Pedro's lips parted in an ugly snarl of mirth. The big man tossed the machete on a chair and placed the bundle on top of it.
'Did you find the man in the cellar?' asked Isaac Coffran.
'Si, senor,' replied Pedro. 'Yes.'
'Ah!' exclaimed the old man. 'I am glad I sent you down. I thought perhaps the rescuer had slipped out before the curtain closed. Where was Duncan - the young man? In the closing room?'
'I think so.'
'He couldn't have escaped. He was too exhausted by the gas. Well, he has five minutes more to wait.
What did you do to the other man?'
Pedro pointed to the chair.
'There is his hat, senor,' he said. 'There is his coat. Pedro can use the machete well. Very well.'
The old man chuckled.
'You are useful, Pedro,' he said. 'But these are useful, too. He pointed to a row of buttons and lights above a table by the door. One by one he indicated them.
'Here,' he chortled, 'is the gas button. That was first. The second was this light - when Duncan rang from the study. Then this light showed that some one within the cellar had brought down the elevator. How did the man get in? Through a loosely fastened window?'
'Yes.'
'Careless of you, Pedro. We must attend to that. But look. I pressed this button. Up came the elevator.
This button - down came the steel curtain. Here I released the trap - perhaps the young man has fallen in it. We shall see later. Then' - the old man's face gleamed with fiendish malice - 'the last button. The wall is closing. Slowly closing. Soon it will be ended. Listen!'
A faint, distant thumping could be heard from the depths of the house.
'The machete is useful, Pedro,' observed the old man. 'Quick work - no noise. We will drop that body through the trap, too.'
He looked at the Mexican quizzically.
Pedro grinned.
'You look different than usual,' said Isaac Coffran. 'You must have had some trouble, Pedro. Your scar is a trifle redder than I have ever seen it before. You must have given way to excitement! I never knew you to do that before.'
The old man wheeled and faced a clock that hung on the wall opposite the door. Staring toward the dial, he became oblivious to Pedro's presence. Venomously, Isaac Coffran announced the moments that remained.
'Three minutes more,' he sneered. 'No! Two minutes. The crushing is about to commence. This period is always enjoyable to me. That last minute, when the wall closes over the few remaining feet. The victim is at his last moment of helplessness. This is a rare pleasure, Pedro. I hope you enjoy it as much as I.'
He paused, listening, while he stared at the clock.
'Can I be wrong?' he asked. 'Impossible! Yet the mechanism has stopped! I can't hear its thumping beats. Can you, Pedro? No. I can't be wrong. There is more than a minute to go! I test it every week, Pedro. It is timed exactly!'
THERE was no response from the door. Isaac Coffran did not turn. He still watched the clock.
'I wonder if it stopped,' he muttered. 'I must investigate. Perhaps the body was stretched toward the wall. That must be it. Young Duncan was half unconscious. He may have lain where the other dragged him. A lengthwise body would crush slowly. It might stop the wall - yet the mechanism should still go on, at that!'
The old man swung toward the table. He saw the buttons above it and a startled cry came from him.
There had been little yellow lights over the two buttons which he had last indicated - the button that released the steel curtain and the button that operated the moving wall. Both of these lights were out.
Some one had pressed the buttons!
'Pedro!' exclaimed the old man.
He looked up at the curtained doorway. The Mexican was gone. In his place stood a strange, silent figure - a man wearing a black cloak and hat, the same garments that Pedro had brought upstairs. The cloak seemed to envelop a shapeless form; the hat had a broad brim that obscured the face of the bent head. Isaac Coffran thought that he could glimpse two eyes between the hat and cloak.
The fiendish old man stood staring, at the form in the doorway. He still held his hands behind his back.
No sign of fear appeared upon his features. His smooth, parchmentlike face was calm and undisturbed.
'Well,' said Isaac Coffran. 'Who may you be?'
A sinister, whispering voice emerged from the shape in the doorway. It was a voice that would have chilled the blood of a brave, virile man. But old Isaac Coffran's withered veins did not quiver.
'I?' asked the voice. 'I am The Shadow!'
Isaac Coffran's eyes dropped to the floor. The shadow that appeared there seemed to be an extension of the form in the doorway. It was a huge, black shadow. It merged with the figure as the old man turned his head slowly upward.
'The Shadow!' said Isaac Coffran, in a sneering tone. 'I have heard of you. Perhaps you have heard of me?'
'I have,' replied the cold, relentless voice.
'Perhaps you know a bit about me. Perhaps you would like to know more. You have come to the right place to find out. What people learn here, they remember as long as they live. Unfortunately they never live long after that. Strange, isn't it?'
The Shadow was silent. The form seemed to project from the half-drawn curtain against which it stood.
'Those buttons on the wall,' observed Isaac Coffran. 'Perhaps you pressed them?'
'I pressed them.'
'That interests me. On that account, you shall die. I understand now why Pedro looked different. You were Pedro. You have learned much here. You shall forget it all - within an hour. Perhaps within a minute. You shall die, because I do not wish you to live. You are dangerous, alive. You will be helpless, incapable of annoying me, when you are dead.'
The old man scanned the figure as if to discover the effect of his words.
'Isaac Coffran.' The whispered voice, though low, had penetrating volume. Its words seemed to take shape as they were uttered, as though they were living things. 'Isaac Coffran, I shall not die. You would die, if I commanded it. But dead, you would be useless to me. Alive, you may prove useful. So live. But remember' - the voice was solemn and slow - 'you live only because I choose to be indulgent.'
THE old man moved a step nearer as The Shadow finished speaking. Suddenly he swung his right hand from behind his back. The motion was marvelously quick.
The hand held a small revolver. The finger was on the trigger. The gun covered the silent form by the curtain. Isaac Coffran's keen, beady eyes were searching as they watched the figure of The Shadow.
'One motion on your part,' threatened the old man, 'will mean instant death. My hand is firm, but the slightest quiver of the finger will discharge the contents of this weapon. Stand where you are.'
The black form trembled slightly, but the old man did not press the trigger. Instead he smiled and chuckled. He had expected that. This fearless Shadow could yield to fear after all. Isaac Coffran moved a step nearer.
'The Shadow!' he exclaimed sarcastically. 'The man whose face has never been seen. The strange creature of the night, that comes and goes invisibly - that is here and there at once!'
He fancied that the figure shook again. It slumped slightly, its black hat tilting forward, the edges of the cloak sagging as though the being within had lost his proud posture.
The old man was close now. His revolver was pressed against The Shadow's cloak; his face was grinning triumphantly.
'Die!' he cried. 'Die, Shadow! And before you perish, I shall see your mysterious face!'
Isaac Coffran's left hand shot forward and seized the broad brim of the black hat. The right forefinger pressed the trigger of the gun, and the automatic spat its bullets through the cloak. As the old man swept the hat away, the
