The Killer

CHAPTER XXI ONE AGAINST SIX

ONE against six; for the two servants, like the others, were men of Raffney’s gang. Harland Mullrick was unarmed. Joe Cardona was sent sprawling as the servant nearest him leaped forward upon him.

The spell was broken; guns were flashing in the hands of the pretended servants. Donald Gershawl was pulling an automatic from his pocket.

The swiftness of the attack meant nothing to The Shadow. His second gun was swinging on its outward course at the instant when Donald Gershawl released the door. Slugs Raffney and his pair of mobsmen were face to face with The Shadow. The mighty automatics boomed before a single mobsman could pull a trigger.

Those automatics pumped their lead into a close-massed trio. As Donald Gershawl, flourishing his automatic, leaped behind the three mobsmen, his summoned aids were already falling to the floor.

Two collapsed without a single shout. Slugs Raffney went down firing. His aim, broken by the shattering bullets that had struck his body, was futile. His shots whistled wide.

Ignoring Raffney and his dying shots, The Shadow swerved to meet the transformed servants. As one man fired, The Shadow’s body was swinging toward the wall. The bullet clipped the brim of the slouch hat. A triumphant laugh sounded with the boom of The Shadow’s left-hand automatic. The fake servant slumped to the floor.

Shots came from the entrance to the upper tower. Donald Gershawl had gained the shelter of the spiral stairway. He had aimed at Harland Mullrick, but the rescued man was already diving for the shelter of a huge chair.

Gershawl’s aim diverted. Out of The Shadow’s range of fire, he was shooting at Joe Cardona, rising from the floor. The detective was fumbling for his revolver. He stumbled as a bullet nicked his left shoulder.

Diagonally from the wall, just beyond the path of the shot which Donald Gershawl had delivered at Joe Cardona, was the second servant, aiming for The Shadow. A taunt resounded as the man fired and barely missed the wavering form in black. Instinctively, the servant moved forward, pressing the trigger as he came.

It was The Shadow’s ruse that succeeded. Dropping as the man fired, The Shadow heard the bullet pung the wall above his head. He fired in return. The fake servant twisted in agony, dropping upon one hand and knee. A second bullet and a third crashed into his contorted body. They did not come from The Shadow’s automatics. They were shots from Donald Gershawl’s gun!

The Shadow had staggered the servant directly in the path of Gershawl’s aim. Bullets that would certainly have reached Cardona, found mark in the body of Gershawl’s own henchman. Cardona, his life saved by The Shadow’s amazing strategy, managed to fire his gun and open fire on Gershawl.

THE murderous millionaire started up the stairway, to escape the detective’s fire. Flinging his automatics to the floor, The Shadow brought another brace of .45s from beneath his cloak. With vengeful stride, he swept in pursuit of the fleeing fiend, his guns held out before him.

Shots echoed with terrific thunder from the steel cylinder that encased the stairway. Gershawl, the thud of The Shadow’s bullets striking the metal steps about him, was fleeing to the open tower above.

Cardona, blood streaming from his wounded shoulder, had dropped to the floor. Harland Mullrick hurried forward to aid the sleuth who had now become his friend. Echoing shots from the staircase still persisted.

High on the open tower, crouched against the steel-railed parapet, Donald Gershawl was waiting for The Shadow. The plotter had gained his desired spot of safety. If he could slay his black-clad adversary, he still had a chance to further his evil schemes. He could then attack Cardona and Mullrick, in the penthouse below.

Silence from the head of the staircase. Had The Shadow given up the chase? Or was he lurking, awaiting Gershawl’s return?

It was pitch-black in this spot, more than six hundred feet above Manhattan. The night had clouded; a half gale was whistling about the summit of the huge skyscraper.

Reaching in his pocket, Gershawl produced a flashlight. He had gotten it for Slugs Raffney when he had stowed the gang leader on the stairway, at the time of Joe Cardona’s arrival. Raffney had not wanted it.

Click!

The press of the button threw a gleam of light upon the staircase. It revealed the crouched, advancing form of The Shadow! Shouting, Gershawl pulled the trigger of his automatic.

As the gun roared, a vicious thrust sent Gershawl’s hand upward. The Shadow had sprung. His automatics clattered as he caught the plotter in his grasp. His guns unaimed, The Shadow had made this leap for Gershawl’s arm. A moving shape of blackness, he blotted out the light which Gershawl still clutched.

With terrific force, Gershawl swung his right arm, seeking to strike The Shadow’s head with the gun. As Gershawl struck, The Shadow sent him twisting sidewise in the air. The plotter’s head struck an unseen post that rose perpendicularly above the rail.

The stunning blow was Gershawl’s doom. But for the impact, the financier would have managed to grasp the parapet as he struck it, on his side. Instead of stopping, his body, hurled with The Shadow’s powerful might, kept onward in its course to destruction.

Gershawl’s automatic clattered within the rail. The flashlight sailed outward. After it plunged Gershawl’s form. With the gleaming light marking his downward voyage to death, Gershawl, sprawling in the heavy wind, went to the final doom that he deserved.

THE SHADOW was standing by the parapet. His keen eyes marked the course of Gershawl’s fall. A dark object, tiny when viewed from the height, formed a puny blot upon the sidewalk far below. A tiny spark — the flashlight — disappeared as it arrived beyond the evil plotter’s shapeless body.

The Shadow descended the spiral staircase. Totally unseen by Harland Mullrick, who had aided Joe Cardona to the window for fresh air, the master fighter passed through the room where the bodies of mobsters lay.

He took the elevator down the shaft. The recovered henchmen who had failed to serve Donald Gershawl clung screaming as they descended atop the car. The Shadow left them in their vertical prison, with six hundred feet of smooth shaft above them. He left the watchman bound.

The Shadow pressed the lever of the massive metal door. The barrier opened. The Shadow glided forth into the night.

Cries came from the street. Detectives who had gathered around Donald Gershawl’s body turned to hurry to the entrance of the Solwick Tower when they saw the light of the opened anteroom.

They had not, however, seen The Shadow. He had stepped into darkness before the headquarters men had noted the open door.

There were only two who could tell of The Shadow’s presence here: Joe Cardona and Harland Mullrick. Others were dead; the guardians of Gershawl’s tower, though they still lived, had no knowledge of the mysterious entrant’s identity.

Joe Cardona could clear Harland Mullrick. The Shadow knew what the star detective would say: that some unknown person had impersonated Harland Mullrick. The presence of Slugs Raffney and his dead mobsters would incriminate Donald Gershawl as a master of crime. The captured henchmen would squeal.

The Shadow’s part would not be revealed. Joe Cardona would not mention it in his report. Harland Mullrick would leave for Mexico, there to locate the lost mines of Durango, without molestation.

Out of the past, The Shadow could presage the future. As token of his hidden thoughts, his laugh resounded from the darkness of a narrow street three blocks distant from the Solwick Tower.

As burning eyes peered upward toward the tiny glow of the penthouse lights, the whistling wind seemed to catch the tones of the strident mockery and carry it quickly upward in the rising gale.

The laugh of The Shadow! It was the triumphant cry of invisible lips, Justice had triumphed through The Shadow’s aid. As Harland Mullrick, The Shadow had saved Harland Mullrick. Declaring himself as the one marked as a murderer, The Shadow had proven in what direction the murder really lay.

Such was the paradox of The Shadow’s justice. Through strange and devious measures had The Shadow gained the final victory. Long before crime was begun, The Shadow, through his agents, through his sources of information, knew of what was planned. And, in meting out the justice of The Shadow, this strange being of the night had allowed each insidious criminal to cause his own dire end, as it was planned for another. Then, when the moment came to prove the accused innocent, he pointed out the master villain behind it all.