Chain Of Death

CHAPTER XIII DEATH STRIKES

PROFESSOR LANGWOOD DEVINE had aimed for blackness. Yet he had not aimed blindly. Craftily, he had gauged The Shadow’s spying action. He had fired to kill — straight for the exact spot where The Shadow had been hidden.

One bullet — two — deadly missives sped from the old villain’s revolver. These were but the outset of the volley. Without pause, Professor Devine swung his weapon downward. His action showed his supercunning.

Swift though he had moved, Devine knew that The Shadow might have acted with the same prompt rapidity. No living being could have sprung away before the firing of the shots; but a dropping form, falling with simultaneous speed, might have escaped the deadly aim.

It was this instantaneous thought that prompted Devine’s downward move. The .32 described a falling arc; a bony finger was ready to loose the entire volley of the gun. With amazing precision, Devine had chosen the exact spot where a huddled or crouched body might be situated.

The proof of the insidious professor’s exactitude came from the curtain itself. Like an answer to the white-haired villain’s thought came a roar accompanied by a tongue of spurting fire. The doorway echoed with the thunder of The Shadow’s automatic.

Devine’s finger faltered. His hand loosed. The .32 dropped from his clutch. Gasping, the old man floundered to the floor. The slug from a .45 had ruined the chances of the .32. Devine’s one mistake had been to The Shadow’s gain.

The being behind the curtain had dropped with Devine’s first aim. As the professor’s hand had swung downward, The Shadow’s fist had been acting in return. Devine had gained the first shots; but they had gone above The Shadow’s head. The villain’s second guess had been too late.

The curtains parted. From between them came a shape that seemed to rise like an avenging specter. The Shadow, pressed to a duel of death, had struck. Langwood Devine, abettor of crime, potential murderer, lay upon the floor before the cloaked master, coughing his last breaths.

UPON the desk lay the folded papers, the clues to Devine’s part in crime. The Shadow, towering weirdly in the light, from the desk, was turning to reach for them when an unexpected interruption came from the outer door.

Rupert had left the door of the suite open. At the elevators, the servant had heard the sound of gunfire. He had dashed back to the professor’s room.

His startled eyes saw Devine’s dying body on the floor; above it, the form of an eerie intruder.

Devine’s crimes had been concealed from his servant. To Rupert, the presence of The Shadow was proof of the fears that the professor had advanced to-night. This was the enemy whom Rupert’s master had dreaded!

Frantically, Rupert shouted for help as he flung himself across the room, straight for the black-garbed form. Turning from the desk, The Shadow swept to meet the plunging servant. With Rupert, The Shadow had no quarrel. Yet in this moment of emergency, he could not stop.

Servant and Shadow met. Black arms caught Rupert’s springing form. Twisting in The Shadow’s clutch, Rupert went rolling sidewise across the room. His spreading arms encountered the wall. The Shadow, turning, was in the center of the room.

Gamely, Rupert staggered to his feet. Fiercely, he came up beside the desk where Devine’s body lay. His eyes glimpsed the revolver close to the fallen form. Rupert seized the weapon.

The servant’s action was folly. The Shadow could have dropped him with a single shot. By such procedure, The Shadow could have gained the folded ciphers, which Rupert was unwittingly guarding. To The Shadow, however, Rupert’s blind loyalty to an unworthy master was but proof of the servant’s character.

The Shadow whirled toward the door to the anteroom. His action was an acknowledgement of Rupert’s bravery. Langwood Devine was dead. The codes were safe from destruction. Much though The Shadow had wanted them, he was ready to entrust them to the future.

As Rupert turned to fire at the being in black, The Shadow was sweeping through the curtains to the anteroom. Rupert was frantic as he employed wild aim. His hasty bullets zipped wide of their mark. The Shadow was gone.

A shout came from the hall. It was Joe Cardona, coming on the run. The Shadow stopped abruptly; his tall form faded behind the opened door as the detective came dashing into the anteroom, revolver in hand.

Springing through to Devine’s living room, Cardona came face to face with Rupert, standing above the dead professor’s corpse. The tension ended, Rupert gasped vague words. Cardona, thinking that Devine’s assailant had taken to the room behind the desk, hurried in that direction.

SWIFTLY, The Shadow came from behind the door. He turned toward the corridor. As he did, a form came plunging directly through the doorway. It was the house detective, who had come up on the elevator with Joe Cardona.

The Shadow’s form dropped. Before the house dick realized what had happened, he was hoisted upward by two arms that gripped his waist with the power of steel rods. The Shadow sent the man rolling across the anteroom. When the bewildered house detective came to his knees, his assailant had vanished.

The door of the elevator was open. The operator was peering, wild-eyed, down the corridor. The Shadow, profiting by Clyde Burke’s description of the scene at Ferrar’s murder, fired a warning shot. As the automatic echoed, the operator dropped from sight and clanged the doors.

The Shadow gained the stairway, a soft laugh rippling from his hidden lips. His form vanished in the darkness. The echoes seemed to continue as the weird intruder continued his downward course.

The elevator that had brought Joe Cardona and the house detective was moving downward to give the alarm in the lobby. The operator had hesitated behind his metal doors, wondering if he should wait until the detective returned. That was a point that served The Shadow.

A second elevator was coming down from the twenty-fourth floor. Its operator knew nothing of the excitement on the eighteenth. Seeing a stop signal for the sixteenth story, he halted his car and opened the doors.

A tall passenger entered. The operator noted a keen, hawklike visage. He glimpsed a briefcase that the entrant was carrying. In methodical fashion, the elevator man closed the doors. He let the car descend. There were no more stop signals. The car reached the lobby ahead of the one that was bringing the alarm.

Calmly, the passenger with the briefcase strolled out through the lobby. He reached the sidewalk just as the other elevator came to the bottom of the shaft. The alarm had arrived; it was too late to trap the being who had caused it. The tall personage who had left the Hotel Salamanca was The Shadow.

CHAOS had come again to the Hotel Salamanca. In the furore which followed the operator’s report, one man alone maintained a steady composure. That was Detective Joe Cardona. Although faced with what appeared to be a third murder mystery, the ace sleuth was calm.

He had summoned police. He had reported to headquarters. He had gained incoherent statements from both Rupert and the house detective. But amid it all, Cardona had seized upon a potential clue. He had found the folded papers upon Langwood Devine’s desk.

Joe Cardona was an unusual detective. He had a keen ability for gaining hunches; a remarkable aptitude for silence when it was needed. Instinctively, Joe had decided that those coded messages might hold the key to the death of Professor Langwood Devine.

Murder at the Hotel Salamanca! The alarm had gone rapidly. To-night, reporters were on the job almost as quickly as Inspector Klein and the police surgeon. Through their early arrival, the news seekers managed to reach the eighteenth floor before they could be stopped.

The spokesman of the journalistic throng was Clyde Burke. To this reporter, Joe Cardona gave terse statements regarding the death of Langwood Devine. But the ace sleuth said nothing of the discovery that he regarded as the keynote to the case: those coded sheets that he had plucked from the dead professor’s desk.

WHILE Cardona was still at the Hotel Salamanca, a bluish light was burning in a secret room. The white hands of The Shadow were taking earphones from the wall, where a tiny bulb was glowing to signify Burbank’s call.

The Shadow’s weird voice called for the report. Across the wire came the details that Clyde Burke had gained from Joe Cardona. There was no mention whatever of discovered codes. The earphones clattered back into their place.

Out went the bluish light. A sardonic laugh quivered through the sanctum. Ghoulish echoes came from blackened walls. The Shadow’s mirth was strident.

For to-night, The Shadow had gained much despite the unexpected events which had obstructed his path. He had learned that Langwood Devine was but one member in a group of criminals. He had seen the dead villain forward word along the chain.

The Shadow knew that the key to hidden crime lay in those coded sheets that Devine had failed to destroy. Moreover, The Shadow knew that the all-important papers had fallen into good hands.

Joe Cardona held the coded messages. They would be safe — more than that, their existence would be unknown — while they remained in Cardona’s hands. The Shadow knew who held the cryptic papers. With that knowledge, he could find a way to learn their exact contents.

The fading tones of The Shadow’s laugh were again foreboding. Previously, that mirthful cry had presaged trouble for Professor Langwood Devine. On this occasion, it foreboded ill for Crime Incorporated!