. The Shadow intended to keep that vague suspicion from becoming

His gloved hand emerged from under his black robe. There was a .45 cartridge in it. It was part of the extra

ammunition for the twin .45's The Shadow always carried. Hidden in the shallow recess where he crouched,

The Shadow estimated the distance between his hiding place and the two doors that gave access to the living

One was the corridor doorway through which the masked intruder had glided. The other was an opening that

led to a smaller room. The Shadow threw his palmed cartridge through this second door. It landed with a faint

Like a jungle cat, the masked man whirled. A swift leap carried him through the curtained doorway. A gun

It took him only a few seconds to realize that no human being was in the tiny sitting room. He decided that

his strained hearing had tricked him. Those few seconds made up the precious margin that The Shadow

needed. He was already a black patch on the corridor staircase, returning swiftly to his bedroom above. He

moved as soundlessly as if he trod on air. In an instant, his bedroom door was locked on the inside. The

Lamont Cranston was revealed. He was dressed only in pajamas. He got into bed and drew the covers

upward. He rumpled the sheets and the pillow, in case shrewd eyes might try to determine how long that bed

His guess was justified barely two minutes later. A hand tried the knob, then knuckles rapped on the panel

The Shadow replied sleepily. He went in bare feet to the door and unlocked it. The man outside was one of

Henry Norman's three servants. His sharp glance studied the sleepy appearance of Lamont Cranston.

"You must have been dreaming," Cranston smiled. "I've been asleep for the past two hours."

A PERILOUS trip downstairs was still necessary. When The Shadow finally made it, the house was as quiet

as a tomb. The Shadow glided swiftly to the little chamber into which he had thrown his .45 cartridge. He

estimated the exact spot beyond the doorway at which the missile must have fallen. He found it where it had

The masked man hadn't located that bit of evidence. Unable to remember exactly the nature of the sound he

had heard, he had decided that his suspicious ears had tricked him. A shutter was banging outside the window

in the night wind. The masked man had concluded that the shutter was the source of the thud which had so

The Shadow retreated with the only object that might have betrayed his presence downstairs. But his activity

was far from ended. It was just beginning. Presently, the window of Lamont Cranston's bedroom lifted softly.

The Shadow squirmed out on the sill. His questing arms lifted above his head. Fingers clutched at the dark

He chinned himself slowly aloft, careful not to make the slightest sound. He crawled silently up the slant of

the roof toward the ridgepole. It was on the ridgepole that a queer metal rod projected vertically. A rod in

He noticed a clamp on it, that suggested the existence of something that had topped the rod something that

had since been removed. The upper end of the rod was tinged a queer reddish color. It was flaky as if flame

Flame! A red glow that had been seen briefly during a snowstorm on a nearby mountain? Had there been an

Laughter whispered sibilantly from The Shadow's lips. The object that had been clamped to the top of that

metal rod must have been a metal cup. Flame had burned in that cup. It was intense enough to have badly

To The Shadow's brain, the color of the flame had grim significance. The mountain was distant. The air on

that earlier night had been thick with falling snow. An ordinary light would never be seen through such a

milky veil. But a red light, fed by chemicals a light that produced infrared rays as well could have been

The twin exchange of signals on a night when a plane had been heard circling over the mountain, now made

ugly truth in The Shadow's mind. Five men had descended from that mystery plane by parachute. They had

headed straight for Norman's lodge. There, they had drunk a toast with a sixth man concerning the

Quietly, The Shadow crawled down the steep roof. He lowered himself to the sill of his bedroom window.

AS soon as The Shadow reached the privacy of his topfloor bedroom, he listened. The only sound he could

He had brought with him to Norman's lodge a complete kit of sporting equipment. The kit included both

snowshoes and skis. The Shadow chose skis. With the light, greased runners strapped to his feet, The Shadow

He dropped the skis out the window and lowered himself quietly to the ground by a knotted rope. He headed

The mountain was not a high one. It was one of the foothills of the Adirondacks. The Shadow reached the top

after a half hour of skillful work among the snowcrusted trees. The fact that the hill was so wooded gave

him a clue to the spot where the red light must have been burned. There was only one clearing that

overlooked the valley in the direction of Norman's hunting lodge. It was here that five men from the air had

He began to retrace his way toward the valley road. Soon, he found hints that he was on the right trail. Twigs

were broken off from some of the lowbending branches of trees. Bushes had been thrust aside, and the

weight of the snow had prevented them from springing upright again. The Shadow followed the spoor of five

men with the same skill he had used many times in the past, when on the trail of master criminals.

He began to move along the valley road and had gone only a short distance, when he stopped. This time, he

headed for the opposite slope. He vanished behind a snowcrusted clump of bushes whose contour suggested

Behind the bushes the snow level was slightly lower than the surrounding surface. A faint depression was

When he succeed, his eyes gleamed with triumph. The earth below had been disturbed. A pick and shovel had

been used. The loosened earth was still unfrozen. A strange manmade heat of some kind obviously

The Shadow was able to remove the soft earth without too much trouble. A shallow pit was disclosed. The

A closer scrutiny of the bottom of the shallow pit increased The Shadow's astonishment. It was streaked with

a queer reddish color. It looked like clay, but it wasn't. The Shadow knew that red clay didn't occur naturally

The Shadow had no time to ponder this ugly mystery. Something whizzed suddenly past his head like the

Another bullet flew by as The Shadow flung himself flat to the snow. He rolled over and over in a desperate

It was only the appearance of fear, however. The Shadow's brain was as cold as the snow over which he fled.

A gun battle was the last thing he desired. By deception, he hoped to take his unknown enemy alive. Dead

The rifle cracked again. The armed assailant was moving in, eager for an easy kill of a man he believed was

unarmed. At the roar of the third shot, The Shadow shouted. Both arms flung upward over his head. He fell

He was standing at the lip of a small declivity. His plunge carried him out of sight. The man with the rifle

darted forward. He came sliding down to where The Shadow lay in a crumpled heap. The muzzle of his gun

This time, it was uttered by the wouldbe murderer. The Shadow had moved with the speed of a cobra. His

hand wrenched the gun barrel away. With a bound, he was on his feet in the snow.

It was like tackling a wildcat. The man fought with the fury of a maniac. He was lithe and powerful, he knew

every trick of battle. He had obviously been trained for handtohand encounters. And the rifle was still

secure in his grip. He reversed it, swung the butt like a club. Twice, a desperate duck of The Shadow's head

kept his skull from being smashed in like an eggshell. His only hope was to crowd close and prevent his foe

from making use of the rifle as either club or gun. They fought like cavemen, instinctively smashing at each

The Shadow scored first. There was a howl from his antagonist. The rifle flew through the air from

The Shadow tore sinewy fingers from his throat. The two men stumbled back to the top of the declivity

during that wild struggle for possession of the rifle. A swift whirl forced The Shadow's foe to the edge of the

slope. The Shadow broke the hold of his enemy with a thrust of his foot. Then his fist landed with smashing

Backward plunged the killer. He pitched headlong down the snowy slope like a crazy cartwheel. He was

upside down when he struck the bottom. His flying legs stiffened and keeled over. He lay in an inert huddle.

Panting, The Shadow descended. He had knocked the killer unconscious. As soon as the man recovered his

It was a vain hope. The Shadow realized it as soon as he saw the position of the inert head alongside the

boulder where the man had struck. The head was bent almost double under the rifleman's shoulders.

A quick search of the body's clothing was valueless. All the pockets were empty. There wasn't even a tailor's

But his face was familiar to The Shadow. He was one of the three "new servants" whom Henry Norman had

hired after his two regular servants had become fed up with the country and had left for New York.

THE SHADOW didn't waste time in futile thought. Like a black wraith, he regained the deserted streak of the

valley road. His skis were again on his feet. He slid swiftly back to the hunting lodge of Henry Norman.

Quickly, he climbed the knotted rope which he had left dangling from the upper window. His skis went aloft

with him, strapped to his back. Once inside his warm room, he became an inferno of silent energy. The skis

were dried and polished. They were replaced in the spot they normally occupied in the sport luggage of

Lamont Cranston. The Shadow closed and locked the window. He began swiftly to undress.

Before he could finish his task, he stiffened. A faint sound was audible from the topfloor corridor outside

the locked door of his room. It sounded like the creak of a floor board. It was not repeated.

Not waiting to listen for it again, he finished undressing and donned his pajamas. Once more, he slid into bed

He wasn't bothered. No one came near his door. No one retreated down the unseen hall toward the staircase.

The silence was ominous. The Shadow gave up all thought of sleep. He had an uncanny sense of unseen peril

Toward dawn, his alert senses again heard a faint creak from the corridor. This time, the sound was repeated.

Someone was tiptoeing along the hall toward the locked door of Lamont Cranston's room.

For ten minutes, The Shadow lay quietly in bed, watching the dark door and the transom above it. It was one

of the few doors, on the top floor, equipped with a transom. Henry Norman had insisted that Lamont

The transom was now slowly opening. It didn't move more than an inch or two, nor did it make the slightest

No face showed in the dimness of the transom opening. Instead, a hand appeared. The hand was clenched. It

opened and something dropped to the floor. There was a faint tinkle of fragile glass breaking. Then the hand

A strange and lovely odor was perceptible in the closed room. The perfume of flowers! It became stronger

and more pleasant as the gas released from the glass pellet swirled closer to the bed which The Shadow had

The Shadow realized this the instant he drew in a cautious breath. He could feel a hideous sensation in his

nostrils and throat. He reeled and almost fell. But he didn't lose his senses or his knowledge that he was at the

He fought his way soundlessly in bare feet to the locked window. Feebly, he tried to reach the lock and lift

the sash. He was unable to do so. The tiny whiff of poison gas he had inhaled had drained him of strength. He

was barely able to stand on his feet. The dark room was whirling before his sight, becoming rapidly black.

With his last conscious act of will power, The Shadow placed his hand against a cold pane of glass of the

manypaned window. With eyes glazing, he had noticed the putty holding in this particular pane was dried

With a slight scraping sound, the pane let loose, fell to the snowcovered ground below. Fresh air began to

The Shadow thrust his nose and mouth into the opening. It was hard to hold himself there, hard to remain

upright on his feet. But presently his darkening senses began to clear. Every lungful of clean air he breathed

dissipated the deadly effects of the tiny gulp of poison gas that had almost killed him.

THE SHADOW'S head ached with agony. His temples felt enclosed by iron hands. But he had saved his life.

Forewarned of peril, he had not breathed in too much of the lethal flower gas. How deadly that gas was, his

Outside the door, the murderer made no effort to see what had happened within. Silence reigned in the

corridor for nearly fifteen minutes. Then a faint creak near the head of the staircase sounded. The killer was

retreating, confident that Lamont Cranston had died peacefully in bed while asleep.

But The Shadow was a long way from being dead! A grim whisper of laughter came from his tense lips. He

Shortly after sunrise, the knock on his door for which he was waiting, sounded. The Shadow did not answer.

He heard an oath of triumph. Feet departed swiftly. Then they returned with other feet. This time, somebody

The Shadow stopped that with magical suddenness. He shouted sleepily in the voice of Lamont Cranston:

Padding across the room in his bare feet, he unlocked the door. He saw utter consternation on the two faces

Henry Norman and one of his servants were outside. The servant seemed dumfounded. It was Norman who

"I thought something was wrong," he said quietly. "Richard said he had knocked to awaken you, and got no

reply. He came to me and I told him to break the door. Thank God, you're all right!"

"Perhaps I should have warned you last night," Lamont Cranston said. "I'm a heavy sleeper. I was too

comfortable in bed, I guess, to hear your good Richard's knock. I didn't waken until I heard you banging at

While he spoke The Shadow's gaze swept the floor inside the threshold. He was looking for traces of broken

glass. He found none. All that was visible was a faint tracery of powder. A killer had worked with sly

efficiency! The glass pellet that had contained the deadly flower death had crumbled to powder when it

Neither Henry Norman nor the servant was aware of Cranston's quick glance at the floor. Their own eyes had

jerked toward the window. They uttered cries of astonishment when they saw the missing pane.

Cranston echoed their cries. He didn't give the two men a chance to think or to talk. He began to babble with

A burglar! That was the theme of Cranston's chatter. A burglar had tried to enter the room and rob Cranston

while he was asleep. A noise must have frightened the burglar away before he could slide his hand inside the

hole in the window and reach the lock. A double trail in the snow below showed how he had escaped. The

Cranston talked excitedly and fast. He wasn't sure whether his story impressed his listeners or not. But they

had no chance to weigh the probabilities of the burglar yarn. A fresh mystery had developed! Henry

Norman's ring for his servants brought nobody to the top floor. Richard's two fellow servants were missing!

Presently, one of them returned from outdoors. He was out of breath, badly frightened. He gave Richard a

The servant claimed he had heard someone sneaking from the house a short time earlier. He had followed ski

tracks from below Mr. Cranston's window. They had led to a wooded hill. There, the frightened servant had

The news was somewhat disconcerting. The two surviving servants stared covertly at each other. A faint nod

was exchanged. Both servants notified Norman that they no longer intended to remain in so dangerous a

place. They demanded to be driven to the railroad and put on a train for New York.

Norman didn't object. He agreed that perhaps a quick departure for everyone was sensible.

THE breakfast that followed was an unpleasant one. Lamont Cranston was conscious of the suspicious eyes

of his millionaire host. Norman suspected that the burglar story was a myth, but there was no way to prove

his suspicion. His prompt agreement with the servants' demand to leave was evidently designed to get rid of

"We don't really need servants. I'd love to rough it alone with you. Cooking our own meals and making beds

Norman vetoed that. He declared that the thing to do now was to notify the police, and then return to the

Two hours later, Cranston and Norman and the two servants stepped from a horsedrawn sleigh in a small

town twenty miles from the hunting lodge. Norman was guilty of a odd piece of forgetfulness. In his

eagerness to board the train, he forgot all about notifying the police that a servant of his had mysteriously

He was watching another man who was waiting on the railroad platform for the train. When the locomotive

and its string of coaches pulled in, Cranston hurried forward at the same time the stranger did. They slipped,

During that brief clutch, the hands of The Shadow and the other man touched briefly. A folded scrap of paper

THE name of the man who had so deftly received the note passed to him by The Shadow, was Harry Vincent.

Vincent had arrived the previous evening on the train that had brought Lamont Cranston from New York. On

arrival, he had gone to the only hotel in town and had registered under another name. He had announced

Boarding the train, now, Harry followed the two servants of Henry Norman. They entered the last coach. So

did Vincent. Palmed in his hand was The Shadow's note. It warned Harry that the two thugs might try to

The Shadow was already in the vestibule of the coach he had entered. He started to walk to one of the

forward cars. Then he realized that Henry Norman was no longer behind him. The millionaire industrialist

A gleam came into The Shadow's eyes. But he was careful to keep to the innocent role of Lamont Cranston.

"You'd better hurry!" he yelled to Norman. "You'll be left, if you're not careful!"

"Can't help it!" Norman yelled back. "I forgot something. I've got to notify the police! I'll take the next train."

The Shadow knew that Norman was deliberately dodging him. But he made no objection. The train was

His idea was to lull the suspicions of the two suspects in the rear car by seeming to pay no attention to them.

The Shadow relaxed in a seat and watched the snowcovered scenery slide past. It was shaggy, mountainous

It was shortly after the train had crossed a particularly long trestle that The Shadow saw the conductor

hurrying into the car in which he was seated. The conductor seemed excited. He cried out a quick question.

Lamont Cranston spoke curtly. He didn't state that he was a doctor. The conductor assumed it from his voice

"Do you mind coming with me for a minute, doc? One of my passengers has been suddenly taken ill."

Cranston picked up a leather bag. It was too large to be a physician's bag, but the conductor was too upset to

The Shadow took one look at the man sprawled in a seat of the rear car. The victim was Harry Vincent.

A sniff at the wideopen lips of Vincent told The Shadow the nature of the attack. The odor of a drug was

unmistakable. It was a simple drug whose narcotic effect didn't last long. It was also easy to administer, and it

The Shadow noticed a slight smear of blood on the back of one of Vincent's hands. A needle had made a

Lamont Cranston went grimly to work. Presently, Vincent's eyes flew open. He looked startled. His head

jerked toward the vacant seat where the two suspects had been. He started to utter a quick cry.

Harry realized suddenly who the "doctor" was. He relaxed. The Shadow bent over him and whispered briefly.

"I've been robbed," Harry lied, after a slow search of his pockets. "My wallet is gone!"

THE news drew attention to the strange disappearance of two other men from the car. After a quick search,

The method of their "robbery" was soon established. A passenger recalled seeing one of them go to the water

cooler. He had come back with a paper cup. Passing Vincent's seat, he had lurched.

"That's when he stuck me with the needle," Vincent said. "I felt the prick of it. Then I passed out."

"I'm afraid there's no way to nab those crooks," the conductor growled. "The attack took place shortly after

we crossed that last trestle. The train was climbing a long grade. It was going slowly. The thugs simply

It was a logical explanation. It fitted all the known facts. But The Shadow knew it was not true!

A chunk of frozen snow lay on the windswept expanse of the rear platform. The Shadow's quick glance saw

The curved roof of the car overhung the rear platform. The snow chunk had been dislodged from the roof's

However, The Shadow did not divulge this knowledge. To that knowledge he added a deduction. The crooks

were still aboard the train, because the train had not yet reached the exact spot where they wanted to leave!

Returning to his own, forward coach, The Shadow managed to watch both sides of the train every time it

Twenty minutes later, a busy freight junction provided the crooks hidden on the roof with their opportunity.

Two furtive figures dropped to earth in the darkness beneath an overhanging freight shed.

The Shadow followed without betraying his pursuit. The time of the day aided him. Afternoon had already

Using a string of motionless box cars as a shield to cover his advance across the maze of tracks, The Shadow

trailed the erstwhile servants of Henry Norman. He was no longer Lamont Cranston. His black cloak made

him seem part of the darkness. The brim of his slouch hat shielded the alert flame in his eyes.

The two suspects swung aboard a freight which was waiting on a curved spur that led to the main line. An

impatient whistle tooted from the locomotive. Brakemen moved lanterns. The freight moved slowly past the

He was curious about this train's destination. He knew it was not headed for New York. The switch had

turned the freight west. The Shadow examined some of the merchandise that was piled in the car in which he

The Shadow's eyes gleamed as he read the name of the town to which these goods were consigned. The

LEAVING the box car, The Shadow swung to the steel rungs of a ladder. Climbing, he slid bellywise to the

catwalk on the roof. He was protected by his black cloak and the surrounding darkness. The two mobsters

were not. The Shadow could see them dimly, when he raised his face a trifle. They were on a roof four cars

The Shadow lay rigid until the freight plunged into a black tunnel. Then he crawled swiftly forward the

length of three cars. Before the train emerged from the tunnel, The Shadow had again disappeared.

He was hunched close to the clanking roar of a steel coupling. He was convinced that the two crooks on the

roof of the car ahead were on their way to Oakmont. But if they left the train before Oakmont was reached,

There was only one thing The Shadow didn't count on: the chance appearance of a brakeman.

He could hear the solid thumps of the brakeman's feet as the man walked forward along the car roofs. The

brakie didn't see The Shadow. That spot above the coupling where The Shadow lurked was as black as coal.

He had seen two men lying flat on the roof of the car in front of him. He uttered a cry of danger.

Neither of them looked like hoboes, but the brakie didn't notice that. He had received strict orders about not

allowing tramps to ride this freight. Its consignment was valuable. There had been damage done to previous

The two men rose to their feet. They began to whine. When the brakie got close, they moved quickly apart

and allowed the trainman to step between them. He was startled when he saw their clothing and faces.

They sprang like tigers. In the windy darkness, the brakie's yell died in a moan. A heavy bludgeon struck him

Heaving at his unconscious body, the thugs started to roll him headlong to a death under the grinding wheels

The Shadow's plan to keep out of sight, was frustrated. To remain hidden was to allow a brutal murder to take

He was climbing over the edge of the swaying roof almost as soon as the brakeman fell. A swift dive sent

him sliding along the slippery catwalk on his stomach. His blackgloved hand caught at the brakeman's body

One of the thugs had swung around in a crouched huddle, to make sure there were no witnesses. He saw the

His partner repeated that cry. Both retreated, snarling. The Shadow dragged the unconscious brakeman to

THERE was no time to do anything else. The two thugs had leaped toward The Shadow from either side. The

man with the club raised it for a bonecrushing blow. The Shadow ducked. The blow landed on his left

It was a terrific one. It numbed The Shadow's arm. He dropped to his knees, shoving desperately with one

That quick thrust was all that saved him from death. It sent the man with the club staggering backwards. He

yelled, and caught his partner around the waist. Both men teetered dangerously at the edge of the roof. Then

The club smashed at him again. But he had deliberately invited the blow, in order to be in a position to

disarm the thug. A sudden twist of his body and a snakelike dart of his uninjured hand tore the club loose

It went sailing end over end into the roaring darkness. The three men tangled in a writhing huddle on the car

All this time, The Shadow had made no effort to reach for one of his .45's. Capture was his intent not death.

Who were these two hardfaced killers who spoke English with a slight foreign accent? The Shadow

intended to force unwilling lips to reveal the truth about themselves and their mission at Oakmont.

But he found himself in a dangerous predicament. These Fifth Column foes were worse than criminals. They

A fist struck The Shadow behind the ear with dazing impact. Another landed on his jaw. One of the thugs

held The Shadow in a death grip, which he refused to loosen in spite of the terrible punishment that rained on

his unprotected face. His pal was attempting to slug The Shadow and hurl him from the train.

So terrific was the battle, that The Shadow barely felt a light, wavering slap across his face. It was not a blow

Instantly, The Shadow understood the meaning of that slap. Those dangling cords hung from a horizontal

cable, to warn trainmen in the dark of the danger of an approaching tunnel. A tunnel with a lowhung roof

whose stone entrance would sweep anyone who stood erect from the top of the train.

The knees of The Shadow hinged. He dropped limply. The thug who was holding tightly to him let go. He

thought that the flailing fists of his pal had knocked out The Shadow. He turned with a savage snarl to shove

Before they realized the doom that rushed at them through the windy darkness, death struck at both. The

Shadow neither heard nor saw what happened An instant after he dropped flat, he felt the freight dive into the

tunnel with an echoing roar. The reverberations made his ears ring. A draft of wind almost tore him loose

from his hold. Smoke, billowing in the tunnel from the stack of the locomotive, stung his nostrils.

He rose dizzily to his feet when the train dived into the outer air. One glance, and his face set grimly.

MAKING his way carefully along the roof to a side ladder, The Shadow descended steel rungs. The train was

still racing at a dangerous speed, but The Shadow had no choice. Back in the darkness of a lonely tunnel lay

two enemies of America. Both had been swept to probably instant death. The Shadow's intent to capture them

But on the bodies of those dead killers might be some scrap of revealing paper. Some hint to guide The

Fifteen minutes after The Shadow leaped from the train, he reached the mouth of the tunnel. Both men had

died horribly. One had been cut to pieces under the thundering wheels of the freight. The other had been

The Shadow searched the pockets of this second corpse. He got blood smeared all over his hands in the

process, but paid no attention to that. His attention was concentrated on a scrap of paper which he had found

A number and a word were written on that paper. The Shadow's eyes blazed with grim curiosity as he stared

THE room was large. In shape it was semicircular. It was flooded with light that seemed to come from the

surface of the ceiling itself. It had no windows. The room was empty. No one sat in an enormous oak chair

that stood alone on a raised platform. Nor did the chairs that faced that platform have any occupants. There

Presently, a chime sounded. It filled the empty room with soft echoes. The signal was followed by a swift

change in the appearance of the locked door. A panel slid aside. A small glass window was revealed. The

Through that glass a face peered. A man stood outside the steel door, undergoing inspection from within. It

was easy to see the visitor's face. He was one of the five parachutists who had dropped to earth near the

No one watched from within the room. But a satisfactory inspection of the visitor had, nevertheless, been

completed. This was proved when the glass panel went dark and the steel plate closed.

The door swung open automatically. The spy sat down in one of the five chairs facing the empty platform. He

Soon the chimes sounded again. More visitors arrived in the same manner. When the last had entered, all five

Then a bell tolled with startling suddenness. It tolled only once. At its hollow, brazen sound, every light in

the chamber went out. The room was plunged in darkness. For the space of a full minute it remained so. Then

A man was sitting on the platform chair. It was impossible to tell his identity. He was wearing dark,

looselyfitting trousers that looked like ski pants. His tunic was made of the same material. Over his skull

and face was a cloth helmet that masked him completely. Cold eyes stared through two slits in the mask.

There were no rivets on the wall behind him, no signs of any break that might conceal a door. His method of

entrance was the masked man's secret. Behind the wall was the hidden mechanism that operated the defenses

"Our first problem," he said harshly. "A factory in Oakmont, owned and operated by Peter Kirk and Ralph

Jackson, under the supervision of the United States government. Producing the new American bomb sights!

He continued in his metallic voice. He reminded his listeners of the recent death of a trusted employee in the

KirkJackson plant. A foreman named Donovan had gone suddenly insane. He had tried to smash delicate

machinery. Fleeing, he had been shot down by armed guards. The job Donovan had held was now vacant. A

The parachute spy in the third chair rose stiffly and saluted. The salute was returned by the leader.

"You will take Donovan's place. You will have all the necessary documents to show that you are an

American citizen, that you possess the skill necessary to fill the job. A member of the defense committee will

"The rest will cooperate in accordance with instructions which will be provided later. There must be no

"More news remains to be told. Bitter news. The Shadow has started to fight back! We face difficulties!"

"Three of our brave agents outside the inner circle are now dead! One was killed in the Adirondacks. Two

more died when they fell from a freight train en route to Oakmont. I am positive that The Shadow was

"I have caused secret inquiries to be made about a millionaire sportsman named Lamont Cranston. Cranston

was at Henry Norman's hunting camp when the first death occurred. He is now reported to be at his home in

New Jersey, although spies in the East have not seen him face to face. If Lamont Cranston should appear in

The masked leader straightened in his oak chair on the platform and suddenly the bronze bell tolled. Every

light in the room went out. When they blazed again, the chair on the platform was empty.

One by one, the five men rose and departed by the steel door which opened automatically for each. It was

AN hour later, a far different scene was taking place at the Oakmont airport. A plane from Washington was

winging in for a landing. The airport was crowded with spectators. All of them were eager for a glimpse of

Kent Allard was the foremost aviator in the United States. He had won an affectionate hold on the hearts of

Americans, particularly since the danger of war from abroad had changed the country into an armed camp.

Here, in Oakmont, was concentrated the heart of the aviation rearmament industry. Kent Allard was arriving

to preside at a meeting of the Aviation Defense Committee. He came as a personal representative of the

Sometimes The Shadow used the guise of Lamont Cranston, sometimes other guises. But The Shadow's real

Allard left the airport at once. He was driven to a building in downtown Oakmont, where the Aviation

Defense Committee was awaiting his arrival. He was greeted with applause when he stepped into the

It amused The Shadow to know that Norman didn't realize that the man he applauded had been so recently a

guest of his in the Adirondacks. Norman could be pardoned for that ignorance. Two men more dissimilar than

Cranston and Allard could hardly be imagined. Allard seemed younger, taller, handsomer. His facial and

He had known that Norman would be in Oakmont. A member of the Defense Committee had died suddenly

from a heart attack. The president had appointed Henry Norman to fill the dead man's job. This was natural

enough. Norman, in addition to his huge ammunition plant in the East, had built a big plant here in Oakmont

Besides Norman, the committee consisted of Lee Morley, a gasoline refiner, and Peter Kirk and Ralph

A LIVELY discussion took place after Allard arrived. A new foreman had been recommended for the job left

vacant by the death of a trusted workman who had gone so suddenly insane at the KirkJackson plant. The

new man's name was Frederick Brownson. He was waiting outside with his credentials.

The committee was in favor of hiring Brownson. But Peter Kirk objected strenuously.

"I don't like it," Kirk said. "It's queer Brownson should turn up with such excellent qualifications so soon

after the strange death of poor Donovan. I still think there was something queer about Donovan's sudden

madness. I can't help feeling that he might have been removed to make way for a possible Fifth Columnist."

Kirk spoke shrilly. The others laughed indulgently at him. His partner, Jackson, tried to soothe him. Lee

Morley, the oil man, seemed disgusted. Norman pointed out, reasonably enough, that Kirk hadn't even seen

The Shadow took no part in this argument. He watched Peter Kirk. There seemed something phony about his

angry objection. It was too shrill, a shade overdone. The Shadow wondered if all this argument might not be a

cunning device to make Kirk look innocent, if later developments showed that Brownson was not what he

His words were soft and pleasant. But when he answered questions, a chord in The Shadow's memory was

touched. Brownson had papers which showed that he had been born of American parents in a small town in

Kansas. But his voice had a slight foreign lisp like the voices of the three "servants" at the Adirondack

The Shadow noted other things. Both Brownson and Peter Kirk wore the same type of seal ring. A barely

perceptible glance had passed between them when the new foreman had entered the room.

Brownson sat quietly on a chair, one leg crossed over the other. His pose brought the sole of his right shoe

into The Shadow's line of vision. The Shadow saw on that exposed sole something that made his eyes gleam.

Kent Allard left the room before any of the others. He announced that he had to return to the airport. But he

didn't head for the staircase that would bring him from the secondfloor meeting room to the street. Tiptoeing

In that gloom, The Shadow waited. But not as Kent Allard. A black cloak shrouded him. His eyes burned

ominously under the low brim of his slouch hat. He had come prepared for an emergency. He was ready.

Brownson emerged from the committee room alone. The other men lingered to continue their discussion.

A hand closed on his throat, shutting off his wind. There was a desperate struggle, but no sound of it was

audible. In a few moments, Brownson was helpless on the floor. The Shadow made no attempt to harm the

With a bound, The Shadow fled to the end of the corridor. A window opened on a rear court. The Shadow

raced down a fire escape behind the building, made toward an alley that connected with the street.

IN the hallway above, Brownson had recovered his dazed wits. Shouting at the top of his lungs, he raced in

Peter Kirk was the first to recover his wits. An ugly light came into his eyes. As the committee raced along

"Down the stairs" he roared. "Follow him out front! There's no escape from the rear except through the alley.

So quick was the pursuit led by Kirk, that The Shadow was seen as he leaped into a waiting car out front. It

was not the car in which Kent Allard had arrived. It was driven by an agent of The Shadow. It left in a terrific

The agent who drove that car knew every inch of the route he was taking. He had practiced it beforehand.

When he stopped finally, it was at the exact spot where The Shadow had instructed him to halt.

His jaw dropped in amazement as he turned. There was no one in the fugitive car. The Shadow had vanished.

All that remained of his presence was the slouch hat and the black cloak. Tucked in the hat brim was a brief

note. The agent read that note, and obeyed it. He abandoned the car. With him went the cloak and the hat of

When pursuing police finally arrived at the scene, they found nothing to point to the identity of The Shadow

or the agent who had helped him escape. The car had been stolen. Its owner, summoned hastily to the scene,

could throw no light on the mystery. His name was Clyde Burke. He was an ace New York City

newspaperman, in town to write a series of articles on national defense. He answered police questions glibly.

Among the committee members who had made so vain a pursuit, was Kent Allard. He had appeared in a

nearby spot in time to join the others. He could add nothing to the knowledge of the police. As soon as

Alone, Kent Allard went back to the vicinity of the building where The Shadow had made his amazingly

strange theft. He picked up a locked leather traveling case which he had been careful to drop in a safe spot.

Inside the bag were a pair of shoes which The Shadow had stolen from Frederick Brownson.

The Shadow examined those shoes in the privacy of his room. He paid particular attention to the sole of the

right shoe. A strange twinkle of reflected light had caught Kent Allard's eye when Brownson had crossed his

A trace of sibilant laughter passed The Shadow's lips, as he discovered a small fragment of glass imbedded

He cut it out carefully with a sharp knife, and examined it. The fragment was a tiny chunk of expensive

crystal glassware. It looked like a duplicate of certain other broken pieces of glass The Shadow had examined

But The Shadow made no snap judgment. He used painstaking tests before he nodded with complete

The sample was a fragment from a crystal wine glass. It was the same type of expensive glassware owned by

With certainty, did The Shadow know why that tiny bit of expensive glassware had been imbedded in the sole

of Brownson's right shoe. Brownson was one of the five parachutists who had descended through a

snowstorm from a mysterious transport plane! He was one of the invaders who had drunk a toast with a

Only a fleeting glimpse of that masked leader had The Shadow caught on the night he had spent in Norman's

The Shadow reached for the telephone. His crisp call was answered by the quiet voice of Burbank, his contact

To Burbank, orders were given that concerned Clyde Burke. Burke was instructed to begin an immediate

The Shadow had not forgotten the strange clue he had found in the pocket of a dead man in a railroad tunnel.

"Indian 16." At first glance, the clue had seemed impossible to unravel. But an inspection of the Oakmont

There was one thing The Shadow had not divined. Criminals had wanted The Shadow to find that clue and

It was evidently an unoccupied house. Shades were drawn on dirty windows. A faded realestate placard was

pasted on the peeling paint of the front door. The house was dark from cellar to roof. It stood midway down a

At the corner was an automobile parking lot, enclosed by a high wooden fence. This parking lot figured

importantly in Clyde's calculations. It afforded him a means of communication with The Shadow, in case

But keen eyes were watching him. A masked traitor to America sat hidden behind the drawn shade of a

window across the street. He had noticed Clyde's arrival a short time earlier. He was ready to spring a trap.

He rose from his cramped position behind the pinpoint hole in his window shade, and walked noiselessly

across the room and picked up a telephone. The message he delivered was lowtoned. It appeared to amuse

Ten minutes later, Clyde Burke saw a car turn the corner into Indian Street. It halted in front of the vacant

The man behind the wheel spoke briefly to another man in the rear seat. There was a girl sitting with this

second man. She got out of the car with him. He was careful to help her. He held tightly on her arm as the girl

crossed the sidewalk toward the house. The driver of the car took the girl's other arm. Her steps stumbled.

It was difficult to notice much else. The girl's cape muffled the lower part of her face. Her lips couldn't be

The trio didn't ring the front doorbell of No. 16. One of the men had a key. His companion held tightly to the

blonde's arm while the door was being unlocked. Then all three of them vanished inside.

It left Clyde facing a dilemma. Should he try to sneak into the house and spy on what was evidently a kidnap

His dilemma was solved for him by the two thugs themselves. Five minutes after they had vanished, they

The blonde had evidently been tied up, a prisoner inside the vacant house. The chances were excellent that

she was alone. Thugs were reporting to their boss that their snatch had been successful.

Clyde Burke decided that it would be a smart idea to get inside the empty house before the two thugs returned

Two doorways had been cut into the board fence. One was an entrance for cars, the other provided an exit. A

painted word on each entry showed the proper traffic direction. One, was marked "In" ; the other "Out".

Clyde slipped a piece of chalk from his pocket. Over the entry marked "Out", he drew a cross. It was a

prearranged signal for The Shadow. It meant that "Out" was no longer true. "In" was the proper signal. By

this simple stratagem, The Shadow would know that Clyde had decided to enter the suspected house.

CIRCLING the rear of No. 16, Clyde soon located a cellar window whose lock was defective. Rust had so

damaged the metal, that the tongue of the bolt didn't fit properly into its groove. Steady pressure by Clyde

A flight of rickety wooden steps led upward. Clyde searched the ground floor cautiously. The house had

evidently been deserted for a long time. Floors and walls were bare. Mice squeaked in the black corners as

But on the top floor, Clyde found what he was seeking. In a shuttered rear room lay the unconscious figure of

the blonde. She was tied hand and feet to a cot. A gag had been jammed into the girl's mouth.

He bent over her to remove the gag and loosen the cords that bound her hands behind her back. As he did, he

With a quick heave, the girl flung both arms into view. Her helpless pose had been faked! Her eyes were

wide open. In her right hand she gripped a small gun which had been hidden beneath her body. She thrust the

Agony splashed into his wideopen eyes. The acrid smell of ammonia filled the room. Clyde staggered

The blonde charged forward like a tigress. She struck him headfirst. Both hands shoved at him with all her

Clyde went staggering backward. He struck the wall opposite the bed. The wall opened behind him.

It was like falling through a swinging door. For an instant, Clyde's reeling body was visible as it plunged into

She ripped the fake gag from her mouth. Then she laughed. It was a shrill, vindictive sound. But there was no

one in the house to hear it. Fifth Columnists had entrusted the blonde with the sole task of capturing Clyde.

Tiptoeing to a front window, she raised and lowered the shade. Then she hurried from the house.

As she emerged on the sidewalk, a man came out of a doorway across the street. Neither paid any attention to

the other. The blonde continued up the street. The man got into a small coupe which stood at the curb. His hat

was drawn low. A coat collar muffled his throat. After he had got into the car, he kept his face low over the

wheel. He drove into the parking lot on the corner. Halting at the pay shack, he got out of his car.

A normal customer would have accepted a parking stub and departed. But nothing of the kind happened. A

quick word passed from the customer to the attendant who had emerged from the small shack.

The attendant went back into the shack, and the man followed him. The door closed. It remained shut two or

three minutes before it opened again. The attendant came out, but not the customer. That was queer, because

the customer was no longer in the shack! The open door showed that the tiny enclosure was now empty.

The attendant didn't seem to be troubled by the strange vanishing act. He got quickly into the man's car and

drove it into one of the lines of parked automobiles. When he went back to the shack, he was grinning.

THE old man who shambled around the corner into Indian Street looked pathetic. His clothing was shabby

He blinked as he moved slowly outside the fence that closed off the corner parking lot from Indian Street. He

blinked because he noticed a parking attendant staring suspiciously at him. A tired move of his head turned

The Shadow had seen a chalked cross on the exit sign. It disfigured the painted word "Out". By that device

The Shadow knew that Clyde Burke was no longer lurking on Indian Street. He had gone into Number 16.

Like a human derelict, The Shadow continued along the dark sidewalk. Presently, he vanished from sight.

He emerged in the rear of No. 16. It wasn't hard to follow Clyde's trail. The rusted bolt on the cellar window

was still out of its slot. The Shadow could see the marks where Clyde's feet had struck on dusty concrete, as

He followed Clyde's trail up the rickety stairs and through the empty house. But this keeneyed, sharpeared

investigator was no longer an aged bum. A black cloak covered The Shadow's tall figure. A slouch hat

shielded the cold flame in his eyes. He had an icy feeling of danger as he ascended through the musty house.

On the rear room of the top floor, he saw the cot where the blonde had made so easy a capture of Clyde

Burke. There was no sign of a girl, or of Clyde either. But there were plenty of clues that told The Shadow

The cot was dented with the unmistakable imprint of a human body. Someone had been stretched full length

on that bed fairly recently. A woman, judging from the length of the body impression. Or perhaps a

One sniff at the mattress gave The Shadow the true answer. The smell of perfume was recognizable. Not a

cheap perfume, either. The Shadow's nose crinkled as he recognized a famous and highpriced brand.

There was another odor in the room, too. A more pungent one. Ammonia! A girl, stretched in apparent

helplessness on a cheap cot, had taken Clyde an easy prisoner by the use of ammonia.

But where had she taken Clyde? And how had he fallen so easy a captive? There were no signs of a struggle.

Even temporarily blinded by ammonia, Clyde was no man to submit to an assailant without putting up a

The Shadow searched the floor for other clues. He found them. The soles of Clyde's shoes had been coated

with greasy dust from the floor of the longempty cellar. He had left a telltale line of prints on the floor of

this shuttered room. The prints moved backward. The spacing showed that Clyde had recoiled toward the

The wall was papered. There were vertical red lines, with a design of roses in each panel between the lines.

One of those vertical red lines was slightly wider than the rest. The Shadow pressed with his gloved hand.

Twin doors swung inward like the batwing doors of a saloon. Only the slightest pressure was needed. When

He peered into a dark chute within the wall. That's exactly what it was a chute. Instead of a vertical drop

into blackness, the chute descended in a steep slant. Down that chute Clyde Burke must have slid at terrific

It was impossible to see where he had vanished. The glow of The Shadow's flash down that strange, slanting

wall tunnel showed that the chute curved abruptly out of sight at a point that must be considerably below the

Clyde had fallen helplessly into a trap. The Shadow did a bold thing. He entered the trap voluntarily.

He knew that Clyde's life was in deadly peril. In The Shadow's battle against crime, one rule of conduct was

paramount. If any agent encountered disaster in following orders given to him by The Shadow, that agent's

From beneath The Shadow's black robe a thin but strong rope appeared. Unwinding it, The Shadow tied one

end to the cot, which he braced securely against the wall. The rest of the rope dropped silently down the black

He moved cautiously in darkness. But he had hardly descended twenty feet, when from above his head came

a sudden patch of brightness. The panel in the top floor room had opened! A hand shoved through. The hand

Instantly, The Shadow's .45 lifted. But that knife edge above him must have been razorsharp. An instant

before the .45 roared inside the wall, there was a sharp jerk at the rope, that ruined The Shadow's aim. His

Down the slippery chute sped the released body of The Shadow. The speed of his plunge flung him on his

spine. He whizzed around the turn in the chute that led to a spot beneath the cellar of the old house. Then he

He flung himself forward to his feet. It was pitchdark. The floor seemed to be made of stone. An instant

later, The Shadow heard the plop! plop! of two muffled explosions in quick succession.

An acrid odor stung his nose and made his eyes water. Tear gas! The stuff came billowing at him through the

darkness. He flung one arm protectively before his eyes and charged forward. His groping gun barrel struck a

The door was locked, but the roar of The Shadow's heavy .45 took care of the lock. There was a splintering of

He had no time to be puzzled by the fact that no human foe had yet faced him. The room where the tear gas

had exploded was apparently empty. The teargas bombs had been released mechanically.

Pitchdarkness shrouded him as he advanced grimly. He had lost his flashlight during that swift fall down the

chute. His arm swept through the darkness, trying to encounter the soft obstacle of human flesh.

The moment he realized this, The Shadow retreated. He stood with his back against the wall of the black

It was a strong net, made of powerful interlaced ropes. He could feel it tighten swiftly about his struggling

arms and legs. The Shadow was yanked off his feet. He was tangled as effectively as a shark in the net of a

But his brain remained as cold as ice. The moment The Shadow realized the nature of the trap, he ceased

struggling. His hand flashed into a sheath under his black robe. A quick jerk brought a knife into play. The

edge of that knife was sharp. But sharp as it was, The Shadow had to slash desperately three or four times

Through the ragged opening The Shadow squirmed. He rebounded to his feet. The knife was in his left hand.

Then a fragile tinkle sounded. It was the crash of breaking glass. The sound recalled to The Shadow's

memory a similar sound he had once heard in a bedroom at the Adirondack hunting lodge of Henry Norman.

As he did so, his nostrils sniffed a pleasant odor. Instantly, he stopped breathing. He knew that deadly smell

AT the first tiny sniff of that deadly perfume, The Shadow pressed his lips tautly together.

But the fact that he was aware of the poison gas in the darkness, was proof that he had unconsciously sniffed

a small amount of it. His throat felt curiously paralyzed. His nostrils burned like raw flame.

He stood rooted where he was. The gas was swirling close to him in a compact cloud of death. There was no

way to escape it by moving backward in a sealed room. Nor could The Shadow hold his breath much longer.

The shot made a thunderous roar. The bullet struck an invisible steel wall and ricocheted. But The Shadow

A terrific jet of expanding powder gas by the shot was released. It enveloped the poison gas cloud in front of

The Shadow dropped to one knee. Desperately, he held his aching lungs sealed for a few seconds longer.

He could smell the reek of burned cordite. But there was no longer that insidious scent of fresh flowers. The

poison gas had been scattered all over the dark room. Its concentration was gone. The Shadow was able to

There was a sudden clanging sound. Through the darkness came a rush of feet. An attacking foe flung

himself unseen at The Shadow. Other hands caught at him from the rear. Under that multiple assault, he

More men dived into the struggle. There were so many of them that they impeded each other's attack. At least

four or five men were smashing viciously at the prone body of The Shadow, to put him out of action.

His gun hand was immovable on the floor. Someone's foot was jammed on his wrist. Fingers clamped

He managed to writhe sideways. His head ducked toward the leg of the man whose foot was a grinding pain

on his wrist. Jerking his head forward, The Shadow snapped it against the leg on his wrist, knocked it off.

His freed gun swung upward. He fired blindly. He heard a strangled cry and the thump of a body.

But he had no chance to press the trigger again. He was facing men who had been trained for battle, men who

cared not whether they lived or died, so long as they accomplished their task. A hand caught The Shadow's

gun. Other foes flung themselves recklessly into the line of fire. Their combined attack was too much to

withstand. The gun was wrenched from The Shadow's grasp. A heavy boot kicked him viciously in the ribs.

WHEN The Shadow's senses returned, he was lying flat on a stone floor. But it was not the room in which he

had been captured. This chamber was bathed in vivid light. It was the inner underground chamber from which

The Shadow was able to see them clearly, but he was unable to move. His hands and feet were tied. A gag

Masked men stared at the two prisoners. There were four of them. The fifth was the man whom The Shadow

had shot. His dead body lay in an inert heap on the floor. Like his comrades, the dead man was masked.

Nor was it possible to identify their traitorous leader. He stood like an officer in front of a squad of soldiers.

A cloth helmet covered his entire head and face. Murderous eyes gleamed through the narrow slits in that

The hooded man's voice provided The Shadow with no clue to his identity. It was a disguised voice, one that

"Congratulations on your fighting ability," the voice sneered. "It was heroic, but useless. Your prompt

capture is a small sample of what your entire country may expect from us when the Day der tag comes!"

"Tonight we are putting an end to one of the most important industrial plants in the rearmament program of

America. I refer to the factory owned and operated by the Messrs. Kirk and Jackson. It will explode to heaven

in a burst of flame from a weapon perfected overseas by a virile nation determined on world mastery!"

"I can tell you this now, because your life is doomed. An airplane will signal my attack the same ship

which carried my associates by air from the American coast. But the airplane will not cause the disaster. Only

your stupid American Secret Service agents will think that. The real agency of death is already planted inside

There was an impatient grunt from his four masked henchmen. They were enraged by the death of their

comrade. They wanted quick action on The Shadow. Their leader sensed it. He issued a rasping order. The

The Shadow watched what they did, from his helpless position on the stone floor of the underground

A small cement block was removed from the wall, leaving a square hole. Into that hole was placed an object

that looked like a blowtorch. The man tested it. Flame gushed from it with a loud hissing noise.

Having been tested, the torch was cemented into the wall. Quickdrying cement was used. Only the top of

the torch projected from the wall. It was now impossible to remove the implement or to quench the ugly roar

A mediumsized box was now hauled from a corner. It was made of metal. When it was placed on end, close

to the flame of the blowtorch, but not too close, The Shadow saw a turretlike projection on top of it. The

turret was like an enlarged version of the nipple on a baby's feeding bottle. It was covered by a silver

The metal box was set firmly on a square spot in the floor. Before the spot was covered by the box, The

"Exactly! A metal plate in the floor. You will find it impossible to move the box in the unlikely event that

you escape in time from your bonds. The floor plate is electrically magnetized. So is the metal box. A

"Under that silver screwcap on the box's turret is a nipple made of wax. It will take less than five minutes for

the heat from the blowtorch to melt the wax. When that happens, you will have a preview of hell!"

WITH a careful gesture, the masked leader unscrewed the silver cap. The wax nipple was disclosed. The

roaring flame of the blowtorch in the wall began to send ripples of dissolving warmth toward the wax.

The leader snarled an order. Four hands saluted. Four enemy agents marched toward a different section of the

wall that enclosed the death chamber. A panel swung open, disclosing the mouth of a black tunnel. The spies

The Shadow began to struggle. It was impossible to break his bonds. They had been tied by experts.

Every muscle in his body felt paralyzed. His brain was dulled from the effects of the poison gas he had so

briefly inhaled. But he forced his sluggish muscles to obey his will. He rolled over and over, toward the

roaring jet of flame from the wall. He managed by superhuman will power to totter to his trussed feet.

It was impossible to put out that tongue of flame. The blowtorch from which it gushed was imbedded

immovably in the cement. The steel box, too, was immovable. And the nipple in the path of the flame was

Hunched over like a cripple, The Shadow thrust the hands that were trussed behind his back into that searing

jet of flame from the wall. It made him cringe with agony. But he held his corded hands there until the

They fell apart, writhing and smoking. The Shadow flung himself to the stone floor. He worked at his ankles

Soon he was able to leap to his feet and race toward the helpless figure of Clyde Burke. He dared not look

toward the wax nipple whose complete melting would detonate the contents of the immovable metal box.

A knife slashed so desperately at Clyde's bonds, that blood spurted from the flesh of The Shadow's agent.

Clyde raced for the mouth of the earth tunnel through which the spies had fled. The Shadow followed.

The wall panel closed behind them. They crawled along the tunnel like rats, squirming, sliding, in their haste

to put every possible foot of space between them and the deadly explosive in the underground chamber.

They were thirty feet along the tunnel when the blast erupted. The Shadow heard no sound at first. Flame was

the only thing of which he was conscious. Searing heat blew open the door of the earth tunnel as if it had

It was like the end of the world. It deafened them, flung them forward. Clyde fell in a twisted heap. He lay as

The tunnel floor began to slant upward. It ended at a point considerably higher than the level at which they

But there was a ladder in front of that barrier. It led upward to a wooden trapdoor. The Shadow ascended

swiftly, followed by Clyde. The .45 in The Shadow's clenched hand showed that he was ready for battle with

The Shadow found himself in the empty pay shack of the automobile parking lot at the corner of Indian

Street. He shoved his gun out of sight as he and Clyde emerged into the open air.

Every human being in the neighborhood was out in the street, gazing with terror down Indian Street. The

vacant house in the middle of the block had vanished. Where it had stood was a flaming inferno of toppled

A glance over the fence of the parking lot was all The Shadow needed. He started to whisper a command to

High in the night sky, he had heard the hum of an airplane motor. As Kent Allard, The Shadow was familiar

It faded quickly. The Shadow realized the direction of its course. The plane was heading across Oakmont

The Shadow darted back to the pay shack in the deserted parking lot. There was a telephone on a battered

desk. He picked it up, tried to raise the operator. But the line was dead, probably put out of commission by

With a bound, The Shadow flung himself into the nearest car in the parking lot. Its key was in the ignition

THE huge KirkJackson factory was humming with energy. Tonight there was an air of jubilation on the

crowded work floor. Quotas for the last month had been exceeded. Bonus payments had been made to

patriotic workers. A message of congratulation had been received from the President of the United States.

Jubilation had spread to the private office of the factory owners on the second floor. The hiring of Frederick

Brownson had apparently produced this happy change. Ever since Brownson had started work, with two

Brownson was being discussed in the private office. Kirk and Jackson were there. So was Henry Norman,

"You must admit, Kirk, you were wrong about this fellow Brownson," he said smilingly.

"I completely misjudged him," he said. "He's thoroughly loyal. So loyal, that he's working on the floor right

"It isn't continuous work. Brownson knocked off for two hours this evening. He just came back to the plant a

Jackson chuckled. "We've had a long day ourselves. Are you gentlemen going home?"

Norman nodded. But Peter Kirk shook his head. Again, that strange hesitancy came into his speech.

"You two go ahead. I'll be tied up here a little longer. I've got a few odds and ends to attend to here."

Jackson and Norman left. Alone, Kirk sat down in his swivel chair and cupped his hands behind his head. He

looked like a tired man. But he didn't close his eyes, he kept staring at the wall.

His caller was Lee Morley, the fourth member of the Aviation Defense Committee. The voice of the oil

magnate seemed far away. But there was urgency in his speech, a note of excitement that was instantly

Lee Morley explained, in a swift race of words over the wire. He had received a telephone call, a few minutes

earlier, from a man who called himself The Shadow. The man had hung up after whispering a harsh warning.

"The Shadow told me that Fifth Columnists have stolen the plans of the airplane bomb sight," Morley gasped.

"The theft was accomplished during the interval when the day shift quit work and the night shift took over.

"All right. I'll have a look at the plans, just to set your mind at rest. Come on over, Morley. We'll examine the

KIRK hung up, and relaxed in his chair. For a couple of minutes he sat there, watching the big safe in the

corner. Then his glance moved upward toward the clock on the office wall. He uttered a grunt that might have

At any rate, he didn't wait for the arrival of the oil magnate. He hurried over to the safe, spinning its dials

with hands that trembled perceptibly. When the safe door swung open, Peter Kirk took from it a metal

The metal box contained the blueprints that explained in technical language the secret of the new bomb sight

Walking back to his desk, he laid the tin box down. He seemed in no hurry to open it. Perhaps he had

decided, after all, to wait for Morley's arrival, in order to have a laugh at his worried associate's expense when

THERE was a big clock down on the busy floor of the factory. Frederick Brownson watched it.

The new foreman and his two helpers were busy at the delicate semiautomatic machinery they controlled.

Under their hands was the very heart of the assembly line that produced the enormously valuable bomb

Presently, Brownson walked closer to one of his assistants. He made a minor adjustment at an electrical

switch panel. But he also made certain that he leaned close to the ear of his assistant.

The workman left his machine, drifted across the plant floor toward one of the windows. Below its steel sill,

on the floor, was a large metal chest. The chest contained firefighting materials. In one compartment sand

was kept, to fight a blaze of chemical origin. In another compartment were patent extinguishers.

The workman leaned closer, as if looking idly out the window. Slyly, he unlocked the box, using a key he

He didn't open the closed lid. He merely wanted it ready. He continued to stare out the window. He wasn't

Suddenly, he heard it a barely audible buzzing far up in the black sky. The hum of an airplane at a high

Gradually, the hum faded. Then twice more it was faintly audible. The plane had circled over the factory

The workman went back to his machine. As he passed Brownson, he whispered a monosyllable.

Brownson smiled. It was a taut grimace. Soon, he began to make a routine inspection of other machines on

the factory floor. His tour around the plant excited no comment. As foreman, it was Brownson's task to make

He devoted more attention to some machines than others. Each one of these latter machines were located near

Brownson managed to drop to his knees and get a casual look under those machines. In each case, he saw the

same thing: a small metal cylinder, hidden from sight. The cylinders had a queer little turret atop them. The

Shadow would have recognized the shape of those turrets. They were like the silver cap on the

thermitebomb box that had blown the house at 16 Indian Street into flaming chaos.

But the principle of these bombs was entirely different. The nipple was not made of soft, easily melted wax.

They concealed an amazing soundreceiving device, invented in the war laboratories of a foreign nation.

Brownson went back to his own machine. He continued to watch the clock. Suddenly, he stiffened. The

moment had come. His lunch pail was on the floor, close to his machine. He kicked it out of sight with a sly

Suddenly, there was a sharp, crackling noise. Dense, black smoke began to pour from the machine. It was

Workmen began to mill around, coughing in the dense smoke. A few morelevel heads tried to stem the

panic. They began to shout reassuring words. But they didn't do it very long. Fists smashed into their jaws,

Other workmen were dropping to the floor, overcome by the greasy smoke that swirled everywhere. It

THROUGH the smoke screen, the three foreign agents darted unseen to the metal chest near the window.

The three honest workmen who had been knocked unconscious were dragged through the dense smoke

toward the machines in charge of Brownson and his two helpers. They were dropped there in a crumpled

If smoke didn't kill them, flame would. Their charred bodies would provide a false alibi for Fifth Columnists.

Firemen, poking in the ruins, would find what they believed to be the bodies of Brownson and his two

Protected by their smoke helmets, the three conspirators raced through the choking black fog and up the stairs

Brownson darted into the office. His two assistants waited outside, to kill anyone who might interfere. But no

Presently, Brownson reappeared from the smokeshrouded office. His voice was a thick, slobbering bellow

Carrying the dispatch case which Peter Kirk had removed from the office, he jerked off his helmet, and so did

the other two. They scattered to different windows. Swift leaps brought them downward to the paved surface

The factory yard was a scene of confusion. Men milled in a confused mass, yelling with excitement and

terror. Their fear increased as an ominous sound rose in the black heavens overhead. A noise like a

The plane was a thousand feet above in the darkness. It had leveled off and was climbing aloft again. But

from its steel belly a black dot dropped earthward a dot that swiftly became an enormous bomb!

Workmen tried to run. Their yells were dwarfed by a more hellish shriek from the falling bomb. It was a siren

bomb! It struck in the courtyard and lay where it had fallen, without exploding. Men stared over their

The siren in the fallen bomb continued to shriek. Its sound got higher, shriller. Gradually, it vanished into

silence. The noise of that bomb siren was at too high a pitch for human ears to hear. It was approaching the

pitch of the sound mechanism in the metal cylinder concealed in the doomed factory.

Suddenly, there was a roar that seemed like the end of the world. The factory building quivered like a

wounded animal. Then it erupted. Bricks flew, glass shattered. Flame spouted upward in enormous pillars

Frederick Brownson watched it, flat on his belly in a dark corner of the factory yard. Darkness protected him.

So did smoke. Through that darkness came a weird figure. It was a man dressed in bulky ski pants tucked into

hobnailed shoes. A cloth helmet masked his face except for the twin slits of eyeholes.

The metal dispatch case which Brownson had stolen from the office of Peter Kirk passed swiftly into the

He headed toward a queer haven. Shielded by billowing clouds of smoke, he raced toward the private garage

at the rear of the factory yard where the automobile of Peter Kirk was kept. He darted inside. The door

A MOMENT later, a car roared into the factory yard through the street gate. It was driven by a

wildlyexcited member of the Defense Committee. Lee Morley leaped out, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"The Shadow! This fire was plotted by The Shadow! He warned me that the factory would be destroyed

His words were repeated by the maddened men in the yard. Flames made terrific heat. Faces were flushed,

lips cracked. Eyes turned toward the windows of the doomed plant. Then a horrible yell arose.

He was visible at one of the factory windows. They could see him climbing out of Peter Kirk's office.

Men darted to the attack. But flame and smoke drove them back. It forced The Shadow to flee, too. He had

arrived too late. His wild automobile dash across town had brought him to the factory after the blast had

occurred. He had fought his way inside the doomed plant and raced to Kirk's office. It was empty, and the

Poised at the open window, The Shadow's grim eyes peered through billowing clouds of smoke. He saw

something that no one else in that maddened mob did. He saw a hooded figure vanish into the garage owned

It was a challenge to the courage and wits of The Shadow. He eluded the mob, which had fallen back from

the terrific heat of the flaming factory. He did this by deliberately attempting something no human being

could be expected to accomplish: he ducked back and raced through the heart of the flames!

It was a short cut and a necessary one; but it nearly took the life of The Shadow. When he staggered to

another window above a dark extension roof, his robe was ablaze. Grimly, he beat the fire from his cloak. A

leap carried him downward through the smoke to the pavement of the factory yard. He raced unseen toward

There was a man in the garage, but he wasn't hooded or masked. Nor did he hold the stolen dispatch box with

The man was Peter Kirk! He lay in a huddle on the floor. There was blood on his head. Near his limp hand

As Kirk saw the blackcloaked intruder, he sprang to his feet, seized the bloody chisel and attacked The

His shouts were heard. Men raced to Kirk's help. But when the door of the garage was flung open, Kirk was

He was lying on the floor. At the rear of the garage, a window was smashed. The Shadow had escaped just in

the nick of time from a maddened mob of Americans who would have torn him to pieces.

They found no trace of The Shadow. Fireman and police combed the entire neighborhood of the flaming

"The Shadow! He rushed into the garage while I was trying to save my car from the flames. He struck me

The statement Kirk made was not true whether because of his confusion, or because he had deliberately

But it was a statement that no man doubted. The Shadow was branded with the guilt of treason!

"I don't like the situation at all," the police chief declared. "The whole town is aroused. Citizens have lost

confidence in the police. My detectives report that there are ugly whispers all over town. A secret vigilante

organization is being formed. They call themselves the White Column. They're inviting loyal Americans of

Oakmont to help them rid the town of Fifth Columnists. I'm afraid there will be bloodshed, if we don't solve

The members of the Defense Committee were there, too. Peter Kirk and Ralph Jackson sat side by side, their

faces grim. The financial loss to them had been tremendous. Worse still, they had failed to safeguard a

military secret entrusted to their care by the government. The sabotage raid had succeeded in every vicious

Henry Norman looked as unhappy as his two associates on the Committee. So did Lee Morley, the oil refiner.

"Absolutely! The Shadow was seen at a window of the plant shortly after the explosions occurred. He tried to

hide in Mr. Kirk's garage, and attacked him with a chisel when Kirk tried to capture him."

A new voice spoke quietly in the conference room. Kent Allard was there. He had arrived late. He apologized

for his delay. He asked the police chief to summarize the facts that had been discovered.

Kent Allard's position on the committee made such a request an order. As a personal representative of the

President of the United States, he was charged with the duty of reporting directly to Washington. The police

"The factory was destroyed by thermite bombs," he declared. "They were detonated within the plant by a new

"The thermite bombs were hidden all over the plant near ventilator fans, air shafts and similar places, where

the flames would spread quickly under forced draft. Chemical experts have examined one which failed to

explode. Gentlemen, that bomb was equipped with a soundreceiving device. A deadly little thing like a

"The projectile that fell from the plane was a siren bomb. Its siren continued to shriek after the projectile

landed. When the sound wave reached a certain pitch, they affected the tuning forks in those thermite bombs

"No commercial or private ship was in the air last night within miles of the factory. It's proof that the plane

was a foreign one. Either it came from a secret field, or it flew from a foreign warship somewhere off the east

"Could there have been a treacherous collusion inside the factory?" Kent Allard asked.

"The only man who might be suspected was the new foreman, Frederick Brownson. It was from beneath his

machine that the smoke first appeared. But neither he nor his two assistants could be traitors. They were the

only men who died in the disaster. Everyone else fled. We found the charred bodies of Brownson and his two

Kent Allard's eyes gleamed at this, but he changed the subject. He referred to the strangely easy theft of the

"That's more treacherous work on the part of The Shadow," the police chief growled. "Mr. Kirk, will you

Kirk licked his lips. He described the phone call he had received from Lee Morley.

"Morley said he had gotten a warning from The Shadow. The Shadow boasted that an attempt was under way

to steal the plans. I opened my safe to make sure. It was a lie! The plans were in their metal case. I was about

to return them to the safe, when the explosions occurred. I barely escaped with my life. I was forced to leave

"The whole thing was a fake!" Lee Morley cut in. "I never made any phone call to Kirk. Whoever phoned

"Kirk asked me to," Morley said. "He phoned me up at my home and told me all hell was about to break

"I never asked Morley to come to the factory! The Shadow must have made both calls! First, he impersonated

Morley and told me the plans were missing from the safe. Then he impersonated me and warned Morley to

hurry to the plant. It looks to me as if he hoped to destroy both Morley and myself in the explosion."

"Funny, The Shadow didn't try to lure your partner Mr. Jackson," Allard mused. "And why didn't he trick Mr.

Norman didn't seem to be as excited as the rest. He kept watching Kent Allard with a steady gaze. There was

The police chief shrugged. He returned to the subject of the new vigilante organization that called itself the

"There have been threats of lynching and worse. The rumor is all over town that the police have failed and it's

time for loyal citizens to take the law into their own hands. I'm afraid trouble is brewing."

"Probably just talk," Henry Norman said smoothly. "The question is, where is the Defense Committee to

meet hereafter? The KirkJackson factory where we used to meet is now gone. I suggest that we make our

new headquarters at my machinegun plant across town. It's well guarded. I've doubled my private police."

It was so agreed. Kent Allard ratified the choice. But there was grim uneasiness in his mind.

Someone on this Defense Committee was a traitor to the United States. Which one of these trusted leaders of

American industry was the masked criminal who had welcomed five foreign parachute invaders to the soil of

The Shadow had already learned much. He wasn't fooled by the identification of the three men who had

perished in the flames of the KirkJackson plant. Identity tags had been switched. Frederick Brownson and

And what of this socalled patriotic White Column? Was it an honest expression of American anger against

foreign agents or was it another cunning move on the part of clever foes from overseas?

The Shadow suspected that hidden forces of murder were gathering in darkness for another blow at America's

THE saloon which Clyde Burke entered that evening was in a shabby district of Oakmont. Its patrons were

chiefly workmen. The place was crowded, but there was little talking going on. What talk there was

concerned winter sports and similar innocent topics. But the faces of the men along the bar were grim.

Clyde attracted no particular attention. He wore cheap khaki trousers, a flannel shirt, and a wellworn

overcoat. His hands were bruised and calloused the hands of a man accustomed to manual labor.

It had taken an hour to transform Clyde's hands to this toilworn appearance. The Shadow had attended to

that. It was by the orders of The Shadow that Clyde Burke had entered this particular bar and grill.

People kept drifting in and out, Clyde observed; no women. Most of them had a beer or two, then drifted into

Clyde noticed that no one who went into that back room came out again. And no workman went in who first

didn't exchange a few words with a chunky, grayhaired man who seemed to have a lot of friends in the

He waited until the talk got around to the subject of Fifth Columnists, then Clyde sounded off. He put on a

good act. His face flushed. He pounded the bar with his fist. People in the saloon turned to look at him.

Clyde denounced spies and sabotage. He spoke angrily about the vain efforts of the police to round up the

"It's about time decent citizens took matters into their own hands," Clyde growled. "That's the only way to

put the fear of God into traitors! We ought to do as they did in the West years ago. Flog 'em! Make 'em talk!

Some of the men in the bar murmured approvingly. But the chunky, grayhaired man frowned. He spoke

"That's silly talk, mister. The police are doing the best they can. I know, because I'm an excop myself. That

"I can't help it! It makes my blood boil! There's only one way to handle rats who sneak into America to

Clyde had struck a popular note. He could tell that as he watched the faces. But he dropped the subject

quickly, and ordered another beer. He kept his eye on the chunky, grayhaired man. The man went over to an

empty table in the corner and sat down. He sat there until a new batch of customers filled the saloon. Then he

The rear room was empty. There was no furniture, not even a chair. After a while, the grayhaired man

Clyde answered glibly. He gave the boardinghouse address where he had registered under a fake name. He

answered a lot of other questions. Evidently, his answers pleased the grayhaired man.

"O.K. We need guys like you. Go downstairs. You'll be told what to do and where to go."

There didn't seem to be any way to get downstairs. But the grayhaired man smiled grimly as he pulled aside

Clyde descended. The man above closed the trapdoor. Clyde found himself in a small basement room, staring

at a young man. The young man looked as hard as nails. Behind him were some shelves on the wall. There

were dozens of paper packages on the shelves. They looked like laundry packages.

"We're taking care of a rat tonight. Everything is arranged to show this community that we mean business.

The hardfaced young man leaned closer. He whispered briefly in Clyde's ear, ended with:

"Remember! Do it exactly that way, or you won't get to first base. We've got to be careful."

The young man pressed a button in the wall. A rear door slid open. Clyde found himself in a dark rear court

behind the saloon. He went back out where he had parked his car, and got in. He tore open a corner of the

Its contents made his eyes gleam. The hardfaced young man had given Clyde a white robe, white gloves,

Clyde Burke had successfully carried out The Shadow's orders. He was a member of the White Column!

It was not a very big place. The road on which it was located was not a maintraveled highway. But Clyde

His headlights picked out an American flag flying from the top of a small pole planted in a grass plot outside.

There were three pumps at the curb. An overalled worker gave Clyde quick service.

"I don't think you've got the brand I want. I want some good United States gas."

The last pump looked as if it were seldom used. Clyde's car had to bump over the curb of the driveway to

"Hey, Mack! Here's a guy wants some good United States gas. Can you fix him up in a hurry?"

Mack came out of the office. He was a broadshouldered powerfullooking man, of a decent, solid American

type. But there was a fanatical gleam in his eyes as he looked Clyde over carefully.

That was the trouble with this secret White Column. It was designed to attract honest men who sincerely

wanted to rid the country of Fifth Columnists. The Shadow suspected that patriotic citizens were being

After Clyde's tank was filled, the man leaned closer and passed him a folded piece of paper.

Clyde opened the paper after he had driven out of sight. It contained complete directions for reaching a spot

on a small map marked with a cross. The spot, Clyde recognized at once, was a desolate one. It was in

Before he got too far out of town, Clyde stopped at a phone booth, went in and made a lowvoiced call.

When he hung up there was satisfaction in his eyes. The Shadow was now in possession of the facts.

Ten miles of jerky driving brought Clyde Burke to the spot on his map where he left the public road. A man

dressed in overalls stood leaning on a gate. When Clyde halted his car, the man flashed an electric torch in his

Clyde handed over the paper he had received at the filling station. There was a quick grunt, and the

"O.K. Hurry it up! Most of the boys are already here. Put out your parking lights after you change clothes."

It climbed steadily. Presently, Clyde found a spot along the lane where a lot of cars were parked. He swung

his own machine into line and doused the lights. Quickly, he donned his white robe and pulled the slitted

He hurried toward a bright glow he could see through the black mass of interlaced trees.

WHEN he emerged into the open, Clyde saw a terrifying scene. The glade at the top of the hill was enclosed

by shaggy trees. It was visible from the sky, but from no other direction. There was room in the clearing for a

number of cars arranged in a semicircle. Their bright lights were all turned on. The dazzling beams pointed

A white post had been erected there. At the top of this "white column" fluttered a small American flag. A

man was manacled to the post. His bared back was toward the crowd. He had been stripped to the waist. A

His captors were robed and masked like Clyde Burke. They waited for a signal from the mobleader. The

leader stood in front of the whipping post, with four henchmen at his side. Their identity was as secret as that

of any man in the mob. But Clyde's throat felt suddenly dry. It was queer that the leader should have four

assistants. Clyde suspected the ugly answer. The leader of this misguided mob was the ace enemy of

America! He had only four henchmen, because one of his five parachute spies had been killed in the subcellar

of 16 Indian Street during the vain attempt to blow The Shadow to flaming shreds.

A hush settled on the robed mob. The leader began to address them, began with a patriotic talk.

It was a skillful job. He appealed to every decent emotion. Clyde could feel the temper of the mob rising.

"We're here to examine evidence and to pronounce a just verdict. We've taken the law into our own hands

"The prisoner is a man who claims to be an American. He has an important production job in the

machinegun factory owned by Henry Norman. If this man is what he claims to be, we have no quarrel with

him. But if he is a soldier in the pay of a foreign nation what does he deserve?"

It was a horrible cry. It burst from hooded throats in a mounting like that of wild beasts. The leader of the

"The prisoner's name is Albert Kunner. He says he was born of an American father and mother. He says he

The captive struggled at the white pole to which he was fettered, but it was a vain effort. His fingers were

pressed on an ink pad. Their pattern was transferred to a large sheet of white paper. The paper was handed to

"Here is my evidence! Before we pass judgment, I want every member of the White Column to file past me

Clyde Burke joined the line of advancing men. When his time came to look at the evidence, his heart quailed

Kunner's fingerprints matched those on the document produced from under the robe of the masked leader.

Kunner's name was on it, too. His age, his physical appearance, the foreign city where he had been born

The document was an army commission. It showed that Albert Kunner was a captain in the army of an

IT was shouted from a hundred throats. Clyde didn't join in that cry. He was moving quietly toward the white

Two of the mobleader's hooded henchmen had picked up whips. They stood on either side of the prisoner.

There was a whistling sound as a whip struck. A pink streak appeared across the captive's bared back.

Again and again, the whips lashed. Blood trickled down the man's flesh. He sagged in his bonds. He was

Whitelipped behind the mask, Clyde sprang forward. From beneath his robe he jerked a pistol, swung its

The leader recoiled. He uttered a strangled yell of rage and terror. The men with the whips fell back too.

He had halted the torture of the victim, but it was a respite that lasted only an instant. There were too many

These mobsmen were fanatics. They had been stirred to madness by a skillful criminal who had played on

their emotions as Americans. They ignored the menace of the gun and flung themselves forward in wild

attack. Clyde brought one down with a bullet through the leg, but it didn't stop the others.

Hands clutched at Clyde's robe, fists swung toward his hooded face. He went down like a chip under a wave,

but he was up in an instant. He backed away before vicious feet could kick him to death.

His gun butt dropped a mobsman headlong. Another blow cleared a way for him. Clyde began to race down

Suddenly, they found themselves facing two figures. A man in cloak of black emerged from the darkness

with uncanny speed. In his hand was a gun with a queerly bulky barrel. He swept Clyde behind him with a

His black cloak made him seem part of the darkness under the branching trees of that mountain lane. His face

was not masked, but even without a mask there was little to see. The brim of his hat was pulled low over his

It was a futile order. Men had been stirred to the point of madness. They leaped forward to tear The Shadow

There was a booming explosion that made the dark leaves of the trees quiver. The air was suddenly filled

with streamers of white vapor. The vapor spread everywhere. Wherever it touched men's eyes, they clawed

The mobsmen milled together in a stumbling mass. Tears streamed from inflamed eyes. Voices shrieked

curses. In their frenzied efforts to escape from the vapor that was blinding them, members of the mob fought

The Shadow saw nothing of this. Protected by the gas barrage, he dragged Clyde out of sight among the trees.

The Shadow had not forgotten the bleeding captive at the white pole. The man had already suffered a cruel

lashing. The Shadow's first task was to rescue him; give him an honest chance to explain his innocence or

A quick test of the prisoner's heart and pulse proved it. The lashes had cut Kunner's naked back to ribbons,

but they had not caused his death. Terror had done that. A heart organically unsound had given way under the

A roar from the lane testified that the mob was racing back to cut off the escape of The Shadow and Clyde

Burke. They sensed that The Shadow had darted to the hilltop to rescue the prisoner.

Guns crashed as they saw the blackrobed figure retreat through the underbrush with Clyde. The Shadow

didn't return that fire. The odds were too uneven. At least fifty maddened mobsmen were pressing on in

attack. The leader and his four henchmen were cunningly protected by the flesh and blood of the leader's own

The Shadow knew exactly where he was retreating. He had thoroughly scouted the hill while Clyde was

listening to the patriotic harangue of the mobleader. As The Shadow fled, his gloved hand unwound a pliable

He tied one end of the rope to a chunk of rock imbedded in the earth at the edge of a steep chasm, and

dropped the loose rope into the gorge. Clyde smelled a queer odor from the rope. It seemed to be wet. But he

had no time to hesitate. A stern order from The Shadow sent him over the edge of the black precipice. He slid

swiftly down the rope to the bottom. His palms were raw from friction when his feet touched the earth below.

Bullets spat at The Shadow as he followed Clyde. A slug drilled through his hat. Another lifted the sleeve

Above him members of the hooded mob were crowding at the cliff edge to slide down the rope. It was their

With a quick gesture, The Shadow's hand swerved to the bottom of the dangling line. Flame made a quick

crimson flare in the darkness. The flame grew instantly to a mounting line of fire.

In an instant, it was ablaze from bottom to top. The mobsmen leaning over the cliff edge flung themselves

The rope parted in the middle. A flaming end fell into the darkness of the deep ravine. The rest of it curled to

Gunfire streaked downward into the darkness where The Shadow and Clyde had flung themselves. Bullets

The fugitives, however, were not hit. Neither The Shadow nor Clyde had remained under those tangled

bushes on the floor of the ravine. A quick jerk yanked Clyde's crawling body along a crooked depression that

This led to the lip of a dry waterfall covered by a black mass of foliage. Scrambling down concealed rocks,

The Shadow led Clyde through a labyrinth of trees toward a swamp. A path around the swamp brought the

It raced down a hill in total darkness. The Shadow allowed it to coast. It was a terrible risk in that blackness.

Curves dropped away in sheer descents unprotected by fence or guardrail. But The Shadow trusted to luck

At the bottom, he swung into a level road, snapped on parking lights and started his engine. The car raced

The Shadow had saved Clyde's life and his own from the blind fury of the mob. But he had failed in one grim

particular. Through no fault of his, a man was dead on the top of that lonely mountain a man who had been

Was Albert Kunner innocent? Had spies changed their attack from factories to workmen?

To The Shadow, the answer seemed viciously clear. A reign of terror was being established in Oakmont by a

hooded order. Workmen at the Norman plant would be afraid to go near their jobs, for fear of new attack.

He was one of the members of the Aviation Defense Committee: Peter Kirk Ralph Jackson Henry

HENRY NORMAN was in an angry mood. He struck his fist against the desk belonging to the Oakmont

"It's a damned outrage! That man's death was murder! The police should have prevented it. I've a good mind

to complain to the governor and have troops sent into this area to preserve order!"

It was the day following the "execution" of Albert Kunner by a hooded mob which called itself the "White

Column." Sunlight streamed through the windows of the conference room at police headquarters. It was a

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "The outrage was planned and carried out with complete secrecy. I haven't found

any clues, as yet, concerning the identity of the mobleader or any of his hooded henchmen. But I've got my

best detectives working on the case. If you'll only be patient, I can promise you action."

"Promises are no good," Norman fumed. "The White Column has got to be broken up before it ruins the

morale of my workmen! Some of them have already quit. They're afraid they may be accused of being spies."

"The chief is doing all he can," a quiet voice said. "I'm sure it won't be necessary to bring in militia to

The speaker was Kent Allard. His sobering words carried weight. The police chief looked grateful.

"It's a difficult problem," he said. "The town is full of rumors this morning. Everyone is whispering that the

Kent Allard had heard the whispered talk. That was why he had come with Henry Norman to police

headquarters. He had another reason, too. He intended to commit an act of theft. But he wasn't ready for that

"Positive!" the police head said. "He was seen leaving the KirkJackson plant after the thermite bombs went

off. Kirk tried to stop him and was slugged with a chisel. Now the attack has been transferred to Norman's

"But why?" Allard asked quietly. "You told me a little while ago that you're convinced Albert Kunner was a

spy. If The Shadow is serving a foreign nation, why should he have one of his own spies whipped to death?"

"That's the part I don't understand," the police chief admitted dazedly. "Kunner should be innocent. But the

evidence we found tied around Kunner's neck is damning. It proves that he was a reserve officer in the army

of an overseas nation. The document contains the description of his physical appearance, his fingerprints, age,

and foreign birthplace. Perhaps he tried to doublecross The Shadow and was killed for that reason."

"Albert Kunner had always been a loyal workman," Norman went on. "When I built this machinegun plant

out here, I transferred him from my Eastern arms factory, where he had worked for years. He's no more guilty

of treason than I am. The whole thing is a putup job to terrify other workers and throw my production

"May I see that document the mob left with Kunner's body?" Kent Allard asked the chief.

"Yes. It's here in my desk. I'm holding it until F.B.I. operatives arrive from Washington."

He opened a locked drawer. Allard studied the army commission closely. It certainly looked genuine.

Signature, description, fingerprints all testified to the treason of the man who was now dead.

Kent Allard didn't ask if he might keep the document in order to check on the truth of it. The police chief had

already made it clear that he would not allow the paper to pass from his possession.

"Not worth a damn!" Norman rasped. "Kunner wasn't at the factory when he was kidnapped by the White

Column. He was taken from his home. That's where the danger lies at the homes of my workmen!"

"I can't place a cop at every workman's home," the police chief protested. "There aren't men enough on the

"You don't understand what I mean," Norman said. "All I want is protection for the foremen who are most

essential to the running of my production. There are only five of them. They're all loyal Americans, but

they're badly scared as a result of what happened to Kunner. If you'll post a cop outside their homes every

The police chief smiled. He had expected a much more unreasonable request from the influential Mr.

Norman. He wrote down the names and addresses of the five foremen, and promised to post a guard every

Kent Allard copied the names and addresses, too. There was no reason why he shouldn't.

A few minutes later, he excused himself from the conference. He left the room before Norman did, stepping

A swift glance showed him that none of the doors that lined the marble hall were open. It was exactly what

Kent Allard had been hoping for. He hurried silently along the hall and vanished into a small closet near a

Three minutes later, the door of the police chief's conference room was flung suddenly open. A blackrobed

figure leaped inside and closed the door softly behind him. Twin .45's pointed at the startled police chief and

His appearance was frightening. Eyes gleamed like flame beneath the tilted brim of his slouch hat. The black

cloak that covered his tall figure concealed The Shadow from throat to knee. Only his stronglybeaked nose,

The Shadow's left gun hand jerked swiftly toward the surface of the police chief's desk. He snatched the

document which had been recovered by the police from the dead body of Albert Kunner. The paper vanished

The police chief was a brave man. He tried to leap to his feet and grapple with the intruder. His mouth opened

But the yell was never uttered. The Shadow halted the alarm by doing something he hated to do. He struck

the police chief a blow with his gun butt. The blow was delivered mercifully. No bone was fractured. All The

Norman had cowered back in his chair. But it was a tricky maneuver by a tricky man. As The Shadow

whirled, the factory owner straightened. His hand leaped from his hip pocket, a small automatic grasped in

The Shadow's quick blow dropped him. It was not a knockout blow. Norman groaned. His groan became a

The Shadow was no longer in the conference room. He had taken advantage of Norman's brief paralysis, to

BY the time startled bluecoats had emerged from their closed rooms along the marble hall, it was empty. The

cops who raced to the aid of the chief were not used to a situation like this. All of them had clerical jobs, and

It was the chief who assumed charge of a quick pursuit of The Shadow. He had revived quickly. He staggered

out the office doorway and raced toward the rear of the corridor. He had noticed that the window at the end of

the hall was wide open. He peered into the dark courtyard below. It was an easy jump.

At the rear of that courtyard, close to a wooden fence, lay the slouch hat of The Shadow. He had apparently

lost the hat as he scaled the fence. That was what the police chief deduced. That was what The Shadow

But before anyone could leap downward to the courtyard to take up the chase of the blackrobed fugitive

who had vanished so magically, there was a sudden interruption. A man began to groan.

The groan came from behind the closed door of a hallway closet. Cops raced to the door. Guns gleamed in

A man crawled out on his hands and knees, a man whose head was trickling blood from a slight scalp cut. It

The police chief cursed with disappointment. Kent Allard was helped to his feet. His story was not very

Allard declared weakly that he had been struck down almost the moment he had left the conference room. He

had started toward the staircase that led to the rotunda on the ground floor. The Shadow had been hiding in a

dark corner near the staircase. Robed in black, he had leaped without a sound. The butt of a .45 had toppled

Allard. He had been dragged through the deserted corridor and thrust into the closet. That was all Allard

Kent Allard went back to the conference room with the others. He was there when detectives returned to

report that no trace of The Shadow had been found. A citywide alarm had been broadcast. Every automobile

within a fivemile radius of police headquarters was being halted and searched. But that, too, proved a waste

All that remained in the hands of the police was the slouch hat that "proved" The Shadow had escaped from

Kent Allard watched the tests that were made on the hat in the police laboratory. The tests were negative. No

fingerprints, no manufacturer's label, no possible way to trace the ownership of that black piece of felt

His head injury was a trifling one. The cut on his scalp was easily patched with a bit of adhesive tape.

Norman and the police chief didn't need medical care. They had scarcely a bump to show.

"It proves what I suspected," the chief growled. "The Shadow is the leader of the Fifth Column! Now he's

stolen the evidence taken from the body of Albert Kunner. There's no way to prove whether Kunner was

"He's guilty!" Norman snarled. "I take back what I said about him before. He was a reserve officer in a

foreign army. The Shadow is his boss. That's why The Shadow took that desperate risk to steal the proof in

He said other things, but his talk was trite. After a while, he left for his hotel. He was conscious of a strong

scrutiny on the part of Norman when they shook hands and parted. But the millionaire arms manufacturer

HENRY NORMAN might have been amazed, however, had he been able to peer into the private suite of

Kent Allard, two hours later. Doors and windows were locked. Shades were drawn. The suite was in absolute

darkness except for a single bright light over the desk, where The Shadow was staring at a sheet of paper.

The paper was the document stolen from the chief of police. It had undergone painstaking and chemical tests.

The Shadow had verified what hitherto he had only suspected. Kunner's commission in the army of a foreign

nation was a forgery! The physical description was authentic. So were the fingerprints. But the signature was

It was an amazingly clever forgery. Only the fact that The Shadow had secured a half dozen real signatures of

the dead man enabled him to spot the fraud. There was no longer any doubt of the truth. Albert Kunner had

been a loyal American workman. His death had effectively sown the seeds of suspicion in the arms plant

Particularly the five key foremen whose homes Norman had insisted should be guarded by police.

Was this sudden criminal switch from property to workmen due to the fact that Fifth Columnists wanted to

The Shadow picked up a private telephone his contact man, Burbank, had had installed. To Burbank, he gave

Orders were simple. Each of The Shadow's agents was detailed to watch one of the homes of the five

workmen already under the protection of the police. The Shadow was not depending on police. He waited

First news came, however, not to The Shadow but to police headquarters. Shortly before midnight, an excited

farmer phoned in sinister news. The White Column had struck again. The farmer had found a dead man on a

lonely pasture. He had been beaten to death with whips. His body sagged at a post from which a small

The dead man was not a workman at the Norman plant, but at a neighboring plant. For the last few days there

had been nasty rumors about his integrity as an American. His death verified these rumors.

Around his neck hung a damning letter, left there by the White Column before it had disbanded and vanished.

The letter was signed by the party leader of a foreign government. It showed that the dead man in Oakmont

had been in secret communication with foreign enemies of America. The letter thanked him for turning over

funds he had secretly collected as a gift to the propaganda bureau of this enemy nation. With the letter was a

The police didn't discover all this until they had driven miles through the darkness to the lonely pasture where

the body had been left by the hooded mob. Every policeman in Oakmont raced to the scene, under a general

alarm. With them went the five cops who had been detailed to guard the homes of key workers in the Norman

Clyde Burke was one of The Shadow's agents on secret guard. He saw the policeman depart on the run from

But Clyde stuck grimly on the job. Five minutes later, he saw a workman emerge stealthily from his house

and hurry to its garage at the rear. The man drove swiftly away. He looked pale and scared. He drove as if the

Other cars clogged the road. People were heading toward the scene of the second White Column outrage. But

the fugitive workman from the Norman plant headed in the opposite direction. He took the left turnpike.

Clyde wondered where the frightened workman was fleeing. And why? That was the most puzzling part of

The fugitive's car was already out of sight on the turnpike. A crossroad whizzed into sight and Clyde halted

his car. There was a general store there. Clyde darted inside, to telephone The Shadow before he continued

his trail of the man ahead in the darkness. He knew which way the man had gone. Tire marks lay clear and

But Clyde saw disaster when he darted outside after completing his swift phone call.

Every tire on his car had been ruthlessly slashed. The rubber was flat on the ground. The car was useless

A yell of rage from Clyde brought loungers piling out of the store. Eyes popped as they stared at the damage.

But no answer as to who had done the criminal job was available. Nobody had been seen outside the store

while Clyde had made his phone call. No other tire tracks were visible in the dusty road.

It was a perfect checkmate. Clyde Burke had been put out of action by a criminal foe who didn't want that

There was only one ray of hope. The Shadow had been warned by Clyde of what was going on!

The twin beams of a speeding automobile stabbed through the darkness. The car was traveling at a terrific

The man who drove that car was badly frightened. His face was like chalk. He drove as if he were fleeing

His name was Charlie Danver. He was a skilled workman employed in the machinegun plant owned by

Henry Norman. A slip of paper was crumpled in his pocket. It contained terrifying news.

Charlie Danver maintained his reckless pace along the turnpike. His eyes watched the road signs that whizzed

Presently, he slowed. He had seen what he was looking for. His car curved into a branching lane.

It was narrow and unpaved. It turned and twisted as it led deeper into heavily wooded land. After a while it

began to climb. Danver lay at the end of this steep lane. He knew that protection and safety led to the summer

Presently, the cottage came into view. It was built of rustic logs. Windows were shuttered and shades drawn.

But a faint reflection of light from within showed that Danver's arrival was expected.

Sobbing with relief, he sprang from his halted car. He had been promised that the door would be unlocked. It

There was no one in the living room to welcome Danver. But a cheerful log fire blazed in an enormous stone

fireplace. On a side table stood a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses. A comfortable easy chair was

Charlie Danver jerked the cord nervously. Nothing happened. Without waiting for his host, Danver poured

himself a stiff drink of liquor with tremulous hands. The bite of the whiskey soothed his nerves. He relaxed in

The heat from the log fire made him drowsy. His head drooped. Suddenly, the glass slipped from Danver's

He leaned down to pick up the glass and fell over dizzily. It alarmed him. With a gasp, he tried to regain his

His head was spinning like a top. The room whirled around him. The lights seemed to be growing dimmer.

It was too late to do anything but clutch blindly for the arm of the chair. He couldn't see the chair any more.

LAUGHTER purred in the quiet room. It came from the lips of a man who had opened a closet door. The

man stared grimly at the unconscious body of the workman from the Norman arms plant. His laughter was

muffled by a mask. It was a black cloth helmet that fitted completely over his head and face. Only the gleam

He wore shapeless ski pants tucked into a pair of heavy mountain shoes. Gloves covered his hands.

A swift glance showed him that Charlie Danver was insensible. He whirled like a jungle beast. Over his

Four men answered his command. They advanced into the living room from another door. They were dressed

The Shadow, had he been there, would have recognized three of these four scoundrels. One was Frederick

Brownson. Two others had been his assistants at the KirkJackson bombsight factory. These three were

supposed to have died loyally at their posts. The actual bodies that had been found after the fire had been

badly charred. Metal identification tags around the necks of the corpses had made the deception easy.

No further orders were needed by the four henchmen of the masked leader. They moved with military

precision. One of them hurried outdoors to the parked car of Charlie Danver. The remaining trio approached

Two of the parachute men carried Danver toward a cellar staircase. A third man followed, carrying a grisly

He had a pick and a shovel; also a coppercolored can with a silver projection at its top. When the silver tip

was unscrewed and the glass nipple beneath it broken, the most powerful flameacid yet discovered in the art

of chemical warfare would make short work of the flesh and bones of Charlie Danver. All that would be left

was a faint reddish hue at the bottom of a shallow earthen pit in the cellar. It would look, to the eyes of

Meanwhile, the fourth parachute spy was not wasting time. He drove Danver's empty car along the mountain

trail. He didn't, however, go more than a quarter of a mile. A swing on the wheel brought the car's headlights

The bushes sprang aside as the car thrust through the leafy obstruction. On the other side, a rough trail

But the spy knew his way. Presently, he came to the lip of a lonely cliff. Sheer rock fell away for hundreds of

feet. At the bottom was the dark, flat glint of a lake. It was fed by cold mountain springs.

But the lonely lake had two more practical virtues for the spy who glared triumphantly downward from the

top of the cliff. The lake was on private property. Anyone who left the distant turnpike and was caught

snooping around here could expect stern treatment as a trespasser. And the icy water of that springfed lake

The taut face of the Fifth Columnist split into an ugly grin. He started the engine and headed the car for the

Outward into space the car leaped. It turned over once in midair. There was a mighty splash. Then the

upflung spray dropped sullenly back. Ripples on the black water began to spread toward the foot of the lonely

The spy raced to where his own car was hidden in a leafy covert. He drove swiftly back to the mountain

cottage where the body of Charlie Danver was already decomposing in a chemical grave.

Victim No. 1 was gone. All that remained now was to wait for victim No. 2. And 3 and 4 and 5!

His car was parked out of sight off the turnpike along which Charlie Danver had traveled on his mad flight

from Oakmont. The Shadow had no knowledge of where Danver had fled. But he suspected that there would

Clyde Burke's report was not the only one which had been received by The Shadow. Four other agents had

The Shadow had built a temporary barricade on the turnpike near the spot at which he now waited.

Presently, he heard a sound for which his ears had been straining the hum of a fasttraveling car.

Headlights grew in the darkness from the direction of Oakmont. The car was moving rapidly! But suddenly it

slowed. The glare of its headlights had picked up the road obstruction. There was a scream of brakes. The car

The black robe of The Shadow brought a scream of rage from the motorist's lips. He believed the rumors he

had heard in town: that The Shadow was the traitorous leader of the vigilante mob. A gun muzzle whipped

The Shadow acted instantly. He struck with the butt of his own gun. It was an act of pure mercy. He had no

time to explain to this deluded victim that he had come to save his life, not to kill him. The man was mad

with terror, beyond all reason. To knock him out was the only way to preserve his life. The Shadow delivered

Searching, a metal identification tag told The Shadow who the man was. His name was Oscar Swenson. He

In his pocket was a note which made The Shadow's eyes gleam. It was a typewritten message warning Oscar

Swenson to flee from his home in order to protect himself from the White Column. It advised him to hide in a

certain mountain cabin, where no mob could reach him. It gave detailed instructions how to reach the cabin,

Sibilant laughter whispered from The Shadow's lips when he read that note. The name of the man who had

"Henry Norman!" The millionaire owner of the arms factory where these very men worked!

The Shadow wasted not a second of time. His slouch hat was ripped from his head. His black cloak was

discarded and stowed away in the car which The Shadow had hidden in a covert of bushes. The Shadow

When he finished, he looked remarkably like the man he had put out of action. All except his face. That was a

little difficult to arrange. Had The Shadow been in the privacy of his sanctum, he could have completed a

perfect disguise. But he did the best he could with hasty grease pencil and wig.

He placed the unconscious workman in his, The Shadow's, hidden car, and drove away in Swenson's own

The directions were explicit. The Shadow had no trouble finding the lonely hunting lodge on the crest of

wooded land at the end of a private lane. He found the door unlocked and walked boldly in.

The Shadow saw no sign of a living occupant. He tried the bell rope and nothing happened. Then he poured

As he held the glass to his lips, his keen nostrils detected instantly what the first victim of the Fifth

Columnists had failed to observe in his excitement: the sweetish odor of a powerful narcotic!

The Shadow pretended to drink. He dropped into the chair and allowed his head to sag. After a while, he

FROM where he lay The Shadow could see the door of a closet. He was not surprised when the closet door

The man advanced warily. He was like a cat stalking a piece of poisoned meat. He seemed apprehensive of

treachery. Suddenly he aimed his gun. He was taking no chances. He intended to kill this workman about

Swiftly, The Shadow rolled aside as the traitor's gun flamed. The bullet smashed into the rug barely an inch

from his writhing body. Then The Shadow was on his knees. A .45 leaped into his hand.

He had no chance to wing his hooded foe. The man had flung himself backward at the instant he had fired

that shot. He was like a scared rabbit, the way he fled. A single leap brought him to the door of the closet. It

A bullet whizzed past his throat. It came so close that the heat of it was perceptible and a trickle of blood

Other guns began to bark. Four more enemies had appeared on the threshold of the living room. They entered

through a doorway that was behind The Shadow's back. Only the reflection in a large wall mirror had enabled

He flung himself to the floor, diving for cover, with the grim skill of a man accustomed to unequal odds. He

found that he needed every atom of his skill. These hardfaced foes attacked with military precision. They

took cover under that first hail of vengeful bullets. The Shadow's escape from the room was prevented. He

He had seen their faces before he dived behind a heavy piece of furniture. He recognized three of these grim

parachute men. One was Frederick Brownson. Two more had been employed at the KirkJackson plant as

The Shadow's gun flamed desperately to keep the murderous quartet at room's length. He knew that a straight

gun battle was hopeless. Superior numbers doomed him. So The Shadow changed to trickery. He uttered a

strangled cry as the bullet drilled through his temporary bulwarks. One of his .45's dropped from his grasp.

The four spies took the bait. They were overeager, mad with rage to finish this challenging foe. They darted

One of them dropped headlong. The others scattered in a retreating huddle while their weapons blasted at the

heavy chair. The Shadow fired as coolly as an automaton. Another slug wounded a foe. The spy staggered

wildly, and whirled squarely into the line of fire of his pals. Two bullets pierced his spine. He was killed

The fatal mishap took all the courage out of the spies. There were only two left now. They retreated behind

flaming muzzles. The sudden gun battle had taken them completely by surprise. They had expected an easy

murder of a drugged victim, and had run into death. Worse still, their masked leader had fled into the closet.

Used to discipline, they found themselves in panic at the way things were now going.

Again a heavy door slammed. This time, it was the living room door. The two surviving spies had fled from

the cottage. The roar of a car motor echoed outside. The pair were escaping. The Shadow could hear an oath,

He didn't pursue the two parachute men. His goal was the locked closet into which their masked American

leader had vanished. The roar of The Shadow's .45's made wreckage of that lock. He forced the smashed

There was no rear wall to the closet. The man who had flung himself inside had escaped through what turned

out to be an earthen tunnel at the foot of concrete steps. The tunnel ended in a clump of bushes outside the

Oscar Swenson's car was still parked there. But the Fifth Columnists had made their escape. They had

THE SHADOW went back into the living room of the cottage. Two of the hooded traitor's henchmen lay

Searching them, The Shadow found papers on the two spies that made his eyes gleam. It was proof positive

that the White Column was not a patriotic vigilante society at all. The mob had been organized by Fifth

Columnists. Deluded American citizens had been misled by enemies of their own country.

The Shadow pocketed his damning proof. He placed the bodies of the two parachute spies in Oscar

Swenson's car, drove swiftly down the curving mountain lane to the turnpike. Then he headed to the spot

He transferred Swenson's unconscious body to the foreman's car. Safely in his own car again with the two

His goal was the building that housed Oakmont's police headquarters. But he halted in a dark street before he

was ready to perform his final act in this grim midnight drama of treason and death.

Swiftly, the fake Oscar Swenson disappeared. He was replaced by the blackcloaked figure of The Shadow.

Driving swiftly down the main street of Oakmont, The Shadow halted his car for an instant in front of the

stone entry of police headquarters. He dumped the bodies of the two dead parachute spies on the steps.

Jammed in the hand of one of them were the documents that proved exactly who they were. The Shadow

People had seen his daring exploit. Men shouted. A woman screamed and fainted as the blackrobed figure

Bullets crashed toward the fleeing automobile. But not a slug hit a tire. The car shrieked around a corner and

was gone. Before pursuit could be organized by the bewildered cops, all chance of capturing The Shadow had

A short time later, Kent Allard smiled bleakly as he heard a wild radio news bulletin broadcast by an excited

radio announcer. Kent Allard had found out something that cast an added light on the strange events of the

The name of another suspect joined that of Henry Norman in the calculation of The Shadow.

The notes that were to lure five frightened workmen to that cottage had been signed by Norman. But the man

who owned that lonely cottage on a private estate was the softspoken oil magnate on the Defense

The night was bright with moonlight. During the early evening there had been thick clouds and a hint of rain.

But a strong breeze from the west had blown the clouds away and filled the sky with millions of stars.

He waited on the slope of a grassy hill on the outskirts of Oakmont. Close to him was the enormous shape of

a pipeline that extended along the slope of the hill. It was a supply line that carried highoctane aviation

gasoline, pumped from the oilrefining plant of Lee Morley, to the Oakmont airport.

There were a hundred army fighting planes at the airport, waiting for dawn. Crack pilots slept in the barracks

nearby. They were under orders to take those planes aloft in the morning and fly them to the west coast for

The Shadow suspected another gigantic attempt at Fifth Column sabotage. Those fighting ships of the air

represented months of skill and labor. They added a sizable increase to America's growing air strength. Spies

could not afford to let those warplanes take their places in the sky to defend democracy.

Unaware of the exact form that Fifth Column sabotage would take tonight, The Shadow was forcing events

He crept cautiously down the grassy slope, close to the pipeline. The moon threw a long patch of darkness

that paralleled the line of the pipe. Through that protective gloom The Shadow crawled unseen.

He knew that national guard troops from a nearby armory had taken over the airport to protect the assembled

airplanes from harm. But this routine precaution did not reassure The Shadow's mind. He knew the caliber of

America's secret foes. They would make no direct attack against overwhelming odds. Guile and trickery

would be used. The sabotage attempt would probably originate in the gasoline plant owned by the

The Shadow had not been idle during the day which had followed his daring exploit at the steps of police

headquarters. He had moved quietly about town as Kent Allard. Many things had been learned. Much had

Police were at last aware that the White Column was an agency controlled by spies. The evidence found on

the two corpses which The Shadow had flung on the steps of police headquarters proved that. Raids had been

made. Mobsmen had been rounded up. Confessions had been obtained. But the police dragnet had failed to

The traitorous leader of the Fifth Column and his two remaining parachute henchmen remained at large. The

small fry of the mob who had been clapped into cells were unable to answer grim police questions. They

It was The Shadow only who had an inkling of the ugly truth. The nativeborn traitor who was cooperating

His role of Kent Allard had allowed him to arrange a test of certainty. He had called a special meeting of the

Defense Committee for tonight. An hour from now the meeting would be called to order. Every member of

No human being not even Mr. X could be in two places simultaneously. If X moved against the Morley

plant in an effort to cripple the gas supply of those planes waiting for dawn at the airport, The Shadow would

know the secret of his identity. X would be the only committee member not at the meeting!

THE SHADOW continued down the grassy slope. Morley's oil plant was guarded by a stout wall. A few

lights glowed in the main buildings, but no men were at work. The plant was far ahead of its production

schedule. It operated only a day shift. At this hour of the night, the only danger to be encountered by The

He scaled the stone wall without too much trouble. He had brought the necessary climbing implements with

him. For an instant, he lay atop the wall, then he dropped soundlessly into a broad courtyard that separated

He began to belly along the inner surface of the wall toward a locked door in a brick pumphouse.

His luck was bad. Before he had moved more than a couple of feet on his quick advance, there was a rattle of

a key. A man stepped into the courtyard from the very locked door The Shadow was approaching.

He had an electric torch in his hand, but he didn't need it. The moonlight filled the courtyard with brilliance.

The startled watchman's eyes jerked to the opposite wall. He saw something that dropped his jaw open with a

Instantly, his gun hand flew up, as he aimed his weapon at the intruder. But he had no chance to wake the

quiet night with the thunder of gunfire. The moment the watchman uttered that startled gasp, The Shadow

A blackgloved hand caught at the lifting gun. The other hand fastened tightly on the watchman's throat. The

The gun was wrenched from the watchman's twisted hand. It landed with a thump on the moonlit pavement.

It was a desperate battle. The Shadow found himself hard put to subdue his foe. The watchman was a

patriotic American. He had jumped to a false conclusion. He believed that the blackclad Shadow was a spy

He gambled his life bravely in an attempt to kill or capture his foe. The Shadow was forced to use every trick

of combat he knew. The Shadow had to subdue a tough opponent without harming him seriously or killing

His skill at jujitsu turned the trick. There was a sudden groan, barely louder than the man's first gasp. The

watchman collapsed. He was not unconscious, but he was temporarily paralyzed. Before he could recover and

yell an alarm, The Shadow had a gag jammed in his jaws. Rope appeared from beneath The Shadow's black

cloak. He trussed his captive securely and carried him through the door which the watchman himself had

The Shadow had gained the interior of the plant's pumping station. From here, highoctane gasoline poured

He hid the trussed watchman behind a tier of barrels. A bunch of keys stolen from the man's pocket enabled

A swift glance brought a gleam of comprehension to The Shadow's eyes. There was a huge metal manhole

cover sunk flush with the stone floor of the room. It guarded an emergency entrance to the supply pipe. Down

a ladder built of material carefully insulated to prevent sparks of static electricity, workmen occasionally

descended to inspect the pipe's interior and to clean out the sludge that collected in various grease traps.

This manhole cover was always kept locked, except when the plant superintendent was present. But when

The Shadow bent swiftly to test the cover, he made a sinister discovery. The lock had been tampered with!

THE heavy plate in the floor lifted slowly under The Shadow's pull. He peered down. He could smell the

heavy reek of gasoline. It was highoctane stuff, the most powerful airplane fuel to be found anywhere in the

world. Foreign nations had made frantic efforts to buy huge consignments of this very stuff. They had failed

because the President of the United States had declared an embargo on exportation of it.

The Shadow turned away from cellar. His glance circled about the manhole in the pavement of the chamber.

He saw at once that there were three metal drums standing close to an inner wall of the room.

They looked like gasoline drums. But that was rather odd, The Shadow thought. Gasoline was not fed into the

pipeline from portable containers. It bubbled into the feed supply underground by the valve action of huge

Forcing open the plug on the top of one of the barrels, The Shadow made another sinister discovery. The

liquid that filled the barrel was not gasoline. It was as black as ink. It smelled like tar, to the sniffing nostrils

Its tar odor, however, was deceptive. Tar was thick and viscous. Unless heated, it turned into a solid mass.

This liquid was exactly like water. The Shadow dipped some into the palm of his hand. The black "water"

rolled around his palm unhindered. When he dropped it into the open barrel, it left no black stain on his skin.

He took a drop of it for testing. His movements were extremely careful. He made sure that the manhole cover

in the stone floor was closed. He put the plug back in the top of the barrel he had tapped. Then he carried his

Spilling it to the floor, it lay there like a small globule of ink. The Shadow lit his cigarette lighter. Bending,

He expected a small explosion. But the exact opposite occurred. To The Shadow's amazement, the flame that

touched the drop waved and flickered. Then it vanished. The black drop had put out the flame.

This reaction puzzled The Shadow. It seemed utterly insane. He was positive that this watery fluid that

smelled like tar had been stored in this chamber by spies intent on the destruction of a hundred fighting

planes that waited at the airport for dawn. The stuff was in the barrels destined to be poured into the pipeline.

But why? If it was noninflammable, the trick would be instantly discovered when the planes began to warm

The Shadow decided that he had not pursued his experiment far enough. He took another drop of the black

This time, The Shadow was even more careful with the flame of his lighter. He didn't lean over the mixed

His precaution was justified. There was an instantaneous blue flash. The mixed drop exploded with tiny

violence! Small as it was, it produced a tremendous concussion. The blast of disturbed air almost staggered

A strong odor of garlic filled the air. The Shadow knew enough about chemistry to realize that this strange

black fluid in the barrels belonged to the dangerous halogen group. The garlic smell was the tipoff.

THE full extent of the danger to those planes at the airport was now clear to The Shadow!

Mixed with gasoline, this black noninflammable fluid became a potential explosive of terrific energy.

Airplane engines would throb at dawn. Plane after plane would take off into the sky. Engines would heat up

steadily. When the critical temperature had been reached, every plane in that squadron would be blown to

A hundred planes destined for America's air defense would vanish in a snarl of sky thunder! Bodies of

A grim look covered The Shadow's face. He began a swift, purposeful task. Using one of the keys from the

watchman's chain, he unlocked another door in the underground chamber, then rolled the three barrels of the

deadly black fluid into an adjoining room. Here he found what he was seeking a drain pipe in the floor,

The Shadow was sweating when he had finished, but every drop of the horrible inky fluid as now in the

He rolled the empty barrels back to the spot where he had found them. His course of action was now clear.

He would find a snug hiding place, and wait for the arrival of the spy who intended to pour the deadly fluid

But it wasn't necessary for The Shadow to wait. Again fate forced the issue. A man appeared suddenly in the

He came from the wall of the room itself. A panel had suddenly slid aside. The intruder had not expected

danger. He uttered a strangled yell when he saw himself confronted by a blackcloaked intruder.

He was one of the parachute henchmen of Mr. X! The Shadow recognized him instantly. He was one of the

The Shadow fired. It was a hasty shot, fired from the hip. The Shadow had also been taken by surprise at the

The enemy raider was as lithe as a jungle beast. With a twisting leap, he was halfway across the room before

The Shadow could repeat his shot. As he darted aside, the man's hand clawed at his shoulder. A knife

It was drawn and thrown with a single motion. It streaked through the air like a glittering beam of light. The

point of it pierced The Shadow's gun arm. He felt a stab of agony as his gun muzzle roared. It ruined his aim.

Instead of dropping his foe, The Shadow heard a loud spang as the deflected bullet ricocheted from a wall.

For a moment, The Shadow was an easy victim. A swift attack on the part of the spy would have wrenched

the gun from The Shadow's painracked fingers. But the henchman of Mr. X made no such attack.

Instead, he whirled with a bubbling cry, and fled back to the opening in the cellar wall.

Dazed, The Shadow couldn't understand this swift retreat. Then the answer became clear to him. Something

The henchman of Mr. X was racing through a wall passage to some spot above. He was fleeing to a place

where he could send a frantic signal of alarm to his traitorous leader outside the grounds of the oilrefining

The Shadow ripped the knife from his wounded arm. Blood spurted as the blade jerked loose, but he never

even noticed the flow of crimson from the wound. He was darting toward the opening in the wall.

A narrow staircase led aloft. The Shadow could hear the feet of the spy pounding desperately upward above

PRESENTLY, a glimmer of light showed above. It was the milky hue of moonlight. The fleeing henchman of

But there was no sign of the fugitive when The Shadow arrived at the exit. He staggered out onto the roof.

There was no place where anyone could hide, except in a tower to the left. The tower was a onestory

structure that housed a water tank. A ladder led up the inside of the housing between the steel struts that

The Shadow raced across the open roof. Moonlight made him a perfect target from above. Bullets began to

But he weaved and dodged desperately. He ducked under the overhang of the tank's structure. His upraised

The trapdoor was open, but no face glared downward as The Shadow began to climb. No more bullets sang

It gave The Shadow the few vital moments he needed to come to close quarters with his enemy. As he bellied

through the open trapdoor to the top of the water tank, he could see the figure of the spy outlined in the

There was a tiny flicker of flame from the man's hand as The Shadow aimed his .45 and shouted a harsh

command to surrender. The flame came from the scratch of a match. It transferred itself swiftly to a fuse.

A rocket shot swiftly skyward, trailing a brilliant stream of sparks. It whistled into the sky like a climbing red

From the heart of that exploded rocket a terrifically bright light glared. It lit up the entire countryside. It was a

magnesium flare! It descended slowly on a tiny parachute. It was a signal that no watchful eye along the

The Shadow darted toward the spy, now poised at the edge of the wooden tower. Suddenly, there was only

It was not a suicide leap, but a crafty bid for freedom. The Shadow could see what had happened as he raced

toward the tower's edge. A few feet below the lip of the tower was a ledge of supporting timber. It was

toward this ledge that the spy had leaped. From it, a stout rope dangled downward to the distant blackness of

But he had waited an instant too long to fire the rocket. A bullet from The Shadow's .45 struck the Fifth

Columnist squarely in the spine. He was dead when he struck the ledge and bounced off into space. Through

The Shadow's rigid gaze shifted toward the hill that lay between the oil plant and the airport. Moonlight

showed the black pipeline that stretched up the slope from the refinery. It was like a hollow black finger filled

Somewhere along the line The Shadow suspected the lurking presence of Mr. X. But he couldn't see any sign

Suddenly, however, there was a terrific explosion at the crest of the grassy slope. A giant plume of flame

roared skyward. The rumbling concussion made the tower where The Shadow stood tremble like a leaf in a

gale. For an instant, he thought that the whole structure would collapse. The Shadow flung himself

desperately over the edge. He dropped to the supporting ledge which the dead spy had failed to reach. His

His brain was sick with the dreadful realization of what had happened. The whole sky was lighted up with

Mr. X had forced a breach in the pipeline. At the rocket signal from his henchman, he had touched off a fuse

that had ignited the gasoline in the supply pipe. Thousands of gallons of gasoline were now afire! It was like

a gigantic underground stream of flame. That roaring river of flame was spreading backward down the pipe

toward the doomed oil plant. Nothing on earth could stop it. Carried by the feedline like flame in a flue, the

fire would leap swiftly to the enormous storage tanks from which the pipeline was fed.

THE SHADOW realized this as his clutching fingers tightened on the dangling rope. He slid down it like a

black streak. His legs wound desperately on the lifeline, but his descent was not much checked. Nor did he

The friction ripped hot agony into his clenched palms, but his grip held. His body struck the earth with a

Pain roused him from his daze. He flung himself to his feet, began to run at a stumbling pace away from the

doomed plant. He counted the seconds off grimly as he ran. Then when he dared delay no longer, he flung

A dozen feet The Shadow was flung by the tremendous roar of the blast. His ears were deafened. Behind him,

the doomed oil plant dissolved in a sheet of flame. Chunks of wreckage sailed through the air. Debris rained

everywhere. The Shadow's hair was singed by the heat of the blast. Every muscle in his body ached. He felt

as if a giant hand had torn him apart. But he forced himself to his feet and resumed his staggering race. Up

toward the crest of the hill where the burning pipeline still sent up a red plume of flame, The Shadow

There was no sign of the traitor. He had fled without waiting to see the final extent of the damage he had

caused. The soft grass showed the imprints of his feet. He had raced down the opposite slope of the hill

The Shadow didn't follow those revealing prints. He knew where X was heading. The Shadow had not for an

instant forgotten the meeting of the Defense Committee which Kent Allard had called for tonight. X was a

He veered to the left and raced down the slope of the hill toward a narrow lane close by. Hidden in a covert of

bushes, a swift little car was parked. The Shadow headed for Oakmont, crowding on every ounce of speed he

When the car finally halted in town, The Shadow did not emerge from behind the wheel. It was Kent Allard

who raced across the dark sidewalk and headed up the stairs to the conference room.

He knew he had beaten Mr. X on that wild race. Only three members of the committee would be present. The

When he dashed into the conference room, he found not three fellow members but none! Except for the

Sibilant laughter rasped harshly from The Shadow's throat. Trickery had seemingly ruined his acid test. But

HIS mirth had barely ceased, when the sound of hasty footsteps became audible on the staircase that led

upward from the street. A man was hurrying to keep his appointment with Kent Allard. A moment later, the

He was panting. He sighed with audible relief as he glanced around an apparently empty room. Then his sigh

choked off as Kent Allard stepped into view from the shadow of a highbacked chair in a corner.

Norman's face hardened. He was not deceived by the quiet greeting of Allard. He noticed the tousled

appearance of his host, the skinned and bleeding palms. His own hands were clenched with the effort to

"All hell has broken loose outside of town, Allard," he grated. "Fifth Columnists have just blown up the

gasoline pipeline from Lee Morley's plant to the airport. The pipe line and the whole plant have been blown

"Were you there?" Allard asked. "Is that why you were so late keeping your appointment with me?"

"What the hell are you getting at?" Norman snarled. "I don't like your tone at all. If I'm late tonight, it's

because someone played a dirty trick on me. That someone, Mr. Allard, is yourself!"

Norman was in a towering rage. It seemed genuine, too. He was holding out a sheet of crumpled paper.

"I got this note from you an hour ago," he grated. "Like a fool, I believed in your sincerity. I was drawn off

on a ridiculous wildgoose chase. I found no one at the place you told me to go. What was your purpose in

The Shadow didn't reply. He took the paper from Henry Norman's hand. It was a forgery, of course, but a

very good one. It gave Norman an alibi. If he played his cards right, he could probably produce witnesses

who would swear they had seen him leave Oakmont an hour before the sabotage explosion occurred.

The Shadow had no time to ponder on this unexpected development. More feet were racing up the stairs. This

time, it was Peter Kirk. Like Norman, he was in a rage. He waved a sheet of paper under the nose of Kent

His note was a duplicate of the one shown by Norman. But Kirk had been sent to an entirely different

locality. It was impossible to check up on the movements of either man by questioning the other.

"My plant was blown to bits tonight! I've been wiped out by damned Fifth Columnists! Where were you,

tonight, Allard? How did you scorch the inside of your hands? Was that done, perhaps, by sliding down a

Kent Allard's jaw tightened. He looked at the four wrathful men. Then his words came like a whiplash. He

asked questions, brought out facts that swiftly put the four men of the Aviation Defense Committee on the

Lee Morley admitted in a choking voice that he owned the mountain cabin where two parachute spies had

been killed by The Shadow. But he denied that he had been near it for months. He had rented it to a friend, he

He was giving these men no time to collect their wits. Norman gulped. He admitted he had rented the cabin in

the hills from Lee Morley. It afforded excellent hunting and fishing, and Norman was fond of both. But he

denied that he had used it in recent months. He had been too busy, he declared, to leave Oakmont.

"Not too busy to be in the Adirondacks when five parachute spies dropped to earth in a blinding snowstorm,"

Kent Allard reminded the millionaire arms manufacturer grimly. "Was your ownership there a coincidence,

"I'm not Mr. X. You're guessing. If you think I'm a traitor to America prove it!"

The Shadow ignored him. He turned toward Peter Kirk. He spoke curtly about the scene in the garage when

the KirkJackson plant had been destroyed by incendiary bombs. Nor did he forget to discuss certain other

seemingly innocent facts that pointed grimly toward Kirk's quiet partner, Ralph Jackson.

"I know who Mr. X is!" Kent Allard said, in a voice that rang like doom. "He's facing me right now. He is

"Very well, I must ask all four of you to accompany me by plane to Washington. At once! You will all go

THERE was bitter argument. But the arrival of police settled that in short order. The four industrialists cooled

down. Sullenly they agreed to fly to Washington. They were driven to the airport. There, a special plane was

Kent Allard donned a parachute pack. He made everyone of the quartet do likewise. He refused to explain

The pilot of the ship was already at the controls. He was Miles Crofton, private pilot in The Shadow's service.

Crofton could not be identified by any of these men on the field. He wore a heavy leather flying helmet.

At that instant, The Shadow became aware that the man at the controls of his private ship was not Miles

The pat on the pilot's padded arm was a secret signal. It was a signal that Crofton would have immediately

understood, and acknowledged. The pilot did nothing of the sort. He didn't realize that a signal had been

The Shadow didn't reveal his disturbing discovery. As Kent Allard he boarded the plane with his four

conscripted "guests". The plane took off with a smooth roar of power, lifted into the dark sky.

But before it left, Kent Allard did something that attracted no particular attention. Hastily scribbling a note,

he folded it tightly and handed it to an airport attendant. The attendant didn't read the note until the plane was

a vanishing speck in the black sky. But when he did, he gulped with amazement and raced at top speed to the

The message was quickly sent out over the air. It was directed to a grim spot. The Shadow had addressed his

message in the name of Kent Allard to an army airfield midway between Oakmont and Washington. It was an

Kent Allard was a high officer in the air reserve. He was a personal friend of the chief of staff. He could

THE airplane climbed steadily after it left the glare of floodlights at the Oakmont airport. Before it leveled off

The Shadow gave no sign that he was aware that treachery had taken place before the plane had left the

ground. He acted as calmly as if he still believed that the muffled and goggled figure at the controls was

But The Shadow would have known the truth, even without the revealing test of the signal which had not

been understood by the disguised pilot who had taken Crofton's place. This fellow knew how to fly a ship! He

handled it as easily as if he were driving a coupe along a wellpaved parkway. Miles Crofton was a wizard as

a commercial aviator. But this man had obviously been trained in handling big army planes in the

Allard's companions in the cabin of the big ship were restless and uneasy. Ralph Jackson was the least

disturbed. He tried to make light of the whole affair, but his smile was forced, his attempts at flippancy

His partner, Peter Kirk, was definitely nasty. Kirk spoke about his political pull with the government. He

made vague threats about reprisals that would cause trouble for Kent Allard. Lee Morley had little to say. He

The Shadow stared out the cabin window. He was an excellent navigator. The panel instruments were beyond

the range of his vision from where he was sitting, but he didn't need instruments to enable him to check on

the plane's course. As Kent Allard, he had flown between Oakmont and Washington many times. Each of the

lighted towns below had their definite characteristics when viewed from the air.

It was cleverly done, but the course was no longer due east. The ship's nose now pointed northeast, at an

angle that would take it to the seaboard in the neighborhood of lower New England.

However, The Shadow was not disturbed. It was a trick that would not go unnoticed on the black earth below.

Strung along the area between Oakmont and the Atlantic coast were certain army airdromes. Each of them

was equipped with the latest electrical listening devices to detect the characteristic sound of an airplane motor

high in the black sky. The warning message passed to a field attendant by Kent Allard before he took to the

Allard began to talk quietly to his enforced guests in the cabin of the plane. Henry Norman seemed to be most

He described the secret descent of five parachute raiders through a snow screen in the Adirondacks. He

reconstructed the scene in detail their welcome at an isolated hunting lodge, the pin stuck in the wall map

over the fireplace, the toast to treason and the smashed glassware in the embers of the log fire. The Shadow

didn't mention the later visit of Lamont Cranston, or the ugly murder attempts that had followed Cranston's

arrival. That was not necessary. Henry Norman was deathly pale. He began to stutter, in his eagerness to

"I know nothing of it! The night before those things happened, I left my hunting lodge. Business took me two

hundred miles away. My two servants were gone when I returned. I hired three others. You can take my word

The Shadow ignored the millionaire arms manufacturer's trembling defiance. He shifted his attention to the

partners in the bombsight plant. He reviewed the strange behavior of Peter Kirk at the time of the thermite

explosion. He told of the lie Kirk had uttered concerning the guilt of The Shadow. That lie could have been

There was sweat on Kirk's forehead. He said nothing. The Shadow swung toward Lee Morley.

He told of the treacherous murder of Charlie Danver and the subsequent attempt made to kill Oscar Swenson

There was an astonished gasp from three of the industrialists. It was echoed by a cry from Morley. His face

hadn't changed an iota. He was still smiling scornfully. But his swift backward leap was like the spring of a

He eluded the clutch of The Shadow's hand. With one unexpected leap, he was out of his cabin seat and

darting toward the closed door of the plane. He wrenched at the catch of the cabin door, pushed against the

loosened barrier. A gale whistled into the cabin. For an instant, Lee Morley and The Shadow were like

queerly frozen actors in a drama of hate and death. The Shadow's right hand held a swiftly drawn .45. His left

Then the airplane went into a sickening side roll. The crooked pilot had deliberately thrown the ship into that

dizzy swerve. It flung The Shadow headlong to the floor. Kirk and Norman and Jackson rolled against him in

Lee Morley jumped headlong into the roaring darkness ten thousand feet above the earth! His parachute

whipped open. There was a faint cry like a mocking laugh. Then Morley vanished earthward.

The Shadow made no effort to follow, nor did he try to force the open door of the cabin shut. It was an

impossible task against the hurricane force of the wind. A swift glance showed The Shadow that the other

three passengers were clinging desperately to seats with a death grip that couldn't easily be broken.

The Shadow flung himself forward to subdue the criminal pilot who had aided Morley's frantic escape.

Only ten feet separated The Shadow from his foe, but it was like ten miles. The ship bucked drunkenly as the

pilot sent it into a spin. The Shadow was hurled from his feet. Pitched headlong, he flung up his weapon and

fired. The shot missed. Again, The Shadow fired, but no luck. It was like trying to shoot a gun accurately on

The pilot, too, had drawn a gun. Both his hands had left the controls. He had jammed them, frozen them so

When the pilot whipped off his helmet and goggles, his face was a white smear of fanatical hate. The Shadow

could recognize him now. He was the last surviving member of the five parachute raiders who had carried out

His shriek of triumph was barely audible above the lash of the gale that tossed the falling ship in a crazy,

HIS smile widened to a horrible grin. Swiftly, he raised the muzzle of his pistol to his own temple, pulled the

trigger. His face dissolved in a bloody smear. He fell limply, and hung in his safety belt.

The spy had died according to the fanatical code of his foreign leader. He had committed suicide and scuttled

his plane. No skill on earth could loosen those jammed controls or stop the plane's crash!

The Shadow flung himself fiercely at the three terrified industrialists. They refused to let go their grips. They

were mad with terror. The Shadow had to slug them unconscious before he could roll them, one by one, to the

As he hurled Jackson into shrieking space, his hand jerked at the man's 'chute ring. The 'chute whipped open

The Shadow dived to safety a splitsecond later. It was a desperate gamble with death. The black earth below

was racing upward at expresstrain speed. Only the fact that the plane's plunge had started at 10,000 feet,

Almost before he felt the tug of straps at his armpits and crotch below his opening 'chute, he tensed himself

for the impact. He heard dimly a tremendous roar, as the plane crashed and exploded into instant wreckage.

Sharp branches of a pine tree stabbed like black swords at The Shadow's fastdropping body.

He missed by a hairbreadth being impaled among those branches. His struggle in midair had tilted his 'chute

slightly, had spilled a small amount of air from beneath the spread silk. The Shadow struck twenty feet from

But presently, he groaned and moved. Weakly, he swayed to his feet, ignoring the burning agony in his ribs.

A knife whipped into his hand. He slashed himself loose from entangling shrouds. Flinging himself hastily

High above his head there was a faint murmur in the sky. The Shadow lighted a flare. Its glare lit up the

deserted pasture with sudden brilliance. The murmur overhead became a whistling roar. A United States army

plane was up there. It had taken off from a nearby airdrome as soon as listening devices had detected the

The army ship landed with a sharp bounce on the grassy pasture. But it didn't overturn. It was piloted by an

Kent Allard's rank in the air reserve made him that pilot's military superior. He returned a salute. Then his

voice barked an order. The pilot vaulted the pasture fence and ran to the aid of Henry Norman and the other

Upward in a sharp, climbing spiral went that magnificent bird of war. Its whistling ascent was a thing to bring

He was on the trail of a master foe a criminal traitor who left nothing to chance. The Shadow divined that

the spot where Lee Morley had leaped was not a matter of chance or accident. Morley had anticipated

exposure. The vital bombsight plans he had stolen from the KirkJackson plant were still in his possession.

The Shadow drove his swift dive bomber at top speed across the black skies. He headed northeast, pointing

his drumming propeller toward the horizon beyond which lay the rolling dark waves of the North Atlantic.

Soon he could see a tiny dot far ahead in the sky. It was barely visible at first, perhaps a trick of his

Morley's plane was a transport of foreign make. It was impossible that Morley himself could handle that ship.

An air soldier of a foreign nation was at its controls. The ship had probably been hidden snuggly along

Morley's escape route for just such an emergency. A private tract of land could easily conceal it.

Presently, The Shadow could see the dark blur of endless water far below. He was flying at a great height,

twice the altitude of the fleeing Morley. But height aided his speed. Air resistance was not so great. The

He saw the fleeing transport suddenly drop lower. It was diving at a swift slant toward the surface of the

ocean. A tiny plume of white was visible along the surface. It was the foaming track of a submarine's

Suddenly, the submarine broke the surface in a smother of spray. Conning tower, gun deck it slid into view

The hatch of the conning tower opened. Heads of sailors appeared. Some were pointing excitedly at the

transport plane which had landed on the water nearby on its amphibian body. Others were staring aloft at the

Lee Morley and his pilot had already dived overboard from their abandoned plane. They began to swim

desperately across the narrow water that divided them from the foreign submarine. Behind them, the transport

plane erupted suddenly into flaming ruin. A small bomb had been left behind. The abandoned plane would

Machinegun bullets ripped like hail toward The Shadow's ship as he dived downward from a great height. It

was a terrific barrage from the latest type of automatic weapons. The Shadow was forced to swerve in a flat

His cabin was pitted with round holes. Blood dripped in a branching stream down the left side of his face. But

Again, he dived in attack. He had established his position to his satisfaction. His hand moved to the almost

human agency at his elbow the trigger of the automatic bomb sight, perfected by the skill of socalled

Lee Morley and his pilot had been hauled aboard the sleek gray shape of the submarine. It lay low in the

water, awash like a halfsunken porpoise. Foam creamed all around it as Morley disappeared down the

But The Shadow was diving, too. His hand moved toward the trigger of the bombsight mechanism.

From beneath the tilted belly of his plane a black shape hurtled oceanward in a beautifullytraced arc. It

dwindled rapidly to a dot. It seemed to be falling hopelessly wide of its mark. But that was only an optical

The bomb struck squarely in the center of the foam that covered the disappearing submarine.

There was a hideous explosion. The upward waves of blasted air made The Shadow's plane reel. Chunks of

wreckage spouted from the churned ocean. A gigantic whirlpool eddied from the destruction like a breaking

The Shadow circled slowly above the ocean. The water was smoothing out with magic suddenness. The

explanation lay in a thick blanket of black oil oil that was bubbling up from the depths of the sea as a mute

Submarine and crew were forever gone. Its loss would never be officially revealed by the propaganda

ministry of the nation which had lost it. To admit its loss would be too embarrassing for diplomatic

procedure. Overseas enemies were not yet ready to risk open warfare with the last great democracy on earth!

With the submarine had perished the traitorous Lee Morley. The vital plans he had stolen would provide food

for fishes. America's greatest air secret was still safe in hands that would never misuse it.

The Shadow found his eyes suddenly dim with moisture as he winged upward into the sky and headed back

toward the coastline of the land he loved. He had averted a terrible threat to America. To The Shadow, it

seemed like the supreme thrill of his career. But he was mistaken. His thrill was to come a short time later.

The coastline appeared like a wavering line of mist. Darkness had changed to dawn. Far to the east over the

Directly ahead of The Shadow's plane were the stone and steel ramparts of an American coastdefense

fortress. There was a tall flagpole at the base of the fort. As The Shadow watched, he saw the American flag

flutter upward to the peak of the pole. It snapped briskly in the wind, its stars and stripes like a brave