There, like a mammoth specter, his shadowed outline silhouetted on the floor, The Shadow unbarred the doors of the cells. His keen eyes, peering through an opening, spied Harry Vincent. In whispered tone, The Shadow hissed a summons to his agent.
HARRY leaped to his feet. Pounding to the cellroom, he saw The Shadow on the stairs. His chief was beckoning. Harry followed. Out into the night, Harry followed the course that was marked by The Shadow’s hissing summons. Around the house, there Harry stopped short as he saw, with astounded eyes, the hulking, fan-topped shape of The Shadow’s autogyro!
In response to an order from the ship, Harry clambered aboard and entered the rear seat. The blades above began their revolution. The rhythm of the motor increased. The autogyro started forward.
To Harry it seemed that the impetus would carry them into the wall of Ransdale’s house. The gyro, however, performed a sudden revolution as The Shadow maneuvered it with remarkable skill. With gaining speed, the craft headed for the trees at the rear of the clearing. It took off with a perfect upward lift.
Climbing almost vertically, taking a spiral course as The Shadow, master pilot, handled the controls, the autogyro rose from among the trees. Harry, staring from the side, saw the gray walls and light-colored roof of the house as the building dropped away beneath.
Higher, with motor throbbing for the climb, the autogyro ascended into the night. This ship had dropped like a phantom craft from the sky when danger had beckoned. Now that The Shadow had accomplished his appointed mission, the roar of the motor needed no further muffling.
RANSDALE’S house was far below. Within the walls of The Black Falcon’s lair, three men were making a startling discovery. Hubert Apprison, Elias Carthers, and Lamont Cranston formed a bewildered trio of freed investigators.
The prisoners had come forth to the cell room. Finding the way clear, they had ascended to the ground floor and had taken the stairs to the second story. There, in the room where The Shadow had met The Black Falcon and his minions, they viewed the bodies that were lying on the floor.
“Look there!”
The others followed Hubert Apprison’s pointing finger. By the desk lay the figure of a man. At a distance, the dead form appeared headless. As the three released prisoners approached, they saw that a black bag had been placed upon the head of the reclining corpse.
“The hood!” exclaimed Elias Carthers, with sudden understanding. “The hood! It means — The Black Falcon!”
“The hood?” questioned Hubert Apprison.
“Yes,” explained Carthers. “The falcon, when captured, is kept hooded. Some one — to whom we owe our safety — has trapped The Black Falcon and has left this as his token!”
Stooping, Carthers seized the hood and drew it from the victim’s head. The trio stared at the evil face that showed uncovered. Contorted lips formed a vicious leer, even in death. Above that lay the final evidence of The Black Falcon’s identity. Covering the eyes was the black mask that had been upon the desk. The Shadow had placed it upon The Black Falcon’s visage.
Lamont Cranston pulled away the mask. He named the man whose face he saw beneath. The rescued men remained staring at the death-stilled features of their abductor.
THOUSANDS of feet above, the autogyro poised as it turned to take a direct course. Harry Vincent, still staring downward, saw Rowland Ransdale’s stone house as a toy-like structure in a tiny patch among the trees.
As the thrumming of the motor paused, a weird sound came to Harry’s ears. A chilling taunt of mocking triumph rose to an eerie pitch, then ended as the motor roared and the autogyro sped forward on its course.
The laugh of The Shadow! Victorious, it had pealed forth amid the heights from which The Black Falcon had so often swooped; through which the criminal of the skies had carried home his prey.
The echoes of that laugh persisted in Harry’s ears, amid the thrumming of the motor. The laugh of The Shadow lingered as a parting jest from the master who had ended a fiend’s career.
The Black Falcon’s reign of crime was ended, doomed through The Shadow’s might!