Master of Death

CHAPTER XXII. WITHIN THE WALLS

“ALPHA” — Doctor Rupert Sayre was speaking firmly — “bring in the prisoner.”

Stolidly, Eric Veldon’s chief automaton obeyed. He went from the room where Sayre was located. He returned two minutes later, with Cliff Marsland.

“Alpha,” said Sayre, as the waxen-faced servitor stared solemnly, “you are one of us. With us, you will go from here. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” replied the man.

“His intelligence is increasing,” explained Sayre to Cliff. “I have stimulated it. He is ours. We can count upon him.”

“We are unarmed,” reminded Cliff.

“Alpha has a revolver,” asserted Sayre. “I can get it from him. You will be the one to use it.”

“Get it now,” suggested Cliff.

“No.” Sayre shook his head. “We must be ready to return to our rooms if the odds appear impossible. Alpha will produce the gun when I demand it. Let’s move out and see how things look.”

Cautiously, the two men went out into the corridor. Alpha followed at Sayre’s back. The trio stopped when they reached the head of the stairs. They could hear the rhythmic beat of a steady pacing sentinel.

One of Veldon’s mechanical men was on duty on the floor below.

“Listen,” whispered Cliff.

New footbeats sounded. Another sentinel had joined the first. Cliff shook his head.

“We’d better wait,” he decided. “We don’t know the way out. That’s the trouble. We can’t fight if we’re trapped. Veldon might show up.”

“Agreed,” said Sayre, although his tone was reluctant.

The men did not immediately return to their rooms. They waited, sure that they were safe from observation. Alpha stood stolidly beside them. He was obedient to Rupert Sayre.

BACK in the room which the three had left, a strange phenomenon occurred. A black mass seemed to spread upon the floor, as though projected from some outer sphere. It was a flat shape, yet it seemed imbued with life. The reason for it soon developed.

The skylight lifted in the top of the gloomily lighted room. Outer night pressed inward. The splotch upon the floor moved grotesquely. Then, from the skylight, a long form developed. A figure hung momentarily; it dropped with feline agility. Huddled from the fall, it rose again.

The Shadow, tall and sinister, had arrived within Eric Veldon’s terrible domain! Garbed in black cloak and hat, a fantastic being whose long body cast a quadruple silhouette, the master of darkness stood supreme.

Swiftly and silently, The Shadow reached the open door. His peering eyes looked down the hallway. He saw the three men standing at the stairs. He waited while minutes seemed to move in slow procession.

The rhythmic tramp of feet continued from below. The three men, Cliff Marsland, Rupert Sayre, and the creature called Alpha, still remained on vigil. Two — Cliff and the physician — were hoping for the break they wanted. Alpha remained at Sayre’s command.

The monotony was like the strange quiet that comes before a breaking whirlwind. The Shadow, his eyes burning as they watched, was expecting imminent results. The tension broke, of a sudden, as a new sound came from the floor below. Someone was pounding at an outer door! A muffled cry was heard.

Then came a blow, as something smashed against the barrier. Cliff Marsland uttered a prompt exclamation at the sound of the noise.

“Detectives!” he said to Sayre. “They have found this place!”

Footbeats ended below. Guttural cries came from Eric Veldon’s minions. The instinctively guided automatic men were starting to meet what seemed to be a mass attack.

The Shadow’s long right arm extended from the room. His hand gripped an automatic. The weapon covered Alpha. The action was timely. A bell was ringing from below. In response to the alarm, Alpha’s loyalty had turned.

With a brisk motion, the man whipped out his revolver. He turned the gun toward Cliff Marsland and Rupert Sayre as he backed away from the men whom he had been set to guard. The Shadow’s finger was upon the trigger, but it did not move.

Cliff Marsland had seen Alpha’s action. With a savage leap, he fell upon the man and hurled him to the floor. Alpha’s gun clattered away. Rupert Sayre seized it.

“Cover the stairs!” ordered Cliff. “Look out for trouble from below. I’ll hold this man; we’ll need him later!”

“He was responding to the old impulse,” exclaimed Sayre. “Keep him there. We must not kill him unless he makes trouble. He had turned to aid us.”

Alpha had ceased struggling. Under Cliff Marsland’s powerful attack, he had been rendered helpless.

The Shadow watched while Cliff Marsland dragged the man to the nearest room. Sayre, realizing the wisdom of being out of sight, followed, covering Alpha as they went along.

RESOUNDING blows of battering-ram force were breaking down the door below. The Shadow, moving with swiftness, now that the corridor was cleared, hastened to the stairway and descended. He reached the floor below just at the crucial moment.

A huge outer door came crashing forward. With it, Joe Cardona and his detectives hurtled into view.

With guns in hands, they faced a menace which they had not expected. Hastily, they raised their revolvers to fire.

Lined across the wide lower corridor were Eric Veldon’s minions. Like statues, these one-time criminals had been waiting stolidly for the breaking of the door. Each monstrous creature held a pair of revolvers.

As the detectives came in sight, the instinctive reactions of these killers took effect.

Tried detectives against transformed mobsmen. Brave men of the law against sullen, automatic minions who did not fear to die. Shots burst forth as both sides fired, but with that opening attack came roaring bursts of flame from another quarter.

The Shadow, a brace of automatics in his hands, was aiding the cause of Joe Cardona. Timely aid, for the detectives had plunged headlong into the path of fire. As The Shadow’s automatics barked, Veldon’s minions swung instinctively to meet the fire from the rear. Though gangsters once — rats who would then have feared The Shadow — they did not recognize him now.

But with that fatal motion, the minions of the fiend were doomed. Their fire had been turned; only one of Cardona’s men had been wounded. Detectives blazed from one direction. The Shadow, elevated on the stairs, fired downward from the other.

Shooting deliberately, Eric Veldon’s men began to fall. They did not crumple; they uttered no cries of pain. Instead, they stood staring in their tracks. Rigid, they plunged dead upon the floor.

The Shadow was retiring. Dumfounded detectives, excited by the battle, were riddling the fallen minions with lead. The sight was uncanny; forms that seemed corpselike more than human had dropped like tenpins. Cardona and his men were coming through.

At the head of the stairs, The Shadow merged with the darkness of a side corridor. Footsteps sounded.

Joe Cardona reached the top of the stairs. He saw a man awaiting him at the door of a lighted room. It was Doctor Rupert Sayre, calling the detective onward.

The raiding squad reached the room. Doctor Sayre declared his identity. He pointed to Cliff Marsland, who now had the revolver, and was guarding Alpha, a prisoner.

“This is Marsland,” explained Sayre. “He was brought here as a victim. He and I were planning to escape.”

“And this man?” quizzed Cardona, as he indicated Alpha.

“One of Veldon’s henchmen,” said Sayre. “The only intelligent one. He was aiding us to escape when the attack began. We feared trouble from him, and Marsland overpowered him. He is the one man we need. He is the one who can tell us where to find Eric Veldon.”

Cliff Marsland had released Alpha. The dull-faced man was standing on his feet. Rupert Sayre was attending to the wound of the one detective who had been clipped in the fray.

Facing Alpha, Joe Cardona began his quiz of Veldon’s minion. Alpha, with eyes steady and staring, answered each question that the detective gave him.