The Embassy Murders

CHAPTER XIX THE STROKE OF DEATH

THE SHADOW’S body did not move. Beneath the descending knife of Thurk it remained a perfect goal for the blade. But The Shadow, his eyes still steady, performed a motion that was swifter than that of Thurk.

Although his back was toward the monster, The Shadow was ready. His right hand swung beneath his left arm. The right forefinger pressed the trigger of the automatic that it controlled. A burst of flame spat outward and upward, accompanied by the bark of the .45.

Thurk’s forward lunge ended as a wild scream came from the dwarf’s hideous lips. His ribs shattered, Thurk toppled backward in agony. His rebounding body thumped against the back-tilted top of the globe.

As the dwarf writhed, his weight upset the pedestal. Rolling from the opened, overturned globe, Thurk sprawled dead upon the rug beside the chair in which Croydon Herkimer had been slain.

The Shadow had met Rochelle’s counterthrust. He had trumped the master plotter’s buried ace. The laugh that came amid the echoes of the gunshot brought a dawn of understanding to Rochelle’s hate-racked brain.

The Shadow had spotted the huge globe as a death trap. His visits here, in the guise of Alvarez Menzone, had been accompanied by keen observation. Had The Shadow stood on the near side of the globe, close to the chair where Rochelle guided visitors, he would not have seen the rise of Thurk.

But the Shadow had chosen the far side of the globe. His gaze, toward Rochelle, had gone beyond: to the mahogany-framed mirror on the opposite side of the room. In that glass, The Shadow had eyed the huge globe. He had chosen the very angle of vision that he needed to keep Thurk’s hiding place in view.

Aiming with the mirror as his guide, The Shadow’s shot had been no more than a simple test of his skillful marksmanship. His steady hand, diving beneath the upraised arm, had ended the evil life of Rochelle’s murderous monster.

Yet even as The Shadow laughed, Darvin Rochelle performed an action of his own. The insidious plotter was demonish in his persistent attempts to thwart the black-garbed avenger.

The Shadow had turned one gun to finish Thurk. He had raised the other to keep the crooks at bay. Rochelle, momentarily uncovered, performed the one action which lay within his power.

LEANING forward with left hand on the table, Rochelle delivered a vicious, downward swing with his heavy cane. Had he aimed the stroke for The Shadow’s body, the black-garbed fighter could have whirled away from it. But Rochelle, as he screamed an order to his minions, had chosen a more suitable objective.

His cane smashed against the automatic that bulged from The Shadow’s left hand. It drove the weapon downward.

The effect of the blow was twofold. Not only did it clear the menace of that automatic, the downward drop of The Shadow’s left arm clamped his second gun — the one with which he had slain Thurk.

Rochelle’s quick action brought the momentary interval needed to swing his henchmen into action. As they heard their chief’s cry and saw his deed, five men acted with single accord.

Whistler Ingliss and Maurice Twindell reached to their pockets for revolvers. Bugs Ritler and his mobsters shot their hands to hips. Guns flashed in the light.

The Shadow whirled. His swift turn swung him toward Rochelle. The master crook, sliding back with his cane, was about to scramble, crablike to the rear door of the office. Had The Shadow paused to end the fiend’s life, it would have given the armed minions their chance.

Instead, The Shadow, swinging his unlimbered automatics, veered to meet the onrush. Tongues of flame belched from the mighty weapons. Caught within the echo-holding walls of the room, The Shadow’s shots sounded a cannonade.

Bugs Ritler staggered. One of his gangsters loosed a shot. His bullet zimmed past The Shadow’s head, then the mobsmen fell.

Vic Marquette was pouncing on the second mobster, who was aiming toward the weaving form of The Shadow. The bark of an automatic forestalled Vic and the mobster as well. Vic saw the gangster fall before he could grapple with the man.

Harry Vincent and Clyde Burke were alert. Each of The Shadow’s agents had chosen a separate man. Harry leaped for Maurice Twindell; Clyde for Whistler Ingliss.

Twindell, thinking that the others could down The Shadow, wrenched away from Harry. Wheeling, he aimed his revolver point-blank between Harry’s eyes. Harry sprang forward to forestall the shot. His effort was too late. Twindell was pressing finger to trigger.

HIS shot, however, never came. The Shadow had seen Harry’s plight; a turn of his wrist with a trigger squeeze dispatched a leaden messenger to Twindell’s skull.

Whistler Ingliss, fighting with Clyde Burke, delivered a glancing blow to Clyde’s head. The newspaperman slumped to the floor. Whistler, his lips pursed for an imaginary trill, snapped his wrist directly toward The Shadow.

Gleaming eyes — a tongue of forking flame — these showed as The Shadow’s gun barked in response to the cool gambler’s calculating aim. Whistler Ingliss had delayed a split second too long. His lips widened; his hand went to his breast. Tottering, Whistler Ingliss wavered, then sprawled face foremost on the floor.

Vic Marquette had grabbed two revolvers from the floor. Plunging across the room, he caught Harry Vincent by the arm. Vic had seen the havoc of The Shadow’s fire. He knew that the minions within this room were doomed.

“Come!” Vic was shouting the order as he dragged Harry along. “This way! That’s where he’s gone — the big shot. Out through the way they brought us in!”

As The Shadow, now near the door to the anteroom, delivered his last deciding bullet, Vic Marquette and Harry Vincent gained the door at the back of the room. Harry was clutching a gun that Vic had given him. Together, these delivered prisoners were in pursuit of Darvin Rochelle.

The final echoes of The Shadow’s gunfire were broken by a new and strident sound. It was a peal of taunting laughter, a burst of freed, triumphant mirth.

The Shadow had delivered doom to minions of crime. He, too, was ready to take up the search for Darvin Rochelle, the insidious master plotter who alone had fled!