Cardona.
'That's evidence!' gulped the racketeer. 'I'm telling you that in front of
witnesses. When you get evidence, you've got to use it! Screwy, ain't it? But that's the way the law works.'
Cardona gruffed a stolid query: 'Want me to open this, Pinkey?'
'Yeah' - Pinkey's voice came with a spasm - 'open it - look it over. I want to see Jondran, when you do -'
Cardona pulled the papers from the envelope. He spreads them in front of Pinkey's eyes. Those eyes went wide, not from the approach of death, but from sheer amazement that made Pinkey forget the finish that soon awaited him.
This was not the evidence that Pinkey wanted Cardona to have! These were the other papers: the negative evidence: the batch that Pinkey thought Jondran had tossed into the fire!
It wasn't imagination. Jondran had actually destroyed an envelope. But the
one that he had burned was the one that Pinkey intended to keep. Only one man could be responsible; Pinkey's gaze rolled in his direction. Blood flecked Pinkey's lips, as he coughed:
'You - you have double - crossed-me, Slick!'
There was a negative headshake from the man that Pinkey had mistaken for Slick Thurley. For the first time, Pinkey noticed that his sidekick was not a prisoner. Enlightenment dawned, when Pinkey heard the statement:
'You weren't double-crossed. I'm not Slick Thurley; I'm Bill Quaine!'
FLAT on the floor, Pinkey stared upward with bulging-eyed gaze.
Recollections were throbbing through his numbed brain. He remembered how Slick had spotted someone in the alley outside the hideout. For the first time, Pinkey knew what had really happened.
Slick had encountered The Shadow there, in the dark. After the one swift blow, it was Slick who had sprawled on the cobbles. But there had been another man there also, waiting with The Shadow. That man had been Bill Quaine.
The Shadow had turned crime's own game full about.
Bill Quaine had rejoined Pinkey, to play the part of Slick Thurley!
Together, they had looked at a stunned snooper, and Quaine had been smart enough to keep Pinkey from seeing that the flattened man was Slick!
Pinkey remembered how Quaine had loitered in the elevator at the Bubble Club; how he had strolled into the hallway outside Jondran's reception room.
Those had been chances for Quaine to contact The Shadow; to learn what was needed.
In Jondran's study, Quaine had coolly replaced the batches of papers in the wrong envelopes. Pinkey hadn't been watching him when he did it, for the big-shot had never guessed that Quaine was not Slick Thurley.
Clutched by the final agony of his death wound, Pinkey knew who had delivered it. The Shadow had left that task to Quaine, in case of emergency.
The pinch had come; Quaine had delivered.
Standing men eyed a silent figure on the floor. The motionless form was all that remained of Pinkey Findlen. The racketeer had died in the throes of those final thoughts.
A sound stirred the stillness; it was like a knell, that mirthless laugh that betokened The Shadow's departure.
The rest was easy for the law. Crooks at the Bubble Club were taken into custody, Claude Ondrey among them. Slick Thurley was found, bound and gagged in
a place where The Shadow had left him.
Funds from Ondrey's safe were identified by Jondran; they were placed in Jondran's unfinished vault, with detectives on guard. All those details were completed by midnight - the hour when Beth Jondran came home with some friends.
Beth found her father in the study; with him was Maude Revelle. The story that Beth heard did not entirely surprise her. She had already recognized that Maude was a girl whose friendship had no limit.
And Maude knew, in turn, that she had found a lifelong friend in Beth Jondran. Maude could have wanted no better reward from The Shadow.
AT that same hour, The Shadow was alone in his sanctum. Beneath the bluish
light rested the list that he had made early in his campaign against recent crime. Five names composed that list:
'Thumb' Gaudrey
'Pointer' Trame
'Long Steve' Bydle
'Ring' Brescott
'Pinkey' Findlen
That list, however, had changed. Through the name of Pinkey Findlen, The Shadow had stroked a long line, that marked the obliteration of the racketeer, himself.
A whispered laugh stirred the black-walled sanctum, as The Shadow replaced
the list within the folder that bore the stamped symbol of a hand.
One finger of that hand had been obliterated. It was the end of one phase of the work. Not even The Shadow knew how very soon he was to meet another of The Hand; how soon he would again have to meet the challenge of these racketeers
The Hand would reach across The Shadow's path once more; and then another time, and still another, before that symbol would be wiped off The Shadow's record!
THE END
