The Embassy Murders

CHAPTER XXI THE FINAL REPORT

VIC MARQUETTE was in Fulton Fourrier’s room at the Starlett Hotel. Wisely, the secret-service operative was silent, as he listened to the commendation of his chief.

“I got your call, Marquette,” explained Fourrier, “just before midnight. How you managed to get it through while those crooks held you prisoner is a miracle to me.”

Vic maintained his silence. He realized that The Shadow must have called Fourrier just before coming to Rochelle’s mansion.

“I went with the police,” resumed Fourrier. “We got there and waited — surrounding the block as you had ordered. When those first shots came, we smashed through.

“We smeared those servants of Rochelle’s. We got the gangsters piling out of the house in the back. But if it hadn’t been for you, Vic, and that fellow Vincent you had with you, Rochelle would have made his getaway.”

Fourrier paused to smile in elation.

“We nabbed the Debronne woman coming in,” said the chief. “We’re adding her confession to your report. With Vincent and that newspaperman, Burke, to add their details to your story, it will be the greatest thing in the annals of the secret service.

“The papers on Rochelle’s desk. Not only his plot to kill nine South Americans, but that stolen correspondence from the embassy. You’ve proved to be an ace, Marquette!”

The chief paused to study a stack of report papers that Vic Marquette had given him. Vic had couched these in simple, unromantic style. Yet they showed the marks of a keen imagination.

For Vic Marquette had sensed The Shadow’s wish. Wisely, Marquette had omitted all mention of the mysterious avenger whose lone hand had dealt every stroke of doom.

“No details of the fight,” observed Fourrier. “Well, those aren’t needed. The fact that you and the other prisoners got loose and polished off the gang is sufficient. Results are what we want in our report sheets.”

Fourrier placed the report aside. He arose and clapped his hand to Marquette’s shoulder.

“Your work is done, old man,” he said. “I’m putting an international operative on the final job. A report came in on Alvarez Menzone today. The man was a clever swindler, last seen in 1931, at Caracas, Venezuela.

“He’s probably headed out of the country. Maybe we’ll get him — maybe we won’t. It doesn’t matter. He’ll never trouble us again.”

Vic Marquette smiled. He knew that Fourrier had unwittingly declared the truth. No one would ever get Alvarez Menzone, for Alvarez Menzone did not exist!

BLACKNESS moved on the balcony outside of Fourrier’s windows. The barriers closed tight. A weird shape, crawling spiderlike, made its way to the floor below.

Ten minutes later, Henry Arnaud, bags packed, appeared in the lobby of the Hotel Starlett. This inconspicuous guest was leaving Washington. He paid his bill; his grips were carried to a cab.

As the taxi rolled along Pennsylvania Avenue on its way to the Union Station, a thin smile appeared upon the lips of Henry Arnaud. Eyes that flashed, were surveying the glittering boulevard. A soft laugh echoed from the lips beneath the bold, aquiline nose.

Washington seemed peaceful tonight. The lurking menace of insidious crime was ended. A monster of evil and all his insidious crew had been banished forever from the national capital.

The glow from the lighted capitol building revealed Arnaud’s hawklike features as the cab swung toward the station. The lips were smiling still.

From them, again came that whispered laugh — an echo of the same weird tone that had reverberated in strident triumph at the death of a Darvin Rochelle.

The laugh of The Shadow! It was the token of the master who had played three parts in a grim, unrelenting game.

Deaths had been avenged. Lives had been saved. Justice ruled, with the threat of a continent in chaos safely ended.

These were the reasons for the triumph laugh of The Shadow!