“Living images of Colpoc,” he said, in a sepulchral tone, “your reign of crime is ended. You are marked for life. Perhaps that will not be for long. The chicquatil is before you. I brought it here, by arrangement with the man who gave you this meeting place — Tam Sook. When you choose your friends, Charles Kistelle, you should remember that The Shadow knows!”
In a trice, the green light faded. The chicquatil, gift of the Aztecs to the messenger from the moon god, had gone beneath the black cloak. The Shadow stood in the dim light of the room, the spectral glow no longer surrounding him.
There he waited — and from his invisible lips came the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXIII
“THE CHICQUATIL”
CHARLES KISTELLE raised his head from his hands. The chief plotter of the men of evil stared toward the end of the room, where The Shadow, looming black, stood silent.
The Shadow!
Kistelle hated the very name!
The scheming villain looked about him. He saw his four comrades raising their heads. They were trembling; but in this dim light they seemed to have lost their paralytic fear. The glow of the chicquatil was gone!
A sudden frenzy swept through the brain of Charles Kistelle. He looked along the table. The piles of money were no longer there. Kistelle realized what had happened. The Shadow had taken those spoils — all that the six crooks had fought to grasp.
Under that cloak was a fortune of half a million. There also were the confessions that the cowed crooks had signed. Moreover, The Shadow held the green chicquatil!
A terrible frenzy seized Kistelle. He remembered how he and Fenwick had arisen to strike down a superior crowd of enemies. Here was the end of the trail, unless his nerve would be with him now!
The solemn faces of his companions — faces that were all alike — were looking toward him for leadership. With rising fury Kistelle gave the cry.
“Death to The Shadow!”
Kistelle had heard that cry in the underworld. He shouted it now, and with his exclamation, he leaped to his feet. Not one of the five hesitated. Each had a gun in readiness. They were drawing as they rose.
The Shadow saw the action. His hands came suddenly from beneath his cloak. They carried neither money, confessions nor emerald. Instead, they were armed with two huge automatics.
The Shadow was advancing as he drew; so were his enemies.
Five against one! The odds would have been hopeless, had that one not been The Shadow!
For as the long white hands came into view, the automatics spoke — a split second before the first shot that came from an enemy’s gun. The cannon roar of the powerful .45’s resounded through the subterranean den.
Vainly, the revolvers splashed their answering bursts of flame. The only hands that fired were the ones that shot too soon to gain effective aim. Bullets cracked against the paneled walls. Others — those fired by The Shadow — found the marks they sought.
THE roaring echoes died. The smoke-filled room showed blinded, staggering figures that were rolling helpless on the floor. The Shadow’s firing ceased. His living targets lay before him. He stood unscathed.
Once again, The Shadow had conquered odds by his perfect formula. He had fired before the others.
Slowly, the blackclad victor approached the motionless bodies. He stooped above them, singling each from the other. A clamor arose outside the room. Men were beating at the door. The terrific fire had been heard upon the street. Police were coming to investigate.
Crash!
The closed barrier burst. As it toppled, The Shadow glided swiftly away. Unseen by the entering bluecoats, he stepped through the opening in the wall and the panel closed behind him.
Five dead bodies were on the floor. The officers stared about; seeing no one else, they examined those who had been killed. A surprised exclamation came from one policeman. It was echoed by others.
Thrust in a hand of each dead man was a sheet of paper — a signed confession of the crime which he had planned or committed. Flashlights showed the closely typed words — true statements of each individual contribution to the entire plot.
A wise officer wrote names upon slips of paper and attached them to the correct bodies before he plucked the confessions from unyielding gasps. The dead forms were carried forth. The one policeman remained. Upon the table he saw a sheet of paper. He read the words inscribed upon it. This was the unsigned confession of Horace Fenwick — the one of the six who had died before the others.
As the officer stared, he noted that a name was written at the bottom of the sheet. In lieu of Fenwick’s signature, the paper bore the signed approval of the one who had forced the final issue. There, in bold letters, the policeman glimpsed two words:
THE SHADOW
The writing faded. The confession of Horace Fenwick was blank at the bottom. That one of the six had escaped the final outcome, only because he had gone to his deserved death ten days before the rest had paid the penalty.
SIX men of evil were dead — six men who had started forth in common crime. Exiled with the mark of Colpoc upon their evil faces, they had not learned their lesson in the shrine at Zeltapec. Instead, they had used their misfortune to pave the way to the strangest careers of crime that had ever confronted the law.
Six men of evil — whose faces, molded with the image of wickedness, matched their hearts — had done their utmost to further supercrime. Armed with perfect alibis, they had sought to gain millions and had followed murder by foisting the blame upon innocent persons.
With their very identities unsuspected, these men would have succeeded under the guidance of the archplotter, Charles Kistelle, but for the presence of The Shadow. He, alone, had marked the end of crime and had delivered deserved doom to these six fiends.
Five bodies in a sunken room — another shattered in the wreckage of a ruined limousine. That was the fate that the six had gained. The green chicquatil had lured them on their quest. Its glare had marked the end of their strange career.
The room below the street in San Francisco’s Chinatown was empty now. The panel in the wall reopened and sharp eyes surveyed the deserted scene. From the hidden lips came a low, uncanny burst of mirthless laughter — the last token of the doom that had struck down six men of evil.
It was the laugh of The Shadow — the laugh of retribution!