HARRY recognized the first of the two arrivals. It was Wendel Hargate. For a moment, Harry felt elation to think that the millionaire had come into this trap. Then, as the other man turned slightly, a frenzied gasp trembled on Harry’s lips.
Hargate’s companion was not another henchman, like Thibbel. The man who had come with the millionaire was Terry Barliss!
Harry’s head was swimming. The Shadow’s agent knew the fierceness with which Galban’s minions could deal with unwelcome foemen. The thought of Thibbel, slain by the war club of a man guised as waxwork, inspired Harry to a hasty action.
Fawkes was standing so he could not see the stairs. This was Harry’s lone chance, with Sanyata occupied with Mercher’s wound. Giving way to sudden desire, Harry leaped from his hiding place and plunged forward down the steps.
His aim was to divert Fawkes; to give Terry Barliss an opportunity to escape. What his friend was doing with Wendel Hargate, Harry could not know. His only impulse was to save Terry.
A hiss came through the room. Its author was the waxwork Indian, though the direction of the sound was too elusive for Harry to recognize it. Fawkes did not move. He kept his gun upon Hargate and Terry. It was Sanyata who responded.
With a quick leap, the Japanese shot away from the chair where Mercher had collapsed and caught Harry with a swift dive. The Shadow’s agent sprawled helplessly upon the floor.
Sanyata, with the skill of a jujitsu artist, rolled Harry over and over, until his victim lay propped against the wall near the open panel. Like Terry Barliss and Wendel Hargate, Harry Vincent was under the sway of the revolver that Fawkes was holding.
Harry had wildly sought to turn the tide. He had been frustrated. But in his brief period of action, he had formed the delay for a new climax. While Sanyata was quietly retiring, Harry stared toward Fawkes. He saw the big-chinned servant glare; then drop the revolver loosely from his hand!
Some unaccountable happening had caused this change. Instinctively, all who were in that room stared toward the panel from the cellar. There, grim and swarthy, stood the last man whom Harry Vincent had expected to see. A police revolver in each hand, Detective Joe Cardona was covering the room!
There was a challenge in the detective’s gaze. Cardona showed plainly that he did not know who might be friend or foe. He was ready to fire quick, fatal shots, if any here might seek to balk him.
“Put them up!”
CARDONA’S harsh growl brought results. Harry Vincent, propped against the wall, obeyed. So did Wendel Hargate, and Terry Barliss. Fawkes was already cowed; his hands moved upward. Sanyata, the Japanese, also followed the injunction, while Mercher, staring pitifully from his chair, joined the action last of all.
Six men were in Cardona’s control. The detective backed across the room, guiding his motion and weaving his revolvers so that no one would have a chance to make a break. He kicked away the revolver that Fawkes had dropped and motioned the monster to another spot.
“Where’s Thibbel?” demanded Cardona.
The question was put to Hargate. “He came up here,” he said. “That’s the last we’ve seen of him.”
“No bluff!” roared Cardona. “I’ve got your number, Hargate. I traced Thibbel through Sooky Downing’s friends. I followed you to that row house. I found the hole you came through. I came along.
“As for the rest of you” — this was to Galban’s henchmen — “we’ll thrash the matter out as we go along. I don’t know the game you’re all playing, but I’ll learn it—”
As he spoke. Cardona was moving to one side. His back was almost in front of the Indian chief. As if by a signal, Galban’s minions sprang into action. Fawkes leaped for his revolver. Sanyata jumped forward. Even Mercher came quickly to his feet.
Harry Vincent cried a warning; it was too late. The waxwork Indian had again come to life. This time, the poised hand dropped its war club; from the pedestal on which it stood, the Indian chief hurtled forward and caught Cardona’s body and arm in a viselike clutch. The detective went down with the unexpected assailant upon him.
Fawkes was covering Harry, Terry, and Hargate. None of the three had gained a chance to move. Sanyata was wresting the revolvers from Cardona; as the detective’s struggles ceased, the Indian chief stood upright, leaving Cardona to the Japanese.
Lycurgus Mercher had slumped back into his chair and was again holding the bandage to his bloody forehead. Then came the final climax of this sequence of amazement.
With a frenzied gesture, the Indian chief ripped away his feather and his waxlike war mask. Still wearing his costume, he stood revealed as a living man, whose face brought a sharp cry from Harry Vincent.
This figure who had slain Thibbel and overpowered Joe Cardona, was the very man whose minions had gained the final victory.
The Indian chief was Eli Galban!
CHAPTER XXIII
TRAPPERS TRAPPED
THE tables were turned on Wendel Hargate. The man who had launched the attack into Eli Galban’s domain was in the power of his enemy. Thibbel, Hargate’s fighting henchman, had died. With Hargate was an assorted trio of victims who were sharing in his fall.
Harry Vincent, agent of The Shadow; Joe Cardona, representative of the law — these were two whose presence here had not been of Hargate’s making. Terry Barliss, however, had come with the captured millionaire. To Harry Vincent, Terry’s presence was something that seemed unexplainable.
Eli Galban was chuckling. His face wore its deceptive touch of friendliness; yet the chuckle betrayed a subtle form of latent evil. With an imperious gesture of his hand, Galban gave orders to his minions. They seemed to understand.
While Sanyata closed the door to the cellar, Fawkes, with a venomous snarl, ordered the prisoners to cluster to the stairway. Sanyata returned and drew a revolver. Together, these henchmen of Eli Galban marched their victims upward.
Hargate and Terry went first, with hands raised. After them came Harry Vincent and Joe Cardona. A silent group, these men were being herded toward Galban’s lonely third-story abode. The threats of guns behind them kept them in order. They tramped past closed doors on the second floor; then up the final flight to the third, where an opened space in the wall admitted them to Eli Galban’s room.
The old man was already there. He had come up in the elevator with Mercher. The secretary, still careful of his wound, was slumped in a chair. Galban ordered Fawkes to line the prisoners against the wall.
The cheery room seemed gloomy now. The shuttered windows had been barred. Sanyata closed the portal through which the group had come. The doorway formed part of what appeared to be a solid wall.
DROPPING into his accustomed chair, Eli Galban surveyed the men whom he had captured. Keenly, he decided that Joe Cardona must be the detective working on the case of Compton Salwood. With a hearty chuckle, Galban began to speak.
“I have been looking forward to this visit,” he laughed. “To this time when I could have my desired guests together. It will enable me to dispose of trouble-making blunderers at one time.”
The old man paused to meet the sullen gaze of Wendel Hargate. The millionaire’s discomfort seemed to please Eli Galban.
“Even now,” chuckled the old man, “all of you do not understand. Since none of you will ever trouble me again, it will please me to explain the facts that you have sought. It was considerate of me to allow you to come up by the stairway in this house. It enabled you to view locked doors that hide the secrets that I have so closely guarded.