Slowly, The Shadow arose. As he reached his feet, he stopped at the sound of a police whistle from
behind the house. Revolver shots resounded from below. Cardona and his men had arrived.
Quickly, The Shadow reached over the edge of the roof and drew up the short ladder which the
gangsters had hoisted from a small bay window on the second floor. Moving to the side of the house, he
set the ladder over to the roof of the building next door.
While Perry Wallace crawled to safety, The Shadow's tiny flashlight beamed as he found the automatics
which he had dropped in his struggle with Pete Ballou. Then The Shadow followed. Perry heard him
drop the ladder into the space between the houses.
A TERRIBLE conflict had broken out between Cardona's men and the remnants of the gangster horde.
The pandemonium became dim as The Shadow urged Perry through a trapdoor in the roof of the house
next door to Legira's. They reached a small, dimly lighted room on the second floor. Here, Perry
slumped into a large chair.
“Wait here!” Perry barely heard The Shadow's warning. “You will be told when you can leave in safety.
My man is here.”
Perry nodded, his eyes half closed. It seemed to him that no more than a second had passed before he
looked about him. Yet The Shadow was gone!
The sounds of the fight diminished. Soon the battle was over. The police had conquered and rounded up
the disorganized mobsters. The Shadow had routed the enemy for them.
The Shadow had struck. The Shadow had vanished. Unnoticed, he had passed from this house and
found his way from the vicinity. While Perry Wallace still wondered how The Shadow had disappeared
so quickly, the man in black was on his way to a new activity.
A speedy coupe whirling eastward on Long Island. At the wheel was The Shadow, seeking to regain the
time that he had been delayed.
The car shot across a bridge, swerved swiftly around a corner and sped with bulletlike power along the
highroad.
As the roar of the heavy motor burst through the night air, another sound was manifested. The man at the
wheel was laughing. Peals of taunting mirth came from his shrouded lips.
The triumph laugh of The Shadow!
The laugh of the man who had won!
CHAPTER XXIV. A TRAITOR'S TRIUMPH
AN old touring car was parked off the side of a secluded road. Its lights were dim. The two men who
occupied the vehicle were waiting and watching, their eyes peering through the darkness toward a
covelike portion of the Long Island beach.
One man was Alvarez Legira, consul from Santander; the other was his servant, Francisco. They were
awaiting the arrival of the boat from the yacht Cordova.
The rippling breeze swished whisperingly about the car. Both men listened intently, fancying that they
heard vague sounds in the night. Then, Francisco pressed Legira's arm and uttered low words in Spanish.
A light was bobbing in the cove. It blinked four times—two long blinks and two short.
Legira extinguished the dim lights. He turned them on again and repeated the action. Another signal came
from the cove. The consul uttered a cry of elation.
This was the boat from the Cordova.
Until now, pitch-blackness had ruled the cloudy night. But while Legira was speaking to Francisco, the
rays of the moon emerged through a rift in the breaking clouds. The feeble light gained in its intensity. The
