CHAPTER XXIV
THE SHADOW DECREES
SHAN KWAN’S face grew livid as the mandarin stared at the cloaked form before him. Rigid as a statue, The Shadow gazed from a spot before the pedestal. The very grimness of his silence stilled the babble of tongues. From far away came drum-like beats; a token that the police were hammering through the doors that they had found. But all who saw The Shadow were oblivious to those sounds.
Shan Kwan found words. His mask had lifted; venomous in utterance he snarled his enmity. Creeping forward, the mandarin scorned the menace of the automatics. He knew that if The Shadow fired, that horde would overwhelm the cloaked fighter who stood alone.
The mandarin’s outburst ended in an accusation. As his hand whipped a long knife from his scarlet robe, Shan Kwan delivered words that brought an approving rumble from his fanatical following.
“Thief!” accused Shan Kwan. “You have stolen the Fate Joss! To such as you there is one fate. Death!”
The Shadow’s laugh came in sinister reply. The growls of the Chinese subsided. Struck by the weird significance of that tone, they listened. To their ears came startling echoes; brazen reverberations from the metal walls. The Shadow’s voice intoned; its words were in the Chinese tongue.
“None can steal the Fate Joss,” he announced. “Those who carry it from place to place are but instruments in its service. So Shan Kwan himself has taught you.”
The Shadow paused. Babbles followed, but they lacked hostility. These words, in Chinese, were the very phrases that carried weight. These men had come to seek the Fate Joss; not to kill.
“The Fate Joss has gone on its final journey,” pronounced The Shadow. “It has gone in a boat belonging to Shan Kwan. One which he kept, should he wish to flee, with his treasures. That boat will take the Joss to another. It will arrive in China.”
More babbles; wilder with excitement. The Shadow’s tones rose above them.
“In China,” was his word, “the Joss will reach Jehol. There, it will be placed within the temple of Je Ho, to remain in its chosen abode. I, Ying Ko, have spoken this truth. I, Ying Ko, who sought the Fate Joss and its War Dogs, that I might do them true honor.”
Shouts from the Chinese. Shan Kwan quivered, not through fear, but rage, as he heard the cries of approval. Above the thudding at a last barring door came the vocal outburst:
“Ying Ko! Ying Ko has spoken! The Fate Joss has returned to Jehol! Ying Ko is wise!”
The Shadow’s arm was raised. Shouts subsided. Again, his voice sounded; this time, its tone a whisper:
“Where are the promises of Shan Kwan? Where are the unbelievers whose bodies he promised as a sacrifice? Look about you! See the corpses of Shan Kwan’s own men. Those who fought for him — against the Fate Joss!”
THE SHADOW was striding forward as he spoke. Shan Kwan grimaced; then backed off at an angle as his followers drew apart. The mandarin clutched his knife; but he feared The Shadow’s guns. If shots were forced, Shan Kwan knew that he would be the first to fall.
As The Shadow passed him, Shan Kwan began to edge in a wide circle, seeking to get behind the cloaked avenger; he wanted to be free of The Shadow’s vision. But his ruse failed.
Nearing the cleared steps, The Shadow whirled about. His automatics had dropped beneath his cloak; he raised his gloved hands empty. For he saw that massed Chinese had closed in between him and Shan Kwan, as the mandarin edged quickly toward the pedestal where the Fate Joss had stood.
The Shadow’s tone was sibilant. His whisper, high-pitched, resumed its questioning and its statements, all in the Chinese tongue.
“Could doors of brass have fallen?” The Shadow’s arms spread wide in indication. “Could a few have overwhelmed many? Could the Fate Joss have been carried forth against its wish? Could any of those happenings have come to be, without the aid of the Joss itself?”
Wild roars broke anew, as the hundred cultists raised their arms toward the cloaked figure who had spoken from the shattered portal.
“Ying Ko! Ying Ko! He has prevailed!”
“Ying Ko has served the Joss! Shan Kwan has not! The promises of Shan Kwan have been lies!”
“The Joss has left us because of Shan Kwan’s lies!”
“Raise no hand against Ying Ko! Who touches him offends the Joss!”
“Shan Kwan has offended the Joss!”
“Death to Shan Kwan! Death!”
A SCARLET-ROBED figure sprang upon the vacant pedestal. It was Shan Kwan; the mandarin’s shrill cry rose high above the babble. Turning, the crowd saw his scarlet sleeve swing wide. With a furious snarl, the mandarin hurled his gleaming dagger. It left his clawish fingers on a long high arc, aimed for The Shadow, standing in the portal.
Heads bobbed about as clamoring Chinamen watched the blade’s curved flight. Staring, they saw The Shadow, rigid and unmoving, his empty hands still raised. Sighting above the heads of the Chinese, The Shadow had witnessed Shan Kwan’s move. Nevertheless, The Shadow had not stirred.
The range was long — too long — for an accurate knife throw. Shan Kwan lacked the strength and skill of his blade-hurling minions. The high course of the blade was proof, moreover, that he had outdone himself through rage.
The zimming dirk winged wide above The Shadow’s head, missing even the border of the motionless cloak sleeve that garbed his upraised arm. The Shadow, immobile, had shown his contempt for Shan Kwan’s endeavor. He seemed a being backed by some protective force. He was — for that power was his own strength of nerve. But to the hundred Chinese who saw the blade sweep wide, there came a different explanation.
“Ying Ko! He is the chosen of the Joss! Death to Shan Kwan! Death to him who sought to slay Ying Ko!”
The mandarin’s move had proved suicidal. Before he could leap away from the pedestal, a seething mass overwhelmed him. Unsheathed knives glittered downward as they were buried into the body beneath the scarlet robe. The murderous mandarin rolled dead upon the floor, hidden under the overwhelming surge of his former followers.
A weird laugh had sounded from The Shadow’s hidden lips. It was a triumphant gibe, a prophecy that had followed the failure of the knife. It broke, that laugh, as Shan Kwan’s followers began their spring upon the mandarin. Its echoes had faded, tongued back by walls of brass, at the moment of Shan Kwan’s fall.
The Shadow had gone; he was passing the last barrier which the police were breaking down. Out through the way that Doctor Tam had taken, he was away from view before police came driving through from the Ancient Chinese Bazaar. With Joe Cardona as their leader, a squad was following a trail of scattered bodies, straight to the temple room.
There they found a hundred Chinese, bland and solemn, their tumult quieted. Gathered as if in conclave, they were waiting — they knew not why. Unless, perchance, it was through respect for The Shadow, that personage whom they had accepted as the appointed of the Fate Joss — the one whom they would always identify with the famous idol from Jehol.
WEEKS afterward, Joe Cardona still talked about the episode. Regarding it as the most astonishing experience of his career, the ace detective confided his impressions to Clyde Burke.
“Not a move from any of them,” testified Cardona, referring to the Chinese. “They were peaceable; they gave no argument. When we questioned them, all they would say was ‘Ying Ko’ — and they kept repeating it.
“Sounded like a name; but there’s nobody in Chinatown with that moniker. It’s not a place, either — I’ve looked through atlases trying to find it. ‘Ying Ko’ — that’s all they would say.
“What did we do with them? What could we? They hadn’t been in the fight. The mandarin, Shan Kwan, was lying there, knifed; but we figured the fellows that finished him were gone. Shan Kwan’s servants had been in a fight — most of them dead — except for some that came creeping out of passages to give themselves up.