standing, seemed to blend with the whispers of the breeze-swayed trees.
Within the lighted room, the sheriff was stooping above the prone form of Claremont. The withery millionaire was staring feebly with his tiny eyes, that were bead-like through his thick glasses. His long jaw wagged, weakly. Sheriff Kirk could see a clawlike motion of the long, bony fingers. It was a death pluck.
Rundon was crawling in from the hall. Weakly, he pointed to the dying man. His breath returned, Rundon was able to furnish details.
'Claremont is trying to tell you what happened,' said Rundon. 'He'd promised that money to Scorpio; but the professor was too eager for it. Claremont swung at him with the cane-'
The cane was lying broken beside the desk, which bore a great dent from the blow that Claremont had meant for Scorpio. But that was not why Sheriff Kirk motioned to Rundon for silence. It happened that Claremont was managing to speak.
Words came with a death cough; a tone so forced that it was no more than a croak.
'He... shot... me-'
A bony hand had lifted; it settled, its wavering finger pointing along the floor toward the door.
There was a ratty gargle from Claremont's throat; his last.
'Yes, Scorpio shot Claremont,' nodded Rundon. 'From the doorway, just like he said. He'd have shot me, too, when I pitched on him, only he'd put his gun away, to grab the money. He got me by the neck, though, and chucked me long enough to smash out through the window. He lost some of the money when he went.'
The sheriff stood looking at Claremont's body, noted the two bullet holes that marred the old man's shirt front. He swung to Rundon, who was rubbing the side of his head, muttering that he had struck a wall when Scorpio flung him.
'Scorpio didn't give the poor old fellow a chance,' growled the sheriff, bitterly. 'Shooting from the doorway, like that-why the range was only about six feet!'
'Just about,' began Rundon, turning toward the doorway, as did the sheriff. 'He was right there-'
Rundon halted, his mouth and eyes wide open, like the sheriff's. They were even more astonished than if they had seen Professor Scorpio. For there was a figure on the threshold; stranger, more mysterious than Scorpio had ever been, even in his Hindu robes.
It was a figure cloaked in black; a shape of the night come into light. A weird form that dying crooks and rescued prisoners had mentioned, yet which none had seen more than hazily. This was the fighter who had done so much to stifle crime at Lake Calada.
The Shadow!
THERE was no identifying him as Cranston. The collar of the cloak was lifted, the brim of the slouch hat turned down, so effectively that they hid all the black-clad crime-fighter's features except his burning eyes.
Orbs that seemed to flash with vengeance, those eyes turned upon the figure on the floor. In Percy Claremont, The Shadow saw a man who should not have died; yet the weird, quivering laugh that whispered from hidden lips was one of satisfaction.
Riveted, Rundon and the sheriff followed The Shadow with their eyes, as though his approaching figure magnetized their gaze. He passed between them, came close to Claremont's body and stared down at the scrawny, dry face. The Shadow's arms were folded in front of his cloak. He extended one hand, pointed with a thin gloved finger.
'Those glasses, sheriff,' spoke The Shadow in a sibilant tone, 'mark Claremont as a man of very exceptional eyesight.'
Sheriff Kirk shook himself from his daze. To hear this creature of darkness address him so familiarly was as amazing as a meeting with an actual ghost. Rather numbly, Kirk approached the body. He found his voice.
'Poor eyesight,' he corrected. Then, hastily: 'Not that I want to argue. But the glasses are thick, like magnifiers.'
'They do not magnify,' said The Shadow. 'They reduce. Those glasses are part of a disguise.'
Stooping, The Shadow plucked away the spectacles. The eyes beneath the glasses enlarged, as did their sockets. Instead of tiny beads, the eyes were large and glary; their power was apparent, despite the death glaze that had come over them.
Claremont's eyes seemed wider apart, too, with the glasses removed.
The sheriff was wondering where he had seen those eyes before, when he noticed that The Shadow's hand was moving between the dead man's face and the light.
The hand stopped, casting a shadow that obscured the long jaw with blackness that suddenly reminded the sheriff of a beard. From Kirk's throat came the amazed ejaculation.
'Professor Scorpio!'
Even as the sheriff shouted, The Shadow wheeled. His other hand whisked from the cloak, swinging an automatic. The muzzle of the weapon covered Rundon, as the fellow was springing toward the door.
Coming full about, Rundon froze.
He had a revolver half drawn; thousand-dollar bills were dripping, in slow flutters, from a packet that he had stowed deep beneath his coat. He was caught with the evidence of crime upon him, unable to make another move.
The Shadow's laugh told Rundon something that he had learned too late: Only one person had guessed the dual identity that was Professor Scorpio and Percy Claremont. That person was The Shadow. With Scorpio both the killer and the victim, by Rundon's statement, it was plain that Rundon, himself, was the master hand of crime.
The supercrook who had managed criminal schemes at Lake Calada, Niles Rundon, had exposed his entire game by murdering his living alibi, Professor Scorpio!
CHAPTER XX. THE LAST FLIGHT.
STEADILY, in a tone that seemed to throb with echoes from the past, The Shadow was telling the truth of Rundon's crimes, so clearly that every word struck home to Sheriff Kirk. Rundon, the culprit, stood listening, while the money fluttered, building a little mound of wealth beside his feet.
'With Scorpio's innocence now proven,' spoke The Shadow, 'my task was to pick the guilty man from others. Scorpio's innocence was proven, from the very start. Facts told that he was not the murderer of Drury.'
Rundon's eyes actually bulged, as he heard the revelation that proved The Shadow's early knowledge.
'Clever of you, Rundon,' declared The Shadow, 'to seek the death of a troublesome Mr. Cranston.
Clever, too, to willingly sacrifice the life of Lois Melvin, the girl you claimed to love, in order to strengthen your own alibi.'
'But you forgot another passenger on board that ship: Edward Barcla. You knew that Barcla was Scorpio's accomplice; but it did not occur to you that Barcla would logically have cut adrift from Scorpio had the professor tried to wreck the plane.'
It was now occurring to Rundon, as he listened; but the idea came too late. The sheriff gave an understanding grunt, that carried self-reproach. He realized that Scorpio never could have explained the episode satisfactorily to Barcla.
Both the professor and his star accomplice knew that someone else had been behind the thing; in all probability they had suspected Rundon, but kept it to themselves.
There were others who heard The Shadow's denouncement. Harry Vincent and Howard Carradon had arrived in the hallway, bringing Lois Melvin along. She was the person that they had pursued outside the bungalow. Her camping clothes formed her present attire; they were torn from her climb over the pickets.
The Shadow's words were continuing to hold his listeners spellbound. Briefly, he was tracing the circumstances which showed how simple crime had been, though seemingly complex.
Scorpio had been deep in the spook racket. He had bribed many servants, had tricked up many houses, for his seances. In so doing, he had made himself a perfect target for a schemer more clever than himself: Niles Rundon.
Going in for crime in a big way, Rundon had bought out a few of Scorpio's most capable tools, to work with his hidden crew. He had assembled the mystery boat, its plans stolen from a crazed inventor, to insure his criminal success.
The Shadow revealed the strongest part of Rundon's game. It was his trick of staging crime only on the nights when Scorpio gave seances. Rundon was throwing suspicion upon a man who could not stave it off, considering that Scorpio, himself, was engaged in an illegitimate racket!
