pointed words which showed how the master dealt with hidden crime.
The Shadow wrote:
To prove Clark Brosset’s guilt, his plan needed to advance to its fulfillment. Until the final stroke, the superfiend was free from discovery.
The documents in his safe were indications of his purpose; but not proofs of complicity. Brosset’s course was rendered obvious by careful consideration of those items.
Terwiliger’s death was unfortunate. The man’s own folly was the cause. He thrust himself unexpectedly into the field, to be slain by Jasper Delthern, who came upon him from the passage to the gallery.
Terwiliger’s body, which Jasper concealed in the passage, could have been later removed after guilt had been placed upon Warren Barringer.
However, the body was found and used for a definite purpose. Terwiliger deserved to fulfill the mission he had imposed upon himself.
There was no occasion to thwart Clark Brosset’s killing of Jasper Delthern. To obtain the papers during Brosset’s absence was more important. Jasper Delthern deserved to die. Clark Brosset did not intend to kill Warren Barringer, who was therefore safe. The killing of Jasper Delthern made Clark Brosset a murderer in fact.
The hand of The Shadow paused; then, slowly, it continued in response to the thoughts of the hidden brain that directed it.
Had Clark Brosset fled through the main passage, his progress would have been stopped. He could never have escaped.
A low laugh indicated that The Shadow had been waiting in that main passage. The hand wrote on:
His flight ended on the whispering gallery. There, he forced death upon himself by his stubborn struggle.
The hand paused again; at length, in a single line, it wrote this final sentence:
Let the ghost of Caleb Delthern be credited for the unknown deeds of justice.
The Shadow had written. The hand marked a mysterious symbol beneath the final statement. The chronicle was ended. The hands closed the massive volume.
THE light clicked out. A low laugh sounded through darkness. Shuddering whispers awoke amid the blackened room. Another chapter had been added to the strange career of The Shadow; now the big book would go back among the secret archives.
The laugh died away. The room was empty. The Shadow had departed from his sanctum. Yet whispered echoes still remained, echoes as spectral as those which had wavered through the gallery above the great reception hall in Delthern Manor.
The Shadow’s task was completed. Murderers had been uncovered. Fiends were dead. The final facts had been recorded. Yet the soft reverberations in the empty sanctum carried weird memories of the past.
They were reminders of those eerie sounds that had been accepted as ghostly manifestations within the walls of Delthern Manor, where the laugh of The Shadow had foiled and triumphed over the plans of murderers.
THE END
