As Garsher and Sycher dived for their discarded revolvers, Hiram Caffley came bounding forward with a maddened roar. His thin-fingered hands were aiming for Barth’s throat.
The commissioner hurled the telephone at the master crook. The wire was short; the instrument stopped with a jerk and clattered to the floor.
A servant staggered. Cardona had bagged him with a bullet in the shoulder. As the fellow sprawled, his companion took straight aim for the detective. Cardona had no chance to meet the pointed gun; but another battler was prepared.
A roar burst from between the curtains at the rear end of the room. A flash of flame tongued for the would-be killer. A ripping bullet sent the murderous servant plunging, squirming to the floor.
Caffley had caught Barth’s throat.
The commissioner’s new pince-nez spectacles went sailing from the bridge of his nose, where Barth had just replaced them. Wildly, Barth wrestled with his foe.
Sycher and Garsher had seen the shot from the curtains. Their guns were coming up; with one accord, they blazed straight bullets toward the spot from which the flash had appeared. A laugh sounded from behind the draperies.
From where the murderers stood, just clear of the table, the way was open between them and the spot where The Shadow had remained. Against an ordinary foe, their prompt shots would have taken devastating effect. The Shadow, though, had tricked them.
An automatic roared in response to the revolver shots. It did not come from high up, as with the shot that The Shadow had aimed toward Caffley’s servant. The flash was from a spot just above the floor. The Shadow had dropped flat to deal with these new adversaries.
George Garsher slumped. Groaning, the murderer rolled upon the floor. Al Sycher aimed low and emptied his revolver with venomous fury. In with his quick shots came another burst of flame from the very spot toward which the murderer had aimed.
Sycher sagged, his face lined with pain. His bulging eyes stared unbelieving toward those curtains. The drapes parted; the dying murderer saw the finger of The Shadow; below the vengeful shape the body of Caffley’s third servant.
The unconscious menial had become a corpse, thanks to Sycher’s bullets. The Shadow had not dropped to an unprotected floor. That prone form of the servant, which Sycher had forgotten, had been The Shadow’s bulwark.
CARDONA had heard a gargling cry from Barth. The detective swung about as he saw Sycher follow Garsher to the floor. Joe leaped in to deal with Caffley.
The master crook dropped Barth and seized Cardona’s wrist. With the fury of a demon, he wrested away the detective’s gun; as Joe fought back, Caffley spun him toward the end of the room and shoved the revolver muzzle past the detective’s shoulder.
Caffley wanted vengeance on The Shadow. He might have gained it but for his over-vehemence. Gifted with the power of a fiend, the gray-haired man bore down on Joe Cardona while he pressed the trigger of the detective’s revolver.
One shot whistled past The Shadow’s hat brim, just as the black-garbed fighter performed a sidewise twist. Caffley swung to quicker aim, lunging as he did so. In his powerful effort, he came high and wide of Cardona, whom he was using as a shield.
The Shadow had already aimed. He had delayed fire only. Like a boxer jabbing past a lowered guard, The Shadow inserted a timely shot. The roar of the big automatic spelled the doom of a supercrook.
Caffley’s right wrist wavered. He managed to press the trigger, a fraction of a second too late. His aim was slipping as he fired; again Caffley was wide.
Fuming fruitless oaths, the last of the murderers slipped toward the floor; Cardona, hardly realizing that The Shadow had clipped the villain, was prompt with a punch that sent the sagging Caffley rolling beneath the table that Barth had managed to clutch.
Lawrence, consciousness regained, was sitting up on the divan, startled by the gunfire. He saw Barth and Cardona side by side; at their feet the sprawled form of Hiram Caffley.
The other two murderers were twisted objects on the floor. The servants who had started the melee were groaning, wounded, their guns gone from their useless hands.
Solemnly, Wainwright Barth stooped to the floor to regain his new pince-nez. The spectacles had bounded upon the thick, tufted rug. The acting commissioner found them unbroken and calmly adjusted them upon his eagle-like nose.
Then, while Cardona stared in admiration at Barth’s methodical manner, the commissioner surveyed the bodies on the floor. That done, Barth turned to the table and picked up the signed confessions.
To Cardona, it was a display of sangfroid on the part of the commissioner. Joe did not realize that Barth was half dazed, resorting to method purely through mechanical response. It was a sound — not the scene — that jolted Wainwright Barth from his deliberate activity.
FROM beyond swishing curtains came a departing laugh. A sudden, rising taunt that reached a startling crescendo. A cry of triumph that was shuddering as it broke into a host of quivering echoes.
Confessions gripped in his left hand, Barth clutched Cardona’s arm with a right that trembled. Blinking as he stared through his spectacles, the commissioner looked to the detective for the explanation of that uncanny peal that Barth could not fully understand.
It was Joe Cardona, this time, who showed steadiness. The detective had heard that mighty laugh before; it came to him with flooding memories of the past.
It marked the end of crime. It told that justice had been done; that murderers three, treacherous to the last, had found the doom that they had given to others.
The triumph laugh of The Shadow!