“Luke Froy knew nothing except that letters came, and that Zachary Shellmann received phone calls from an unknown source. Those calls came from this very room. The old man gloated over your crimes. He felt that he had played a part in them.
“Twice Luke Froy went to Loy Rook’s: once for the li-shun; again to deliver a note which the old man had written to Loy Rook at your order. That was the instruction for my capture. A plot that failed.
“Now, even though you fear me, The Shadow, and your power has waned, you have attempted crime again. Supposedly dead, actually in hiding, you have not been able to repress your desire to kill. You are here to murder your two friends, Hotchkiss and Glover!
“I can recognize your method. An infernal machine planted in your smoking room, where these men have come because they were your friends. A twist of that dial which you are now afraid to touch — the machine will be exploded by remote control. But that plot shall never succeed!”
The Shadow paused and studied the man at the table. Matthew Wade became frenzied.
“The proof!” he screamed. “the proof of what you say!”
“Shellmann died tonight,” said The Shadow quietly. “Luke Froy, stricken by the old man’s death, told me his story with his own lips before he committed suicide. It was he who revealed that a final letter had been sent — a letter which Detective Cardona had kept to himself.”
“You think that I am Double Z?” demanded Wade.
“I know that you are Double Z!” said The Shadow.
“Prove it!” cried Wade. “Prove it!”
THE SHADOW advanced. His left hand reached to the table. It seized a paper and pencil that lay there.
With two quick motions, The Shadow’s left hand made the mark of Double Z — one letter half a line above the other. He turned the paper sideways. He made the signature again, but this time he formed the strokes at an angle and drew the lines in different order.
“Double Z,” declared The Shadow in a low voice. “Double Z to some— M. W. to others!”
Matthew Wade stared at the sheet of paper with its telltale marks.
“One man recognized your symbol,” said The Shadow. “Judge Tolland understood — after he received your message. He had heard from you before it came — he knew your handiwork. You left that note with Caulkins—”
Wade’s hands shot forward. One went by The Shadow’s left arm and seized the wrist that held the gun.
The other reached for the knob upon the box that controlled the infernal machine. But the dial was not turned. The Shadow’s left hand struck Wade’s hand away. The two grappled and staggered down the long room.
It was a grim fight in that strange compartment. Matthew Wade was struggling with the one man whom he feared; and as he realized that The Shadow was only human, he fought with added frenzy.
He was making a desperate attempt to defeat the man in the black cloak when fortune favored him. The Shadow tripped and staggered backward. Wade’s heavy body bore him to the floor.
With one hand the murderous millionaire pressed The Shadow’s head against the boards; with the other he gripped the muzzle of the automatic and wrested it from The Shadow’s grasp.
Only The Shadow’s forefinger still clutched the pistol, hooked firmly in the trigger guard. Wade, with a wild cry of success, wrenched the gun directly toward himself. The Shadow’s slipping finger was drawn violently against the trigger. A loud report echoed through the soundproof room. Matthew Wade collapsed slowly to the soft carpet.
The muzzle had been against his chest, the bullet passing through his heart. Matthew Wade lay dead.
JOE CARDONA’S sentinels did not see the figure in black step through a panel in the passageway that led to the side door of Matthew Wade’s home. The panel closed. The door opened to the driveway. The Shadow stepped forth unsteadily. He paused a moment to drink in deep breaths of fresh air. Then he merged with the night and moved through darkness, phantomlike, a being unseen.
Behind him, hidden in the secret room, lay the body of Matthew Wade, the man who had posed as Double Z, the multimillionaire who had not been satisfied with wealth alone.
That man had sought the power which only crime could bring. He had dealt death; but his career was finished now. Matthew Wade lay buried in an unknown tomb. The reign of the arch-criminal had been ended — by The Shadow!
Outside, all unwitting of the epic struggle that had just ended within, Cardona’s watchers were startled by the sound of a low, throbbing laugh that seemed to taunt their vigilant inactivity. The weird sound persisted softly for a few minutes, then died away.
The Shadow had gone his way victorious, to resume his perpetual fight against the underworld in some other quarter. What horrible plot against the public safety would next attract his attention?
Only The Shadow knew!