Lamont Cranston had gone straight into the center office. The three men were on his trail. Juanita stole to the crossing; she noted the stooped forms waiting at the door down the hall. With trembling step, the woman hurried toward the archway, back to the night club where the entertainment was scheduled to begin.
A gorilla’s hand was on the door that led into the suite of offices. The barrier moved inward as the man turned the knob. Peering cautiously into the lighted room, yet seeing no one, the first of the assassins beckoned to his fellows. With guns ready, they sidled through the opening.
The leader of the trio had opened the door with his left hand. Peering past the edge, he had looked toward the office which had once been Tony Loretti’s, while the others had headed toward the little office on the right.
As the first man stepped just beyond the edge of the door the barrier was swung shut by the quick thrust of a figure that had stood behind it. The slam caused the three gorillas to swing in that direction.
Between them and the door was the sinister figure of a black-clad being that had appeared as suddenly as a ghost. A long cloak hung from hidden shoulders; an upturned collar obscured the lower portion of the face above it.
Topped by a black slouch hat, the upper portion of the countenance was concealed by the broad, turned-down brim. Two blazing eyes — optics that burned with a glaring sparkle — were the only visible features of that unseen countenance.
Blazing eyes! Threatening eyes! But they were not the only menace which the startled gunmen faced. Black-gloved hands projected from the folds of the cloak; each fist grasped a huge automatic, and the muzzles of the .45s were covering the trio who had come to slay an unsuspecting victim.
“The Shadow!”
The gasp came from three husky throats; and the echo of those words was a whispered, mocking laugh that issued from beneath the brim of the slouch hat. By a ruse as simple as it was daring, the terror of the underworld had gained the drop on the three armed desperadoes!
THE taunt of The Shadow’s mirth was a command. The gesture of those looming automatics brooked no opposition. Sullenly, the gangsters backed across the room, their arms rising.
The Shadow’s back was against the door; his enemies were at his mercy. One second more — his opponents would have been totally helpless.
But in that fleeting instant, The Shadow’s keen eyes caught a sign that came as a strange satire to his own mighty presence. Across the center of the room, The Shadow’s silhouette lay in ominous blackness. Now, from the doorway of the dimly lighted office on the right, The Shadow saw a shadow!
Someone was creeping to the edge of that door; someone lying in wait until the three assassins had acted. The Shadow had no choice. Another moment spent upon the three men before him would mean a menacing attack from the other room.
The Shadow was prepared. In that split second, he performed the unexpected. His position against the door was one of clever design. The elbow of a right arm moved beneath the folds of the enveloping cloak. It pressed the light switch at the right of the door.
Darkness. With it, two men sprang forward from the other room. As quick fingers pressed revolver triggers, the blackened form of The Shadow dropped into total darkness. That fade-away came just before the shots were fired.
Guns roared, and leaden slugs shattered the woodwork at the spot where The Shadow had been standing. In response came fierce tongues of flame, and terrific thunder blasts, as The Shadow’s right-hand automatic cannonaded its reply.
As one man hurried forward into the darkness of the center room, the other seemed to crumple in his tracks. Going down, he tried to rattle off further shots. His trigger finger faltered after the first wild bullet was discharged.
To the three gorillas in the darkened center office, these amazing events had happened with whirlwind rapidity. Accustomed to critical situations, they managed to respond after a momentary loss of action.
A rescue had been launched and thwarted — all in the space of one long, momentous second. The Shadow, he who counted time in delayed throbs, had proven his uncanny skill.
Now, revolvers about to slip from yielding fingers were caught with a new grip. Stabs of flame shot through the darkness as the three gorillas, dropping to the floor, aimed for the spot where The Shadow had been.
A master of strategy, The Shadow had expected this step. Knowing that his enemies would fire quickly, hoping to down him by spreading shots, he had not given his location by a left-hand fire against a trio of revolvers.
Instead, his lithe form had whirled across the room toward the door at the left. Three revolver shots — four — five — six — had come from gangsters’ weapons before The Shadow’s automatics barked their grim return.
With two guns, not with one, The Shadow aimed for those telltale jets of flashing light. Burning bullets rocketed through blackness. A scream told that one man had received a leaden messenger; an oath came as a gorilla dropped his gun and gripped his shattered right hand with his left.
Quick seconds in which more than a dozen round-nosed slugs had seared their way through that gloomy atmosphere. Burning powder bore silent evidence of the conflict. Four men were down; each a victim of The Shadow’s marksmanship; yet the phantom fighter remained unscathed.
Not only in the perfection of his aim had The Shadow succeeded. The timeliness of his shots was the factor that had climaxed his success. His speed, his swiftness in shifting to a new position, had enabled him to foil his adversaries.
Well did The Shadow know the futility of trying to outdo a bullet’s speed; just as certainly did he understand that the aiming of a revolver was no more than a human action.
In the space that others had leveled their guns at the spot where they believed the blackened target to be, The Shadow had left blankness for the bullets that were to follow.
SHATTERING echoes of the shots died in quick reverberations. Well did The Shadow know that one among his foemen was still active — one who was crouching in the darkness waiting for The Shadow to reveal himself.
There was one way to meet that hidden enemy. The Shadow’s hidden form stalked silently until it stood three paces from the door of the office on the left.
With his left hand, The Shadow fired a single shot into the room. A burst of flame; hidden behind its sudden light, The Shadow’s form made another fade-away. Not to the left, as the waiting gorilla would expect; but toward the right — away from the security of the inner office — out in the direction of the door that led to the night club.
The ruse was doubly effective. Not only did the lurking gunman suppose that The Shadow would dive back toward the inner office; he had also accepted the gun burst as a right-hand shot.
This last enemy was a desperate marksman. Three times his revolver coughed forth its message, directing well-sprayed shots toward the corner opening, following the course which The Shadow should logically have taken.
The answer came from the main door — the spot from which The Shadow had begun his original attack. An automatic thundered the single shot that brought quietus to the last of the three assassins.
Three jabs of flame had given The Shadow his target. A whimpering gasp announced the accuracy of his final delivery against the now defeated trio.
The way to escape was open. The Shadow did not take it. Instead, he aimed an automatic toward the office on the right — the only spot from which a new attack might come.
Splintering shots crashed into desk and chairs. A lull; the door of the center office opened and closed with a resounding slam. Silence was the condition that followed.