Someone barked an order. It was Spud Claxter. He and all his new mobsmen wore gas masks, as Lagwood had predicted. Spud did not know The Shadow was also masked. As he gave the word to fire, the mobleader performed the first action — one that he believed would assure The Shadow’s doom. He hurled a pineapple.
The bomb burst at The Shadow’s feet. Its greenish vapor spread on the instant, filling the room, sweeping into the corridors. Cliff saw the cloud; he knew that it would be the target for the gunmen. He expected quick shots from the automatics and replies from the revolvers that gorilla’s wielded.
Instead, there was silence. The green cloud cleared. The Shadow, moving forward, beckoned Cliff to follow. Amazed, Cliff obeyed. When he reached the big room, he stood astounded. In every corridor were rigid mobsters. They had toppled, to a man, overpowered by the death sleep before they had time to launch a single bullet!
The Shadow strode through the central passage, pushing forms aside. Cliff followed and his brain found the answer to the climax. Cliff knew that the mobsters had gained a new supply of neutralizer; that they had stolen it from the same place as the first. He realized, of a sudden, that The Shadow had been there before them.
The Shadow had removed the fresh supply for his own use. In its place, he had substituted an impotent liquid! The Shadow’s mask — Cliff’s mask — both were protection against the gas fumes. But Spud and the mobsmen were equipped with useless masks!
The Shadow had known that a bomb would come before the shots. He had counted on Spud chucking the pineapple. That was why The Shadow had stepped deliberately into the trap, ready to face the three-way odds that were against him!
They reached the outer air. The Shadow hissed. Cliff edged beside his chief, into darkness away from the building. Cars were arriving. Cliff heard the growled voice of Detective Joe Cardona. The police had followed The Shadow’s tip. They were here to raid the fake sanitarium.
The Shadow led Cliff through the darkness, off toward his coupe, parked a hundred yards away. Men of the law did not hear that stealthy departure. They were entering the building. There they would find Seton Lagwood and Wolf Barlan, the team of supercrooks, dead in the lower office. Carson unconscious. Spud and his mobsmen rigid in the death sleep.
BUT before then, they were to learn of The Shadow’s presence. Joe Cardona, ordering his men into the sanitarium, stopped short as he heard the sudden roar of a motor. The lights of a car twinkled from among the trees. Then the automobile shot away.
Cardona was about to order prompt pursuit when the token came to his ears. It was the sound of a fading laugh, a trailing burst of triumphant mockery that died as the throb of the motor lessened. Cardona withheld his order. He knew the laugh of The Shadow.
More than that, Cardona knew that the way was clear. No need for caution any longer. Gruffly, the detective ordered his men to enter the silent building. For Joe Cardona knew that where The Shadow had been, no man of crime could linger except in death or helplessness.