“The same device that Tony Luggeto and I put in the roulette table. The one that I shall remove tonight as I removed it before. The deadly Q-ray! It killed some; but not others. I am immune.”
Willington paused. Gyp Tangoli was gasping. The man seemed weakening. His strength faded.
“Those of light complexions,” chuckled Willington, “cannot be harmed by the deadly ray. Turk Berchler died. So did Nicky Donarth and Tony Luggeto. Others who were as dark as they perished with them.
“These Hindus fell quickly. Darkest of the Indo-European races, they were due to succumb instantly.
Rami Zaka went next. You cannot survive — not with your dark skin. Too bad, old fellow, that your complexion is not as light as mine. You are holding out gamely, though. Very gamely—”
WILLINGTON paused suddenly. Gyp Tangoli had made an amazing effort. He was rising bolt upright from his chair. Venom had replaced terror on his face. It was apparent that Willington’s words had aroused him to a ferocious pitch.
Gyp thrust his hand beneath his jacket. Yanking his revolver, he leaped toward the side of the room, away from the big chair.
Willington stood startled. For an instant, he had expected Gyp to succumb by the very frenzy of his last attempt. But the gun was swinging out. Gyp’s dark face was glaring. With a wild cry, Willington drew back. He hurled the crystal ball.
Gyp ducked the big sphere. It skimmed half an inch past his head and thudded against the side curtains.
It plopped to the floor and rolled about, unbroken. Gyp fired. His shot was wild.
Willington dived for the outer doorway. Gyp’s gun barked again. Willington staggered, but kept on. Gyp fired, snarling fiercely as he pressed the trigger, loosing every shot from his revolver.
Cuyler Willington sprawled. The revolver hammer clicked on empty chambers. Gyp Tangoli lowered the gun. He saw Willington, mortally wounded, coughing out his life upon the floor. Gyp was gloating.
“You thought you had me, Willington,” he sneered. “But you missed out — as you did before. Your guess was wrong. It looks like I’ve got a lucky hide against that ray you talked about.
“I took it before. I’m taking it now. You’re dying. The machine is mine. Many thanks, Willington. I can use it. I’ll go in for murder when I need it. But I’ll never trust my own life to the ray. I’ll never make the mistake you did.”
Willington groaned. He had not expected this finish to his scheme. Through his dying brain flashed the hopeless thought that the Q-ray never stood the fullest test. Brophy had claimed that it would kill all of dark complexions. Brophy was wrong.
“I’ve murdered before.” snarled Gyp. “I was the guy who killed those two patrolmen down by the Brooklyn pier. You didn’t know that, did you, Willington? Well, I’ll murder again. The ray is mine. Thanks to you, you ignorant fool—”
Gyp’s snarl ended. Willington had given a final cough. The light-skinned crook was dead.
Gyp stepped back, still holding his revolver. He turned about, toward the big chair. He stopped, as rigid as he had been when he had seen his Hindu minions fall.
The curtains had opened behind the big chair. A figure stood in view. One that Gyp recognized; an apparition that might have been death himself, come to survey this new scene of slaughter.
“The Shadow!”
THE name gasped from Gyp’s quivering lips. The grim avenger had arrived. The Shadow, from behind the curtains, had witnessed the death of Cuyler Willington. He had seen one fiend — the vaunted possessor of the Q-ray — go to doom.
The Shadow had seen a new monster rise. Gyp Tangoli, self-appointed successor to Cuyler Willington.
Automatics drawn, The Shadow had stepped forth from the door that he had opened, ready to deal with this foe to humanity.
Wildly, Gyp Tangoli raised his revolver. He plucked the trigger as he aimed at The Shadow.
Click-click-click-again. Gyp realized that the gun was empty. The Shadow had known that fact. He had counted the shots that Gyp had loosed at Cuyler Willington.
Beads of perspiration shone on Gyp’s dusky brow. The Shadow’s laugh crept through the curtained room. Mocking in tone, that taunt carried thoughts of doom. Slowly, The Shadow advanced.
Gyp Tangoli cringed, backing toward a rear corner. He wanted to leap for those curtains through which The Shadow had come. But Gyp, knowing that he could expect no mercy, realized that such an act would bring The Shadow’s fire. Quaking, he faced the burning eyes. Gyp gasped.
Then came a sudden sound from without. The opening slam of the outer door. Footsteps came dashing through the anteroom. The Shadow, halfway between Gyp and the elephant table, turned swiftly just as figures appeared beyond the front arch of the room.
Detective Joe Cardona had arrived, a pair of headquarters men close behind him. They were dashing straight into the influence of the Q-ray, which still burned its dooming message from the interior of the elephant table.
HAD The Shadow hesitated for one instant, Joe Cardona would have toppled within the danger sphere.
But The Shadow acted with a promptitude that was amazing. Forgetting Gyp Tangoli, he leveled both automatics toward the front doorway. His big weapons thundered. Tongues of flame spat toward the advancing detectives.
Amazing shots, those. With the repeated roars, each .45 loosed searing bullets that whistled inches above the heads of the detectives. With quick-timed marksmanship, The Shadow aimed to miss these approaching targets by as small a margin as was humanly possible.
Joe Cardona faltered. The other detectives went scrambling out from the anteroom, back to the front hall. Facing The Shadow as an enemy, Cardona could not understand. Had this friend of the law turned crook? With a backward step, Joe raised his revolver.
An automatic boomed. A bullet missed Joe’s left cheek by a hair’s-breadth. A second report. A tinge of heat swept by the tip of Joe’s right ear. Wildly, the ace detective dived for the shelter that the others had sought.
Still those automatics delivered their cannonade. Sweeping forward, The Shadow reached the anteroom.
He splintered the top of the outer door with zipping, burning slugs. A detective yanked the barrier shut.
The Shadow sprang forward and turned the lock.
Swiftly, the black-garbed fighter swung about. Back into the seance room; straight to the elephant table.
There, The Shadow wrested loose the top cylinder. He peeled away a glove, to show the long, pale hand beneath. Reaching through the opened top, he found the lever of the Q-ray machine. He turned off the deadly device.
Men were smashing at the outer door. Gyp Tangoli was gone. The Shadow knew which way the murderer had fled. Through that door behind the curtains; the way by which The Shadow, himself, had come.
But The Shadow kept to his work. Wrenching away the top of the elephant table, he revealed the Q-ray machine. His powerful hand twisted the lever downward. The rod jammed; it could not be used again.
The outer door was splintering. Calmly, The Shadow donned his glove. Joe Cardona would find the Q-ray machine. He would recognize it; for he had seen the original from which this one had been copied.
Joe would understand.
The Shadow’s laugh swept through the room. It carried a note of triumph; then broke in a grim mockery that spoke of work that still lay ahead. Just as the outer door broke from its hinges, The Shadow wheeled and headed for the curtain that lay behind the throne like chair.
When Joe Cardona and five detectives came plunging into the seance room, The Shadow was gone.
Hanging curtains alone enshrouded this abode where the bullet-riddled body of Cuyler Willington lay with the dead forms of those whom he had slain.