For one thing, Carlton Sauber couldn"t yet have reached this meeting place in the reptilian guise that branded him as the Black Dragon. As for The Shadow"s agents, they would be at least ten minutes behind the double-dealer whose departure Steve had witnessed.
Meanwhile, the drama was centered in the meeting room, and it was drama indeed. First, the creaks. They weren"t the sound of footfalls; rather they were only the groaning of loose floor boards, purposely arranged so that even the tread of The Shadow would disturb them. Reaching the center of the room, the creaks stopped amid the absolute darkness.
A long time seemed to pa.s.s, but only because moments lingered in this place that was like a tomb, a purpose for which it happened to be intended. The proof that an insidious climax was at hand came when lights appeared, creeping from mere flecks of redness into a gradually increasing glow that soon revealed the room and the stranger it contained.
Standing in the center of the room was The Shadow. As the lights disclosed him, the cloaked figure hunched lower and began to turn about. His posture showed that he was ready to whip guns from beneath his cloak, should enemies invade this room. But so far The Shadow was alone. At moments he gazed toward the gilded throne, but observing it to be empty, he continued to lookelsewhere.
The Shadow"s back was almost turned when a puff came from the throne.
There, as if conjured from thin air, sat the Black Dragon. As if startled by the puff of smoke, The Shadow wheeled about, too late. One of the Dragon"s hands had already flipped a signal that went with the sharp hiss from his fang-embroidered mouth.
The walls of this room had more than ears. They held fighters. With a rip, panels crashed from the ornamental screens. Guns stabbed the openings that ripped further to disgorge a dozen members of the Dragon Clan, all aiming for their cloaked enemy - The Shadow!
Knives, too, were flaying through the air, to find their mark in that hated figure of justice. In one instantaneous swoop, the murderous horde had overwhelmed The Shadow before he could fire a single shot in return!
Halted, the a.s.sa.s.sinating band expected to see the bullet-riddled victim collapse. Instead, The Shadow laughed!
SNARLS came from killers as they shrank back toward the broken panels.
Those snarls were drowned by the sharper, louder hiss of the Black Dragon as he arose from his throne. He would end this illusion, nullify this strange chance whereby The Shadow, through some sheer trick, was standing dead on his feet, his lips forcing a laugh that they had begun before the hail of knives and bullets reached him.
Advancing with a drawn knife of his own, the Black Dragon stopped just short of The Shadow, intending to slash the blade into his rival"s heart. The Dragon paused, his hiss triumphant. The figure of The Shadow was swaying; its collapse had begun.
Such was the introduction to another marvel.
The Shadow did not fall. His sway became a shrink. He was dwindling, before eyes that now included the Dragon"s in their astonished circle, to something that was formless! A thing that couldn"t be The Shadow, yet was, for from the shape that folded into itself came the same challenge that amazed men had heard before: The laugh of The Shadow!
Down to the floor where it spread like an enormous ink blot that crept, with its hemmed cloak transformed into tentacles, toward the murderers who couldn"t kill! Such was the action of this thing that had once been The Shadow, and still was!
From the blot, itself, issued The Shadow"s laugh, louder, more strident than before!
To dispel the illusion that so outmatched his own arts, the Black Dragon stooped forward to clutch at the spread cloak and the slouch hat that tilted from the top of the cloth blot. Then, his hiss changed to an angry snarl, the Dragon waved his hand instead, as though such menial work belonged to others.
None of the Dragon Clan sensed their master"s fear. One was bold enough to obey the Black Dragon"s order.
Springing forward, a rangy killer grabbed the hat and flung it, at the same time scooping up the cloak. Timed to the action came a louder mockery, with ita gun spurt from the midst of the blackened folds. The Dragon man who had dared defy The Shadow, paid his penalty before the cloak could leave his hand.
Face forward, the killer sprawled, gave a kick that turned him over and lay face upward, his eyes staring into the ruddy glow. There was horror in those dead eyes, as though they had seen the invisible hand that could deliver vengeance from nowhere!
The Shadow"s laugh ended at the same instant. Madly, the Black Dragon seized the hat and cloak himself and shook them in order to learn their secret.
They were empty, those garments, due proof that The Shadow was indeed a ghost.
But this ghost had proven that it could deliver vengeance to any - or all - of the Dragon Clan!
INSTANTLY, the power of the Black Dragon was gone. The Shadow ruled triumphant in the minds of the superst.i.tious clan. Anxious to appease The Shadow, they saw the Black Dragon as their real foe. He was the one who had defied The Shadow"s challenge and p.r.o.nounced the doom of the pit upon a fighter who could return from the world beyond!
"Death to the Black Dragon!"
With that shout, the a.s.sorted killers hurled themselves upon their former chief. With a frenzied writhe, the Black Dragon reached the throne, striking his hands against the arms and rolling around, to land deep in the seat. He didn"t wait to throw a puff ball that would dramatize his disappearance. He used the mechanism as fast as it could send him, which was just ahead of the bullets that shattered the dropped gla.s.s, ending its utility as a mirror.
Bullets fired from the doorway, by an arrival whose hand was quicker than those of the Dragon"s followers! The motley clan still didn"t guess the trick, for by then the throne was empty. Nor did they stand gaping at the broken gla.s.s, for their attention was diverted the other way. The thing that brought them full about was more than mere gunfire.
It was the laugh of The Shadow!
Fierce, vengeful mirth that seemed to hold this tribe responsible for the escape of the Black Dragon. There in the doorway stood The Shadow, fully cloaked, smoke trailing from his drawn guns. The Shadow, no longer a ghost, but a superhuman fighter who had switched from the invisible to the indestructible!
Like the pair who had seen The Shadow return from the spiked pit, the whole brutal throng flattened on their faces and pleaded with The Shadow to spare their worthless lives. Leaving them thus, The Shadow turned and started for the stairs.
His laugh, trailing back, was like an omen, telling the cowed killers that their case would pend while The Shadow was settling scores with their banished leader, the Black Dragon.
CHAPTER XX.
THE DRAGON"S RUSE OUTSIDE, a cab was stopped beside the curb a short distance from the meeting building. On its steps stood a figure robed in gold and silver, adorned with a writhing dragon that ended in a hood.
Gun in hand, this monster who represented murder was about to point the weapon at a doubtful cab driver and order him to start away, when The Shadow wheeled from the doorway of the building and delivered a weird laugh.
Instantly, the creature in the dragon"s costume changed his tactics.
Instead of firing at The Shadow, he sprang away from the cab and rushed for shelter across the street. The lights of another cab disclosed him and he tried to dart from the glare. Out of the cab sprang other fighters, The Shadow"s agents.
Between The Shadow and his agents, the fugitive hadn"t a chance. Lowering his gun, The Shadow watched the roundup. It looked as if four men were trying to capture a slippery snake, so wildly did this Dragon writhe. He was coming across the street again, forgetful that The Shadow awaited him, when another car bore down on him.
Only by a mad scramble did the Dragon reach the sidewalk. Even then, he tripped across the curb. But his pursuers were blocked off by the stopping car and for the moment, the Dragon was in the clear. Then, a new champion was leaping from the limousine, in the person of Miles Fenmore.
In his hand, Fenmore had a revolver, which he tried to center on the Dragon. It was the writhing effect of the costume that fooled him and gave the other man time to come about. By then, there was no question as to the Dragon"s ident.i.ty. The man in the costume was Carlton Sauber; he had thrown back the dragon"s hood, because the eye-slits were out of their proper place.
Seeing Fenmore aim, Sauber returned the favor. The gesture was almost useless, considering the advantage that Fenmore held. But to Steve Trask, springing around the front of Fenmore"s limousine, the situation looked serious.
With more fervor than wisdom, Steve hurled himself toward Sauber, shoving a gun toward the man who wore the regalia of the Dragon.
Only the speed of The Shadow could outmatch Fenmore"s steady aim, Sauber"s hasty return, and Steve"s frenzied interference. Like a whirl of smoke, The Shadow went across the path of aim, but he met Steve with the solid effect of a stone wall. Flinging one hand upward, The Shadow struck Steve"s revolver with the hard clash of an automatic and knocked the gun away.
Out of the same whirl, The Shadow aimed his other gun in backward style and fired. The illusion of the dragon costume seemed to baffle him, for he missed Sauber by scant inches. The shot, continuing onward, reached Fenmore"s shoulder.
Jolted at the moment when he pulled the trigger, Fenmore shoved his gun high.
His shot carried over Sauber"s head.
Before The Shadow could change that situation, Sauber"s gun was full in line. It spoke, like an echo of the others, and drove its leaden message straight to Fenmore"s heart. With a long, slow pitch, Fenmore flattened to the sidewalk into the posture of the Dragon Clan that The Shadow had so recently left.
There was no longer any writhe to Sauber"s costume. The man was standing like a thing of stone. The Shadow"s agents reached him and he made no effort toflee. The Shadow gestured toward Steve and they pushed Sauber in that direction.
Steve plucked the gun from Sauber"s hand and gave it to The Shadow. All the while, Sauber kept staring at Fenmore"s body.
MINUTES must have pa.s.sed while Steve stood frozen, watching Sauber, who was equally rigid. Not a word from Sauber; the mere sight of his handiwork, in the form of Fenmore"s body, held him speechless. A big car pulled into the street and from it stepped Commissioner Weston, with Inspector Cardona right behind him.
Weston took charge of Sauber, while Cardona was bringing out a fresh pair of handcuffs for Steve. Hoping that The Shadow would at last explain things, Steve looked for his cloaked friend and saw, quite to his dismay, that The Shadow had gone. Nevertheless, the process of the law was rudely interrupted.
Out from the entrance of an office building came a curious parade. It began with a dozen men, hands all lifted, who by their ugly looks and indiscriminate attire belonged to the Dragon Clan. Behind them, stimulating the forced march, were The Shadow"s agents. They turned their prisoners over to arriving police.
Puzzlement was showing on Cardona"s swarthy face. He weighed the handcuffs, but didn"t slap them on Steve. Joe Cardona was beginning to get one of his very famous hunches, but he didn"t express it aloud. Commissioner Weston didn"t like Joe"s hunches.
"Well, inspector!" Weston was gesturing toward Sauber. "Here is our Black Dragon. Poor Fenmore was right. The fellow was a killer. Too bad we didn"t bear down on Sauber this evening!"
Steve watched Cardona. An odd thought struck him. Inspector Cardona was as badly muddled as Steve. He was hoping, too, that The Shadow would reappear.
But there wasn"t any sign of The Shadow; not even a trailing laugh.
Lamont Cranston stepped up from somewhere. He arrived in his usual leisurely style, probably from a limousine parked around the corner. Despite himself, Commissioner Weston smiled. His friend Cranston was always arriving late.
"If you"d been at the club," snapped Weston, "you could have come with us.
Cranston. Fenmore called and told us where we could find the Black Dragon."
Cranston looked from Fenmore"s body to Sauber"s equally rigid, though upright form. From the appearance of things, he might have suggested that the Black Dragon had found Fenmore. But Cranston didn"t comment on Sauber"s costume.
Instead, he questioned casually: "Who told Fenmore about the Black Dragon?"
"That fellow Pelly," began Weston. "You know - Sauber"s secretary. He came to Fenmore"s this evening and said he"d learned that Sauber was the Black Dragon. You see, Pelly found a note that came to Sauber"s -"
"What is it, commissioner? I would like to hear the rest."
"I"m wondering where Pelly is!" said Weston, somewhat puzzled. "He was coming here with Fenmore."
Cranston finished lighting a cigarette, turned about and blew the smoke toward a limousine, where a silent chauffeur was seated.
"There"s Fenmore"s car," observed Cranston. "Why not have a look inside,commissioner?"
WESTON stepped over to the car. When he opened the door, a thing like a wild cat flew out. It was coming, with a gun, but it stopped with a whimper and dropped the weapon. The human wild cat was Pelly, and the thing that stopped him was another gun, gripped by the complacent Mr. Cranston, who had shoved the stubby revolver right into Pelly"s ribs.
"Good work, Cranston," complimented Weston. "I"m glad I gave you that gun permit you wanted. It came in very handy."
"This isn"t my gun." With a smile, Cranston handed the revolver to Weston.
"It"s yours, commissioner. It was falling from your pocket, so I caught it."
Before Weston could think that one over. Cranston reached into Fenmore"s limousine and dug deep beside the seat. He came out with a thing that looked like a deflated sea serpent. Spreading the object out, Cranston looked surprised to find that it was another dragon costume. He gave a glance toward Sauber"s dejected figure.
"Offhand, commissioner" - Cranston took another look at the outfit he was holding - "I would say that this was the original." He took a look toward Pelly, who was receiving the handcuffs originally meant for Steve. "Is it yours, Pelly?"
"It"s Fenmore"s!" blurted Pelly. "Or it was! He was the Black Dragon. But I.
had to work for him, or he"d have sent me a dragon token, like he did with Sauber!"
With a nod, Sauber dug deep beneath his costume and brought out the little jet dragon.
"I received this long ago," he said. "It had me scared. That"s why I hid it. I couldn"t understand why the Black Dragon let me live until I realized that I was being framed. So I tried to get back at the Black Dragon. I knew what his costume was supposed to be, and I rigged this duplicate. I wanted to get to a Dragon meeting and bluff that crowd of his.
"They were laying for me at Li Huang"s, the first place I tried. They tried to get me the night you brought Trask to my house. I had Pelly make inquiries among people who might know something about the Black Dragon. Pelly found out more than I had hoped, because he was actually working for the Black Dragon, though I didn"t know it.
"The moment I saw Fenmore, I knew the truth. He couldn"t have come here, unless Pelly had told him, and Pelly wasn"t supposed to tell. Fenmore wanted to kill me so I"d be marked as the Black Dragon. But The Shadow must have gotten here first, to break things up."
Cardona was quizzing Pelly, who admitted that he"d been waiting behind the building in Fenmore"s car. There, Fenmore had joined him and discarded the original dragon costume. Tonight"s trap had been planned for Sauber, who was to be found dead in the meeting room in the dragon costume. It was to look as though Sauber had run into some trouble with his own followers.
"Fenmore was finished with the racket," declared Pelly. "He was running outof victims. He didn"t have to do any checking on them here; all the data he needed was sent him from j.a.pan. The vault in his house is the kura that contains his wealth. He threatened many persons like Miljohn and Pendleton. Most of them paid."
LIKE the situation, the scene cleared. Cardona was gone, along with Pelly and the other prisoners. Sauber had left with Commissioner Weston to probe matters up at Fenmore"s. Cranston was supposed to come there in his own car, bringing Steve, whose case was completely understood. But Cranston wasn"t in a hurry to start.
Looking about, Cranston appeared surprised by the fact that all The Shadow"s agents had strolled from the picture after delivering the Dragon Clan.
One stepped into sight: Myra Reldon. She gestured toward the building where the Dragon Clan had met.
"Dr. Tam received word from The Shadow," said Myra. "He wants us to bring along a few things that he left."
Cranston nodded and they went inside.
In an office on the ground floor, they found a long rod, formed in telescopic fashion. Cranston whipped the thing full-length and found it rigid.
Seeing the outline of a stairway in a corner of the office, he began poking the rod up beneath. There were creaks from the stair boards that had continued as Cranston poked the rod along the line of the upstairs hall, then in the direction of the meeting room.
"A clever chap, The Shadow," observed Cranston. "He must have used this rod to make the Dragon Clan think he was sneaking into the meeting room. I suppose, at first, they thought it was Sauber."
Myra was pointing to a tiny hole in the ceiling. Cranston couldn"t seem to understand its purpose. Finally, he pushed the rod up through and told Myra to hold it that way. Taking Steve upstairs, The Shadow found a hat and cloak lying on the meeting-room floor. It was Steve who pointed to the rod that projected through the floor and exclaimed: "Try them on that!"
Cranston tried them and found that the end of the rod opened umbrella fashion. Adorned with hat and cloak, the skeleton contrivance made a perfect replica of The Shadow that became wonderfully lifelike when Cranston called down to Myra to revolve the rod. Then, for a finish, Cranston added: "Draw it right down through."
Myra did. The cloak and hat collapsed and fell away to a formless blot.
When Cranston lifted them, the rod was gone.
Myra had drawn it through, the sprouting ends closing right through the hole. Further amazed by the ingenuity of The Shadow, Cranston picked up the hat and cloak and carried them on his arm, to return to the friend of his friend, Dr. Tam.
THEY rode to Fenmore"s, to find that Weston and Sauber had uncovered the Black Dragon"s stolen h.o.a.rd, thanks to Fenmore"s servants, honest men, who didn"t know they"d been the front for their master"s double life. By the timethey left Fenmore"s, Steve was all straight on the Sauber question.
Twice, he"d mistaken Sauber"s gestures as a summons to men of crime; whereas Sauber, like Steve, had simply been trying to get away from murderers!
Cranston summed other details as they left Fenmore"s house. He was dropping off at the club and sending Steve and Myra home in his limousine.
"Fenmore put you in a jam the first night you saw him," Cranston told Steve. "That should have aroused your suspicion. Then there was the time that I.