The Death Giver

CHAPTER XXII. THE PUBLIC LEARNS

AT noon, the next day, Detective Joe Cardona entered the office of Commissioner Ralph Weston. The commissioner arose to greet the ace detective. He clasped Cardona’s hand in a warm shake. When the detective had seated himself across from the commissioner, he placed an envelope upon the table.

Weston opened the envelope and read the paper that he found within. It was Cardona’s resignation.

Without a word, the commissioner tore up the document and threw the pieces in the wastebasket. He thumped a stack of newspapers that lay upon the desk.

“These are what I wanted!” exclaimed the commissioner. “Forget the resignation. These will do instead. Now give me the details.”

“They’re in the newspapers,” grinned Cardona.

“I want your story,” asserted Weston.

Briefly, the detective recounted what had happened. He admitted that he had received a tip-off. He had learned of The Death Giver’s high abode. He and his men had found the secret elevator; they had gone to the top; had surprised Thade; and had then been trapped.

Somehow, good fortune had aided them. The heavy canopy had lifted, and they had discovered the dead bodies of the Nubians. Evidently Thade had decided to kill his servants, and one of them, while dying, had pressed the switch to raise the canopy, in order that the detectives could avenge the death.

Searching through Thade’s abode, the detectives had learned the identity of the monster. He was Lucius Olney, an old inventor, disappeared a year before.

In the apartment on the floor above Thade’s lair, Cardona had discovered records which Thade had kept. These included diaries which recounted many details of The Death Giver’s evil deeds.

At first, the detectives had supposed that Thade had managed to escape. The elevator was on the floor above. Experiment with the switches on Thade’s chair enabled them to lower it. When they found that Thade was not hiding on the floor above, they made a search of the elevator shaft.

There, at the bottom, they had found the body of Lucius Olney, the man who called himself Thade, The Death Giver. The green-robed frame was a crushed and twisted thing. In life, The Death Giver had seemed inhuman; in death, he had become a shapeless mass that resembled no existing creature.

To-day, two bodies had been found in other places. Harlan Treffin had been discovered dead, in a closet on the ground floor of his home. Paul Roderick had been found shot to death in a downtown office building.

Thade’s records showed that these men were his underlings. Their deaths were largely a matter of conjecture. It was possible that Thade himself had left his strange abode to slay them. One thing was certain: death had ended the monstrous career of the fiendish Death Giver. Mysterious crimes had been solved.

COMMISSIONER WESTON was loud in his praise. He thumped the newspapers time and again as Cardona gave his statements. It was a triumph for the detective; but when Cardona left the commissioner’s office, he breathed a long sigh of relief.

For the ace detective had hedged and dodged a dozen questions that Weston had put to him — all in an effort to avoid mentioning one point that would have set the commissioner ablaze with wrath.

Well did Cardona know the source of the mysterious tip-off. It had come from The Shadow. His plans when he had led his squad to Thade’s abode had been inspired from a higher source. They were the result of orders from The Shadow. A sinister voice over the telephone had told Detective Cardona what to do.

The ace detective knew how the Nubians had perished and how Thade had gone to his doom. The Shadow was responsive for the end of the monster and his turbaned minions.

As for Treffin and Roderick, Cardona was sure that The Shadow could have explained their deaths; for the finding of those bodies had followed another mysterious telephone call that Cardona had received this very morning.

Moreover, Cardona had a hunch. When the detectives had emerged from the shrouding canopy, one of them had brought the elevator down by pressing a button. Another button had lowered the portal to the anteroom. The same detective had pressed other switches; and had finally raised the outer portal.

Entering the anteroom, Cardona had been surprised to find the door of the elevator shaft closed! While standing there, in wonderment, the ace had felt a swish of air. Opening the door, he had found the elevator back again.

Cardona had figured out the answer. The Shadow must have been in the anteroom. When the portal had dropped, he had gone into the lift in anticipation of more switch-pushing. He had gone to the bottom of the shaft in the car; and his hand had sent the elevator back on its upward journey.

In the triumph that now was his, Cardona felt the pangs of a guilty conscience. He, presumably, had solved the riddle of The Death Giver. He and his men had managed to end the murderous career of the monster, Thade.

Actually, all had been managed by The Shadow. The invading detectives had not helped him one iota; on the contrary, they had made his task more difficult. Joe Cardona, honest and fair-minded, longed to shout forth his tribute to The Shadow himself.

But who would believe the story? No one. It would open Cardona to ridicule instead of glory. It would be unfair to The Shadow, himself.

For Joe Cardona knew the power of The Shadow. He knew that the mysterious being in black chose to keep his methods hidden and unknown that he might safely wage his unending war on crime.

To The Shadow, triumph lay in achievement. He, by his might, had conquered Thade, The Death Giver.

The taste of such victory was the reward The Shadow had sought.

The public had learned of Thade, The Death Giver. They had heard the explanation of his evil deeds. But the true story of The Death Giver’s doom was inscribed only in the archives of The Shadow.