'How about it, Rodney?' Bruce jeered. 'Want a little dose of the same medicine?'
Bruce moved slowly forward, his weapon ready for the second kill. But Rodney made no hostile move. For some queer reason, the appearance of Bruce Dixon had filled him with rage, rather than terror. His words carried their own
explanation to the ears of The Shadow.
'So this is your game, you double-crossing skunk! I put you in Dixon's house, fix everything so you can pose as the old guy's son and clean up his dough - and I get this!'
Bruce laughed. The sound of it was freezing, utterly merciless.
'Talk some more,' he jeered. 'You're not a smart guy. You're a fool! You still don't know what it's all about! I'm handing you a lead pill, same as Squint got, right through the skull!'
Rodney's nerve left him. He began to plead.
'A sniveler!' Bruce sneered. 'Did you think I came here to find that damned Cup of Confucius? I've got a bigger stake than that - I'm after every penny of Arnold Dixon's fortune! An I've got to do is to blast you to death -
and two more fools like you - and then I'm sitting pretty!'
'Two more?' Rodney faltered.
'You wouldn't understand.'
Bruce's finger was beginning to squeeze ominously against the trigger, when Paul Rodney gave a shout of wild joy. He was glaring with glazed eyes past
the shoulder of his executioner. He seemed to be watching some one in the darkness behind Bruce.
'Kill him!' Rodney screamed. 'Let that rat have it!'
But Bruce merely laughed.
'That's an old trick! It won't do you a damned bit of -'
A STREAK of scarlet jetted from the rocky cave behind Bruce. A bullet smashed into his back. He went down as if struck by lightning and lay there on his face without moving, badly wounded.
Rodney said, hoarsely: 'Nice shooting, Timothy!' and picked up his dropped
gun.
Arnold Dixon's lawyer advanced slowly into the circle of yellow radiance cast by the lantern. He moved awkwardly because of the arthritis in his left foot. But that was the only familiar sign that linked this cold killer with the
peaceful lawyer that Arnold Dixon knew and trusted. His usual timid expression had peeled away like a mask. Even his voice was different.
'A fine mess you've made of things, you fool!'
'I obeyed every order you ever gave me,' Rodney muttered. 'It's not my fault if Bruce went haywire. You should have offered him a bigger cut. Then maybe he wouldn't have tried to double-cross us and grab everything.'
'He grabs nothing,' Timothy snarled. 'He's dead! So will you be dead - if you don't remember I'm running this show and do as you're told!'
'You don't have to get tough with me! I've been head man of all your rackets too long, for you not to trust me.'
'Maybe,' Timothy snapped. 'What happened to The Shadow? Are you sure he didn't follow you here?'
'I don't know.'
'All right; we'll search the cave. Forget about drowning. The tide doesn't
rise that high. I know, because I studied the tidal marks. We've got to find The
Shadow! He's got to be killed - or I don't get my fingers on Arnold Dixon's millions!'
'Drop those guns both of you!' Clyde Burke ordered.
CLYDE had advanced with a noiseless bound from his vaulted hiding place.
Beside him was a more ominous figure, a black-cloaked specter that seemed to tower above the tense Clyde. Burning eyes and a beaked nose were visible in the
yellow light of the lantern.
'The Shadow!' Timothy gasped.
The robed figure made no answer. There was death waiting in the gloved fingers that rested so lightly on the triggers and William Timothy knew it.
He began to babble terrified words, a protestation of his innocence. But Clyde Burke cut him short with a brief sentence.
'Don't lie, you hypocrite! You betrayed yourself very neatly during the little talk you've just had with Rodney - your own henchman working under your criminal orders!'
The Shadow uttered a whisper of sibilant laughter. He began to glide slowly forward, and at his side Clyde Burke advanced, too.
Without warning, the cavern behind them echoed with a piercing scream. It was a woman's cry, bubbling with terror. It filled every nook and cranny of the
underground cave with spine-tingling abruptness.
Clyde Burke whirled instinctively. He saw a girl bending over a motionless
huddle on the floor. The huddle was Bruce Dixon. The girl was - Edith Allen.
Clyde had barely recognized her when he felt a powerful fist strike him between his shoulder blades. The blow knocked him from his feet. As he fell he heard the whistling rip of a bullet a scant inch above his head. Timothy had fired with the speed of desperation.
But The Shadow's action had been faster still. He had seen the guns of Rodney and Timothy jerk level. A sidelong blow sent his agent plunging head-first out of the path of death. His other gun took care of Rodney.
A scarlet dot appeared just below Rodney's left eye. He fell forward, and the weight of his dead body struck The Shadow's knee and knocked him off balance.
In that second, Timothy recovered from his futile shot at Clyde. The muzzle of the crooked lawyer's gun pointed straight at The Shadow's throat.
But
even as the gun spat, there was a queer, convulsive, jerk of Timothy's wrist.
The bullet nicked the ear lobe of The Shadow, instead of ripping his jugular apart.
Timothy stared dully, as though puzzled by his miss. Blood gushed from his
own throat. He died before he knew what had happened. He was unaware of Clyde, hunched fiercely on his knees, a curl of smoke eddying upward from the hot barrel of his weapon. Clyde had returned the swift favor The Shadow had done for him.
EDITH was still on her knees beside the figure of Bruce Dixon. She was moaning, wringing her hands. Apparently she hadn't heard the roaring pistols a few feet away.
The Shadow vanished into darkness. He followed the passage that led to a chamber where a mysterious, trussed figure had been lying, when Clyde and The Shadow had first made their cautious descent from above.
When The Shadow returned, he was not alone. A figure stumbled at his side.
The two hurried straight to the spot where Edith Allen was staring at the limp body of Bruce Dixon.
Edith seemed carved from stone. But as The Shadow helped his faltering companion forward, the grief that held Edith speechless was abruptly broken.
She uttered a shrill cry of wonder.
The man who stood facing her, his countenance etched in lines of suffering
and pain, was an exact counterpart of the wounded man who lay on the ground.
It
was as though Bruce Dixon had split himself, by some diabolic magic, into two separate bodies.
Bruce Dixon was staring downward into the sneering, wide-open eyes of -
Bruce Dixon!
CHAPTER XX
HIS FATHER'S SON
FOR an amazed second, Edith stared at the identical men. Then two things happened. The wounded Bruce uttered a faint, snarling oath. The Bruce whom The Shadow had brought back from the corridor offshoot held out
