“Call the lobby, Rupert. Then go directly to the elevators, to meet Detective Cardona when he reaches this floor.”
Rupert turned and walked toward the anteroom. Hardly had the servant passed the curtains before Professor Devine lifted the book and seized the coded papers. He was about to tear them, when he desisted. Knowing that he had a few minutes ahead, the professor leaned back in his chair to chuckle over the messages.
IT was then that the curtains behind Devine moved with greater swiftness. As they spread, a tall form moved slowly forward. Before it, a patch of blackness crept with steady swiftness. The silhouette reached the table; it seemed to spring upward. The creeping shade covered Professor Devine’s white hair. It cast an umbra upon the papers which the old man held.
The Shadow was seeking a long glimpse of the coded messages. His new opportunity ended as suddenly as it had arrived. There was a reason for the professor’s conclusion of his reading — a reason which The Shadow could not observe, for he was in back of the old man.
Devine’s sharp eyes happened to note the top of one sheet. There, upon the whitened paper, he saw the edge of the creeping profile. Staring warily beyond the coded sheet, the old man observed the remainder of the silhouette.
Whatever his emotions might have been, the crafty professor did not betray them. He pressed the coded sheets together. He folded them in a casual manner, as though they were of little consequence. He laid them on the desk and arose, apparently preparing to leave for the anteroom.
The creeping silhouette glided backward. Blackness faded from the floor. Professor Devine began his hobble from the desk; as an afterthought, he stepped back and leaned heavily upon the woodwork as he opened a desk drawer.
The old man’s hand was momentarily out of sight. As it withdrew from the drawer, his body covered it. Again, the professor shifted away from the desk; then, with a quick wheeling motion, he turned squarely toward the curtains that covered the entrance to the unoccupied room.
A flash from Devine’s hand. Metal sparkled in the light; a bony finger made a snapping motion. The professor had clutched a revolver from the desk drawer. Spurting flame came belching from the mouth of the .32 as the crafty crook loosed his sudden fire.
The professor had recognized the token of The Shadow. He had prepared his answer to that unseen presence. Decisive in his action, he had loosed a murderous bullet straight for the spot where the eyes of The Shadow had peered between the velvet curtains!
CHAPTER XIII
DEATH STRIKES
PROFESSOR LANGWOOD DEVINE had aimed for blackness. Yet he had not aimed blindly. Craftily, he had gauged The Shadow’s spying action. He had fired to kill — straight for the exact spot where The Shadow had been hidden.
One bullet — two — deadly missives sped from the old villain’s revolver. These were but the outset of the volley. Without pause, Professor Devine swung his weapon downward. His action showed his supercunning.
Swift though he had moved, Devine knew that The Shadow might have acted with the same prompt rapidity. No living being could have sprung away before the firing of the shots; but a dropping form, falling with simultaneous speed, might have escaped the deadly aim.
It was this instantaneous thought that prompted Devine’s downward move. The .32 described a falling arc; a bony finger was ready to loose the entire volley of the gun. With amazing precision, Devine had chosen the exact spot where a huddled or crouched body might be situated.
The proof of the insidious professor’s exactitude came from the curtain itself. Like an answer to the white-haired villain’s thought came a roar accompanied by a tongue of spurting fire. The doorway echoed with the thunder of The Shadow’s automatic.
Devine’s finger faltered. His hand loosed. The .32 dropped from his clutch. Gasping, the old man floundered to the floor. The slug from a .45 had ruined the chances of the .32. Devine’s one mistake had been to The Shadow’s gain.
The being behind the curtain had dropped with Devine’s first aim. As the professor’s hand had swung downward, The Shadow’s fist had been acting in return. Devine had gained the first shots; but they had gone above The Shadow’s head. The villain’s second guess had been too late.
The curtains parted. From between them came a shape that seemed to rise like an avenging specter. The Shadow, pressed to a duel of death, had struck. Langwood Devine, abettor of crime, potential murderer, lay upon the floor before the cloaked master, coughing his last breaths.
UPON the desk lay the folded papers, the clues to Devine’s part in crime. The Shadow, towering weirdly in the light, from the desk, was turning to reach for them when an unexpected interruption came from the outer door.
Rupert had left the door of the suite open. At the elevators, the servant had heard the sound of gunfire. He had dashed back to the professor’s room.
His startled eyes saw Devine’s dying body on the floor; above it, the form of an eerie intruder.
Devine’s crimes had been concealed from his servant. To Rupert, the presence of The Shadow was proof of the fears that the professor had advanced to-night. This was the enemy whom Rupert’s master had dreaded!
Frantically, Rupert shouted for help as he flung himself across the room, straight for the black-garbed form. Turning from the desk, The Shadow swept to meet the plunging servant. With Rupert, The Shadow had no quarrel. Yet in this moment of emergency, he could not stop.
Servant and Shadow met. Black arms caught Rupert’s springing form. Twisting in The Shadow’s clutch, Rupert went rolling sidewise across the room. His spreading arms encountered the wall. The Shadow, turning, was in the center of the room.
Gamely, Rupert staggered to his feet. Fiercely, he came up beside the desk where Devine’s body lay. His eyes glimpsed the revolver close to the fallen form. Rupert seized the weapon.
The servant’s action was folly. The Shadow could have dropped him with a single shot. By such procedure, The Shadow could have gained the folded ciphers, which Rupert was unwittingly guarding. To The Shadow, however, Rupert’s blind loyalty to an unworthy master was but proof of the servant’s character.
The Shadow whirled toward the door to the anteroom. His action was an acknowledgement of Rupert’s bravery. Langwood Devine was dead. The codes were safe from destruction. Much though The Shadow had wanted them, he was ready to entrust them to the future.
As Rupert turned to fire at the being in black, The Shadow was sweeping through the curtains to the anteroom. Rupert was frantic as he employed wild aim. His hasty bullets zipped wide of their mark. The Shadow was gone.
A shout came from the hall. It was Joe Cardona, coming on the run. The Shadow stopped abruptly; his tall form faded behind the opened door as the detective came dashing into the anteroom, revolver in hand.
Springing through to Devine’s living room, Cardona came face to face with Rupert, standing above the dead professor’s corpse. The tension ended, Rupert gasped vague words. Cardona, thinking that Devine’s assailant had taken to the room behind the desk, hurried in that direction.
SWIFTLY, The Shadow came from behind the door. He turned toward the corridor. As he did, a form came plunging directly through the doorway. It was the house detective, who had come up on the elevator with Joe Cardona.
The Shadow’s form dropped. Before the house dick realized what had happened, he was hoisted upward by two arms that gripped his waist with the power of steel rods. The Shadow sent the man rolling across the anteroom. When the bewildered house detective came to his knees, his assailant had vanished.
The door of the elevator was open. The operator was peering, wild-eyed, down the corridor. The Shadow, profiting by Clyde Burke’s description of the scene at Ferrar’s murder, fired a warning shot. As the automatic echoed, the operator dropped from sight and clanged the doors.