which offered hazards, such as a forced landing in the Amazon Country, Melbrun was equipped with a revolver. He yanked the weapon and began to fire from behind his improvised barricade.
By then, airport attendants, some with guns, had reached the car where Blitz Bell had stayed. The fight on the fringes of the airport had broken all apart. Wild mobsters were in flight, pursued by The Shadow's agents. Police cars were roaring in through the gates; people were guiding them toward Melbrun's beleaguered plane.
There, Melbrun had gained a moment of success. From behind the big trunk, he had nipped both Clip and Banker with quick shots, but the hits were superficial. Grease had escaped bullets by lurching forward, so that he was under the very shelter of the trunk itself. Seeing Grease's move, Banker and Clip copied it.
Viciously, the three grabbed at the trunk and the sides of the doorway, hoping to pull the barrier away and get at Melbrun. The importer was fighting hard to hold out until rescue came. But the trunk was slipping. Melbrun needed quicker aid than the arriving police could provide.
Then, at this most vital moment, came a challenge that made all others puny. Melbrun heard it, a titanic laugh that brought snarls from the three crooks beyond the trunk. Seemingly from nowhere, a black-cloaked figure was sweeping into the floodlights, bearing down upon the three attackers who held Melbrun trapped.
There was no mistaking that mighty fighter, whose big fists wielded huge automatics. He was The Shadow, master of the night, from which he had appeared as suddenly as though projected from an outer space!
FOR an instant, the three thugs outside the plane turned, as though willing to combat this mighty foe. Then, seeing the big guns aim, realizing that they were open targets, they grabbed at the trunk again, madly trying to wrest it free so that they could reach the shelter inside the plane.
Melbrun let them have the trunk, with a shove that pitched it full upon them. The three crooks went sprawling as the bulky object struck them, spinning
sideward as it came.
Half lurched from the doorway, Melbrun caught himself. He was an open target, but he didn't care. The Shadow had stopped short, his guns trained on the three sprawled mobsters.
They were the sort, those killers, who could expect no mercy from The Shadow. Melbrun wasn't the only man who foresaw their instant death. Joe Cardona, approaching in a speeding police car, would have sworn that sure death
was due.
Then a strange thing happened. The Shadow faltered, seemed to sidestep, as
though seeking shelter. Perhaps he had sensed guns trained from a distance; weapons that no one else guessed about. Such was Cardona's opinion, at the moment; and The Shadow's odd shift startled Melbrun, too.
At the very moment of rescue, Melbrun was abandoned. It didn't seem to matter, considering that he had bowled over his attackers; but there was one point that Melbrun missed.
The Shadow's sudden change of course gave a respite to the three crooks on
the ground. Melbrun's own course, his only sensible one, was to dive back into the plane, seeking shelter beyond other luggage, until the police could take over where The Shadow had left off.
Melbrun hesitated only half a second. It was too long. From the ground, half-rising crooks delivered a volley at the plane's doorway. Banker was sagging badly; Clip was wabbly; even Grease had a jerky aim. But the range was too short to matter.
Taking bullets in the chest, Melbrun pitched forward when further shots flayed him. His body tumbled headlong upon the big trunk that lay, half broken,
on the ground.
Cardona and others were blasting away. Their shots riddled the three killers, but came too late to save Melbrun. Then, surveying the dying figures on the ground, Cardona left the crooks and their victim to his squad. He hurried over to the sedan from which crooks had attacked.
Puzzled men were staring into the car. It had no occupant; merely an opened bag stuffed with paper, but with a space near the top. With a slow nod, Cardona went over to the plane, to view the result of the battle there.
Melbrun was dead. Of the three who had slain him, all were dying, and only
one could talk: Grease Rickel. He was the sort who would believe that he had been double-crossed, if properly questioned; particularly since Banker Dreeb and Clip Zelber could no longer advise him to shut up.
Cardona began his persuasive effort, and Grease responded. He was muttering names of Smarley, Flush Tygert, Barney Kelm, even Fondelac. In between, he kept repeating the name: 'Five-face.'
'I get it, Grease.' Cardona was playing a hunch. 'All of them were Five-face. He's the guy who double- crossed you.'
'Yeah.' Grease's tone was a gaspy sigh. 'Blitz Bell... back in the car...
with all the swag -'
That was all, but the name of Blitz Bell did not score with Joe Cardona.
He couldn't believe that Blitz had come back to life, nor that the fellow could
have vanished in mysterious style. Besides, Cardona had seen the present contents of Blitz's bag.
A name sprang to Cardona's mind. He actually voiced it:
'The Shadow!'
That explained it! The Shadow had visited these crime lieutenants as Blitz
Bell. He had made the crooks believe that he was Five-face. Cardona didn't know
about the gambling stunt that Five-face used to identify himself; if he had, it
would have strengthened his opinion. The Shadow was clever enough to duplicate any such trick.
Cardona was thinking of something else. If Blitz was not Five-face, who was? Staring groundward, Cardona saw the answer. It came with a flash, as he remembered the Shadow's strange act when the cloaked fighter had suddenly abandoned the rescue of Arnold Melbrun.
HEFTING the importer's body to one side, Cardona yanked open the broken trunk. He tugged at locked compartments and smashed them.
From one came a flood of diamonds: Breddle's. Another disgorged the cash that the financiers had yielded. Cranston's bonds slid in big batches from the third.
As he gathered up those trophies of supercrime, Cardona stared at the dead
criminal. Tense in death, the features of Arnold Melbrun were no longer wholly his own.
His face looked long, gaunt, like Smarley's; wise, like the countenance of
Flush. Its grimacing lips belonged to Barney; yet Cardona saw a smoothness, too,
that reminded him of Fondelac.
To Cardona, The Shadow's triumph had been a stroke of proper justice, wherein the master fighter had let Five-face find his death at the hands of the
very men whom the criminal overlord had sought to double-cross!
Belated on the scene came Commissioner Weston, who had been returning from
a late trip out of town. With him was Lamont Cranston, who had met the commissioner at the Cobalt Club. They heard the facts that Cardona had pieced together. It was amazing how smartly Five-face had played his game.
Smarley's crime had failed, so planned by Melbrun to cover up his real identity. He had succeeded as Flush Tygert, then as Barney Kelm, but in the latter case he had been most clever.
Melbrun hadn't called his office from his home. He had made that call from
a pay booth in the Hotel Clairmont, where he was in the guise of Barney!
As Fondelac, Five-face had been in a dilemma. Cranston had insisted that Melbrun come to the Cobalt Club. But Fondelac could not have met Melbrun, any more than Barney could have.
'You didn't realize what a jam you put him in, Mr. Cranston,' said Cardona, turning to the commissioner's friend. 'But The Shadow must have checked on it, and guessed the answer. What's more, The Shadow figured that Five-face planned a double cross.'
'Quite obvious,' observed Cranston, coolly, 'considering that The Shadow had identified Melbrun as Five- face. Melbrun had already arranged to leave for South America. The stage was set for him to walk out on his accomplices.'
