Now, The Shadow, like Zipper, was in an unenviable position. He had two logical courses ahead of him.
One was to attempt a rapid escape, leaving Zipper in the corner. That would be difficult. As soon as The Shadow had started into the cordon of guards, Zipper would cry out the warning.
The other course was to kill Zipper where he stood. That, in itself, would be an alarm. The noise of a pistol shot would bring in all the gangsters who were guarding beyond the door. The Shadow would encounter a mass attack.
Despite his precarious position, Zipper allowed a writhing sneer to increase the ugliness of his sordid lips.
The Shadow, too, was boxed. The fact that each succeeding second brought no new action was proof of that single fact.
THE only motion on the part of The Shadow was the movement of the electric torch that held Zipper bathed in a circle of light. The glare wavered, moving up and down; then stopped to hold itself in one definite spot scarcely eight feet from the cringing gangster.
Five seconds—ten seconds—still the glare was unyielding. The Shadow spoke no word. Zipper decided that he was still deliberating.
It was then that a sudden, wildly hopeless plan suggested itself to the gangster's fear-ridden brain.
To escape, The Shadow must kill. Zipper, alive, would be a menace behind him, acting the moment that The Shadow might withdraw. To kill by a revolver shot, The Shadow would give a certain alarm. There was only one alternate course that suggested itself to Zipper.
The Shadow—Zipper was sure—had decided to kill the man before him, but he would do it by a surprise attack, striking silently from the dark!
That was the game! Any moment now, The Shadow might leap forward, to down his quarry before Zipper could respond.
How could such an attack be stopped? Only by a previous attack on the part of Zipper himself!
Hopeless though it was, that plan on his own part could be the only way whereby Zipper had a chance to live. Seized by sudden impulse, the cracksman uttered a fiendish shout to allay his own dread. As he shouted, he pounced forward, directly toward the glaring light!
Instead of encountering a resisting, human body, Zipper landed forcibly against an object that overturned and sent him sprawling on the floor, the flashlight bounding a few feet away from him.
The fraction of a second later, the ceiling lights of the room came on, in response to an outside switch in the adjoining room. Some henchman, stationed by the switch, had heard Zipper's cry.
In the new light, Zipper saw what had happened. The still glowing flashlight was equipped with a metal clamp. The Shadow had attached it to the back of a chair. Silently, the mysterious being of the dark had moved away, leaving Zipper convinced that the torch still rested in a black-gloved hand.
It was the chair that Zipper had encountered. The force of his spring had sent it scudding. Here he was on the floor, half bewildered, staring toward the door that led to the outer room.
That door was partly opened. Wedged nearly through the space was a shape of black. The Shadow was passing into the outer room, using his cloak to cover every inch of space that he had opened to let his tall form through, thus preventing men outside from knowing, by the light, that the door had opened.
Only a portion of The Shadow's form was visible to Zipper, for the black shape was nearly through the door. But to the alarmed gangsters at the further door of the outer room, The Shadow was an approaching menace. The man at the switch had performed a double function. He had pressed two knobs, and had illuminated both the inner and the outer rooms.
There, directly before them, three of Zipper's henchmen saw The Shadow. Both his hands had passed the barrier. They saw nothing of the metal box, for that had been hooked beneath The Shadow's cloak.
They recognized The Shadow as their enemy. Revolvers were in their hands. They raised their weapons to wipe out this personage whom they detested as greatly as they feared him.
NO one ever caught The Shadow totally unready. Although he had been feeling his way through the dark, The Shadow was prepared. Dark metal glinted in his right hand as he brought his automatic into play.
With instinctive skill, he chose as his target the gangster whose aim outled the others. A spurt of flame—a cannonlike roar—the first of the three henchmen sprawled headlong on the floor.
With swinging aim, The Shadow delivered a second bullet. Another gangster plunged forward; his glistening revolver hurtled across the room impelled by the upward swing of a hand that suddenly lost its muscular functions.
Split seconds separated the first two shots; another fraction of time heralded the third. This was directed at the man farthest away— the one who controlled the light switch. He, like his fallen comrades, was bringing a revolver into play; and he possessed an advantage that had not been theirs.
His gun was pointing toward The Shadow, his finger was upon the trigger. Rapid though the fire of The Shadow had been, the last of the trio had aimed while The Shadow's automatic was still swinging toward him.
At the precise instant that the gangster fired toward The Shadow's form, the black-clad shape dropped backward into the inner room. The gangster's bullet smashed against the door, striking the very spot where The Shadow had been.
Then came a flashing response. In falling away, The Shadow had continued his aim. His body wholly within the inner room, he shot from the very edge of the doorway. The foiled gangster staggered, clutched his left shoulder, and slumped to the floor.
To Zipper Marsh, sprawled on the floor of the inner room, the quick succession of shots came with unexpected suddenness. They had begun the moment that he had viewed the form of The Shadow halfway through the door. He saw The Shadow's backward step, and caught the flash of the final shot.
Rolling over and drawing himself to his knees, Zipper uttered a venomous cry as he whisked a revolver from his pocket and aimed it at the man within the door.
The Shadow had expected this. Timing all his actions with uncanny precision, the black-cloaked battler had reentered the inner room with full assurance that Zipper would be the least prepared of all his foemen.
The Shadow's backward step, his steady hand moving away from the third gangster as it fired—both were the beginning of a conscious action. The Shadow swung inward, turning directly toward the spot where Zipper, crouching, sought to fire.
The safe-cracker might have rivaled The Shadow in safe-opening; as a marksman, quick on aim and swift with the trigger, he was no match.
The automatic blazed its fourth message of terror. Zipper wavered. His sneer turned to a hideous leer.
The revolver fell from his nerveless fingers, flipping as it fell. Then Zipper's body tottered forward and rolled sidewise.
So sure was The Shadow of his ability that he did not wait to see the fate that his bullet had delivered.
Sensing that new dangers lay ahead, he sprang forward to meet them, following the only path that led to safety—across the outer room to the hall on the second floor.
The striding, black-clad figure came to an abrupt stop as it reached the farther door. Coming from the opposite direction was a man who had headed up the stairs.
The two sighted each other simultaneously. One gun flashed—The Shadow's. Delivered at close range, the bullet found the heart of the gangster who had sought to block The Shadow's path.
Now, at the head of the stairs, The Shadow stood cold and sinister, his form no more than a darkish outline in the gloom beyond the sphere of light that he had left. Like a huge phantom, he wavered back and forth, affording an elusive target for any who might be waiting. A gun flashed from the first floor; then another from a different spot.
The Shadow, now wielding two automatics, responded. He had outwitted his enemies. The waiting gangsters had fired first, and both of them had missed their mark.
Their shots had betrayed their positions. The Shadow needed no more. His bullets sped through the dark to their now-hidden targets. Screams of anguish followed from below.
Now came The Shadow's triumph cry—a mocking laugh that rang out in ghoulish tones while sullen echoes awakened to hurl back the taunting cry. That laugh accompanied The Shadow as he sped down the stairs, a fleeting form of inky hue. A few moments later, he stood upon the porch above the foggy lawn, his burning eyes seeking
