him!”
Hembroke held a gun, but he made no effort to cover Cardona, who was helpless. Instead, Hembroke turned to the doorway and pointed to a man who was entering - a gray-haired individual, whose eyes glared maliciously.
Joe Cardona gasped as he recognized Dobson Pringle, president of the Amalgamated Builders’ Association.
“Meet The Red Blot!” grinned Hembroke.
Pringle was holding an automatic. Cardona realized that only his helpless state had prevented these two villains from taking his life immediately upon their entrance. They were now prepared to make up for that brief lapse.
Cardona’s automatic was lying on the table, where it had dropped from his weakening fingers. With a determined effort to go out fighting, the detective made a mad effort. He grasped the gun with his left hand, expecting as he did so, to receive a bullet in the back.
Dobson Pringle had stepped within the doorway. He was on one side of the room, Merton Hembroke on the other. As both men raised their weapons to end Cardona’s life, a strange sound from the doorway made them turn. A whispering laugh - an uncanny announcement of a sinister presence - this betokened the arrival of The Shadow.
With an automatic in each black-gloved fist, The Shadow was here to prevent the murder of Joe Cardona. His powerful guns covered Dobson Pringle - now known as The Red Blot - and Merton Hembroke, the sleuth whose double-crossing activities had aided the master plotter.
With a savage cry, Hembroke hurled himself upon the tall figure at the door, raising his revolver to fire as he leaped. Swift, vicious, and determined, the false detective hoped to end the menace who had blighted The Red Blot’s schemes.
An automatic spoke, as Hembroke tried to press the trigger of his revolver. The detective’s leap ended in collapse. Half rising to his knees, Hembroke again attempted to use his wavering finger. The effort was in vain. The man sprawled face down upon the floor.
NOT for one instant had The Shadow’s keen gaze lost track of Dobson Pringle. As a plotter, the Red Blot had shown amazing prowess; as a man of action in this crisis, his powers were not so apparent. Pringle had halted, counting upon the success of Hembroke’s onslaught. Seeing the detective fall, The Red Blot backed away, raising his automatic in desperation.
The Shadow had him covered. Tauntingly, the black-garbed master awaited Pringle’s action. The gray-haired man was afraid to fire; he could not beat that looming weapon which faced him. But as he hesitated, another factor came into this conflict.
Joe Cardona, his automatic successfully gripped in his left hand, rose from his chair and leaped toward The Red Blot.
With a harsh cry, Pringle acted. He leaped to the right to gain the cover of Cardona’s body. His hand, its forefinger upon the trigger, thrust outward, to put an end to Cardona’s clumsy effort.
Whether Pringle or Cardona would have gained the first shot, none could ever tell. For while their fingers pressed against the triggers, The Shadow’s automatic sounded in advance.
Its target was Pringle’s arm. The gun fell from The Red Blot’s hand. A moment later, Joe Cardona’s shots roared forth. Dobson Pringle dropped to the floor and lay face upward.
A sardonic laugh awoke vague echoes. Cardona turned as he heard the creepy, chilling sound. He saw no one at the door. The Shadow had departed. The detective bent above the body of The Red Blot. Dobson Pringle’s lips were moving weakly.
“I - I am dying.” Pringle’s gasp came wearily. “I - I am beaten. You will find - find the millions - in the floor - beneath the desk -“
Cardona could see that the man was speaking the truth. Mortally wounded by Cardona’s haphazard shots, Dobson Pringle had lost his malicious expression.
Rising, Cardona thrust himself against the desk and pushed it toward the side of the room, The effort was weakening. Cardona’s head began to swim. He steadied himself and stared at Pringle.
The man who had termed himself The Red Blot was propped upon an elbow. His trembling finger was pointing to the crevice in the floor. Cardona saw the indicated mark.
“There!” gasped Pringle. “Beneath - beneath that stone. You - you have won. The money -“
The exhausting effort was too much. Pringle’s elbow gave way. Falling upon his side, the defeated villain watched the detective claw with his left hand at the movable stone.
“The lever,” murmured Pringle. “The lever on the wall -“
Cardona noticed Pringle’s attempt to point. The lever which the gray-haired man indicated was just below the spot which the top of the desk had covered. Reaching up, Cardona pulled the lever.
He heard a fiendish chuckle. He stared at Dobson Pringle.
No longer placid and weary in expression, Pringle was glaring with malicious eyes. The evil personality of The Red Blot was in his gruesome stare. His lips, foaming, spat insidious words of hateful triumph.
“Your friends” - The Red Blot’s voice was spasmodic in its insidious tone - “the prisoners - the ones you have left - are doomed. You - you have slain them - rats - drowning in a deluge -“
As the voice broke off, Cardona could hear the roaring surge of a cataract far below. He realized the malice of The Red Blot’s last action. Dying, Dobson Pringle had tricked him into loosing a hidden torrent of water into the dungeon where The Shadow had left the prisoners!
Was it too late?
Cardona staggered away from the wall. He slipped to his knees, weakened by loss of blood from his wounded shoulder. He could hear The Red Blot’s death rattle - a gargling sound that carried a tone of glee.
As if in answer came a whispering echo - a sinister challenge that sounded from beyond the outside corridor. It was The Shadow’s triumph laugh - the symbol of the departing victor. Cardona, resting upon his left hand, waited, too weak to move.
A clatter in the corridor. The voices of men. Four persons came into the room. Cardona did not recognize them; but they knew him.
The detective had been groggy during his imprisonment in the pit beneath; these men had not. They were the prisoners, freed from the dungeon - on their way up the steps at the moment when Cardona had unwittingly released the tide intended for their doom.
Selfridge Woodstock; his secretary, Crozer; Carlton Carmody - with them was a tall, elderly man, with pale face and stooped shoulders, whose facial muscles twitched as he observed the scene in this bloody room.
They helped Cardona to his feet. Then came other rescuers; Detective Sergeant Markham and a squad which had come in from the corridor to the East Side subway. Markham recognized that these were friends.
The tall, eccentric individual spoke. His statement cleared the confusion as he named his identity.
“I can explain everything,” he said. “I am Hubert Craft, chief architect of the Amalgamated Builders’ Association - supposed to be dead - actually held prisoner by this fiend -“
Craft pointed toward the inert form of Dobson Pringle. Joe Cardona, still game, added the final words.
“The Red Blot,” gasped the detective. “Pringle - The Red Blot -“
Dobson Pringle’s form was now on its face. Markham raised the body to learn that the man was dead. Clutching the motionless corpse, Markham stared - the others followed his gaze.
Where Pringle’s body had lain, the floor was stained with a pool of crimson blood. Spreading slowly, gushed forth from a wound that still oozed, that fluid formed a grotesque pattern.
In death, as in life, Dobson Pringle had left the signature which he had chosen for the key mark in his villainous campaign of crime. That pool of blood remained as the final signature of The Red Blot!
CHAPTER XXIV
THE COMMISSIONER EXPLAINS
“THE most astonishing case of criminal activity in the history of the New York police!”
This assertion regarding The Red Blot came from Police Commissioner Ralph Weston. It was uttered with
