Harry continued his vigil. Then, from far away, came the thrumming of an airplane motor. Harry drew an automatic from his pocket. He went to the side door of the lodge, and looked out over the landing space, where the searchlight glared.
The roaring became terrific. A plane swooped down from the sky and rolled along the ground. It taxied back toward the lodge.
Two men clambered from the ship. Sherwood Mayo and Fleming were approaching.
Harry waited. He was ready for a double capture. But he had not reckoned with the cunning of Sherwood Mayo.
The millionaire had one unalterable rule. Whenever the plane arrived, Louie awaited in the doorway, clad in his white coat. This was a detail that had escaped Stuart Bruxton's observation. Sherwood Mayo was wily, and he sensed danger. He saw the opened door, but did not see the man hidden in the darkness. Harry was awaiting his close approach.
Mayo, acting upon a sudden hunch, slipped his hand into his coat pocket. As he neared the door, he dropped to the ground and fired a shot at the open door. Fleming duplicated his action. The shot was a lucky one. It struck Harry in the shoulder.
Gamely, Harry tried to return the fire. His shots went wide. He staggered back from the door as Mayo launched a volley of shots.
Harry stumbled through the hall, instinctively clutching his left shoulder. Mayo's lucky shot had wounded him. Crippled, Harry knew that retreat was the only course. He gained the front door and staggered out just as Mayo and Fleming arrived.
More bullets spattered the door. It was Fleming who was shooting. Sherwood Mayo had gone to the aid of Benson and Louie.
Knowing that an attack would be useless, Harry crept along the side of the house, determined to prevent the escape of the enemy before the arrival of The Shadow. He was grimly determined to do his utmost, despite the painfulness of his wound.
Reaching the back of the house, Harry laid low. Then, gazing out toward the landing field, he saw the four men appear from the other side of the lodge.
Benson and the Filipino were being rushed to safety by their rescuers. Raising his right hand, Harry fired. He saw the handcuffed Filipino stumble and fall.
Harry fired again. Mayo turned and shot at the corner of the house. A bullet whistled by Harry's head. Fleming was helping Louie on toward the plane. Mayo was Harry's target now.
The millionaire seemed to possess a charm against bullets. Every shot that Harry fired went wide. Mayo's bullets were nicking the corner of the house, too close for safety.
Harry dropped flat and waited. Mayo turned and hurried toward the plane. Harry pointed his gun and coolly pressed the trigger. The calculated aim proved to be of no avail. The gun was empty!
There was no chance now to stop the fleeing men. They had reached the plane. Fleming was helping Benson and Louie into the cabin from the other side. Sherwood Mayo had reached the safety spot. Desperately, Harry tried to reload his gun; but his left arm was numb and helpless. While he attempted his painful task, he heard the roar of the airplane motor. The big propeller was whirling, and the ship was moving along the ground, away from the house.
It took off in the glare of the searchlight, carrying its passengers away from the danger spot. Harry chided himself for his inability to prevent the escape. The return of The Shadow would be useless, now!
In the cabin of the fleeing plane, Sherwood Mayo was examining the wound that Louie had received. Harry's shot had clipped the man's hip.
The plane was high above the ground, rising away from Greenhurst. It swerved suddenly; Mayo, glancing from the window of the cabin, saw the cause.
Coming at an angle was another plane, heading directly for the fleeing ship!
Fleming, up ahead, had seen the menace. A skilled pilot, he recognized the danger. He thought, at first, that there would be a crash of planes. Then, as the other ship approached, bullets from a machine gun whirred through the fuselage of Sherwood Mayo's plane. It was The Shadow who had opened the attack!
Fleming saw one method of escape. The Shadow was approaching from the right.
Fleming went into a steep left bank to avoid the attacking plane.
Above the roar of his ship's motor, Mayo, horrified, heard a peculiar snap. Then came a sound like the rending of cloth.
The left wing fell from the millionaire's plane. The right wing swung straight upward in the air. Whirling like a broken toy, the escaping plane hurtled downward!
It crashed amid the trees. The passengers and the pilot were buried in the wreckage. Not one survived the crash. Sherwood Mayo and his evil crew had met their doom!
Harry Vincent, propped in bed with a bandaged shoulder, read the newspaper accounts the next day. There were three front-page stories in the New York journals.
One told of the murder of Sidney Delmuth, whose killer, Denby Chadwick, had committed suicide. No motive for the tragedy had been discovered.
Another account told of a strange attack of gunmen who had invaded a cottage in Massachusetts, only to lose their lives at the hands of an unknown protector who had disappeared from the scene. The third described the crash of Sherwood Mayo's plane. It had been heard by farmers, who had investigated.
An old man — as yet unidentified — and Mayo's Filipino servant were in the plane, handcuffed. It was supposed that they had attempted a robbery at Mayo's home, and that the millionaire had captured them.
Why he had been taking the malefactors away in his plane, however, was a mystery. That was all. The important links were missing. Nothing was said of Stuart Bruxton, stranded in Virginia. No word appeared to tell how Harry Vincent, wounded, was brought to New York in the cabin of a plane.
For that plane was a mystery ship. It had come from nowhere; and had disappeared as mysteriously as the man who had piloted it.
The Shadow had stepped from the dark to destroy the blackmail ring — and to the dark he had returned!