SOME while later, Doctor Baird and Cliff Marsland returned to the laboratory, to find Professor Jark engaged in conversation with Rutledge Mann. Both inventor and the broker were anxious in their gaze. Baird smiled.
“The wound is not serious,” declared the physician. “By giving it prompt attention, I have been able to eliminate complications. It was sufficient to put anyone out of action. Yet this patient has regained strength in most amazing fashion. He is resting, in the darkness. He would like to talk with you, professor. Immediately and alone.”
Jark nodded. He walked out into the hall and found Baird’s room. He groped through the darkness to a chair beside the couch. The old man heard a soft, whispered laugh.
“Again we meet, professor,” came a low voice from the couch. “This time, there is no occasion for us to hide our true expressions.”
“You understand?” queried Jark. “That night when you posed as Lamont Cranston?”
“Partly,” replied The Shadow. “You had no need of the thugs who were present at our interview. By all rights you should have talked with me alone. I suspected listeners, also. Outside the room.”
“Theblaw and Wight.”
“So I decided, later. Duncan told me afterward that he had listened in the night they came to your home. He heard you conspiring with them.”
“But not at first! They threatened me. They told me they had already taken Baird. My only hope was to pretend that I was as crooked as they were—”
“I know. Duncan did not overhear the first half hour of your talk.”
“And yet you understood—”
“That if you had summoned those two as aids, you would have settled the important details promptly. You would have ridded yourself of Duncan beforehand. You would have written Tellert that you were going on a vacation, without sending him a letter that would stir his antagonism.”
“I understand. Yes; it would have been a mistake to have sent him that letter saying I wanted my invention for the government. If I had actually been crooked—”
“But you were not, professor. You were sincerely anxious to place your great invention in the proper hands. That was why Tellert decided it was time to play his game of crime. He sent his lieutenants, Theblaw and Wight. They and their underlings watched you, constantly. You did your best to save your own life — and Baird’s — and Duncan’s—”
THE SHADOW paused to rest. Professor Jark was nodding solemnly in the darkness. He still could hear the echoes of the whispered voice. He marveled at the power of this mysterious avenger who had brought needed rescue. A question leaped to his mind. Singularly, The Shadow answered it before Jark could speak.
“Tellert was clever,” declared the speaker from the couch. “There was no proof against him. Yet whether he was innocent or guilty, he was the only man through whom I could operate, once Marsland was a prisoner.
“I sent Mann to Tellert. I knew that Mann would be seized. Tellert, if innocent, would be taken also. Knowing that, Tellert allowed himself to be abducted along with Mann. So that he could work fiendish trickery.”
“While I,” put in Jark, “was still forced to act as his spokesman, thanks to the presence of his hellions.”
“Yes. But the abduction was so easy that it proved my suspicions. It took place at Tellert’s home. No one was about except Tellert and Mann. Crooks had learned the terrain; too promptly, however—”
“Tellert made a telephone call to Theblaw,” interposed Jark. “There is a telephone in this house, used for incoming calls—”
A soft hiss from The Shadow. Jark listened. From above, a noise coming lower, closer, then ending. The Shadow spoke in tones of finality.
“Your move for the machine was timely,” he commended. “It told me, at the crucial moment, that you had perfected your atomic gun. Tellert’s act was final proof of his evil scheming. I left the field to you, professor, while I dealt with Tellert, the master of these crimes.”
Something thudded softly on the roof above. A slight scraping followed.
The Shadow rose from the couch and moved toward the dim light of the opened door. Jark stared at sight of cloaked and hatted shape. The Shadow had donned the garments from the box, during Baird’s absence.
“Come, professor,” whispered The Shadow. “Show me a way to the roof.”
Jark led the course to a stairway. He and The Shadow ascended. The professor unbolted a trapdoor while The Shadow gave words of instruction.
“I know that the spoils must be here,” he stated. “Therefore, professor, you can return them to the law. Baird, Marsland and Mann were legitimate prisoners. Their stories, their testimony, will substantiate your statements. I shall inform Duncan of the facts. He will appear to give his evidence also.”
As Jark watched The Shadow step to the moonlit roof, the old professor saw the outline of an autogyro. A man was standing by the craft. It was Harry Vincent. Receiving an order from The Shadow, Harry aided his chief aboard the ship; then followed.
Guided by Miles Crofton, daredevil aviator who served The Shadow, the autogyro throbbed loudly as it rolled forward. Huge vertical blades bent to their task. The ship ascended as it reached the edge of the roof. Ascending abruptly, the autogyro rose vertically above the trees.
Professor Jark watched it in the moonlight. The old professor chortled. Then, as he listened, his white hair flowing in the wind, the inventor heard the fading peal of a sinister mockery. Weird laughter reached its crescendo, then ended amid the breezes of the night.
The Shadow had brought victory. Professor Jark had cackled in jubilance at the moment of battle’s end. Now, with all completed, The Shadow was proclaiming the achievement that had been his mission. The Shadow had sounded his triumph laugh.