and the other members of the crew. Commander Dadren, too, was staring with blinking,
astonished eyes.
From the corner had come a hissing, warning laugh. Sinister mockery, it taunted men of
crime. Turning to the source of that uncanny sound, Hildrow and his band found themselves
faced by a pair of automatics in the hands of Stollart.
No longer was the secretary playing a timorous part. He was not Stollart. He was The
Shadow. Though he wore the pointed countenance of Stollart, his real identity was plain.
Burning eyes were focused upon the men who stood in the path of the big automatics.
NOT a gun hand rose. The Shadow's laugh and his blazing optics were too great a threat.
Cornered killers shook.
Then came the sneering, gibing whisper of The Shadow's voice. Scornful words came from
his disguised lips.
'This ends your game,' pronounced The Shadow. 'Your plots are finished. The end began
when I entered Releston's, disguised as Commander Dadren. But that was only the first
step.
'I knew that Stollart was your spy. Alone with him, I took him from the picture. He lies
helpless, bound and gagged, in the closet of Senator Releston's living room. Ten minutes
was all that I required for a quick change.
'Make-up was in my suitcase. Stollart's face was in front of me, staring up from the floor. I
changed my disguise; instead of being Dadren, I became Stollart. I awaited your arrival.'
The Shadow was speaking straight to Hildrow. The master plotter stood half stunned by this
revelation. He realized the supercraft of The Shadow.
As Stollart, The Shadow had deliberately argued Hildrow into a false belief. He had talked
Hildrow into bringing him here. Thus had The Shadow reached the big shot of the game;
through Hildrow himself he had found Commander Dadren and has performed a rescue.
Doom. Hildrow could see it. He expected no mercy from The Shadow. Hildrow, himself, had
tried to murder The Shadow on Death Island. With tables turned, the crook knew that he was
due to receive the punishment that he deserved.
Startled minions stood quivering. Hildrow could expect no aid from them. The Shadow's
laugh burst through the room; its triumphant mockery was ghastly amid those closed-in
walls, where ghoulish voices hurled back echoes of the sardonic taunt.
Then the door swung open. Framed in the portal stood a staring man whose right hand held
a flashing revolver. It was the odd member of Korsch's crew, the fellow who had met Hildrow,
that day in Washington.
Stationed off the island, the man had come here for instructions. He had heard the echoes
of The Shadow's laugh. Astonished, he had flung open the door. The leveled automatics told
him who the enemy must be.
'GET him, Pete!' blurted Korsch.
Pete fired as The Shadow spun back into the corner. A bullet buried itself in the wall. Flame
spurted from an automatic. The Shadow's answer found its mark. Pete slumped. But those
shots brought conflict.
Hildrow and Korsch came up with guns. The Shadow whirled toward the door as Hildrow
fired. A bullet zimmed past The Shadow's shoulder. Before The Shadow could respond,
before Hildrow could fire again, a form came flinging forward.
Ferociously, Commander Dadren threw himself upon the arch-crook. He caught Hildrow's
gun hand. The commander had cleared the desk with a headlong dive. His forceful attack
bore Hildrow against the wall. The two men plunged to the floor, grappling.
Korsch's shot came simultaneously with a spurt from The Shadow's left-hand automatic. A
bullet whined through the doorway, passing an inch above The Shadow's head.
The Shadow's aim, however, had not failed. Korsch staggered, clipped by the leaden
missive from the .45.
The other men, four in number, were clustered by a corner near the door. They, of all
present, had been least ready. Unlike Hildrow and Korsch, they had not seen Pete arrive.
Events had happened with split-second rapidity, too swift for them to follow.
They were wheeling toward the door, however, when The Shadow neared it. Had the master
fighter kept on through the opening, swinging guns might have found him for a target. But
The Shadow, thoughts working with lightning speed, countered with the unexpected.
Abruptly ending his mad whirl, he doubled his tracks. Like a human juggernaut, he hurled
himself straight into the group of gunmen. With arms that swung like steel pistons, he used
his automatics like a brace of cudgels.
One weapon cracked the skull of an aiming foeman; another lost his revolver as a swinging
automatic smashed his wrist. A third, aiming, dodged instinctively as he fired. His bullet
buried itself in the ceiling.
The fourth fighter, balked of aim as The Shadow came upon him, made a wild effort to
grapple with this powerful foe. With the upward sweep of a powerful forearm, The Shadow
hoisted this fighter from the floor and sent him spinning upon the fellow who had dodged.
The man with the numbed arm dove for the door, unable to regain his gun. Of the two whom
The Shadow had sent sprawling, one rolled over and took hasty aim. As his gun was coming
up, one of the automatics was swinging down. The Shadow, moreover, was fading to the
floor.
Revolver and automatic loosed their belching tongues of flame. The two shots roared
together. As a bullet singed the surface of The Shadow's shoulder, a big slug found the
crook's heart. The Shadow, dropping clear to the floor, was face to face with the last of the
four.
The man pounced toward him. They gripped and rolled in a struggle that rivaled the fight
between Hildrow and Dadren, over by the further wall. They came to a deadlock. The
Shadow had dropped one automatic. The other, still held tight in his right fist, was beneath
his foeman's arm.
BLOOD was flowing from The Shadow's wounded shoulder. His adversary was powerful.
The Shadow, for the time, could not fling him free. Staring over his enemy's shoulder, The
Shadow saw Hildrow and Dadren come staggering from behind the desk.
Faces that looked alike; yet The Shadow could tell the real from the false. He saw Hildrow
twist partly free, then send Dadren crashing against the wall. The commander sank halfway
to the floor. Hildrow aimed to kill.
With a mighty effort, The Shadow twisted the body of the man with whom he fought. As he
swung the foeman as a shield, he pressed the trigger of his automatic. A bullet skimmed
past Hildrow's neck.
The plotter spun about. The involuntary move saved him. The Shadow, loosing another shot,
could not turn his wedged gun soon enough to follow the moving target. But the bullet
splintered woodwork less than a foot from the big shot's body.
Hildrow sprang for the door to escape that moving gun muzzle. His only target was the body
of his own henchman. He could not reach The Shadow. But the automatic, thrust past a
human rampart, was dangerous.
The Shadow fired again as Hildrow neared the door. With that effort, he twisted free from
the man who grappled him. Hildrow had paused for an instant. A sizzling bullet; sight of The
Shadow's burning eyes and a glimpse of the rising form—these were too much. Hildrow
sped for safety.
