The portion where the handle had been now made a hand-grip with bulging chambers. The gun which Rochelle held was a revolver of small caliber, but with a rifle barrel that gave it power.
Covered by this weapon, it was futile for either man to move. Trapped by Rochelle, they could only hope to parry. The first words that the enemy uttered showed that no mercy could be gained.
“You shall die!” Rochelle’s snarl ended in a wicked chuckle. “You, like others, shall end in my vats of death. Look before you — see where I have consigned the bodies of those whose murders I have ordered!
“Bolero — Piscano” — Rochelle was gleeful as he named the death list — “Rexton — Clifford — Tromboll — Dolband! All have been dissolved within the acid which those vats contain. They were murdered by Bugs Ritler and his mobsmen. They were carried here and dropped into the vats by Thurk.
“There was another. Herkimer. Thurk slew him and threw him into a vat as well. You wonder why I tell you this?” Rochelle sneered. “Because both of you, like the others, will meet with the same fate.
“No evidence will remain of my crimes. Speculation will exist; truth will be lacking. I shall depart by my secret exit; before I go, two more victims will be bestowed to their resting places. One for each vat of death!”
As Rochelle delivered a fiendish chuckle, Vic Marquette growled a quick command to Harry Vincent.
“Spread away,” was Vic’s order. “Open fire — both at once. Maybe one of us will get him—”
With simultaneous accord, Harry and Vic sprang sidewise, in opposite directions, along the edge of the nearer vat. It was their only chance. One was doomed, according to Rochelle’s choice; the other had a slender chance.
Rochelle had divined the move. As the springing men swung their gun arms upward, the master plotter aimed first for Vic Marquette. All odds were in his favor. A quick shot with another rapid aim — both Vic and Harry would be doomed.
At that instant a shot resounded with a roar from a point directly in back of the spot where Harry Vincent and Vic Marquette had been standing side by side. The spreading action had cleared the way for a hidden marksman.
The Shadow! He had trailed the pursuers of Darvin Rochelle. He had heard Vic Marquette’s order to Harry Vincent. A spectral figure, hidden from Rochelle’s view by the men between, he had been ready with the needed shot.
THE roar of the automatic, enlarged by these confining walls, awoke staccato echoes. Darvin Rochelle’s right arm was drooping. The sheathing cane slipped from his left hand and dropped into the vat before him. His long-barreled gun formed a pointer as its muzzle turned toward the depths of the vat. Like an omen, the gun slipped from Rochelle’s hand. It dropped and sank into the simmering acid.
Rochelle’s form was slumping. The villain’s left hand was to his breast. His eyes were staring downward, bulging as they saw the fate that awaited him. His wavering body seemed to twist in a futile, convulsive effort to retain itself against the wall.
Then, as death followed the mortal wound, Rochelle’s body took a rigid pose. It seemed to rise, almost as if alive. With a peculiar twist that formed a replica of Rochelle’s halting stride, the body slipped from the ledge.
A splash came from the vat. A pungent odor arose as wavelets moved upon the greenish surface. The man with the limp was dead. His corpse, like those of his victims, was swallowed by the greedy acid in the vat of death!
From the archway to the outer chamber came the hollow tones of a weird laugh, that crept with ironical mockery above the vats. Even though that laugh had been uttered by their rescuer, Vic Marquette and Harry Vincent shuddered at its chilling tones.
The laugh reached a high crescendo. It broke with a shuddering gibe. Echoes rang from every wall — reverberations that seemed uttered by living, ghoulish tongues.
When the last note of that sinister taunt had died, a strange, predominating silence hung above the vats of death, where Harry Vincent and Vic Marquette stood motionless.
Triumphant, The Shadow had departed. His work was done. He had dealt just doom to Darvin Rochelle, the man with the limp!
CHAPTER XXI
THE FINAL REPORT
VIC MARQUETTE was in Fulton Fourrier’s room at the Starlett Hotel. Wisely, the secret-service operative was silent, as he listened to the commendation of his chief.
“I got your call, Marquette,” explained Fourrier, “just before midnight. How you managed to get it through while those crooks held you prisoner is a miracle to me.”
Vic maintained his silence. He realized that The Shadow must have called Fourrier just before coming to Rochelle’s mansion.
“I went with the police,” resumed Fourrier. “We got there and waited — surrounding the block as you had ordered. When those first shots came, we smashed through.
“We smeared those servants of Rochelle’s. We got the gangsters piling out of the house in the back. But if it hadn’t been for you, Vic, and that fellow Vincent you had with you, Rochelle would have made his getaway.”
Fourrier paused to smile in elation.
“We nabbed the Debronne woman coming in,” said the chief. “We’re adding her confession to your report. With Vincent and that newspaperman, Burke, to add their details to your story, it will be the greatest thing in the annals of the secret service.
“The papers on Rochelle’s desk. Not only his plot to kill nine South Americans, but that stolen correspondence from the embassy. You’ve proved to be an ace, Marquette!”
The chief paused to study a stack of report papers that Vic Marquette had given him. Vic had couched these in simple, unromantic style. Yet they showed the marks of a keen imagination.
For Vic Marquette had sensed The Shadow’s wish. Wisely, Marquette had omitted all mention of the mysterious avenger whose lone hand had dealt every stroke of doom.
“No details of the fight,” observed Fourrier. “Well, those aren’t needed. The fact that you and the other prisoners got loose and polished off the gang is sufficient. Results are what we want in our report sheets.”
Fourrier placed the report aside. He arose and clapped his hand to Marquette’s shoulder.
“Your work is done, old man,” he said. “I’m putting an international operative on the final job. A report came in on Alvarez Menzone today. The man was a clever swindler, last seen in 1931, at Caracas, Venezuela.
“He’s probably headed out of the country. Maybe we’ll get him — maybe we won’t. It doesn’t matter. He’ll never trouble us again.”
Vic Marquette smiled. He knew that Fourrier had unwittingly declared the truth. No one would ever get Alvarez Menzone, for Alvarez Menzone did not exist!
BLACKNESS moved on the balcony outside of Fourrier’s windows. The barriers closed tight. A weird shape, crawling spiderlike, made its way to the floor below.
Ten minutes later, Henry Arnaud, bags packed, appeared in the lobby of the Hotel Starlett. This inconspicuous guest was leaving Washington. He paid his bill; his grips were carried to a cab.
As the taxi rolled along Pennsylvania Avenue on its way to the Union Station, a thin smile appeared upon the lips of Henry Arnaud. Eyes that flashed, were surveying the glittering boulevard. A soft laugh echoed from the lips beneath the bold, aquiline nose.
Washington seemed peaceful tonight. The lurking menace of insidious crime was ended. A monster of evil and all his insidious crew had been banished forever from the national capital.
The glow from the lighted capitol building revealed Arnaud’s hawklike features as the cab swung toward the station. The lips were smiling still.