The sparkle of The Shadow's eyes showed that this thought was within The Shadow's mind. A glance at
Grewson told The Shadow that the cowered gangster would no longer be a factor, even though given
opportunity. But that pause caused a new light, as The Shadow surveyed Thomas Jocelyn.
The prolonged, mechanical breathing of the financier had become a continued monotone.
Why did it persist? Why had not the potion which had produced this result taken its toll of life? There
was something ominous in Jocelyn's lingering death.
The Shadow drew away from the bedside. He turned to Grewson. The automatic in the black-gloved fist
described a slow arc from the gangster toward the dying financier. The voice of The Shadow spoke a
stern command.
'This is your work,' declared The Shadow solemnly. 'Now you shall make amends. Jocelyn is trying to
speak. Learn what he has to say. Tell me every word.'
Grewson nodded. He knew that his only hope was to obey The Shadow's bidding. The police were
coming. The one chance of escape lay in quickening this scene.
Grewson sensed that Jocelyn knew vital facts concerning Larry Ricordo. By learning them and repeating
them to The Shadow, Grewson might curry favor with his captor.
The Shadow, in turn, had solved the problem of watching Grewson while Jocelyn tried to speak.
As Grewson half arose and crouched toward the head of the bed, his body came directly in front of the
blackclad master. Grewson was to listen while The Shadow covered him.
Still, The Shadow could glimpse Jocelyn's upturned eyes. The financier was looking toward The Shadow
with a pleading expression in those optics. It was evident that he had heard all that The Shadow had said.
'Tell what you can.'
The Shadow's whispered words were addressed to Jocelyn. The dying man understood. As Grewson
leaned above him, Jocelyn imbibed a long draft of air. Grewson's face was close to that of the man whom
he had so treacherously served. With head half turned, the gangster listened.
Thomas Jocelyn gave an incoherent gargle as he expelled a long, sighing breath. Grewson could not
make out the word; that was impossible. The poison had done its work too well. The fetid odor of the
sigh filled Grewson's nostrils.
Again, Jocelyn breathed inward; once more came the throat rattle, accompanied by reeking breath.
Grewson was leaning closer to the dying man. The gangster's head was swaying slightly.
Thomas Jocelyn made another effort. The intake of air was followed by a long exhalation, a sign that
Jocelyn had tried, with all his remaining strength, to speak. Grewson's head moved from side to side. The
gangster's fingers clawed feebly at the bedspread.
The dying man was seeking to deliver another effort. Before he succeeded, Grewson's fingers lost their
hold. The gangster's body tumbled to the floor and rolled over on its back. Grewson's eyes gazed
upward in a glassy stare.
The Shadow stood like a statue. His keen eyes studied the weird result that had occurred. Thomas
Jocelyn was breathing on, with long, wheezy sighs. Life still was lingering within his frame. But Grewson,
the treacherous servant, had succumbed to a more sudden fate.
Grewson was dead!
THE SHADOW'S laugh echoed eerily through the room. There was no mockery in its sound. It was a
laugh of understanding. The secret of Thomas Jocelyn's peculiar breathing was apparent to The Shadow
now.
Death lurked in every exhalation that came from the dying financier's lips!
The chemical compound that Jocelyn had taken, was, itself, a death trap for whomever might approach
the victim!
An effervescent fluid, caused by a strange, secret mixture, had poisoned Thomas Jocelyn and had
paralyzed his limbs. It had destined him to a lingering death, a long, continued spasm during which he
could only breathe with great and constant effort.
With each gasp, Jocelyn breathed out the fumes of a poisonous vapor. He, a dying man, had been
transformed into a potential killer!
Only by amazing intuition, only through his capture of Grewson and his orders to the gangster, had The
Shadow evaded the most fiendish of Professor Folcroft Urlich's snares.
Silent death! It had awaited The Shadow surely to-night; yet silent death had failed again. Grewson, the
man who had administered the fatal potion to Thomas Jocelyn, had gone to a deserved doom slain by the
breath of the man whose death he had assured!
Grewson lay dead upon the floor. Thomas Jocelyn still breathed his sighing, dying gasps. The death that
lurked had gained an unintended victim.
Grimly, The Shadow laughed.
CHAPTER XVII. THE LAST WORDS
HORROR had no effect upon The Shadow. The tragedy which had befallen Grewson did not deter the
black-garbed observer from his single purpose. Grewson's death was merely the test that proved the
presence of insidious death designed by a fiend.
More than that, it told The Shadow a fact that he already suspected; that a mind much greater than Larry
Ricordo's lay in back of this subtle crime. The hand of Professor Folcroft Urlich had left its mark before;
but never so graphically as upon this occasion.
Through Thomas Jocelyn, perhaps, could be found a clew to the potent murderer. Still breathing forth his
fetid breath of doom, the financier lived on. The prolonged state of his agony was further proof of a
scheming master mind.
The death potion had been devised to produce a long-lingering condition. Many minutes had passed
since the dose was administered; more than time enough for an investigator to have come and died from
Jocelyn's exhalations.
The Shadow, however, was not deterred by thoughts of the fate which he had so narrowly escaped. His
keen brain was devising a means whereby he could learn what Jocelyn had tried to say. One word was
all that The Shadow sought: the name of the supercriminal who dealt in silent death.
Jocelyn could not utter it; that seemed plain now. It was impossible to avoid death if one leaned close to
the dying financier.
The Shadow's gloved hand, extended to Jocelyn's face, felt the trembling lips and learned that they could
not frame a motion which might be understood and interpreted.
There was still one opportunity. Jocelyn's eyes were open and staring with a vivid glare. The man could
hear. He would listen to any instructions that might enable him to throw his last effort against the fiend
who had brought him to this horrible fate.
Slowly, in quiet, whispered tones, The Shadow spoke to the dying man. Jocelyn watched the form above
him. The financier's eyes glistened as his ears gained the significance of The Shadow's plans.
'You must name the one who caused this,' declared The Shadow solemnly. 'Letter by letter, I shall seek
his name. Indicate, with all your strength, the letters that tell it.'
