DOWN through the night, a cloaked figure was speeding along a slender track of stout steel wire. The Shadow reached the end of his swift journey. His shape blended with the blackness that shaded the twentieth floor of the Hotel Framton.
Deft fingers wrenched the end of the wire from the stone block and let it swing out into the street. The Shadow again scaled the steplike bulwarks until he reached the spot four floors above. There he released the upper end of the tracklike wire.
Gloved hands coiled the wire inward. The Shadow was bringing in the evidence of his two swift flights through space. Blended with blackness, he could view the forms of men on the open front of the Roof Cafe.
Cliff Marsland, Harry Vincent, Hawkeye — all three were there. With others who had participated in the mad brawl, they were explaining things to the hotel employees. All seemed satisfied now that the fray was over.
Soon The Shadow’s agents would learn that Clyde Burke was safe. They had played their part to aid their chief. Men of the law had gained the hideout where Rook Hollister had dwelt.
Victory belonged to that shrouded master who clung aloft against the huge bulk of the towering skyscraper. From the blackness of his vantage place, The Shadow viewed the aftermath of triumph.
A passing breeze caught the echoes of a whispered laugh. Rising, that mirth broke clear, into a strange uncanny crescendo that sounded like a voice from the Beyond.
The Shadow’s agents heard a ghostly taunt which they recognized. As other persons started, wondering, those agents knew that their cause had been won.
Joe Cardona, too, caught the echoes of that chilling mirth as he swung open the door and stepped out to the penthouse promenade. But as he approached the rail and stared into the night, the ace detective could not discern the spot from which the triumph tone had come.
Invisible in his chosen spot of blackness, The Shadow was the conqueror who had ended crime’s regime.
With the ending of Lingo Queed’s rule, the underworld empire was shattered. Yet none, not even Joe Cardona, would learn what had become of the last overlord in gangland’s short-lived dynasty.
The identity of Lingo Queed had passed forever. Vengeful mobsters would look in vain for the monarch who had carried them into calamity. For the exploits of Lingo Queed had been the exploits of The Shadow.