had taken its glare as a target.
With the crack of the gun, the lantern was shattered. Confused cries sounded in the darkened room.
Some one pressed the wall switch. By the door stood a group of uniformed men—police and attendants
connected with the apartment building. Near the wall was a man in plain clothes.
It was Joe Cardona, the detective. He had arrived to direct the smashing of the door. It was Cardona
who had held the lantern. Now he was fuming at the man who had pressed the wall switch. The action
had made targets of these rescuers.
Cardona was noted for his quick response in time of danger. Even while he uttered his wrath because of
the folly of a subordinate, he was turning toward the window from which the unexpected shot had come.
He caught only a fleeting glimpse of a form that was swinging out through the window. Cardona pointed
his revolver and fired—a fifth of a second too late.
“Come on! Get him!”
Cardona was leading the pursuit. Outside the window, The Shadow, swinging invisibly through the
darkness, gained the rail of the fire tower. He was out of sight when Cardona reached the window.
“Below there!”
Cardona's shout was answered. A light gleamed upward to show the detective's face. Cardona, upon
arriving with his squad, had ordered men to surround the apartment house.
“See any one?” called Cardona.
“No!” came the reply.
“He's going down the fire tower,” shouted the detective.
“We'll get him then”—the call was filled with confidence—“two men are on their way up.”
“I'm coming along,” called Cardona, grimly.
The detective swung from the window. He pulled himself along the cornice and clambered over the rail.
He remembered then that he had no flashlight. Nevertheless, he boldly followed the path that he knew the
fleeing man had taken.
DASHING down the steps, the detective saw the glow of a light as he neared a corner. Cardona
stopped abruptly, realizing that this must indicate the presence of the police coming from below.
As he lingered, Cardona was startled by the roar of a revolver shot that sounded with cannonlike
intensity. There was the sound of a scuffle on the steps. Cardona rushed to the fray. He saw a flashlight
glimmering on the steps. He picked it up and the beams showed two men sprawled on the stairway.
Their revolvers lay useless beside them. Both men appeared half stunned.
More shots came crashing from below. Cardona hurried to the bottom of the steps. He encountered a
policeman there. The officer recognized Cardona by the light that hung from the top of the fire-tower exit.
“They're after him, chief,” exclaimed the policeman. “He busted out of here before we could stop him.
Didn't know he was on us till he cracked Hickey over there—”
The officer indicated another uniformed man who was seated, half dazed, against the wall opposite the
fire tower. Cardona, his face red with anger, heard distant shots that indicated the pursuit was continuing.
He knew that at least half a dozen men must be on the trail of the fugitive. He motioned to the policeman
to follow him and started back up the stairway of the fire tower.
Not for one moment did Cardona suspect that this amazing adversary had been The Shadow. The
detective had been astonished to find a man still on the ground where three murders had been executed.
Nevertheless, his mind ran to the obvious explanation: that the fugitive, whom he had scarcely seen, must
