The Shadow had rescued his agents!
AS that thought drove home to him, Bradthaw pictured men already on the stairs. He knew that at any moment the door might he ripped open. George Melrue could not serve as a shield against fire from two directions. Bradthaw saw need for other tactics.
The master-crook acted with surprising speed. He gave a twist that carried him away from George to an angle that was clear of The Shadow's aim. With a terrific spring, Bradthaw lunged upon the fighter in black, aiming as he came.
The Shadow took a backward step through the curtains. An instant later, Bradthaw was driving through, blazing with his gun.
The Shadow had whipped aside behind the curtain, intending to flank Bradthaw with a sledged attack, the moment that he arrived. The Shadow wanted the crooked official alive, like Strampf and Caudrey.
In that, The Shadow was scheduled for disappointment. Perhaps Bradthaw himself, would have preferred surrender to death; but he never gained the choice.
The mad impetus of Bradthaw's surge could not be stopped. It had forced The Shadow to a quick side twist to avoid the shots. Wheeling in upon Bradthaw, The Shadow started a back-hand gun stroke as the crook came through. The Shadow's gun muzzle whipped the curtains; that brush delayed the swing long enough to produce an unexpected sequel.
Every ounce of strength was behind Bradthaw's drive, for the murderous villain expected to grip The Shadow. Instead, Bradthaw found vacancy in the space behind the curtains.
As he escaped the slowed gun slash, Bradthaw plunged headlong against the loosely closed window shutters that he thought were solid wall.
Those barriers gave outward. Bradthaw's knees hit the low sill. He took a long head-first pitch out through the window. Even The Shadow's quick swoop was too late to halt that dive. Bradthaw's feet delivered a jerky upward kick that broke The Shadow's last instant grasp.
A screech trailed upward as Bradthaw's body fell. From the window, The Shadow saw the twisting form diminishing in its long drop to the street. Bradthaw glanced from projecting cornices as he fell; each jolt threw him farther outward. His course was like a series of increasing trounces down a mammoth flight of steps.
Near the bottom Bradthaw, spread-eagled downward, so far below that his size seemed toylike. That last long sprawl carried him to the center of the street, where he flattened, a pitiful blob upon the paving.
Bradthaw was dead before he took that final smash. No human frame could have stood the buffeting that the master-crook received along his forty-story bounce.
TINY cars were stopping in the street. Like beetles, people were approaching Bradthaw's body. They knew that something must have happened up above. The law would arrive soon.
The Shadow stepped back into his sanctum. Others were there, for Bradthaw had been right when he took The Shadow's later laugh to be a signal.
Harry and Cliff had charge of Strampf and Caudrey. Other agents were in the background: Hawkeye, Tapper and Jericho.
The Shadow spoke to Francine. She beckoned to George, who came crawling from a corner beside The Shadow's filing cabinet. The two went down the stairs.
Holding two guns, The Shadow pressed their muzzles against Strampf and Caudrey. In sinister whisper, he ordered the prisoners to follow.
The agents remained above.
In Bradthaw's office, The Shadow stood in silent judgment while Strampf and Caudrey coughed confessions. Bradthaw's death had broken Strampf. Caudrey's shrewdness was tinged with a yellow streak that displayed itself when the rogue was cornered.
All the while, there were hurried sounds from the tower stairs, along with muffled clangs at the door of the freight elevator. Later came silence; at last, a sound from an outer office. The law had arrived.
The Shadow waited no longer. With a whispered laugh, he turned and took the doorway toward the freight elevator.
Strampf started to show defiance; he halted as he saw The Shadow's gun muzzle poke back into view.
Strampf subsided. An instant later The Shadow was gone.
The front door of the office yanked open. In strode Joe Cardona, followed by a squad.
THE story that Cardona heard was the most amazing one that had ever reached his ears. Strampf and Caudrey repeated their confessions, prompted by Francine who checked every detail that they had given The Shadow.
With those confessions lay proof. Caudrey's insurance policy was on the desk; he had put it there at The Shadow's order. Strampf's latest report sheets were also waiting for the law.
Already incriminated, the cadaverous crook showed the hiding place of Bradthaw's papers that dealt with crime insurance. The entire racket, with all its profits, lay exposed.
In the hallway beside the freight elevator, Cardona found the three million dollars, stacked in the suitcase.
He turned over the wealth to Francine and George. With a grim smile, Cardona looked toward the tower stairs.
Testimony had included mention of The Shadow's sanctum. Cardona wanted to see that black-walled room for himself. He went up the steps two at a time. At the top, Joe stared through the opened doorway.
The tower room was bare. Every vestige of its stolen furnishings had been removed by The Shadow's agents. In the ground-floor garage, they had overpowered waiting thugs. The Shadow's belongings had gone aboard the truck that Strampf had provided to take away the Melrues.
The truck was gone, with its cargo. The Shadow had followed the same route as his agents. He would choose a new spot for his hidden headquarters. The Shadow, like his sanctum had vanished.
THE END