DEATH'S MASQUERADE
                                by Maxwell Grant


      As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 15, 1943.

     Music and gaiety offered cover for a strange stroke of death to challenge
The Shadow!

     Hidden crime was at work in the model city of Industria. And to The
Shadow, master over all crime, the idea of stalking crime in ghostly style was
excellent. His own hand hidden, his very presence a mystery, The Shadow was
qualified to be a ghost of the future. As such, he could crack crime's riddle
and the hoodoo that went with it. The Shadow knew!


     CHAPTER I

     DEATH TO COME

     THE man at the darkened window was anything but nervous. At most, he was
impatient, and to some degree annoyed by the luxury of his surroundings. For
Creep Hubin, specialist in murder, wasn't used to hiding out in first-class
hotels like the Progress House.
     It simply chanced that the Progress House was the only hotel in the model
city of Industria, where everything revealed a perfect system of civic
planning. Not only was money plentiful in Industria; the town's income was
properly applied and always had been. Hence the Progress House, community
owned, provided luxury along with economy and thus crowded out all competition.
     Such fine points did not interest a specimen of human riffraff like Creep
Hubin. He was staring from his window like a rat from its hole. He formed a
hunched figure, his ugly face and narrow neck thrust forward from the
shoulders. The lights from the side street below showed sallow features with
leathery lips and beaded eyes, plus a pointed nose that suited Creep's
character as a human rodent.
     Off beyond parks and boulevards, Creep could see the huge buildings that
had brought prosperity to Industria. One was the great foundry, the town's
original industry. Another was the dyeworks, in operation more than a quarter
century. The third, a comparative newcomer, was the chemical plant that had
recently switched from the profitable manufacture of plastics to the more
lucrative production of synthetic rubber.
     Each on a hillside, these three plants formed a golden triangle that had
become Industria's horn of plenty. But that concerned Creep Hubin only because
somebody in the model town was wealthy enough to pay Creep's price, two
thousand dollars, for the prompt and efficient elimination of some other
resident of this ideal community.
     This elimination, otherwise murder, was to occur at a time and place that
would be stipulated upon delivery of the cash. Meanwhile, Creep remained a
guest in the fastidious Progress House, occupying a room to which his unknown
client had assigned him. Needless to say, some proxy had signed the register
under an alias that went for Creep, because a stranger of his thuggish ilk
would have excited too much comment if seen in the luxurious lobby.
     Not having heard further from his client, Creep was naturally impatient.
It was evening, about half past eight, a time when Creep had hoped to be
started on his mission.
     Just around the corner of the hotel was the parking lot containing the
"borrowed" automobile which Creep had brought to Industria. If the job didn't
go through tonight, that stolen car might be traced too soon to suit Creep's
future plans, a thing which bothered the assassin more than a mere matter of
murder yet to be committed.
     There was more that should have worried Creep Hubin, had he been
acquainted with recent events in Industria, which he wasn't.
     In a pretentious office building several blocks from the hotel, the
directors of Gault Consolidated were holding an important meeting. Now the
name, "Gault Consolidated," meant nothing to Creep, but it counted much in
Industria. For Gault Consolidated was the holding company that controlled the
three industries on which the model city thrived.
     The nominal head of the holding company was old Ellery Gault, nephew of
the man who had founded Industria back in the '80s. Ill health had caused Gault
to retire a few years ago, and he seldom left the family mansion, which
dominated another hillside. Thus the directors were running Gault Consolidated
through an official known as "Vice President in Charge of Co-ordination," and
this evening they were choosing a new man for that office.
     The last vice president had died very suddenly. So had the vice president
before him, and the one before that. Not only suddenly, but swiftly, which
meant that the office of vice president was a jinx job. It paid well, that
office, but who wanted a job that led to heart failure, an airplane crash, or a
fatal automobile accident?
     One man wanted it. His name was Ferris Dane, and he was likely to get the
job. Dane was the only supervisor who had served in all three factories, and
was therefore qualified to handle their various interrelations. And Dane was a
man who laughed at any mention of the word hoodoo.
     Perhaps that accounted for Creep Hubin being in Industria. If design lay
behind the deaths of three successive vice presidents, a stronger dose might be
needed in the case of Ferris Dane. By the same token, if Dane didn't happen to
be chosen for the jinx job, Creep's services might not be necessary. Which
meant that Creep's two thousand dollars was hanging from a tantalizing line
that might be yanked away before he could grab the prize.


     KNOWING nothing of the possible situation, Creep stayed at his window and
glared at what he saw of Industria. His beady eyes went narrow, like his face,
when he saw a sleek, expensive roadster pull to a stop near the parking lot.
     Creep was afraid that it was going to park across the little-used exit by
which he intended to leave the lot. But the driver noted the obscure exit and
pulled past it.
     Watching, Creep saw a tall, well-dressed man alight from the car and
glance up at the hotel. It was odd how Creep shrank instinctively into the
deeper darkness of the room. Nobody could possibly have spotted a figure at a
blackened window four stories above, yet Creep felt that eyes were searching
for him.
     Unused to such sensations, Creep gave a snarl, which turned to an oath
when he stumbled across a chair in the middle of the dark room. He was rubbing
his shin and muttering half aloud, when a knock at the door interrupted.
     Reaching the door, Creep opened it a crack. A bellboy was holding a small
package, announcing that it was the order from the drugstore. It bore Creep's
room number, 415, so the rat-faced thug dug into his pocket and tipped the
bellboy a quarter in return for the package.
     Locking the door, Creep started for the window; then, changing his mind,
he sidled to a deep corner of the room and turned on a table lamp beside the
telephone.
     Among other items, the package contained a box holding a tube of tooth
paste, a luxury which Creep never used. Intrigued by such an oddity, Creep
opened the cardboard box. Instead of a tooth-paste tube, a roll of bills slid
into his hand. Gleefully, Creep counted the money and found that it came to
just two thousand dollars.
     No instructions were included, because they weren't needed. Timed to
Creep's puzzlement came a jangle of the telephone bell. Answering the call,
which he would earlier have ignored, Creep heard a voice he recognized. It
spoke coldly, steadily, giving explicit instructions; but Creep was forced to
call for a halt.
     "Wait a minute," he undertoned. "I gotta draw a pitcher. I don't want to
miss nothing important."
     "You may use a diagram," affirmed the voice, "but be sure to destroy it
later. I would suggest -"
     Creep grinned as he heard the suggestion, for he'd begun to have the same
idea. He was still grinning when he completed the diagram and tore it from the
telephone pad. By then, the voice had finished too.
     Creep dropped his own receiver in response to a click from the other end.
Running his hand along his belt, he stopped and shifted it to his hip pocket.
From a chair, he slid a dark sweater over his shoulders, dropped his diagram in
a cap and planted the latter on his head.
     Opening the door, Creep looked warily along the corridor, then sneaked for
the fire exit that led down to the parking lot.
     In the lobby, the tall man from the roadster was checking into the
Progress House. As he wrote his name, Lamont Cranston, on the hotel register,
his eyes ran down the list of guests. Strange eyes, those, keen, boring in
their gaze, though the hotel clerk did not notice it, since Cranston's glance
was lowered. What did impress the clerk was the expression upon the man's
features.
     Calm, immobile, the new guest's face was masklike. As Cranston turned
away, the clerk noted his hawkish profile and decided that it was the mark of a
distinguished visitor. There was something cryptic in Cranston's manner, as
though, in mere moments, he had learned something of importance that he was
keeping to himself.
     Since Cranston had noted nothing except the hotel register, the clerk
studied the names he saw there. All but Cranston's had been inscribed before
this clerk came on duty; still, nothing seemed amiss in any of them. What the
clerk should have observed were the room numbers alongside the names.
     One of those numbers, 415, showed figures slightly smaller than the rest.
Someone other than the preceding clerk had written in that number, while
putting a false name on the register. Whoever was hiring Creep Hubin for murder
hadn't wanted the sneaky assassin to be disturbed during his sojourn at the
Progress House.
     How promptly Cranston could put a clue to use was demonstrated when he
reached his own room, on the sixth floor. The departing bellboy was still
closing the door when Cranston plucked a brief case from amid his luggage,
inverted it, and opened a compartment beneath.
     Wedged between the sections of the brief case, this hidden compartment
disgorged a black cloak and a slouch hat. From the rolled cloak came a brace of
.45 automatics, which Cranston placed in holsters beneath his coat. Then, with a
single sweep, the tall hotel guest blotted himself from sight.
     It was an amazing process, though simply accomplished. All Cranston did
was put on the cloak as he stepped toward a corner of the room. His stride
carrying him away from the light, the cloak did the rest. Merged with the
corner's gloom, Cranston became a voice, nothing more.
     Singularly, the voice was Cranston's own. Usually, when cloaked in black,
he spoke in sinister accents befitting the personality of The Shadow, which he
now represented. The reason for the Cranston tone was explained by the ensuing
conversation. The Shadow was using the telephone to inform the hotel operator
that any calls for Mr. Cranston should be switched to Room 415.


     A FEW minutes later, darkness stirred within the room that Creep Hubin had
so recently deserted. Next, a tiny flashlight licked the gilded furniture,
finally concentrating its narrow beam upon the telephone desk. Expecting a
call, The Shadow was naturally interested in that corner, but he was further
intrigued by sight of the pad that lay beside the telephone.
     Such pads could carry clues, even though their surface was blank. This pad
was no exception. Under the beam that focused to silver-dollar size, The
Shadow's long, deft fingers produced a tiny bottle of fine black powder,
sprinkled some grains upon the paper and gave a spreading rub. Under such
treatment, Creep's crude diagram appeared, its lines tracing black amid the
gray, like a carbon-paper replica.
     The Shadow's hidden lips phrased a low-toned laugh, a whisper that
befitted his mysterious personality. Facing toward the window, his keen eyes
picked out a portion of the distant landscape that Creep Hubin had earlier
ignored.
     All three of Industria's factories were visible, for they were running
night shifts and hence were well illuminated. The one which The Shadow chose
was most conspicuous of all, for, as he gazed, a puff of light rose from amid
its buildings, revealing the whole plant with its glare. Those buildings
belonged to the old foundry, the keystone of the Gault fortunes.
     The glare came from a blast furnace, and at this distance it chopped the
buildings of the foundry to the proportions of Creep's diagram. Though the
drawing was rough, there was no mistaking the buildings that it represented.
     As if in response to The Shadow's low-throbbed mirth, there was a ring
from the telephone bell. Answering it promptly, The Shadow again used
Cranston's tone, until he recognized the voice that he expected.
     "This is Burke," informed the caller. "They finished the director's
meeting. Ferris Dane gets the vice president's job, but they've got to notify
old Ellery Gault in order to make it official."
     "Continue."
     This time the tone was The Shadow's own, and it spurred Burke to the
delivery of further details.
     "They're phoning Gault's house," informed Burke, "but it's hard to get
hold of him. The servants say he's busy and won't be disturbed. They're going
to call again and talk to his niece, Diana. She's the one person who can
interrupt him when he's cutting paper dolls, or whatever else he thinks is
important."
     "And then -"
     "That's about all," declared Burke, "except that when the directors
receive Gault's approval, they're going to inform Dane that he's elected. Their
messenger is a chap named Traymer, and he's going over to the foundry where Dane
is supervising the new night shift that goes on at nine o'clock."
     "Report received."
     The Shadow's final words carried a tone that startled Burke, for he had
never heard his mysterious chief end a call so abruptly. It was as if Burke's
last statement had simply corroborated something which The Shadow already knew.
     Such was the actual case.
     Thrusting Creep's duplicate diagram beneath his cloak, The Shadow was
gliding from the room that the murderous crook had left earlier. More than
that, the red light of the fire tower was guiding The Shadow along Creep's
short route to the parking lot below.
     The Shadow, master of vengeance, was on the trail of death to come. His
hand was to play its part in shaping crime's pattern into a mold of justice!


     CHAPTER II

     MOLTEN DOOM

     LIKE a beckoning beacon, another vivid flare lifted amid the foundry
buildings, then dwindled, leaving blackness. A minute passed; again the glare
was repeated. Ominous things, those flaming bursts from the blast furnace.
     They were tolling off the minutes that marked a race between life and
death, wherein The Shadow, master of night, was hard on the trail of Creep
Hubin, the sneaky assassin whose purpose was to murder an unsuspecting victim
named Ferris Dane!
     How Creep intended to enter the foundry grounds was plain from his
diagram. Once inside, the route that he would take was also marked. It was The
Shadow's task to clip the start that Creep had gained, then choose a short cut
to the spot marked for murder, something that he knew would be quite possible
from his brief study of the diagram.
     Naturally both Creep and The Shadow were avoiding the main entrance to the
foundry, where big gates were guarded by armed watchmen. Those gates, however,
were open to anyone who had normal business in the place; hence a third factor
injected itself into the race. He was a human factor named George Traymer, who
arrived in his own car just as another puff from the blast furnace lighted up
the scene.
     Recognizing Traymer, the guards passed him through. Everybody knew Traymer
by sight, because he served as secretary to the directors of Gault Consolidated
and acted as go-between in matters involving the various plants. But Traymer
wasn't familiar with the operation of the individual industries, hence he
wasn't qualified for the vice presidency that had just been given to Dane.
     Nor was Traymer the executive type needed for such an office. He was a
studious-looking man, who peered through tortoise-shell glasses and spoke in a
weak, unoffending voice. The factory hands dubbed him Lady Traymer, and the
nickname was rather appropriate.
     When Traymer inquired for Dane, the guards gestured toward the
supervisor's office. Whereupon Traymer drove ahead very carefully, giving wide
berths to building corners, slowing his car to avoid ruts that big trucks had
dug, even proceeding cautiously through puddles that might splash water up
through the radiator.
     Indeed, the car looked ladylike, the way Traymer handled it. Commenting on
the fact, the guards were too busy watching Traymer's driving technique to
notice the hunched figure that slipped past another building corner. Nor did
they look toward the high wall where a black-cloaked shape was dropping in from
outside.
     They might have spotted Creep Hubin, but they couldn't have sighted The
Shadow. He timed his drop between two of the furnace flares that marked the
minutes in his race against time - and death!
     Alighting near the supervisor's office, Traymer skirted some rubbish to
avoid damaging the patent-leather shoes. Finding two brawny foremen in the
office, Traymer inquired for Dane. A foreman glanced at the office clock, then
gave a nudge.
     "Gone up on deck," the foreman said. "Gone up to size the pour. You'll
find him there, unless you want to wait until he gets back in about ten
minutes. You know where the deck is, though -"
     Traymer knew, all right. The "deck" was a small platform reached by a
fifteen-foot ladder, a dizzy climb in Traymer's estimate. But the climb was
itself a trifle compared with the terrors of the platform. The deck was
situated just above a channel through which molten steel flowed when released.
That such a flood was due, went without saying, otherwise Dane wouldn't have
gone to size the pour.
     The mere thought of molten steel made Traymer shudder, and that in turn
pleased the foremen. But they didn't reckon with Traymer's obedience to duty.
Having heard from Ellery Gault right after Burke's call to The Shadow, the
directors had instructed Traymer to contact Dane without delay. Hence this was
a case where duty counteracted Traymer's natural timidity.
     To the surprise of the horny-handed foremen, George Traymer turned on his
heel and strode boldly toward the terrifying platform that was perched on the
far corner of a big foundry building.


     ALREADY on the platform, Ferris Dane was finding none of the horrors that
Traymer pictured. To Dane, this trip to a perch that measured six feet square
was a matter of routine. A flare of light revealed him leaning from the
platform, holding to its narrow end rail. He was looking along the deep canal
toward a buffer, much like a dam, which retained a lake of steel, ready for the
nine o'clock pour.
     The brief glare showed Dane's face was solid and square-set, like his
build. Ruddy light rendered his tawny complexion florid, otherwise the glow
showed Dane's features in their proper detail. He was a handsome man in a
careless, rugged way.
     His eyes, though deep-set, had a flash that offset their hollows. His lips
were thickish, like his nose, but not overly so, considering his heavy jaw.
Dane's hair was a tangled shock, but it was the light-brown sort that couldn't
be kept sleek.
     In brief, Dane portrayed a natural toughness that accounted for his
popularity among the workmen, except in those rare cases where he settled an
argument with his fists and won out the hard way. Such incidents, however, had
only served to increase his prestige with the majority.
     As Dane gazed, the buffer lifted. Down through the channel poured a flood
of living steel, like lava disgorged from an erupting volcano. Near the bottom
of the ladder, Traymer heard the roar of the unleashed deluge and hesitated.
He'd hoped to reach Dane before the floodgate opened.
     Again a flare of vivid light. This burst showed Dane still leaning from
beside the rail, coolly surveying the white-hot stream that gushed past below
him. It was a good pour, this, and Dane was sizing it by marks along the
channel edge, caring nothing for the hellish heat that seared upward from the
flow.
     This flare showed another figure than Dane's, that of a man who was doing
something far more daring than leaning from a platform above the molten flood.
     Along the building wall which formed one side of the channel was a narrow
ledge, on the platform level. That narrow path was no more than two feet wide,
and it literally hovered above the deadly stream. Yet a man was using that
dangerous walk.
     The man was Creep Hubin.
     Creep's nickname fitted. He was creeping along the ledge, the last lap of
the route on his diagram. He was accomplishing his crawl in sidewise fashion,
so his weight wouldn't shift from the wall. There were moments when he paused,
but even then he was disdainful of danger. That was proven when his hand gave a
careless fling that sent a wad of paper into the molten flow below.
     The wad was the diagram that Creep no longer needed. The bubbling steel
swallowed it as a living mouth would.
     Next, Creep was at the very corner of the platform. He clutched the
building edge with one hand, using the other to draw a revolver from his hip. A
blast of light disclosed Creep rising to aim his gun straight at Dane, who
needed only the shock that a bullet could provide, to be pitched into the
foaming steel below!
     The flare revealed still more.
     Diagonally across the gulch of molten metal, a black figure was outlined
against a building wall. Reaching a corner by his short cut, The Shadow was
ready to drop back from sight at the moment of this fateful flare. Only for an
instant did he pause to get a flash view of the scene, and that one glimpse was
enough.
     Seeing Creep take aim at Dane, The Shadow forgot darkness. His gloved hand
whipped an automatic from his cloak with a deft swing of the wrist. Through the
thin cloth, his finger tightened in an immediate trigger squeeze. The .45
stabbed, but its bark was drowned by the tumult of the steel cascade.
     What Dane heard was the whiz of a bullet past his ear, the ping as the
slug bashed the corner of the wall beside the platform. Turning from the rail,
Dane saw Creep, who was more startled than himself.
     The huddling assassin knew that the shot was meant for him. There seemed a
purpose in the fact that it had missed its mark. For Creep was definitely on the
spot, a thing he realized. If he tried to retire along the ledge, he would
become easy prey. If he lunged forward to the platform, an unseen gunner could
rake that square deck as the flare subsided.
     In that case, Creep would become a wounded victim, easily captured when
Dane returned with others. For by rights, Dane should have swung down the
ladder the moment that The Shadow's shot whizzed past. It was a warning, that
bullet, which even a man of stout heart should have accepted at face value.
     Not Ferris Dane.
     Imbued with the same purpose as The Shadow - that of bringing a creeping
assassin into the open and softening him for capture - Dane lunged Creep's way.
Witnessing Dane's drive, The Shadow withheld his fire, but swept forward on his
own just as the last flicker faded from the flame-tonguing blast chimney.


     DANE reached Creep before the killer could aim anew. The pair locked in a
struggle that provided the weirdest of imaginable settings. More, perhaps, than
Dane had bargained for when he ignored the safety of the ladder and launched his
foolhardy attack.
     Two men were beginning a death grapple on a corrugated platform six feet
square. Their figures were vaguely visible, by the lurid gleam of the molten
steel that flowed below them, its white-hot surface raising an unearthly glow,
like the phosphorescence of a rotted tree stump.
     This struggle had its obbligato - the loud hiss of the simmering steel
itself, which had all the threat of a rattlesnake's deathly welcome. Molten
death was begging for its prey, caring little which victim reached its craw,
hoping perhaps that both would tumble into its bubbling oblivion.
     The luminous metal revealed another figure, visible only because he was
closer to the scorching stream. The Shadow was straight across the channel from
the platform, but on a brink that stood a scant two feet above the molten flow.
Looking upward, with his gun following their gyrations, the cloaked avenger was
trying to distinguish between the fighters who twisted in their fray of doom.
     Precariously, they writhed toward the brink; then, as if by mutual
consent, they reeled against the rail and caromed across to the wall. In those
zigzag tactics, they avoided the ladder where Traymer had at last begun his
climb, too worried by the sizzle of the steel to notice or interpret the
clatter from the deck above.
     No halfway measures would suffice with Dane or Creep. They were going to
see it to a finish on the platform, until one had the other utterly at his
mercy. Of the two, Dane, whose cause was justified, was winning an advantage
through his ardor. That much The Shadow discovered when an arm went flinging
wide, to have its wrist clutched by a following hand. There was a twist and
something scaled from tortured fingers.
     The object landed in the molten stream and was gulped as a pool would take
a pebble, or rather a hailstone. For the liquid steel was absorbing a chunk of
the same alloy in solid state: Creep's gun. So instantly did the revolver
vanish, that it seemingly was melted at the moment when it struck.
     Dane having chopped the struggle to equal terms, Creep was quick to
counter. His gun gone, Creep exaggerated the twist that Dane began and wrenched
free from his antagonist. Driving his head against the pit of Dane's stomach,
Creep butted his burly foe against the wall, then made a crablike dart to the
rail at the far edge of the platform.
     They were like two prizefighters about to resume their contest after a
devastating round. Instead of a gong, a flare from the furnace marked the start
of another minute. It showed Dane still slumped, but beginning a slow rise, with
Creep starting a forward dive to reach him. Bad enough for Dane, but to make it
even worse, Creep wasn't coming unarmed.
     From his belt, the assassin had whipped out a long-bladed knife and was
starting an underhand stroke for Dane's ribs, intending to literally pitchfork
his victim into the steel sea that was just beyond the platform's edge.
     One hand alone could block the thrust that would slide Dane into the flood
of molten doom. It belonged to a cloaked marksman on the lower brink, that hand
that never failed.
     The Shadow's big gun spoke.


     CHAPTER III

     GHOST OF THE FUTURE

     IMMEDIATE events upon the fateful platform were witnessed by a man in no
mood to fully understand. The witness was Traymer, coming up the ladder, his
head and shoulders rising above deck level just as The Shadow fired to stop
Creep's drive toward Dane.
     From Traymer's distorted viewpoint, events were like a nightmare. The
lurid flare etched everything in fantastic proportions.
     Straight across the platform, beyond and below the torrent of threatening
steel, stood a ghostly, black-cloaked figure. Traymer saw The Shadow first of
all, viewing him as a blackened silhouette traced against a building wall.
     From that mass of blackness that looked strangely human came a stab of
flame that Traymer somehow knew must be a gunshot. With The Shadow furnishing
the background, the fiery thrust was plainly visible. It wasn't directed
Traymer's way; instead, it was angled slightly to the left. Thus it wasn't
until the stab occurred that Traymer saw its human target.
     Turning his head as he heard a clatter on the platform, Traymer spied
Creep almost within reach. The assassin's long, low drive ended with the
gunshot, for the bullet stopped Creep's charge. Jolted by the wallop of a .45
slug, Creep bounced erect and staggered across Traymer's path of vision,
blocking further sight of The Shadow.
     Traymer couldn't have seen The Shadow again, because at that moment the
flare from the chimney vanished. Even Creep was blotted from sight, except as a
stumbling mass that cut off the luminous glow of the flowing steel. Imbued with
the thought that Dane was the only person on the platform, Traymer naturally
mistook the staggered assassin for the intended victim. Half reclined against
the wall, Dane wasn't in Traymer's sight at all.
     Thinking that the marksman across the steel stream had deliberately shot
Dane, Traymer could only hope that the staggered man would halt his lurch
before he tottered from the far edge of the platform. Creep might have managed
it but for Dane, the man unseen by Traymer. Dane hadn't seen The Shadow's shot;
its sound was lost amid the roar of steel. With the vanishing flare, Dane
glimpsed Creep alone and caught the glint of the raised knife that the
staggering man still gripped.
     Without guessing why the assassin had chosen such half-crazed tactics,
Dane gave a forward slide along the platform, thrusting his foot across Creep's
path. Tripping headlong, the thwarted killer pitched from the brink, sending
back a short-lived screech as he plunged into the foaming steel.
     There wasn't any splash. Knife and all, Creep Hubin was absorbed by the
molten mass so suddenly, that he vanished more completely than The Shadow.
     Still shaken from his impact against the wall, Dane lay panting on the
platform, while Traymer, gaping from the ladder, was still convinced that his
friend, and no one else, had found a molten doom.
     Horror, more than reason, stirred Traymer to the proper course. He did the
thing that The Shadow had expected Dane to do. Dropping from the ladder, Traymer
bounded from rung to rung until he reached the bottom. Shakily, he started
running toward the supervisor's office to summon the foremen.
     They were already in sight. They'd come out to learn if Lady Traymer had
nerve enough to scale the towering height of fifteen feet up to the deck.
Spying them, Traymer shrieked that Dane had plunged into the molten depths.
Remembering the figure across the steel-filled canal, Traymer turned and
pointed just as the blast furnace gave another of its every-minute flares.
     It wasn't only Traymer who saw The Shadow this time. Any chance that the
cloaked shape belonged to Traymer's imagination was dispelled by the view the
foremen gained.
     Following Traymer's wild point, the foremen saw the corner of the opposite
building that The Shadow had used as his original base. The cloaked avenger had
wheeled back to that station, but he still held an automatic in readiness. The
Shadow, too, was awaiting the telltale flare, in order to make certain that
Dane, not Creep, was the survivor on the platform.
     From their angle, the foremen could see past the corner. There wasn't a
chance for The Shadow to dwindle in the sudden light. The gun in his gloved
fist, the very weapon that had saved Dane's life, erroneously marked The Shadow
as a creature of murder.
     The foremen had revolvers. Like the watchmen, they were armed because
rumors of sabotage had started recently. Having guns, the pair were quick to
use them. They opened an earnest, but blind, fire in The Shadow's direction.
The shots were haphazard because the brief flare that disclosed The Shadow
ended itself, quite freakishly, the moment the foremen began to shoot.


     BY then, alarm was rife.
     Succeeding flares showed watchmen and workers arriving from many
directions, some crossing bridges over the canal of turbulent steel, others
swinging into view beyond outlying buildings. All were shouting the word of a
phantom fugitive who had come and gone like a ghost.
     At intervals, pursuers glimpsed The Shadow, but the flares weren't
sufficient to insure the chase. The call went out for searchlights, and they
were switched on, sharp brilliant beams that swept the foundry yard from
several angles. One glare caught The Shadow near the wall; he reversed his
dash; then, as the searchlight wavered, he continued for his original objective.
     The effect was amazing - that of a black ghost shaking moonbeams from its
shoulders. The path of light stayed brilliant, but it revealed only a blank
wall, through which The Shadow had seemingly vanished. Then the searchlight was
on the move again, but its probe showed nothing.
     That was, nothing except a few depleted junk piles, too shallow to hide a
human figure. The searchlight handlers didn't realize that The Shadow could
blend with anything that afforded patchy darkness. Crouched behind an odd
assortment of old iron, the cloaked unknown was half hidden by the discarded
equipment, half in the stretch of gloom that lay beyond it.
     He was part of the shadows, this mysterious being who gained his title
from his ability to merge with fleeting blackness. He was The Shadow in fact as
well as name!
     Searchlights widened hastily to the far reaches of the foundry premises.
Where buildings cut off the beams, small groups of armed men started an
intensive search, only to meet each other coming around corners. The hunt began
to spread like the streaks of light that guided it. In widening, the searchers
left huge gaps between them - innumerable outlets for The Shadow, had he sought
immediate departure.
     Instead, The Shadow continued his unexpected tactics by choosing the place
where all was placid - the storm center from which the surge of pursuers had
whirled. He was no more than a blot of blackness when he crossed a narrow
bridge above the lessening stream of steel. When the chimney flared, its glow
was absorbed by the searchlight beams, focused to distant points.
     There wasn't a trace of The Shadow as he slid beneath the platform ladder
to the sheltering wall of the building where the supervisor's office was
located. Gliding farther along, The Shadow passed the door of the office itself.
     The office wasn't quite deserted as The Shadow expected. It contained one
man, but he was too occupied to observe the cloaked shape that paused
momentarily at the door, then sidled past a corner to choose the black
background of an opened window.
     The man in the office was George Traymer. He was at the telephone, trying
to put through a call to the directors of Gault Consolidated.
     All the foundry wires were busy, flashing the word for a general manhunt.
While Traymer waited for a line, he kept staring at the office window.
Blackness faded oddly as a searchlight beam reflected its distant sweep.
Traymer stared harder at the window and stepped forward with the telephone,
only to halt as his call came through.
     "Hello... hello -" Traymer's voice was strained, high-pitched with
tension. "No, I haven't talked to Dane... Yes, I saw him, but something
happened before I could -"
     A cool voice interrupted. It didn't come from the receiver; it was
speaking in Traymer's ear. It said:
     "I'll take that telephone, Lady."
     The phone actually fell from Traymer's hand, to be caught, receiver and
all, by the man beside him. Reeling around, Traymer flattened against the wall,
his shoulders hiding the very window where curious blackness had alarmed him
when it receded. Traymer was no longer thinking of the window, nor any menace
that it might provide.
     Traymer was staring at something far more fearsome, the ghost of a man who
had died before his very eyes!
     It was Ferris Dane who held the telephone. Speaking in the same cool tone,
Dane announced himself, learned what the directors had to offer him and gave an
immediate decision.
     "Certainly I shall accept," spoke Dane. "I have wanted that office for a
long while. As vice president of Gault Consolidated, I can double the
efficiency of all our industries. Accept my thanks - or shall I put it the
other way about?"


     SUCH speech was so characteristic of Dane, that Traymer's nerves began to
settle. This was Dane, in the flesh, for no ghost would converse in such
mundane tones. As Dane laid the telephone aside and turned toward Traymer, a
feeble smile flickered on the studious secretary's lips.
     "You do look as if you'd seen a ghost!" laughed Dane. Then, his deep eyes
fixing steadily, he added: "Is that what you thought I was, just now?"
     Traymer gave a weak nod, then licked his dry lips.
     "I thought I saw you pitch from the deck," he began. "I was on the ladder
when it happened. You see -"
     "It's what you saw that matters," interposed Dane. "There was another man
on the platform. He came along the ledge, intending to murder me. Instead, he
went where he meant for me to go."
     "But there was someone else!" exclaimed Traymer. "A man across the
channel. I thought he fired that shot at you."
     "You mean the shot that missed?"
     "It couldn't miss. It hit this assassin that you mention!"
     A prompt gleam appeared in Dane's deep eyes.
     "So that's what jolted the killer!" acknowledged Dane. "I wondered why he
took that sudden stumble. It seems that I owe my life to an unknown friend.
What did he look like, Traymer?"
     "Like" - Traymer hesitated on the word "ghost" and offered a compromise -
"like a shadow. He faded away when they started after him. He's gone, that's
all."
     Dane glanced from the door and tilted his head, realizing for the first
time what the chase was all about. Satisfied that the unknown avenger had
eluded all pursuit, Dane delivered a grim smile as he declared:
     "So much the better."
     Traymer didn't quite understand. He was stepping toward the door, saying
that he'd call the foremen and give them the full facts, when Dane caught his
arm in a powerful grip.
     "Stay right here, Lady," prompted Dane. "Not a word of this to anyone.
Understand?"
     Traymer's eyes were thoroughly bewildered.
     "Somebody sent that killer to get me," explained Dane. "On account of that
jinx job. Whoever is behind it can wonder what went wrong. That may help us find
out who is behind it."
     "But this other chap who tried to help you -"
     "He's taken care of himself," decided Dane, referring to The Shadow. "He
makes it all the better. It will look as though a killer failed and fled."
     "But the man behind the game, what will he think when he doesn't hear from
the assassin again?"
     "When a murderer misses," philosophized Dane, "he usually avoids the man
who hired him. Let me handle this my way, Lady. It will be best for both of us."
     "For both of us?"
     Dane smiled at Traymer's echoed words.
     "Suppose I'd gone into that mess of steel," observed Dane. "Wouldn't
people have supposed that someone tripped me from the ladder?"
     Traymer had spoken of ghosts. He began to look like one, the way he paled.
He'd been on that ladder, and by Dane's logic would have been the likely man to
take the blame for murder. Mechanically, Traymer gave the nod that meant he
would follow Dane's lead from now on.
     "Let's go," spoke Dane abruptly, nudging Traymer through the door. "The
directors are holding the meeting until we arrive. There's somebody in that
crowd who really thought I'd be a ghost by this time. So I'll be one - a ghost
of the future!"
     Dane was still chuckling grimly as he walked with Traymer to the latter's
car. Though Dane didn't know it, his mirth was answered by a subdued laugh from
the darkness outside the office window. Living blackness edged from the wall and
followed the darkened path that Dane and Traymer were taking.
     Dane's theory was right. It fitted The Shadow's belief that hidden crime
was at work in the model city of Industria. The idea of stalking crime in
ghostly style was excellent, but Dane, the target for such crime, was not the
person for the task.
     His own hand hidden, his very presence still a mystery, The Shadow was
qualified to be the ghost of the future. As such, he could crack crime's riddle
and the hoodoo that went with it.
     The Shadow knew!


     CHAPTER IV

     THREE MEN OF REASON

     THE directors of Gault Consolidated accorded Dane a warm ovation when he
arrived with Traymer. They were a fossilized lot, these directors, old
gentlemen appointed by the original Gault to keep his fortune intact. None of
the lot looked capable of planning murder, nor could they logically have a
motive.
     The same applied to various stockholders who were present at the meeting,
including one who arrived very late. The newcomer was Lamont Cranston, no
longer The Shadow. Having recently acquired a few loose shares of Gault
Consolidated, Cranston had a business reason for coming to Industria other than
the crime hunting activity of The Shadow.
     However, the directors' meeting was not entirely a collection of stuffed
shirts. There were three men present who were quite the contrary, active men of
means and ability who had every right to attend this gathering. They were the
men who kept the holding company alive, the heads of the three industries that
stood on the surrounding hills.
     Three men of reason, who dealt in hard, cold facts. In meeting them,
Cranston studied each individual closely.
     Warren Helm was president of the foundry. He looked a man of steel, with
his firm jaw and glinting eye. Even his grizzled hair fitted his occupational
appearance. But Helm's manner was quite at variance with his looks. When he
shook hands, he restrained his heavy grip; his face relaxed in a beaming smile,
while his steely eyes showed a definite twinkle.
     Next in line was Laird Woburn, president of the dyeworks. Woburn was older
than Helm, having headed his particular industry from the time it started.
Woburn was round-faced, genial, almost careless of manner, but he gave the
impression that all those features were an outward pose. In a final analysis,
Woburn, despite his flabby way, might prove of tougher stuff than Helm.
     Last of the trio was Roy Rexford.
     A youthful type, Rexford, handsome of face, with sleek black hair. But
there was much of the poker face in his well-sculptured features, plus a gaze
that could take in all about him. There was this peculiarity about Rexford: his
eyes looked shifty until someone tried to test them. Then, in a flash, Rexford
would give his challenger a straight, steady gaze that shattered all false
impressions. Rexford was a man who could meet issues squarely, if he so chose.
     Though he rated as head of the chemical plant, Rexford lacked the official
title of president. He held the office of general manager while the business was
being converted to a new field. The old officials had gone when the chemical
works ceased the manufacture of plastics and turned to synthetic rubber, which
came within Rexford's special scope.
     Rexford's future depended upon the success of the new venture. It was a
foregone conclusion that the business would build, since the law of supply and
demand was highly in its favor. But it was up to Rexford to meet the
stipulations of his contract before he could officially become the president of
the chemical works.
     That Rexford was running far ahead of schedule was evident by his
self-important attitude. When speaking of the future that belonged to synthetic
rubber, he blandly condescended to listen to Helm and Woburn when they mentioned
steel or dyes.
     They represented the past, extended to the present. Rexford was the man of
the hour that marked a growing future. Perhaps he realized that he might some
day be like one of them - the veteran head of an established industry
confronted by a young go-getter who was years ahead. But Rexford was too
self-spoken, too ambitious, to let anyone overlook his status as the mainspring
of progress.
     That was Industria's watchword: progress.
     Within a few days, the city would hold its annual Pageant of Progress, the
one event important enough to produce a full-time holiday. There was only one
man who might outshine Rexford on that occasion: Ferris Dane.
     It was significant how Dane fitted into the scheme of things.
Superficially it seemed that he, more than anyone else, had profited by the
successive deaths of the lamented vice presidents of Gault Consolidated.
     An interesting situation, from The Shadow's viewpoint. His purpose was to
learn which man of three - Helm, Woburn or Rexford - might be the brain behind
a scheme of wholesale death. Yet, in this meeting room, circumstance actually
pointed to Dane, the man who would have become the latest victim but for The
Shadow's timely intervention!
     Creep's attack couldn't have been fakery on Dane's part. Dane hadn't been
equipped to meet it. The set-up involving Traymer pointed definitely to an evil
hand more eager to dispose of Dane than any of the previous co-ordinators.
     The question still was: whose hand?


     REFLECTIONS on that subject were broken when the directors and their
associates arose to greet an important and unexpected visitor. Into the meeting
room stepped Ellery Gault himself, arriving after a surprise trip from his
mansion on the hill.
     A remarkable personality, Ellery Gault.
     Though leaning on a heavy cane, Gault entered the room imposingly. His
face was sharp and keen, belying the age that his snow-white mustache and
flowing hair betrayed. His eyes sparkled eagerly as he spied people he knew,
and he gave each friend a vigorous nod.
     Striding to the directors' table, Gault found the chairman's seat awaiting
him. Taking it, he addressed the group in a loud, booming voice:
     "And now, gentlemen, your choice?"
     "We already informed you, Mr. Gault," put in Helm. "We have elected Ferris
Dane as vice president of Gault Consolidated."
     "A capable man, Dane," added Woburn. "He has served as a supervisor with
each of our manufacturing plants."
     Only Rexford remained silent. He could have felt that Helm and Woburn had
said enough. Contrarily, his silence could mean that he did not join in
endorsing Dane.
     Old Gault stroked his chin.
     "Ferris Dane," he remarked musingly. Then, glancing along the table, he
saw the man in question. "Ah, yes, you are Ferris Dane. Allow me to
congratulate you."
     Dane advanced to receive Gault's handshake. During that formality,
Cranston glanced toward a corner of the room and gave a slight restraining
gesture. As The Shadow, he was instructing his agent, Clyde Burke, to let other
matters wait until later. Clyde was a New York newspaper reporter, admitted to
this meeting only on sufferance.
     Cranston's gesture was more than timely. Because of it, both he and Clyde
looked toward the head of the table soon enough to see the amazing thing that
happened there.
     Finished with congratulating Dane, old Gault drew himself to full height,
as though to begin an address. As suddenly, the white-haired man deflated. His
shoulders bowed, his head dipped between them. Gault's face displayed an inane
smile, while his eyes turned happily from one director to another. Lifting his
hand from the cane, he turned the palm upward.
     "And now, gentlemen," spoke Gault, in a wheedling tone that matched his
smile, "how many bright pennies have you brought me?"
     Even to Cranston, the thing seemed momentarily a jest. Indeed, Gault could
have carried the travesty farther, if travesty it were. But there were others
present familiar with the symptoms. Two in particular were quick to humor Gault.
     Quite provided for a situation that they understood too well, Helm and
Woburn dipped their hands into their pockets and brought out half a dozen
pennies each. All shiny pennies, the kind that Gault requested. The two
executives dropped the bright coins into Gault's palm and nodded pleasantly
when he mumbled his thanks.
     Then the directors were copying the act. Pennies galore were falling on
Gault's grasp and he was cupping both hands to receive them, happily crooning
his thanks.
     Small wonder Gault looked young. He had dropped enough years to become a
child of five!
     Stockholders unfamiliar with this scene gaped in an awe that resembled
horror. Directors thronged among them, whispering sad facts. This was why Gault
had so suddenly retired from active participation in business affairs. Pennies
were his mania.
     It was a flashback to his childhood, when his uncle, founder of the Gault
enterprises, had pounded home the one word: thrift.
     Ellery Gault had begun his financial career with pennies. From dozens they
had grown to hundreds, thousands, millions. He had learned to talk in terms of
dollars, but always in the back of his expanding mind lay the memory of the
pennies that he had been taught to covet in his babyhood.
     One day, Gault's mind had cracked.
     At home, in his elegant mansion, he could value things of luxury for their
intrinsic worth. But the mere mention of money hurled him back to fundamentals:
pennies.
     No one talked cash when he attended a directors' meeting. Sometimes he
weathered such affairs. But the mere linking of faces with the finance that
they represented could be enough to throw the old man out of gear.
     It had happened again - Gault and his pennies.
     Helm and Woburn were soothing old Gault, ushering him into a private room,
while he jingled his pennies as if they were coins of gold instead of mere
copper. Rexford, remaining on the scene, suggested that the meeting be
adjourned, to which the directors agreed.
     Clyde Burke caught Cranston's gesture to come along. Outside, Cranston
suggested that Clyde remain in the car, on the basis that reporters wouldn't be
welcome persons at present. Clyde followed the advice, expecting Cranston to
join him, but when the reporter turned, his chief had gone.
     Only a patch of vanishing darkness betrayed the fact that Lamont Cranston
had become The Shadow!


     AS yet, The Shadow had been unable to gauge the reactions of three men who
represented reason: Helm, Woburn, Rexford. The maudlin mind of Ellery Gault had
supplied an untimely interruption. On the chance that he might learn something
of special import, The Shadow was resuming his cloaked guise.
     A magnificent limousine was parked in front of the Gault Consolidated
building. Framed in the car's window was a girl of equally fashionable type, a
creature patterned for the sort of luxury that such a limousine could provide.
The girl was Diana Gault, old Ellery's niece. Her face was as flushed as her
reddish hair, and her blue eyes mingled horror with anger.
     Diana Gault was listening to Ferris Dane, who had just come from the
directors' meeting. Beside Dane stood George Traymer, nodding in owlish fashion
to everything Dane said. The two moved along, and Diana's gaze went toward the
pillared doorway of the building where Roy Rexford was stepping into view.
     Voicing her indignation for Rexford's ears, the girl was too occupied to
notice the blackness that the pillars absorbed, as though some human shape had
suddenly gone ghostly, thus remaining close enough to overhear all that passed.
     "I've learned what happened at the foundry, Roy," asserted Diana. "Ferris
just told me."
     "The foundry?" queried Rexford in a puzzled tone. "Was Dane there? Oh, of
course! That's where Traymer went to get him."
     "And where Ferris was nearly murdered," snapped Diana, "while you were
talking on the telephone to me. What was the idea, Roy? Was it one of those
things they call an alibi?"
     Rexford started an ardent protest, insisting he knew nothing of matters at
the foundry. Diana cut him short.
     "You're making it worse, Roy," the girl argued. "It looks as though you
called me to keep the wire open, so my uncle couldn't phone the directors and
find out what they wanted. You certainly should have known that such a delay
would bring on another of his spells. Ferris tells me that one just seized him."
     What Rexford thought of Dane and his meddlesome opinions was something
that would soon have been expressed, if Helm and Woburn had not appeared,
bringing old Ellery Gault between them. Rexford personally interrupted the
expletives that he was applying to Dane, though Diana heard enough of them to
conjecture what the rest would be.
     At Diana's imperious gesture, a polite chauffeur brushed Rexford aside and
Gault was helped into the car, happily jingling his precious pennies, while Helm
and Woburn were promising him more. Diana suggested that they come along to the
house, to hold Gault in his present humor, but she didn't extend the invitation
to Rexford.
     When the limousine pulled away with its passengers, Rexford turned on his
heel and strode off angrily. It was then that watching blackness resumed the
cloaked shape of The Shadow and returned to Cranston's car.
     From hidden lips came a low, sibilant laugh, telling that The Shadow had
uncovered one rivalry - a controversy existing between Roy Rexford and Ferris
Dane, over Diana Gault.
     Such a rivalry could be a cause of crime, even to the degree of murder.
     The Shadow knew!


     CHAPTER V

     GUESTS AT THE MANSION

     THE same qualities that made Clyde Burke a good reporter rendered him a
useful agent of The Shadow. Clyde had a photographic mind that could register
details and retain them, even when they did not promise immediate conclusions.
Moreover, Clyde never trusted his memory too far. Though many of his notes were
necessarily mental, he put them into writing at the first opportunity.
     This was proven the next afternoon, when Lamont Cranston sat idly by the
window of his hotel room surveying the beautiful city of Industria by daylight.
Though his thoughts seemed elsewhere, Cranston was listening quite intently to
Burke's version of what was wrong in this city where all looked right.
     Clyde had been in the foundry, the dyeworks, and the chemical plant. The
foundry was still buzzing over the vanished marksman of the night before, who,
according to popular belief, had tried to murder Dane, but failed. It was
generally conceded that the masquerader must have been some malcontent
dismissed by Dane. But the foundry employees argued that the thwarted killer
must have worked at one of the other plants, when Dane was a supervisor there.
     Naturally, Warren Helm held that opinion. As president of the foundry, he
was one hundred percent satisfied with Dane. He declared that Gault
Consolidated had obtained an ideal vice president, but that the foundry had
lost the best supervisor in its history.
     At the dyeworks, Clyde had talked with Laird Woburn. Quite tactfully,
Woburn avoided mention of Dane. He didn't want to criticize the management of
the foundry, which in so many words meant Warren Helm.
     Smilingly, Woburn had referred Clyde to Gault Consolidated, which was like
telling the reporter to get his story from Ferris Dane in person, since that
dynamic gentleman was now an important adjunct of the holding company.
     There, Clyde's report ended. He'd been to the chemical works but couldn't
see Roy Rexford, because important tests of synthetic rubber were in progress.
     As for interviewing Ferris Dane at the offices of Gault Consolidated, it
was quite impossible. Dane was far too busy getting adjusted in his new
capacity. Even George Traymer wasn't available, because Dane had taken him as
chief assistant in the business of co-ordinating the various industries.
     "Very good, Burke," approved Cranston dryly. "Now, tell me the vital facts
in the case."
     "The vital facts?" queried Clyde. "Why, I've just stated them!"
     "'Skipped them' would be a better term," answered Cranston. "I refer to
last night. Tell me what happened at the directors' meeting immediately after
Dane was elected vice president of Gault Consolidated."
     A glimmer dawned on Clyde.
     "You mean what did the big men do," he expressed. "Well, Helm and Woburn
went to have a smoke while the directors were trying to get Gault on the
telephone."
     "State where they went."
     "Into that little room just off the big one," declared Clyde. "The place
where you saw them rush old Gault when he began whining for pennies. Old Gault
must really be a mental case. If he still had any sense, he'd have brought a
piggy bank along to impress the directors."
     Cranston's eyes turned reproval upon Clyde, reminding him that such
digressions were not in order.
     "Sorry, chief," affirmed Clyde. "Anyway, Helm and Woburn were in there all
the while. I looked in on them. Helm was wondering how he'd get another
supervisor like Dane, if Dane took the vice president's job. Woburn was wishing
Helm luck, but doubting that he'd get it. He said he'd never been able to really
replace Dane after he switched from the dyeworks to the foundry."
     "Neither of them tried to telephone Gault?"
     "They couldn't. There wasn't any telephone in the little room. The
directors were using the only telephone - in the meeting room."


     CRANSTON'S eyes maintained a steady gaze, that Clyde decided was a further
inquiry. Referring to penciled notes, the reporter tallied events in systematic
order. First the directors had called the Gault mansion. They'd asked to speak
to Gault, but couldn't because he was busy and wouldn't be disturbed. They'd
stated their business to the servants, but had reserved any mention of Dane's
election until they talked to Gault in person.
     That prospect hadn't been promising, though the servants offered to do
their best. So one of the directors had suggested phoning Diana, on the chance
that she could reach her uncle. They'd tried the line again, but it was busy.
     "That's when I slid out," explained Clyde. "I hustled down to the lobby to
phone you from a pay booth. Rexford was down there alone, smoking a cigarette.
He gave me the cold eye when I went into the booth. I got the idea that he'd
just finished a call himself and was going to make another."
     "Rexford phoned Diana," commented Cranston. "I learned that last night."
     "Say, chief!" exclaimed Clyde. "That would explain why the line was busy!
But if Rexford was talking to Diana while the directors were trying to reach
her, why did he still stick around? If he had another call to make -"
     Clyde cut short. He knew about Creep Hubin, for The Shadow had told him.
Smashing into Clyde's thoughts was the recollection of a phone call that Creep
must have received, sending him on an errand of murder.
     Rexford's call to come!
     It struck Clyde hard, for until this moment he hadn't connected Rexford
with the attempt on Dane's life. Helm and Woburn were certainly innocent - and
that, in Clyde's mind, had eliminated Rexford, who seemed a superior person to
either of the old-line executives. But the thing was shaping itself into odd
proportions that might lead anywhere.
     Bearing hard upon his own theory, Clyde looked for a corroborating gleam
from The Shadow's eyes. There was none; they were the eyes of Cranston: steady,
but passive. Eyes that merely called upon Clyde to proceed.
     Clyde did proceed, though all the while his mind was bubbling with its
discovery. Roy Rexford was interested in Diana Gault; that fact established, it
followed that Rexford, youthful head of a local industry, was the most eligible
man in town, miles ahead of any other suitor.
     At least, that case existed until Ferris Dane had been named vice
president of Gault Consolidated. Likewise youthful and aggressive, Dane could
logically be Rexford's rival. The very vote that had rendered Dane a key-man in
the Gault empire, put him on equal terms with Rexford, where Diana was concerned.
     This put a fresh bearing on the jinx job. Prestige, rather than the job
itself or any finance that it represented, could be the matter at stake: the
reason why Creep had been hired to dispose of Dane before he even assumed his
new office!
     "I went back up to the meeting room," proceeded Clyde, mechanically. "The
directors were talking about calling the house again, to see if they could get
Diana. They thought Rexford ought to speak with her; but he wasn't around. So
they decided to ask Helm or Woburn. They were just taking it up with those two
when the phone rang. Gault was on the wire -"
     "An interruption, Burke," put in Cranston quietly. "How long was it since
you had called me?"
     "About five minutes," replied Clyde, referring to his notes. "Anyway, the
servants had gotten Gault to the phone. He gave his yes to the vote, and the
directors sent Traymer to inform Dane. Traymer was with the directors all the
time, but he hadn't anything to say."
     Nodding calmly, Cranston picked up a newspaper and began to turn through
its pages. It was the local daily, the lone evening paper that Industria
boasted. Clyde couldn't quite contain himself.
     "Say, chief," began the reporter. "Suppose Dane was a social climber like
Rexford. Suppose he thought he rated with Diana Gault. Suppose she was willing
to consider Dane -"
     "Suppositions are dubious, Burke," Cranston interrupted. "Let us confine
ourselves to facts. Tomorrow is an important day in Industria. The day when the
annual Pageant of Progress will be held."


     CLYDE gave a nod as Cranston thrust him the newspaper. The local sheet was
filled with froth about the coming pageant; so much of it, that Clyde was bored.
Nevertheless, he glanced at the page that Cranston showed him.
     "Big doings at the Gault mansion," commented Clyde. "Dozens of guests are
arriving from out of town. That happens every year. It says so."
     Cranston nodded, then remarked: "Read further."
     "Tomorrow night, the Mardi Gras," continued Clyde. "King Progress and
Queen Industry will ride in state together. Here's a picture of Queen Industry.
I could have guessed that she would be Diana Gault. Who else?"
     "What about King Progress?" inquired Cranston. "His picture should be
there somewhere."
     "It's here, all right," began Clyde. "Big as life -"
     Clyde's eyes went big, like the photograph they viewed. His mouth, opening
even wider, gulped the name:
     "Ferris Dane!"
     Cranston's smile was indulgent, but his hand was firm, approving, as he
clapped it on Clyde's shoulder.
     "Your conjecture was excellent, Burke," he said. Gradually, the hand
lifted. "But you took a long while to come to a conclusion that you could have
reached with ease. There is a rivalry between Dane and Rexford. However, you
have discovered only half of it."
     Cranston's finger pointed to another photo in the lower corner of the
page, a small one that bore the somewhat ignominious title: "Prince Poverty."
This time, Clyde's eyes narrowed.
     Prince Poverty, whatever his part might be, was none other than Roy
Rexford. Instantly, Clyde's mind sprang to a new supposition.
     "Dane already rates tops with Diana!" exclaimed Clyde. "Why that means
Rexford has been second fiddle all along!"
     "No more conjectures, Burke," rebuked Cranston. "We are dealing in facts,
and facts are where you find them. Come."
     There was a cryptic tone to Cranston's order, that Clyde didn't understand
until they left the hotel and were riding away in the roadster. When Clyde saw
which hill the car was climbing, he turned an astonished look toward his
companion.
     They weren't going to the foundry, the dyeworks, or the chemical plant.
Serenely Lamont Cranston, otherwise The Shadow, was driving to the Gault
mansion, that he and Clyde Burke, the roving reporter, might join the guests
assembling there in anticipation of the Pageant of Progress tomorrow.


     CHAPTER VI

     BRIGHT PENNIES

     THE Gault mansion provided a succession of eye openers for Clyde Burke.
Though accustomed to homes of the wealthy, having visited them often in quest
of stories, Clyde had never before experienced the thrills of the genuine
society reporter.
     Such thrills were provided at Gault's.
     The mere name of Lamont Cranston provided an open sesame. With his tall
companion, Clyde was ushered through a reception room furnished in ornate
Victorian style; next, through an equally old-fashioned music room; finally,
through a gorgeous sun porch that seemed bejeweled by the sunset that was
glowing from the distant hills.
     Then they were out of the house again, in the midst of a garden so lavish
and luxuriant that it actually outshone the mansion.
     Diana Gault was giving a cocktail party in the garden. She was utterly
radiant in such a setting, and knew it. Otherwise, she wouldn't have chosen the
marble bench where the sunset skimmed the barbary hedges and gave her auburn
hair a burnished glory that hadn't been apparent in the darkness of the night
before.
     Seated with Diana, totally refuting Clyde's pet theory, was Roy Rexford,
the man supposed to be in conference at the chemical works. As for Ferris Dane,
rated so highly by Clyde, the new vice president of Gault Consolidated wasn't
even at the garden party.
     Cranston's arrival proved quite an event. Though Diana had never met him,
the moment she heard Cranston's name buzzed, she hurried forward to extend a
warm greeting. Rexford was equally anxious to welcome the new guest. Left in
the background, Clyde stared in continued bafflement, until a girl's voice
spoke beside him.
     Clyde Burke turned to see Margo Lane.
     Margo wasn't a product of Industria. She came from New York, where she
knew the ins and outs of cafe society. Her main ambition was to make herself
useful in the service of The Shadow. Sometimes Margo managed it, and this was
one of those occasions, as her smile betokened. Margo's smile was very nice to
look at, being attached to a very personable brunette.
     Clyde undertoned the query:
     "You fixed this for the chief?"
     Margo nodded.
     "Lamont wired me last night," she confided. "He told me about the Gault's
house party and said for me to see what could be done with it. Take a look."
     Looking, Clyde recognized half a dozen faces, all belonging to Manhattan's
cafe set. Evidently Margo had found the right strings to Industria's society and
given them a tug that had produced wholesale invitations to the house party.
     "And I thought this town was self-sufficient," expressed Clyde. "All this
chatter about industry and progress simply adds up to wealth, in the end."
     "Of course," assured Margo. "The people here get tired of showing off to
each other, just like everyone else does. They're like kittens in catnip over
the fact that a lot of sophisticated New Yorkers would come to Industria to
witness their wonderful pageant."
     "You're all staying here at the mansion?"
     "Yes indeed! And Diana is trying to persuade Lamont to join the house
party. Listen to her gush."
     Diana wasn't having much success. She was apologizing because she hadn't
known that Cranston was in town the night before, and he was politely stating
that he had come to Industria on business. He would stay over for the pageant
because business would hold him, but he couldn't join the guests at the
mansion. It would mean neglecting business appointments.
     True to local tradition, Diana subsided, while Rexford gave an approving
nod. Business was more than business in Industria; it was the keystone of
society.
     Clyde strolled away, much pleased by Cranston's decision to remain a guest
at the hotel. The Shadow's scope would be too limited if confined to the Gault
mansion. That would be Margo's territory.
     For the present, however, the territory was also Clyde's. In the capacity
of a society reporter, he could wander about wherever he chose. As a
preliminary, Clyde contacted a few of the local newspaper men whom he saw among
the guests; but they proved a diffident lot.
     In fact, it irked Clyde to see how they were awed by the Gault wealth. He
remarked to one that Industria, the perfect community, wasn't much different
from any place else. That comment started an outburst.
     The local newshawk explained that Industria was a single-tax community,
where property was put to use. Idle land was taxed so heavily that the town
soon acquired it and sold it to enterprising people, whose taxes lessened the
more they improved the property.
     Detaching himself from the ardent journalist, Clyde thought over what the
chap had said. Since all the enterprise in town was controlled by Gault
Consolidated, it followed that the more the Gault industries expanded, the
greater their profit ratio became. Industria was therefore the answer to a
plutocrat's prayer.
     No wonder old Ellery Gault had lost his reason. His dreams couldn't keep
up with actuality. Remembering the way Gault had cracked the night before,
Clyde found himself wondering where the old man was at present.
     Gazing toward the mansion, Clyde saw a tier of windows hung with
magnificent purple drapes, like a royal suite. Gault's own quarters, without a
doubt.
     Instantly, the reporter's instinct took hold of Clyde. He'd land an
exclusive story that would confound the local bunch: an interview with Ellery
Gault himself!


     LOOKING for a way into the mansion, Clyde saw a basement doorway near the
rear of the great house. Carefully skirting a prickly hedge, he reached the
door in question.
     Gault's quarters were toward the front. Working through a maze of basement
passages, Clyde thought he'd find a stairway to the front section of the
mansion. He might have if he'd been able to reach the front section, but every
passage brought him to a dead end.
     Remembering the outside appearance of the house, Clyde recalled that one
half looked newer than the other. Evidently the two sections had been built at
different periods, leaving a wide stretch of solid foundation between them.
Finding himself in the wrong half of the basement, Clyde finally took a back
stairway that brought him to one of several kitchens on the ground floor.
     Ducking away at the approach of servants, Clyde reached a pantry and
started through to a dining room, only to see half a dozen servants setting
tables in a place the size of a banquet hall. They didn't spy Clyde, for dusk
was settling and he managed to hop back into the gloomy pantry. Taking another
doorway, Clyde crossed a hall and reached the music room.
     There, he hadn't time to duck away before someone saw him. He stopped
short as a girl spoke laughingly:
     "I thought you'd have trouble finding Gault's apartment! Come along,
Clyde, and I'll show you how to get there."
     It was Margo. She'd come in by the sun porch. So Clyde went the way she
showed him, back through the hall, around a corner into a little side passage
that terminated in a purple curtain.
     "This marks the beginning of Gault's own preserves," explained Margo.
"Diana mentioned that none of the guests was to go past this curtain. But since
you aren't a guest, Clyde, the rule doesn't apply. Good luck!"
     Stepping through the purple curtain, Clyde found a stairway that led up to
the second floor, above the mid-section of the house. All was quiet on the floor
above; hazy, too, for the rich velvet drapes clouded every window. Ahead, Clyde
saw a dim light underneath a door. Gingerly opening the door, he stepped into a
small reception room which, despite its compact size, was far richer in
furnishings than any room that Clyde had ever viewed.
     Gold-frescoed chairs and tables, filigreed screens, a mantel of delicate
carving topped by a jewel-studded clock, were but a few symbols of the room's
splendor. There were objects of ivory and ebony, a candelabrum of solid silver,
along with paintings that proved to be jeweled mosaics when Clyde studied them
closely.
     The lighting came through thin shades that were formed of genuine pearl
shell, matched to perfection. In the glow, the silent purple curtains looked
almost a jet hue. Which curtains covered windows, Clyde could not tell, for all
the drapes were tightly drawn. The curtains bothered Clyde, for they gave him
the uneasy impression that eyes were watching from behind them.
     Deciding that the interview could wait, Clyde turned toward the door. A
hiss sounded behind him; with it came a flood of light. Swinging about, Clyde
found himself faced by Ellery Gault. But instead of showing anger at sight of
an intruder, the old man was all smiles. The hiss, Clyde suddenly realized, was
merely the parting of the curtain, which Gault had flung back to admit stronger
light from another room.
     "A visitor!" Gault's tone was gleeful, suiting the childish mood he had
displayed the night before. "I like visitors. They always have a reason to see
me. What is yours, young man?"
     "I'm a newspaper reporter," put in Clyde. "I'd like to interview you, Mr.
Gault."
     "Good! Come into the counting room." Gault gestured to the doorway behind
him. "I can show you something very wonderful."


     IT was wonderful, in a sense. Not the counting room, but what it
contained. The place itself was plainly furnished, but on a huge table Clyde
saw stacks of pennies in tall piles. Bright pennies, thousands of them, the
playthings of a doddering mind.
     "'A penny saved is a penny earned,'" quoted Gault happily. "I have saved
thousands of pennies. To be exact" - he paused, to pick some coppers from a
small heap and add them to a pile - "I have eighteen thousand, seven hundred
and sixty-two pennies. There... I have finished counting them again, and none
is missing!"
     Clyde calculated. The total of shiny one-cent pieces came to something
less than two hundred dollars. A single piece of bric-a-brac in Gault's
reception room would be worth far more than all the copper treasure. But
Gault's mind was set on pennies.
     Gathering the coins by handfuls, he jingled them, declaring that it kept
the pennies shiny. He went to an alcove in the deep wall of the room and
dropped the coins into an iron coffer that occupied about half the space of the
five-foot niche.
     "I began life saving pennies," crooned Gault, his voice tuned to the
jangle of the dropping coins. "Pennies, pennies, and more pennies. I forgot
them for a while, but I came back to them. I began with pennies, I shall end
with pennies!"
     He kept on filling the coffer, until his supply was almost finished.
Taking a last handful, Gault glanced shyly across his shoulder and detected
sympathy in Clyde's gaze. It was sympathy that the old man seemed to
misunderstand.
     Dropping pennies one by one, Gault weighed Clyde with his glance. Pausing,
the old man turned about and placed a shiny cent in Clyde's hand. He continued
to drop more into the coffer, but seeing Clyde's smile, he paused again and
gave him another copper coin. So it progressed until the coffer was filled, at
which time Clyde was holding five bright pennies.
     Gault clamped the lid of the coffer; closed a door that turned the alcove
into a strong room. Beaming, he approached Clyde and clapped a thin hand on the
reporter's shoulder.
     "There is your story," began Gault. "You can write how an old man gave you
pennies from his life's savings and taught you the true lesson of wealth. Save
your pennies, my boy, and you will never be in want. I have saved so many
pennies that I now have eighteen thousand, seven hundred and" - Gault stopped
to note that Clyde's hand held five coins, whereupon he added: - "and
fifty-seven. Please mention that fact in your story."
     "I most certainly will -"
     "You most certainly will not!" came an indignant voice, that interrupted
Clyde. "There isn't going to be a story!"
     Clyde turned to find himself confronted by Diana Gault. Her manner was
fiery as her hair, and her eyes were thoroughly ablaze. Behind the girl stood
Rexford. As Clyde stepped back, the sleek man stepped forward, saying:
     "I'll handle this, Diana."
     There was plenty of power in Rexford's grip as it fastened on Clyde's arm.
Alarmed, Diana rallied suddenly to Clyde's support, when she undertoned:
     "Be careful, Roy, while we're here with Uncle Ellery."
     Nodding, Rexford swung Clyde about and marched him straight to the stairs.
Diana followed, still murmuring for Roy to be careful. When they reached the
ground floor, Rexford still clutched Clyde's arm and steered him straight to
the front door. Overtaking them, Diana changed her tune. On the front porch,
she was again indignant as she said to Clyde:
     "If you mention one word of this -"
     "Don't worry," put in Rexford harshly. "He won't!"
     Wheeling Clyde about, Rexford drew back a fist that looked as tight as
steel. Diana started to tell him that the dinner guests were arriving, but it
didn't matter with Rexford. Thrusting Clyde at arm's length, Rexford poised for
a punch that threatened to be murderous. Clyde heard a girl's quick cry and
recognized Margo's voice.


     A TALL figure suddenly stepped in to ward off Rexford's swing. It was
Cranston, swift despite his leisurely way. His intervention looked
insufficient, but it was quite the opposite. The Shadow had a system of
plucking punches in midair, without even ruffling his Cranston pose.
     This was once The Shadow's effort wasn't needed. A hand hooked Rexford's
from behind before the swing could start. Turning angrily, Rexford was
confronted by a man as hard-mannered at himself: Ferris Dane.
     "Easy, Rexford," admonished Dane. "This isn't your own house, you know. At
least... not yet."
     Perhaps Diana's presence was the reason why Rexford's vicious wrath
subsided. He'd shown himself badly in contrast to Dane, the night before; a
repetition wasn't the proper course this evening. But Rexford couldn't calm
himself without a final glare. While he was staring at Dane, Clyde found
himself free of Rexford's clutch.
     Another hand took over and Clyde was on the way to Cranston's car, guided
there by its calm-mannered owner. Without wasting time to inquire what had
happened, The Shadow gave Clyde the car keys and told him to drive back to the
hotel.
     On the way, Clyde wondered why his left hand felt so cramped as it tried
to clutch the steering wheel. He opened his fist and stared. He was still
holding five bright pennies, the gift of Ellery Gault!


     CHAPTER VII

     DEATH'S HOLIDAY

     THEY were in Cranston's hotel room. It was the afternoon following the
affair at Gault's, which had placed Clyde in disgrace among the elite of
Industria. Cranston was juggling in his hand the five pennies Clyde had gotten
from old Gault.
     "Don't worry, Burke," spoke Cranston. "Since you didn't write the story,
they'll forgive you. Tonight you can watch the pageant without being
recognized. Everyone will be masked, so I ordered a costume for you, too. It's
in your room."
     Clyde muttered something about Rexford.
     "Speaking of Rexford," observed Cranston, "I found out why he's playing
second fiddle. It appears that King Progress is elected by popular vote and
that the runner-up becomes Prince Poverty. It happens that Ferris Dane is very
popular, having worked in all three of the local plants, so he naturally won
the contest.
     "The real surprise was the vote that Roy Rexford polled. He is a
comparative newcomer and wasn't figured in the race at first. But he's such a
go-getter, people could not ignore him. Rexford has done wonders with the
chemical works. The first year's output of synthetic rubber will double the
previous production of plastics."
     Clyde wasn't interested, except to remark that if he lived in Industria,
Rexford would have missed one extra vote. Sympathizing with Clyde's mood,
Cranston told the reporter not to miss the parade. As The Shadow, Cranston
wanted it checked to every detail, and he was depending on both Clyde and Margo
to do their part in the process.
     That point expressed, Cranston left the hotel and began a business trip.
He intended to talk financial matters with both Helm and Woburn, but it was
useless on this holiday of holidays in Industria.
     Helm was in his office at the foundry, but he was busy adorning himself in
the costume of a cavalier. Stalking about with his square jaw projecting from a
ruffled collar, the foundry president tilted a feathered hat to hide his
steel-gray hair. Planting his hand on the hilt of an ornamental sword, he asked:
     "Frankly, Cranston, how do I look?"
     "Quite the Sir Walter," replied Cranston. "That must be an expensive
costume, Helm."
     "It is," declared Helm. "But I'll wear it again, in the pantomime we're
giving in the opera house, a few nights from now. You've heard about it?"
     Cranston said he hadn't.
     "A bizarre thing," declared Helm. "Based on the opera of 'Faust.' Traymer
wrote it. He's a versatile chap, Traymer, though he doesn't show it. However, I
like quiet-mannered men. They know their place."
     The costume still interested Cranston. He asked where Helm had purchased
it.
     "Amon supplied it," said Helm. "He runs the local costume shop. He carries
everything, including scenery for the opera house. We all buy our costumes from
Amon. He rents them, too, at pageant time, and he has an enormous supply.
Still, if you want a good one, I wouldn't advise you to wait too long. The
sooner you get to Amon's, the better."
     Thanking Helm for the advice, Cranston was smiling as he left the office.
He wasn't worried about getting a costume for tonight. Cranston already had a
costume. It consisted of a black cloak and a slouch hat, with hidden automatics
as an adjunct. And Lamont Cranston, otherwise The Shadow, rather fancied that
his chosen costume would be appropriate when the parade began.
     Cranston's next stop was at the dyeworks. There he found Woburn decked in
the regalia of a Turkish sultan, his round face looking very foolish. Woburn
didn't want to talk business; he wanted an opinion on the costume. Cranston
said it looked excellent.
     "Maybe the costume does," conceded Woburn, "but I don't. I'm not the
sultan type. Still, with a mask it's all right." Turning to a mirror, he placed
a domino mask across his eyes and decided that his features were improved. Then,
removing the domino, he added:
     "Anyway, I'll rattle this scimitar of mine. That's something Helm can't do
with the tin sword that goes with his cavalier costume. It would fall apart."
     Then, quite as seriously as Helm, Woburn advised Cranston to get over to
Amon's and pick himself a costume. Some good ones would surely be available,
but the earlier the choice, the better.
     Instead of going to Amon's, Cranston returned to the hotel. He stopped at
Clyde's room long enough to find the reporter admiring himself in a handsome
harlequin costume. Clyde's grin proved that he was catching the Mardi Gras
spirit. So Cranston continued to his own room, where, in the gathering dusk, he
donned his own costume - that masquerade that transformed him into his other
self, The Shadow.


     ONE office in town was actually busy. It was the office of Gault
Consolidated. Two men were there, in an inner office: Ferris Dane and George
Traymer. Dane was already grooming himself for vice president in charge of
co-ordination, and he was finding Traymer a valuable assistant.
     Thumbing through reports of the three big companies, Dane put a query to
Traymer.
     "Since the foundry and the dyeworks have turned in their final figures,"
said Dane, "why shouldn't the chemical plant have done the same?"
     "It has," replied Traymer. "That is, the plastic company did. You'll find
the figures up to the time when Rexford took over."
     "But these figures aren't complete to the end of the fiscal year."
     "They will be as soon as the reorganization is finished. Rexford has been
very busy."
     Dane amended Traymer's statement with a "Humph."
     "Busy at what?" demanded Dane. "Attending pink teas, like yesterday's
garden party? I could hardly find time to go to Gault's for dinner."
     Dane didn't add that he hadn't been invited to the garden party that
preceded the dinner. Traymer, who knew the delicately balanced rules of
Industria's society, was wise enough to refrain from adding that point. Dane
reverted to the report sheets.
     "Steel and dyes were making money," he remarked, "with plastics just about
breaking even. Well, I wish Rexford luck with his synthetic rubber. There's a
limit on profits nowadays, so he shouldn't have much trouble ringing the bell."
     Running through the sheets supplied by Helm and Woburn, Dane kept
muttering one word: "Taxes." He shifted the reports closer to the light, when
his hunched shoulder threw a streak of darkness across the sheets. Dane was too
engrossed to realize that the darkness promptly faded farther than it should
have.
     Dane's shoulder wasn't entirely to blame. A figure had arrived at a
half-opened door just behind Dane's desk. A cloaked figure, its burning eyes
obscured by the brim of a slouch hat. Traymer, turning about, saw blackness
recede and thought of a strange living shape that had rescued Dane that night
on the foundry platform.
     But when Traymer stared at the doorway, he failed to see The Shadow's
outlined form. Traymer's eyes weren't strong, even with his glasses. Still, he
felt relieved when merely thinking of The Shadow's possible presence. He hadn't
forgotten the mortality rate among vice presidents of Gault Consolidated. Dane
was holding a jinx job, though he wouldn't admit it.
     Just why it was a jinx job, Traymer did not know. He only hoped Dane could
find the reason.
     "Taxes and more taxes," repeated Dane. "Years of them, all bundled into a
lump sum. We'll have to break down these figures some day, Lady. When we do,
I'm going to recommend that Industria drop the single-tax system."
     Traymer stared as though Dane had spoken heresy.
     "I mean it only for our own good," explained Dane. "Here's how the thing
would work. Each plant could be charged a huge local tax rate and the money
would go to the community. We're the only city that operates on the single-tax
basis. So it would be quite legitimate, to gear ourselves with the rest of the
country. Why should we list our own money as excess profits?"
     Traymer didn't answer. He was grasping the idea. An excellent thing, if
Dane could swing it. In five or six years, the town could acquire a million
dollars by the process. Such, at least, was Traymer's estimate and he was
inclined to be conservative.
     "The jinx is off this job," chuckled Dane, referring to the hoodoo for the
first time. "I've settled it for keeps. Put these sheets in the safe, Lady.
We've worked long enough, considering that this is a holiday."
     It happened that they'd worked too long. The telephone bell was ringing
and when Dane answered the call, he learned how late it was. Diana Gault was on
the wire, tartly reminding Dane that he was to be in the parade this evening.
Very mollified, Dane accepted Diana's reprimand and promised there would be no
more delay.
     Hanging up, he turned to Traymer.
     "Miss Gault is in a dither," expressed Dane, "and I don't blame her. She
called Amon and learned I hadn't picked up my costume. We're to go over there
right away and get it. She'll call for us in the limousine. We can get your
costume at the same time."
     Traymer shook his head.
     "I didn't intend to join the masquerade tonight," he said. "I felt I would
be needed here."
     "Suit yourself," returned Dane, "but you might as well pick a costume and
join the fun. But it doesn't matter, so long as you don't sulk like Rexford."
     Traymer's gaze showed inquiry.
     "Rexford hasn't stopped for his costume, either," laughed Dane. "Either he
doesn't want to be Prince Poverty, or he's trying to worry Diana. Well, if he
wants to spoil the parade, let him!"
     Rising, Dane turned to the door from which The Shadow watched. Solid
blackness withdrew before Dane arrived there, with Traymer close behind him.
But when the two left the building, the cloaked shape of The Shadow was close
behind them, keeping to patchy darkness to remain unseen.
     From facts that he had gleaned, The Shadow suspected that something other
than revelry might take place during the coming Mardi Gras. Death's holiday was
in the making, the sort of holiday that Ferris Dane had taken, one that meant
work instead of play.
     If such were true, Dane was again slated to be death's target. Once more,
it would be The Shadow's part to intervene!


     CHAPTER VIII

     THE COSTUME SHOP

     AMON'S costume shop was the oldest building in Industria, located on a
forgotten street, with an empty lot behind it. Vacant lots were ordinarily
taboo in Industria, as were old buildings. These eyesores existed simply
because the ground belonged to the city and was intended for a park. But Amon's
business was so helter-skelter that he required time to remove it.
     Dane and Traymer entered by a flight of old stone steps that were badly
off level and difficult to find in the darkness. The front room was big, and so
poorly lighted that its walls scarcely showed the rows of costumes that lined
them. The only bright spot was the counter near the back of the room.
     Behind it sat Amon, a blunt-faced man with an overbalanced forehead. He
looked as though he'd started business by simply sitting on a stool and letting
the building sprout around him.
     Squinting in the light, Amon made out the faces of Dane and Traymer when
they arrived. But he couldn't see the gliding figure that trailed them. Amon's
shop was made to order for The Shadow. Once inside the door, he simply joined
the row of costumes on the most convenient wall, and became so motionless that
he was in fact invisible.
     "So, Mr. Dane!" greeted Amon in a guttural tone. "You have come for the
king's costume at last! The queen, Miss Gault, was very angry when she
telephoned and found you had not been here."
     "There is still time," declared Dane. "That is, provided you haven't lost
the costume. I hope it didn't go out with any of your junk upstairs."
     "This is not a junk shop," reproved Amon. "Upstairs, I have scenery. Fine
scenery, for the opera. With many things that people have forgotten, but will
remember some day and want again."
     "You mean those nymph costumes you talk about?"
     "Yes, and the machinery that goes with them. My wood nymphs disappear, Mr.
Dane. And then, when they are gone, they come back again like magic! It is very
wonderful. Some day, you shall see -"
     It was Traymer who interrupted. He remarked that at present they would
like to see the costume that Dane was to wear as King Progress. Opening a
little cupboard behind the counter, Amon promptly and proudly produced the
costume on a hanger.
     The regalia of King Progress was really magnificent. Its chief component
was a robe of purple satin and pure white ermine, extravagantly designed with
great folds that hung like pleats. Under the robe were knee breeches and
jacket, which Amon removed and handed to Dane. While Dane was trying on the
jacket, Amon produced a square box that contained a gilded crown and white wig,
along with a purple mask, ermine-fringed.
     Dane wasn't overjoyed by the costume.
     "I'll look like a face card in this outfit," he grumbled. "Spades are
trump and I'm the king. Or am I?"
     He finished the query by tugging at the jacket. It came three inches short
of buckling across his chest.
     "What's the matter here?" demanded Dane. "Wasn't this costume made to my
measure?"
     "Try the robe," suggested Amon in a troubled tone. "If it fits, the jacket
won't matter."
     The robe proved quite as limited as the jacket. Dane hunched his shoulders
forward and tugged with full force, but he couldn't get it buckled. Finally he
hurled the robe to the counter.
     "I order a costume," snapped Dane, "and you make me one of Traymer's size.
How did that happen, Amon?"
     "We took the measurements of the suit you sent us, Mr. Dane -"
     "Because I was too busy to come here. But that still doesn't explain it,
unless" - Dane paused, reflectively - "unless I sent you one of my old suits by
mistake. Anyway, this costume won't do. Haven't you another?"
     Amon cocked his head wisely.
     "You might wear Mr. Rexford's. He's about your size."
     "But I'm not Prince Poverty!"
     "I don't mean the Poverty costume, Mr. Dane. He ordered a King Progress
costume, too."
     Dane stared a moment, then gave a chuckle.
     "You mean Rexford thought he was going to be elected King Progress? That's
really funny! No wonder he's sore because he's only Prince Poverty in this
parade!"


     BEFORE Amon could reply to Dane's outburst, Traymer offered an
explanation. Always tactful, Traymer was seeking to ease the rivalry between
Dane and Rexford.
     "Rexford is your alternate," Traymer told Dane. "He simply followed the
usual procedure, when he ordered a duplicate Progress costume. Of course, it
wasn't necessary, but if anything had happened to you, then Rexford -"
     Traymer stopped abruptly, gulping his tongue as though he wanted to
swallow it. Dane's face stiffened into its hardest lines.
     "Then Rexford would have filled my place," supplied Dane. "Very farsighted
of him, I should say, considering that something nearly did happen to me at the
foundry!"
     Traymer tried to finish his gulp.
     "I've had tough things happen," continued Dane. "Castings landing on my
ankle, and whatnot. But nobody ever tried to murder me until the other night.
And now I find that if I had been murdered, the parade could still have gone
on, with Rexford as King Progress."
     Since Traymer's tact had carried him nowhere, Amon supplied some.
Shrewdly, the squinty man turned to another shelf and brought down a large box.
     "Here is Mr. Rexford's costume," declared Amon. "Suppose you try it on,
Mr. Dane."
     Not only did the costume fit, it was even finer than the one that Dane had
ordered. Complete to wig and crown, Dane strutted about in grandiose style, then
told Amon that he'd take Rexford's costume along with his own.
     Amon was willing to exchange one for the other, but Dane wouldn't hear of
it. He intended to show his liberality by buying both. It would be worth it, he
said, as a triumph over Rexford.
     Traymer had a different thought. He was picturing how Rexford's costume
could be evidence in a case against the man himself. Watching from the costume
rack, The Shadow could see the furrows in Traymer's studious forehead,
indicating the conclusion that he had reached. Dane also noted Traymer's
attitude, whereupon Dane's own manner changed.
     "Get yourself a costume, Lady," suggested Dane. "One of those courtier
outfits over on the side rack. I'll give you a free ride on the royal float."
     Disposing of Traymer in somewhat jestful fashion, Dane was free to talk to
Amon. Though Dane used an undertone, The Shadow's keen ears could catch his
words.
     "Let me know if Rexford fails to call for his Poverty costume," said Dane.
"I wouldn't want him to spoil the parade. Miss Gault wouldn't like it."
     "I don't think that will happen, Mr. Dane," began Amon. "You see -"
     Amon had just finished a notation in a large, old-fashioned ledger marking
the sale of the duplicate King Progress costume to Dane. He was thumbing through
the pages of the same book, when he stopped abruptly.
     Dane's query was sharp: "See what, Amon?"
     Old Amon merely shook his head in a forgetful style. But Dane pressed home
the query, this time with amplifications.
     "You mean someone else will play Prince Poverty if Rexford balks?" queried
Dane. "That's logical enough. If Rexford could fill my place, somebody would
have to step into his. Let me see that ledger, Amon."
     For reply, Amon clamped the big book shut and thrust it under his arm. It
was a timely move, for at that moment, Traymer provided an interruption in the
form of a sharp cry. Dane looked toward the costume rack and demanded:
     "What's the matter, Lady?"
     "Nothing," replied Traymer, somewhat abashed. "I... well, I just came
across a costume that was too realistic. It was like a huge black bat hanging
from the wall. I thought it moved, but I guess it just swung when I brushed it."
     Amon gave an odd squint. There wasn't any costume of the sort that Traymer
mentioned. But Amon was too concerned with another matter to be bothered with
trifling mistakes. He was glad that Traymer had provided a diversion. It gave
Amon a chance to hide the ledger that Dane was too anxious to examine.
     Going over to the rack, Dane found the courtier's costume. It was some
distance from the spot where Traymer had encountered the bat costume. That fact
pleased The Shadow, because he happened to be the costume in question. Traymer's
description of a mammoth bat clinging to the wall wasn't far wrong, for in his
black cloak, The Shadow looked the part, and he had drawn deep among the
costumes when Traymer approached.
     Amon had wrapped both King Progress costumes when Dane and Traymer
returned with the courtier outfit. Silently, old Amon wrapped it, too,
finishing just as a horn honked outside the shop. Amon turned to a shelf, to
bring down a box already packed.
     "This is Mr. Rexford's costume," explained Amon. "The one he will wear as
Prince Poverty. I'll take it out to him -"
     "Never mind, Amon," interrupted Dane. "That isn't Rexford's car. I
recognize the imperious blast of the Gault limousine. It is summoning Traymer
and myself."


     HESITANTLY, Amon laid Rexford's package on the counter and followed the
others to the door. Peering past them, he saw the Gault limousine, with Diana
peering from the window, waving for Dane to hurry. Risking a glance from the
costume rack, The Shadow saw that Diana had a companion: Margo Lane.
     Burdened with their bundles, Dane and Traymer were going out through the
door. They were quite visible, for the sky was aglow with brilliant lights from
Industria's main streets, the special illumination provided for the Pageant of
Progress. But those lights didn't show the rough, uneven steps leading down
from the costume shop.
     "We'd better hurry," Traymer was telling Dane. "The parade lights are
already on."
     "They always light them in advance," returned Dane across his shoulder.
"The parade doesn't begin until nine o'clock, so we have plenty of time. Watch
out for these steps, Lady."
     Dane didn't follow his own advice. Looking back, he missed a step as he
spoke. With a wild stumble, he landed in the darkness below the steps,
scattering packages as he fell. Traymer sprang out to help Dane to his feet,
while Amon hurried along to pick up the packages.
     The Shadow heard a hearty groan from Dane.
     "It's my ankle," Dane was saying. "The bad one that the casting injured.
You'll have to help me in the car, Traymer."
     "You'll need a doctor?"
     "If you can find one. Get me over to the office first. Diana can drive up
to the house and bring one of those specialists who are holding powwow about
her uncle - if any of them know anything about dislocated ankles. Chances are
they don't, so you can scout around town for a local doctor who isn't at the
parade."
     Diana and Margo were coming from the car to help Traymer lift Dane. The
chauffeur was taking the packages, including those that Amon held. Meanwhile,
The Shadow was making an opportune glide from the costume rack to the space
behind the counter.
     There, The Shadow picked up the telephone and, in the quiet tone of
Cranston, called the hotel. Getting Clyde on the wire, he told the reporter to
come to the costume shop. Before The Shadow could give further instructions,
Amon reappeared, coming around the end of the counter. With amazing swiftness,
The Shadow placed the telephone aside and shifted to a dark space beside the
shelves.
     Amon didn't even look The Shadow's way. With hasty hands, the costumer
snatched the big ledger from beneath some odd costumes. His head cocked, he was
listening to the Gault car drive away as he thumbed through the pages. Finding
the one he wanted, Amon tore it cleanly from the ledger.
     Leaving the bound book beside the box containing Rexford's Prince Poverty
costume, Amon folded the loose sheet and hurried from behind the counter.
Opening a door, he went up a pair of steep stairs to the second story.
     In his haste, Amon didn't bother to look behind him. Hence he failed
utterly to glimpse the shrouded form that followed. If he had looked, he might
have believed that one of his own costumes had come to life to trail him; but
since Amon didn't look back at the vital moment, he completely lost all
opportunity.
     Once blended with the darkness of those stairs, The Shadow was utterly
invisible. Silent as a ghost, the cloaked master of darkness was hard on the
trail of a riddle that might spell crime's full answer.
     A riddle involving the page that Amon had torn from his ledger the moment
Ferris Dane was gone!


     CHAPTER IX

     VANISHED VICTIMS

     THE floor above the costume shop was much like a loft. It was stocked not
only with costumes, but the scenery that Amon had mentioned. Nor had Amon
exaggerated when he declared that his loft held forgotten things that would
some day be wanted.
     Costumes and scenery belonged to the age of spectacles. They were relics
from operas and other huge stage productions popular in the last century. Even
those that were too blemished to be used again were valuable as patterns,
should anyone wish to reproduce those epics of the past.
     There were stage properties, too, a maze of them, in the form of tables,
execution blocks, stands of imitation marble, and other contraptions galore.
Picking his way through the jungle of junk, Amon kept turning on lights as he
reached them, but the hanging bulbs were too few to give more than a feeble
view of this land of fantasy.
     All the lights were controlled by a single switch that Amon had pressed
when he entered the loft, but he preferred to operate the bulbs independently,
after turning on the main control. The reason was simple enough: there were
bulbs in every corner of the loft, and Amon saw no use in wasting light, except
in the particular direction that happened to suit him.
     Stopping in the blackness of the doorway, The Shadow stood beside a low
table and looked along Amon's path. The costumer was at the rear wall of the
huge room, turning on a final light. Brighter than the rest, that bulb revealed
a battered desk, a stove with an open grate, and a gaudy tapestry that covered
half the wall - a stage prop that had probably been used in some opera like
"Madame Butterfly."
     The first thing that Amon did was tap the pocket where he had stuffed the
folded page of the ledger. Next, he lifted the tapestry, found a door behind it
and made sure that the door was bolted. Dropping the tapestry, Amon crumpled
some old newspapers, stuffed them into the stove, and added a few sticks of
wood. Striking a match, he started the fire and began to warm his hands in
front of it.
     In the firelight's glow, Amon's face showed shrewdly. He brought the
ledger sheet from his pocket, unfolded it and gave it a close-range squint. His
smile gleamed wider, as though he had uncovered a prize of tremendous value.
     Perhaps he had.
     Tonight, Dane had made a very pointed remark within Amon's hearing, a
remark pertaining to attempted murder and possible evidence of it. Traymer had
somewhat nullified Dane's view of what Rexford's duplicate costume of King
Progress might signify.
     But the mere suggestion had awakened some thought in Amon's mind,
something that also related to costumes, otherwise the link would not have
formed so rapidly. That was why Amon prized a certain page in the old ledger.
     At present, Amon seemed to be debating the value of the telltale sheet. He
remembered Dane's liberality in taking both the King Progress costumes. Perhaps
that was a sign that Dane would pay well for anything he wanted. But Amon's
face also reflected doubt; probably he was considering Dane's financial limits.
     All this while, The Shadow was gaining a better view of Amon's changing
features.
     Step by step, The Shadow was coming closer to the back wall of the loft,
along the very path that Amon had taken. At no time, however, was The Shadow in
the open. Always, his cloaked shape kept something for a background: strewn
costumes, old pieces of scenery, or various stage props belonging to this
indoor junk yard.
     The Shadow's pause took place at an open stretch of floor about six feet
from Amon's desk. The costumer had evidently cleared this space to serve as a
private office. Had The Shadow advanced farther, he might have roused Amon's
attention. Despite the shrewd expressions that altered his wrinkled face, Amon
was in a very skittish mood.
     Hence The Shadow waited; while he did, he prepared a surprise for Amon. A
gloved hand coming from The Shadow's cloak brought out a tiny rounded box
instead of a gun. The box had two lids; removing them, The Shadow peeled away
his glove, as well. With his thumb, he took a dab of ointment from one side of
the box; his second finger obtained a different substance from the other half.
     His hand in readiness, The Shadow waited. He could allow Amon ten minutes
more to make up his mind about the ledger sheet - the time that Clyde Burke
would require to arrive from the hotel. Whatever Amon's part in crime, past or
future, it was probably minor.
     Should Clyde arrive, The Shadow could step aside and let the reporter
confront Amon. Backed by The Shadow, Clyde might be able to talk Amon into
making up his mind. It would be better than to have recourse to ghostly
measures, which The Shadow preferred to reserve for more important occasions.
Clyde had made out all right with Ellery Gault, as far as he had gone.
     In Amon's case, The Shadow intended to see that Clyde was not interrupted.
     Unfortunately, Amon himself was to have a hand in spoiling a plan about
which he knew nothing.


     JUST before the ten minutes were up, Amon lost his indecision. The fire
was burning busily by this time, and its crackle commanded attention. Perhaps
the lure of the flames was the final element; whatever the case, Amon suddenly
brought out the ledger page, crumpled it, and stepped forward to fling it in
the blaze.
     Blackness wheeled between Amon and the stove, cloaked blackness that was
The Shadow. Seeing the strange shape swoop in upon him, Amon recoiled clear to
the desk. Dropping the crumpled paper, he lashed his hand into an open drawer
and brought out a long, sharp-pointed knife.
     It was instinct on Amon's part. He thought he was seeing an unreal
creature. But Amon had dwelt so long among dust-covered memories, that
imagination was his spurring motive. Perhaps his mental pictures had a habit of
coming to life; in that case, his scare was due purely to the fact that an
unwanted image had appeared, to act in unexpected fashion.
     At any rate, Amon didn't quail. He flung himself toward The Shadow,
thrusting his knife as he came, only to be stopped by something that exceeded
his imagination.
     It began with a long-fingered hand that gestured from a mass of blackness,
finishing with a snap of thumb and finger. The friction united the two pastes,
components of The Shadow's own favorite chemical formula. (Note: Because The
Shadow's explosive powder used in this instance is too dangerous for any but
the most experienced to use, we do not reveal the nature of its formula, so
that the inexperienced might not attempt this experiment and thereby suffer
harm. - Maxwell Grant.) A burst of flame scorched Amon's face; with it came a
report that echoed like a cannon shot from the rafters of the old loft.
     Reeling away, Amon let his knife drop with a clatter and clutched for the
table. He missed it in his blind stumble and almost impaled himself upon an
upright iron rod that projected from the floor, a dozen feet distant. Gripping
the rod, Amon brought himself shakily to his feet, blinking in The Shadow's
direction.
     Amon's dazzled eyes saw huge black spots, but they didn't drift. They were
segments of The Shadow, connecting themselves to gradually form a solid shape.
To let Amon know that this was no illusion, The Shadow delivered a weird laugh,
the low-toned sort that could turn surprise into horror.
     Reverberating mirth produced a remarkable effect upon Amon. Still
blinking, the costumer gave the same reflective smile that he had shown when he
discussed stagecraft with Dane. The business of disappearing wood nymphs and
similar marvels of the opera had suddenly come back to Amon's mind.
     The Shadow saw Amon's facial flicker and noted the change that followed
it. From a smile, Amon's face contorted into the wince of terror that The
Shadow anticipated. Amon was something of an actor, as well as a backstage man.
His faked horror actually fooled The Shadow for a few seconds.
     Those few seconds were enough.
     Amon's shrink was quite in keeping with his wince. The fact that he
clutched the metal rod more tightly was also in keeping with the situation. But
when the big rod yielded in the fashion of a lever, it proved that the
unexpected was due.
     The Shadow made a forward lunge - too late.
     Actuated by the lever, the floor parted in slithery style. Each half of a
finely built trapdoor whisked from beneath The Shadow's feet. Though The Shadow
could do many wonderful things, walking on air wasn't one of them.
     The cloaked invader went into a rapid backward whirl that somersaulted him
through the open floor. He made a grab at the edge, but it was out of reach.
Below, he saw the yawning blackness of a pit that was certainly as deep as the
basement, which meant thirty feet. Hanging ropes were dangling down the sides
of the hole and The Shadow grabbed at them, gaining a passing clutch that
slightly delayed his plunge.
     But the last rope - or the thing that looked like it - was a metal pole,
one of four that marked the corners of the shaft. The Shadow's head jarred the
pole so forcibly that his grip weakened with his senses. Hands and arms half
tangled with the thin metal pole, The Shadow became a human whirligig that
finally spun free and landed with a stunning crash at the bottom of the pit.
     The blackness that engulfed The Shadow was more than mental. It began
before he finished his sliding plunge. Amon had released the lever to let the
floor slide back in place, which it did, rapidly and smoothly.
     Scurrying forward in crablike fashion, Amon snatched up the ledger sheet
from what had been the brink of the pit. His laugh was as crackly as the fire
into which he tossed the crumpled paper. He kept laughing as he watched the
incriminating page burn. At least, The Shadow had made up Amon's mind.
     Stepping away from the stove, Amon didn't bother to test the floor through
which The Shadow had disappeared. He knew the trap was solid, for he'd made it
that way. Such mechanics were Amon's pride. He kept this loft the way it was
because it reminded him of his early environment - the backstage of a mammoth
opera house. Only when stagecraft dwindled to oblivion had Amon gone into the
costume business.
     Amon had always hoped to use that trap in startling fashion. He'd
succeeded beyond his ordinary ambitions. The discordant note to his cackle
proved he didn't care what had happened to an interloper known as The Shadow.
Indeed, it indicated that the worse the result, from The Shadow's standpoint,
the better Amon would appreciate it.
     Murder didn't worry Amon. He didn't believe that ghosts could rise to
accuse him of such crime. At least he thought he didn't, until he heard a
footfall from the lighted pathway leading from the stairs. Frantically, he made
a grab for his lost knife, only to hear a cold voice tell him:
     "Stay where you are, Amon, if you want to live!"


     PEERING weakly across his shoulder, Amon expected to see the returned form
of The Shadow. Instead, he viewed a masked man clad in a fantastic array of rags
and tatters. Amon knew the costume, though he couldn't recognize the person in
it.
     This new intruder was wearing the masquerade of Prince Poverty, the role
that Rexford was to play!
     Though he had left such a costume downstairs, expecting Rexford to call
and pick it up, Amon took nothing for granted. He squinted hard at the masked
face, then recoiled at sight of a glinting revolver that Prince Poverty pointed
his way.
     "There is a page missing from your ledger, Amon," spoke the masquerader,
advancing with the gun. "What became of it?"
     "Nothing!" blurted the costumer. Though still on the retreat, he squinted
shrewdly. "There was someone who wanted it, but I wouldn't let him have it. He
went away -"
     "I want that page!"
     "But I burned it," argued Amon. "Look, you can see the ashes in the stove.
I knew you'd want me to burn it."
     "Were you sure, Amon?"
     Prince Poverty put the query just as he reached the center of the
trapdoor. At that moment, Amon was gesturing toward the stove with one hand,
reaching for the lever with the other. Having already tricked The Shadow, Amon
thought he could deal similarly with this new masquerader.
     It wasn't the murder in Amon's mind that gave him away. It happened that
Prince Poverty, in his final query, forgot to disguise his normal tone.
Instantly, Amon knew whose face was behind the mask. Despite himself, Amon's
own face gleamed recognition.
     Instantly, the pointing revolver stabbed.
     Straight to Amon's heart went three bullets, as fast as Prince Poverty
could pump them. Staggering, Amon pitched forward, plucking at the lever as he
sprawled.
     Those final, futile twitches of Amon's hands impressed the masquerading
murderer. Stepping across the costumer's body, Prince Poverty pulled the lever.
Seeing the floor spread wide, he showed the same impulse as with the revolver
shots. Gripping Amon's body beneath the shoulders, the murderer spilled it
forward while the halves of the trapdoor were poised like yawning jaws.
     Sped by its own dead weight, the body tumbled between the sliding sections
just before they clapped shut. Stepping forward, Prince Poverty found the floor
as solid as before. A smile was curling the lips beneath the mask as the
disguised killer retraced his path through the old scenery.
     Reaching the door, the masked murderer pressed the light switch that
blanketed the entire loft in darkness. For a minute, all was silent, then faint
creaks occurred. They seemed to travel back through the loft, to be followed by
a rustling sound that ended in a thump, as if a door had closed.
     After that, all was still in this place where two victims had so suddenly
vanished. Only the occasional crackle of the fire came as a disturbing element.
The same flames that had devoured the evidence from Amon's ledger seemed to
gloat over the retribution they had witnessed.
     Strange retribution, wherein Amon, slain by an unknown murderer, had gone
to join the very victim that he had pitched into the pit: The Shadow!


     CHAPTER X

     PROGRESS AND POVERTY

     THE steps up to Amon's costume shop were a real hazard in the dark. Clyde
Burke found it so when he stumbled over them. However, the fault was partly
Clyde's, for he was in too much hurry, trying to make up for time he'd lost
coming from the hotel.
     The trip had taken double the ten minutes that it should have. Traffic was
jammed along the principal streets of Industria, because people from miles
around had come to town to see the pageant. Clyde's cab had been forced to make
detours at a snail's pace.
     In a way, Clyde's stumble was fortunate. It placed his chin right on the
level of the door sill; otherwise, he wouldn't have gained a long view of the
stairway leading to the loft. Because of the peculiar angle, Clyde saw
something happen at the stair top.
     What seemed to be solid darkness was suddenly changed to a dull glow of
light. Someone was upstairs taking a look around. Just who it was, Clyde didn't
know, but he suspected it wasn't The Shadow - whose own measures of looking
around usually involved a tiny-beamed flashlight rather than a flood of
illumination.
     Quite as suddenly, the lights went off. By then, Clyde was on his feet in
the midst of Amon's shop. He knew, too, that the person upstairs wasn't The
Shadow, for the footsteps that were starting down came heavily and in rather
blundering fashion.
     Looking for a place to step out of sight, Clyde saw the costume rack. It
was made to his order, because he was wearing one of Amon's costumes, the
harlequin outfit that The Shadow had hired for him. Though Clyde didn't know
it, he was copying The Shadow's own process, when he stepped to the rack and
stood there like something hanging on a hook.
     Footsteps were steadier when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Though
the shop was dim, Clyde recognized the arrival. The man from upstairs was Roy
Rexford; he was carrying a costume that looked like a batch of rags, and the
odd thing was that Rexford was smoothing the costume as though he thought its
looks could be improved.
     Crossing to the counter, Rexford carefully placed the ragged costume in an
open box that was lying there. When he put the cover on the box, the action
disclosed a large bound ledger that was lying beneath the box top. Rexford paid
no attention to the book; he simply tucked the package under his arm and went
out by the front door.
     On arriving here, Clyde had noted a car parked out front. It proved to be
Rexford's, for the sleek-haired man entered it and drove away. As soon as
Rexford was gone, Clyde decided to go upstairs himself. There was just enough
light from below to guide him to the top, and when he reached the loft, Clyde
immediately found the light switch.
     A simple click produced the same effect that Clyde had witnessed from
below. A whole string of lights appeared, forming a pathway through scenery and
props that Clyde immediately classed as junk. The only item that seemed of any
account was a fancy tapestry that hung from the rear wall, near a battered desk.
     Rexford couldn't have gone to that far wall while Clyde was watching from
below, because it was a long trip there and back. Seeking an explanation for
Rexford's brief use of the lights, Clyde saw a table just within the stairway
door. He decided that Rexford could have picked up the tattered costume from
that table. Maybe he had been trying it on, for across from the table was a
fair-sized mirror.
     Still, Rexford hadn't been wearing the costume when he came downstairs.
That meant he might have taken it off in the dark.
     Such speculation was rather futile. Clyde's job was to find The Shadow; to
learn why his chief had so abruptly summoned him. But there was no sign of The
Shadow, Cranston, or anybody else anywhere in the wide-spread loft. Therefore,
Clyde became convinced that his delayed trip had changed the situation. The
Shadow must have left without waiting for his arrival.
     There was much more to that than Clyde realized, as he turned out the
lights and made his way downstairs. Reaching the street, he looked for some
answer to his problem and saw one.
     Lights were gleaming from an office building only a block away. Those
lights represented the offices of Gault Consolidated. Possibly The Shadow had
dropped in there, as Cranston, to have a chat with Ferris Dane.
     Starting for the Gault building, Clyde was pleased with his own policy. If
anybody could be blamed for Clyde's present unpopularity, Rexford was the man,
because it was Rexford who had practically pitched Clyde out of the Gault
mansion.
     Dane was quite the opposite of Rexford. It was Dane who had stepped to
Clyde's aid, saving Cranston the necessity of intervention. Since Dane didn't
particularly like Rexford, it was obvious that he would not be prejudiced
against Clyde. Thus a visit to Dane's new headquarters could hardly bring Clyde
any trouble.


     EFFICIENCY was paramount in Industria. The elevator in the Gault building
was of the automatic type, and Clyde operated it personally in reaching Dane's
floor. He knocked at the door, heard a voice say to enter. So Clyde entered and
found Dane.
     In pained fashion, Dane was limping about the office, leaning his weight
against desks and chairs. He finally settled in one chair, raised his leg and
placed it on another. From the way he winced, it was plain that he had suffered
more than a slight injury.
     Clyde inquired the trouble.
     "It's my trick ankle," complained Dane. "I tripped coming down Amon's
steps. Traymer is looking for a local doctor and Miss Gault is trying to get
one of the specialists up at the house."
     "The specialists?" inquired Clyde.
     Dane gave a pained smile.
     "You should ask," said Dane. "It's because of you they brought the
specialists there. Poor old Gault! They thought he'd gotten over the penny
craze, until they found you in his counting room."
     "But Gault was penny mad the night before -"
     "Not as mad as when you saw him," interposed Dane. "He's never handed
pennies to anybody until you came along. The psychiatrists they imported call
it a new complex, but between you and me, their opinions aren't worth much. If
there was one real doctor in the whole carload, he'd be down here looking at my
ankle."
     Just then the door opened and Traymer hurried in, accompanied by a local
physician, who promptly proceeded to examine Dane's ankle. When the doctor
pressed the swelling, Dane gave a suppressed groan, then tightened his lips and
inquired:
     "Is it dislocated, doc?"
     "I don't think so," replied the physician. "It is more like a bad sprain.
Aggravated, no doubt, by your previous injury. Have you tried to walk on it?"
     "Only a little."
     "A little might be too much. I should advise you to stay off this foot for
at least a week."
     Traymer began a protest.
     "But the pageant tonight!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Dane is supposed to play the
principal part -"
     "Don't worry the doctor," interrupted Dane. "We can settle that question
ourselves. Right now, I hear the elevator, so wait a minute, doc, before you
put on the bandage. I want some of those New York specialists to know what a
sprained ankle looks like."
     Dane turned a grin toward Traymer, but his expression sobered when it
reached Clyde. Hastily, Dane waved the reporter toward the door.
     "Better get scarce, Burke," said Dane. "If Miss Gault sees you, she won't
like it. As for you, Lady" - this was to Traymer - "I want you to keep Miss
Gault occupied while the doctors are here. Don't let her know my ankle is
really bad, or she'll suggest that Rexford take my place in the pageant as King
Progress."
     Following Dane's advice, Clyde departed the office and was around the
corner when the elevator stopped. He saw Diana and Margo step from the
elevator, followed by a pair of the specialists that Dane had mentioned.
Traymer came from the office to hold the girls in conversation while the
physicians joined the ankle consultation. Seeing a handy flight of stairs,
Clyde used them to reach the street.
     There didn't seem much use in phoning for a cab from the phone booth in
the building lobby. With traffic as it was, Clyde decided to walk back to the
hotel. He quickened his pace when he looked back and saw Diana and Margo coming
from the building. Clyde wasn't anxious to have another encounter with the fiery
Miss Gault.
     The girls entered the limousine, and it sped them away along a side street
to avoid the city traffic. Obviously, it was taking them to the starting point
of the parade, and would return later to pick up the doctors. How Dane would
manage with his bad ankle, was a problem in itself. It might handicap him
seriously as King Progress, unless there would be very little footwork
necessary.
     However, that was Dane's problem.
     Clyde's job was to contact The Shadow. Having missed him at the costume
shop, he decided to try the hotel. Arriving there, the reporter phoned his own
room and Cranston's, but to no avail.
     Looking about the lobby, Clyde saw throngs of people, mostly in costume,
for all here, bystanders as well as paraders, were joining in this evening of
carnival.
     It struck Clyde suddenly that The Shadow might have decided to forego his
black garb and wear some masquerade. A sensible theory, considering that The
Shadow had visited the costume shop. So Clyde entered the swirl of
masqueraders, studying what little he could see of their masked faces. The
throng carried him in the direction of the hotel's most popular spot, the
taproom.


     THE taproom clock showed nine. A stentorian voice announced, by
loud-speaker, that the parade was starting. Immediately, people finished their
drinks, put on their masks, and hurried from the place. Clyde found himself
staring at one lone customer who remained, a figure in fanciful rags and
tatters.
     The man was Prince Poverty, otherwise Roy Rexford. His mask hanging from
his neck, Rexford was standing at the bar calling for another double whiskey.
Clyde saw the bartender stare askance, whereupon Rexford uttered:
     "Don't worry about me. I know my part in this parade, and I'll play it
just as far as I like, and no further! Understand?"
     Rexford's tone sounded firm and sober. He was in a mood that nullified the
effect of the drinks he had stowed away. The bartender nodded, but politely
reminded Rexford that it was nine o'clock.
     "I know it," snapped Rexford. "But Prince Poverty doesn't have to do his
act until the parade reaches the reviewing stand. And after that, he's
finished... if he wants to be. So keep the belt line moving on the whiskey.
I'll do my stuff between drinks."
     Distant music announced the approach of the parade. Clyde hurried out to
intercept the floats before they reach the reviewing stand. He wanted to see
the act that Rexford intended to do. Taking a short cut in back of the
reviewing stand, Clyde suddenly sighted the parade.
     On the largest float of all Clyde saw King Progress and Queen Industry,
surrounded by courtiers and ladies in waiting. Since the king and queen were
seated on thrones, the part wasn't too difficult for Dane, even with his bad
ankle; though Clyde noted that Diana Gault, masked as Queen Industry, was
showing considerable concern for her royal consort.
     Clyde wondered how Rexford would like it when he saw Diana worrying over
Dane. The thing to do was watch and learn. Strife between Progress and Poverty,
as represented by a magnificent king and a tattered prince, threatened to mark
the climax of a personal grudge.
     There was no need to analyze the possible outcome. Clyde was leaving that
to The Shadow, confident that his unseen chief would be in the thick of things.
     The Shadow was definitely in the thick of something.
     Still in the pit where Amon had dropped him, The Shadow was lying in thick
blackness, which covered him more like a coffin than a shroud. The world had
forgotten The Shadow and he had forgotten it.
     And the world included the city of Industria, where amid the spirit of
carnival death's masquerade was in the making, promising more than a sham
result in the annual duel between King Progress and Prince Poverty!
     Whatever The Shadow knew or suspected, there was nothing he could do to
offset it, on this occasion when gaiety and music offered cover for a stroke of
death!


     CHAPTER XI

     MURDER UNMASKED

     THE royal float had reached the reviewing stand, located in a large square
near the hotel. In the stand were the judges, passing on the merits of the
various floats, but they laid their notebooks aside and rose to salute the
royal float.
     The judges were not in costume, unless evening clothes could be termed
such. Nor were they masked, these elderly and respected citizens of Industria.
They formed a dignified group, though one important face was missing - that of
old Ellery Gault.
     Absence of the town's most prominent citizen was almost as serious as a
rainstorm, where the success of the pageant was concerned; but the human
element was something that could be altered at will. Of a sudden, a murmur
sounded among the masked throng that watched the parade from across the square.
It carried to the reviewing stand, to be picked up by the masqueraders who were
banked in tiers above the judges.
     The stand quivered as people came to their feet, craning forward, even
removing their masks to see better what was happening below. A loud cheer
suddenly roared throughout the square. Pushing his way among the judges was old
Ellery Gault himself!
     His white hair flowing, Gault received the handclasps of the judges;
scanning their faces, he saw their surprised expressions. Shouting in their
ears, Gault told them how he happened to be here. Amid the tumult, only
snatches of his shouted statement were audible.
     He was saying something about doctors. "Fool doctors," Gault termed them,
though he used a few adjectives to embellish the word "fool." They'd told him
to stay home and count his pennies, instead of attending the parade. But when
two of the specialists had been summoned on an emergency case, Gault had given
the rest the slip.
     He wanted to see the parade. He wanted to be with his friends, the judges.
He hadn't forgotten them; as proof, he handed each a nice bright penny. Thanking
Gault for his liberality, the judges gestured toward the royal float. With a
nod, Gault forgot his pennies and beamed happily at the gorgeous tableau that
approached.
     King Progress, in his thickly pleated robe and ermine mask, was seated
proudly on a throne that matched the gilded crown that topped his ample wig.
Beside him, Queen Industry occupied a similar throne; her costume, too, was
purple trimmed with ermine, but her mask was daintier, her crown smaller.
     People knew King Progress as Ferris Dane only because the program called
for Dane to play the part. But Queen Industry was obviously Diana Gault,
because much of her face was visible and she hadn't hidden her gorgeous red
hair under an old-fashioned wig.
     Grouped about the king and queen were courtiers and ladies in waiting.
Among the latter was Margo Lane, in suitable costume. She was a late addition
to the float, but there was another passenger who had almost missed it. He was
an extra courtier, perched on a lookout pedestal behind the throne.
     Ferris Dane had delegated George Traymer to that post as a last-minute
novelty. The pedestal lacking a ladder, it had simply been lowered to the float
so its occupant could perch upon it. Then half a dozen courtiers had hoisted the
light-weight pedestal in place, occupant and all.
     It was too bad that The Shadow hadn't been around to witness that
proceeding. He might have credited Traymer with a new supply of nerve that
wasn't in his system that night he hesitated on the ladder to the foundry deck.
Or The Shadow might have come to some conclusion typically his own.
     However, in the present commotion, the lookout was forgotten along with
the others on the royal float. The only person who didn't grasp the situation
was Diana Gault. Forgetting the dignity of Queen Industry, she turned to King
Progress and tugged his ermine-decorated sleeve.
     "What's happening, Ferris?" queried Diana. "People usually applaud the
royal float, but never so wildly as this."
     Retaining his dignity, King Progress gestured his glided scepter toward
the reviewing stand. Diana's gaze followed; she exclaimed in a startled gasp:
     "Uncle Ellery!"
     Queen Industry would have left her throne and jumped from the moving
float, if King Progress hadn't halted her. Then, as Diana subsided, her qualms
faded. Her uncle, for the moment, had become his sane self. The cheers of the
crowd brought dignity to his keen face. A smile showed beneath his white
mustache, and in imposing style, Gault gestured toward the royal float and
began applauding on his own.
     The crowd understood. Gault wanted them to forget him and cheer the
parade; so they did.
     Clyde Burke saw all this from near the reviewing stand. He wondered
briefly why such men as Helm and Woburn weren't among the judges; then he
realized that they were too active to belong to the group of old-timers.
Thoughts of Helm and Woburn brought Clyde's mind to Rexford, and produced a new
and timely proposition.
     If Rexford planned to queer the parade by not appearing as Prince Poverty,
he would lose caste forever in Industria. It would be bad enough ordinarily, but
since old Gault had shaken himself free from the tribe of doctors just to put in
an appearance, Rexford would be a piker indeed if he failed to play his part.
     Clyde actually felt sorry for Rexford and hoped the fellow had left the
hotel bar in time to get here. But it didn't seem that way, because the royal
float was almost past the judges. Then to Clyde's genuine relief, there was a
stir in the crowd near the reviewing stand and Rexford pushed through.


     IT was Rexford, all right. He was in costume, but he hadn't yet put on his
mask, because it handicapped him in finding his way through the bystanders. The
crowd spread, then squeezed together, and Rexford was popped like a bottle cork
toward the royal float. Turning hastily, he faced Clyde's way while he put on
his mask. Then, completely Prince Poverty, Rexford strode toward the float.
     Immediately, the show began.
     Ladies in waiting shrieked and cringed as the tattered terror bounded
among them. This was the usual act: Poverty creating consternation in the court
of Progress. Courtiers sprang forward, drawing imitation swords, but Prince
Poverty brushed them roughly aside. All was feverish commotion on the float,
while the witnessing crowd howled its approval.
     Having plunged himself into the act, Rexford did it in style. Courtiers
took real sprawls as the fanciful scarecrow flung them from his path. Seeing
the lookout on the pedestal behind the throne, Rexford started to scale the
summit, turning Dane's innovation to his own benefit.
     The tower, a mere frame covered with papier-mache, threatened to collapse,
and its occupant made warning gestures quite violent for Traymer to display.
     Courtiers dragged Prince Poverty back and steered him on his proper route
toward the throne of Queen Industry. Rexford remembered his part; as Prince
Poverty he was supposed to seize Queen Industry, which he did, in a fashion
more realistic than specified.
     Diana gasped, then set her lips firmly as Rexford literally hauled her
from the throne. Through his mask, he glared a challenge at King Progress, who
stared blankly. Dane certainly couldn't have expected Rexford to overdo the
pantomime to this extent.
     Rexford was on an edge as ragged as his costume. So far, he had literally
stolen the show before the approving gaze of Ellery Gault, the biggest man in
Industria. But if he actually carried Queen Industry away as prisoner, Prince
Poverty would be exceeding the limits of propriety.
     Still, there was an angle to it that might have stirred Rexford's bucolic
mind. Too much zeal on the part of Prince Poverty would point to a lack of that
quality in King Progress. In playing the buffoon, Rexford was throwing the
burden on Dane, whose business it was to prevent such foolery.
     Courtiers rallied and wrenched Diana from Rexford's grasp. They shoved the
obnoxious figure of Prince Poverty into the lap of King Progress, who raised his
scepter when his rival made a grab for it. At that moment, Clyde Burke wouldn't
have been surprised to see the scepter turn into a cudgel. Nor would he have
blamed Dane for cracking such a bludgeon over Rexford's head.
     But King Progress didn't swing. He warded with his other hand, brushing
Prince Poverty aside just far enough for the tattered clown to stumble from
beside the throne and flatten on the float. The crowd liked it, this
representation of Progress banishing Poverty and saving Industry.
     Still, the acclaim was for Rexford rather than Dane, for the sprawl looked
intended. Only Clyde had counted the drinks that Rexford took before the pageant
and recognized the effect as something of their origin.
     In trying to shake off the courtiers who dragged him to his feet, Rexford
reeled the wrong direction and tumbled from the float itself. Coming to his
feet, he staggered in a semicircle while the float rolled on ahead. Finding the
crowd instead of the parade, Rexford clutched at people all about him and was
swallowed in the mass.
     Great cheers arose for Prince Poverty. The crowd wanted Rexford to return
and repeat the act, the best that any knave of rags and tatters had ever
demonstrated in the history of Industria's pageantry.
     Unless the experience had somewhat sobered Rexford, Clyde doubted that the
prince would reappear. If Rexford did sober, he'd have another reason for
ignoring the parade. The royal float had turned a corner, leading past the
hotel, and was where Ellery Gault couldn't see it. Rexford would have nothing
to gain by merely playing to the mob that banked the farther route of the
parade.
     However, shouts were coming for Prince Poverty, and the tumult traveled
ahead of the parade. Pushing along to see what might happen, Clyde saw the
crowd open wide. Again, Prince Poverty reeled into sight, this time with a
novelty to please the populace.
     The tattered buffoon was carrying an old-fashioned flagon that he could
have picked up in the hotel bar, for he came from that direction. The thing
looked like an oversized pewter mug and it was full of wine that kept splashing
from the brim. Mounting the passing float, the prince waved the courtiers back
and approached the throne of King Progress in humble, bowing style.
     The abject manner was disarming. King Progress bowed and received the
flagon from his penitent subject. Raising the huge mug, the king was about to
drink, when he realized it wouldn't be in character to accept anything from the
hands of Poverty.
     With a toss, King Progress sent the wine at Prince Poverty, who dived away
to avoid it. Again, his haste carried the tattered rogue clear past the float
edge, but despite his mask he saw the brink in time to avoid a bad fall.
     Now it was King Progress who was gaining the acclaim. Bowing profoundly,
he placed the nearly emptied flagon beside his throne.


     IT was only logical that Rexford would seek a last meeting with Dane,
considering that the flagon stunt had proved a dud. Still trailing the parade,
Clyde saw Prince Poverty appear a block farther on, near the end of the route.
Rexford must have shown speed to overtake the float, for the sidewalks were so
packed that detours through alleys were necessary.
     Furthermore, Prince Poverty arrived from the other side of the street when
he boarded the float, empty-handed, and approached King Progress with somewhat
scheming manner. Close to the king's ear, the prince went through a whispering
pantomime, with side gestures toward Queen Industry.
     Dipping his hand into his tattered costume, Prince Poverty brought out
boxes containing tawdry imitation jewels, which King Progress flung aside as
fast as he received them.
     There was to be a final gift. Prince Poverty was reaching for it while
whispering anew in the ear of King Progress. They were close together, the
tatters of Poverty mingling with the ermine of Progress.
     Then, suddenly, Prince Poverty drew away. Apparently, King Progress would
accept no gift, for the royal hand swung from a raised position into an outward
fling that seemed a token of dismissal. Head bowed, hands twitching, Prince
Poverty made a slink to the edge of the float and left it.
     The parade was at the finish line. Diana beckoned to the courtiers and
they crowded around the throne of King Progress. The finale was to be a
procession from the float into an auditorium, where a reception was scheduled.
Diana remembered that Dane must be handicapped in such a march.
     "Help Ferris to his feet," she whispered to the courtiers. "Remember, he
has a very bad ankle -"
     Already offering assistance to King Progress, the courtiers did not hear
him complain personally about his ankle. In fact, he didn't complain about
anything. His ankle didn't bother him in the least. The real trouble was that
King Progress had a very bad heart.
     Like a mass of lead, he slid from the hands that lifted him and rolled
heavily forward from the throne. Clutches coming unequally, King Progress
turned as he fell and landed face upward with a jolt that shook the float
platform.
     Diana saw a dark stain spreading across the kingly robe and thought it was
wine from the discarded flagon, until the blot crept from purple satin to white
ermine, where it became a deep crimson. At that moment, Diana screamed.
     Two of the courtiers stooped to learn the cause. One lifted a broad fold
of the purple robe; the other pointed in horror to the object that the
oversized pleat had hitherto concealed.
     The object was the handle of a knife, with just enough glitter below its
hilt to prove that the blade itself had been driven straight to the victim's
heart. King Progress lay slain, finally conquered by Prince Poverty in a duel
that had begun as sham and ended in stark realism.
     A man in harlequin costume pulled his mask away as he reached the float.
Recognizing Clyde Burke, a lady in waiting unmasked and clutched the reporter's
arm. The girl was Margo Lane. Tensely, she breathed the news that Clyde expected.
     "Dane is dead!" spoke Margo, "A knife in his heart!"
     "Put there by Rexford," said Clyde grimly. "I should have known it at the
time it happened!"
     There were other things that Margo and Clyde should have known: facts that
would belie even their present suppositions - as they were to learn very soon.
     But the only person who could have known the whole truth was The Shadow,
had he been present to view all that occurred. Only the hand of The Shadow
could have saved King Progress.
     And a grim question still existed: whether the hand of The Shadow, like
that which so recently had clutched a royal scepter, would ever move again!


     CHAPTER XII

     MISGUIDED VENGEANCE

     STUNNED by the grim sight of death, the men on the float drew back from
the motionless figure of King Progress. It was natural to recoil, because when
they did, men saw the body as a thing in costume and mask, rather than a human
shape so lately active like themselves.
     Reaching the horror-stricken circle, Clyde Burke leaned over the body and
looked at the deep-buried knife. But it didn't occur to him to remove the mask.
Like other witnesses, Clyde was beginning to hope that this murder was too
grotesque to be real; that the dead form of King Progress might be simply a
play figure, some part of a travesty staged by Prince Poverty.
     Such hope was futile. Roy Rexford had been real enough as Prince Poverty.
This motionless figure on the royal float must certainly be Ferris Dane,
attired as King Progress.
     Sudden sounds from above brought Clyde to his feet. The high tower behind
the throne was swaying; from its perch, the courtier who served as lookout was
sliding, almost falling. Others came to their senses and turned to break his
tumble. Coming into their arms, the man from the tower stumbled toward the dead
figure of King Progress. He stooped to look at the murderous knife projecting
from the victim's heart.
     To see the weapon better, this new arrival whipped off his mask. Then,
realizing that death had actually been done, he lifted his unmasked face and
stared aghast at the people surrounding him.
     They stared back, their own faces spread with an amazement that even masks
couldn't hide.
     In a trice, murder had seemingly been undone.
     The man who stared from beside dead King Progress. The lookout who had
been atop the tower during the entire ride was the very person they supposed to
be the victim: Ferris Dane!
     Then who was the dead man?
     Dane himself supplied the answer when he solemnly removed the victim's
mask. At first, the dead face wasn't easy to recognize, because it lacked the
glasses that it usually wore.
     The dead man was George Traymer!
     To listeners, Dane began an explanation, that was very obvious to Clyde.
Similarly, Margo and Diana could quickly grasp it as soon as they learned that
Dane's ankle injury was more serious than he had let them know.
     Behind it, however, was that same rivalry between Dane and Rexford. Only,
in Dane's case, it involved nothing more than a desire to hold his place in the
parade, whereas Rexford's attitude was tainted with the insidious crime of
murder.
     "The doctors told me to stay off my foot entirely," brooded Dane. "That
meant I'd have to give up being King Progress, turning over the role to
Rexford, of all people!"
     "But Roy was your alternate," began Diana. "You should have called him -"
     "And where would I have found him?" demanded Dane. "He was still overdue
at Amon's when we left there; remember? Anyway, I phoned Amon before the
doctors left, but I didn't get an answer."
     Dane paused to survey Traymer's body, sadly.
     "Poor Lady," he mused. "It was his idea. He said he'd play the part of
King Progress during the parade and through the procession. When the reception
began, I was to take his place." Dane gestured to the auditorium. "A few limps
were all I'd have needed to reach the throne in the reception hall. Of course,
I was first to put on the other costume -"
     Diana gave a quick interruption:
     "What other costume?"
     Dane gestured to the tower on which the courtiers had earlier perched him,
thinking he was Traymer. One of the courtiers brought down a sizable sofa pillow
that Dane had been using as a cushion. Opened, the pillow disgorged a complete
King Progress costume in duplicate. There was a square box on the pedestal,
too. It contained the other wig and crown.
     Understanding showed on Diana's face.
     "This must belong to Roy Rexford," the girl said slowly. "I'd almost
forgotten that he ordered a king's costume, too, just in case he might have to
play the part. It was customary, of course -"
     "Of course," agreed Dane, as Diana hesitated. "It's lucky Rexford did
order one, because mine didn't fit. Or I should say 'unlucky'" - Dane's strong
face went solemn - "because my costume did fit Traymer. Poor chap, he took the
knife that was meant for me."
     Clyde couldn't doubt that Dane's grief was genuine. Nevertheless, the
question of luck, good or ill, was debatable. Quite certainly, Dane was alive,
whereas Traymer wasn't.


     MURDER having been done, the question was to find the killer. It was Clyde
who expressed that point impersonally, when he gestured toward Traymer's body
and asked the group around him:
     "Did any of you see the actual knife thrust?"
     None had, but Diana, sensing much from Clyde's tone, took it that he was
accusing Rexford.
     "Roy wouldn't have murdered anyone!" stormed Diana. "He couldn't have!"
     Defiantly, she looked about as if inviting dispute. Meeting Dane's
deep-set eyes, Diana took it that they carried accusation toward Rexford.
Diana's own eyes sparked.
     "Don't look at me that way, Miss Gault," spoke Dane steadily. "I'm not the
murderer!" He gestured upward. "I was on that tower all the time. Those
witnesses know it, because they put me up there."
     Dane propped himself against the side of a throne to take the weight from
his swollen ankle. People surveyed the papier-mache pedestal and were convinced
that Dane was more than right. He couldn't have left his perch without being
noticed. If he'd flung the knife, hundreds of people would have seen the throw.
Furthermore, the knife would have glinted in the brilliant lights during its
ten-foot flight.
     An added point was that Dane's tower stood behind Traymer's throne, so a
blade tossed from that direction couldn't possibly have reached the victim's
heart.
     "We're getting somewhere," observed Clyde tactfully. "We know that Dane
couldn't possibly have used that knife."
     "I know someone even less likely than myself," volunteered Dane.
     He was looking at Diana. She stared blankly, then brightened as she
queried:
     "Do you mean me?"
     "I mean your uncle," replied Dane. "He was on the judge's stand, and he
must certainly still be there."
     Diana's forehead puckered. Mere mention of Ellery Gault was preposterous;
but Dane must have some purpose in it. The answer began to dawn: Dane didn't
want to name Rexford, so he was taking a long way around. By stating names that
couldn't possibly be those of Traymer's murderer, Dane was stimulating people
into naming probable candidates for the dishonor.
     At least, it worked that way. There was a buzz about the float, and from
it rose the name:
     "Roy Rexford!"
     It could only be Rexford. His clowning as Prince Poverty was the perfect
cover-up. Frantically, Diana tried to stem the tide of accusation, and found a
sudden inspiration from the way Dane had parried her recent question.
     "It wasn't necessarily Roy!" Diana exclaimed. "Why... why, I could have
stabbed Traymer! Yes, that's it" - her head was turning, her eyes flashing -
"that's what Ferris is trying to say. I did it, and he knows why!" She turned
straight toward Dane and uttered fiercely: "It's because I hate him, and I
thought he was in the costume of King Progress!"
     Limping from the throne, Dane smiled despite a painful wince. He steadied
himself by resting a hand on Diana's shoulder. His courtier's costume fitted
the manner that Dane displayed, a softness of nature quite foreign to his usual
pose.
     "You don't hate me, Diana," declared Dane, "and you didn't murder Traymer.
You're trying to help Rexford, and no one is fooled. I admire you for it, and I
think you're right."
     As Diana stood astonished, almost in Dane's arms, her new champion turned
to the group about him.
     "Diana wasn't the only person close to Traymer's throne," asserted Dane.
"As I recall it, you all clustered around just after Rexford left. Anyone of
you" - Dane's circling gaze took in a dozen - "might be the killer. Think that
over, and maybe you'll decide to show fair play toward Rexford."
     To Clyde and Margo, it was plain that Dane was playing for Diana's favor.
Dane's real rivalry with Rexford concerned the gorgeous redhead, though Diana
herself did not realize it, this being the first time that Dane had really
advanced his cause.
     He was doing it subtly, was Dane, yet his whole manner carried sincerity.
He liked to do things in a generous way, if only as a form of policy. Nothing
could be finer than winning a girl's love by clearing her former suitor of a
murder charge. Hence Dane could afford to show ungrudging tendencies toward
Rexford.


     DANE certainly sold his listeners.
     Not only did they begin to doubt Rexford's guilt; they took Dane's word
that Diana must be innocent. To top that, they began to suspect themselves. By
this time, half the group was unmasked; those whose faces showed began to flush
guiltily, then, as if by common accord, they stared coldly at the masked
courtiers as though the latter were hiding something.
     Another buzz began. A few witnesses, anxious to provide new evidence,
remembered the gesture with which King Progress had dismissed Prince Poverty
just before the knife was uncovered. Both Clyde and Margo recalled the flap of
Traymer's arm and realized that it had fallen when the killer released it.
     If anything, it was evidence against Rexford, but the other witnesses, all
thinking themselves to be suspects, interpreted the whole thing wrongly. Some
began to exclaim that Rexford couldn't have slain Traymer, which only packed
the burden more heavily on themselves.
     Amid the increasing murmur, Dane smiled broadly, except for slight winces
at the corners of his lips, inspired either by his paining ankle or his regret
for poor Traymer. Yet Dane couldn't help but smile. By this time, Diana was
really in his arms, packed there as though she belonged permanently.
     Then came the inevitable swing of the pendulum.
     Men were springing on the float to learn what had been happening the last
five minutes. They saw Traymer's death-frozen face, the knife handle showing
from the folds of the kingly robe. They demanded facts, and when they heard
them, their opinion was summed up by a firm-jawed man with glinting eyes, who
boomed the order:
     "Find Rexford!"
     The speaker was Warren Helm, wearing a cavalier's costume. Helm was a man
of reason, free of maudlin sentiment and freakish doubt. He brought matters
back to the obvious that persons had foolishly begun to doubt.
     "Find Rexford!"
     The cry swelled, and with it the news spread. King Progress had been
literally eliminated by Prince Poverty. Maybe the victim wasn't Ferris Dane,
the proper King Progress. But that didn't prove that Roy Rexford wasn't the
murderer who cavorted as Prince Poverty. For one thing, Rexford couldn't have
known that Traymer had substituted for Dane.
     Vengeful masqueraders were swarming from the sidewalks, to start the
manhunt. Helm was shouting after them, trying to control the mob, but it was
going beyond the bounds of reason. From the float, Clyde saw another man of
rational ideas, who was shouting something, too. The new arrival was Laird
Woburn, his round face glaring from beneath a fez that topped a sultan's
costume.
     Woburn, too, was learning that reason had its limits. A block away, he'd
heard the hue and cry. Informed of its purpose, he'd also raised the shout:
"Find Rexford!"
     Now Woburn, like Helm, was trying to hold mob violence within the
restrictions of a legitimate manhunt, and finding it wouldn't work. The two of
them, meeting near the float, began yelling at people to summon the police
chief, the county sheriff, and any other officials who might be at large. But
nobody cared to listen.
     However just the hunt for Rexford might be, it could prove misguided
vengeance when mob law took over. Should Rexford be found, one thing alone
could prevent the pack from lynching him.
     The Shadow would have to rise alive from the depths to which he had been
banished, to meet this fearful issue.
     Only the hand of The Shadow could annul misguided vengeance!


     CHAPTER XIII

     MURDERER'S PROOF

     LEFT in the wake of the surging mob, the people on the float stood
horrified. Diana Gault spoke first, as she wrenched from the embrace of Ferris
Dane. She hadn't lost her admiration for the man; rather, her action was a
tribute.
     "You must do something, Ferris!" exclaimed Diana. "You must save Roy, even
if he did murder Traymer!"
     With a firm nod, Dane took a step toward the float edge. His ankle gave,
sprawling him helplessly. Still, he wasn't going to desert the cause. Crawling
to one foot, he shouted:
     "Get me a car, quickly! I'll show that mob that I still have fists, even
if I have to do it sitting down!"
     A better idea struck Clyde Burke. Grabbing Margo Lane, he told her to come
along; then, noting the wine flagon beside the Progress throne, Clyde paused to
pick it up. He handed Margo the flagon as they left the float.
     "Rexford was going back to the hotel taproom," informed Clyde. "He still
may be there. Maybe the barkeep is smart enough to hide him. If so, we'll find
out."
     Margo raised the flagon.
     "And will this help us?"
     "I think so," nodded Clyde. "It may have come from the taproom. If we
bring it back, we can pass as Rexford's friends. But don't spill any of the
wine that's left. It might be evidence."
     Around the corner, Clyde and Margo saw the mob gathering in size as it
roared past the reviewing stand. About the only people still in the stand were
the judges. They were trying to quiet Ellery Gault as he waved his arms and
cheered, as though he thought the mob was part of the parade.
     Clyde led Margo along a short cut to the hotel. As they entered the
taproom from the lobby, there was a bang of the street doors. Tables and chairs
were overturned, with the barkeeper staring as though dazed.
     "We want to find Rexford." Clyde gestured to the flagon that Margo held.
"He asked us to give him this. It's important."
     "Just follow the crowd," advised the barkeeper. "They're looking for
Rexford, too. He's either getting mighty popular, or he promised to buy drinks
for the whole parade. They came in here like a cyclone."
     Evidently the bartender hadn't learned why the mob wanted Rexford. Clyde
inquired quickly if the fellow knew where Rexford had gone. The barkeep nodded.
     "Rexford finished a few more drinks and left," he said. "He was taking
that whacky costume back to Amon's shop. Said he wouldn't need it. He wasn't
going to the reception. So I told the boys they'd find him at Amon's, if they
hurried."
     Clyde hauled a key from his pocket and slapped it in Margo's hand.
     "Put that flagon in my room," said Clyde. "Then start to barricade the
place. If I can reach Rexford first, I'll bring him there."
     Nearing Amon's, Clyde saw he hadn't a chance. The mob was surging into the
costume shop. There was a car out front, and from its window Dane was exchanging
punches with all comers. Diana was at the wheel and every time the going became
too tough for Dane, she started the car into the mob itself.
     That policy served only to bring Dane against a fresh field of fighters,
because the car didn't travel far enough to mow anybody down. Every time Diana
shoved it into gear, a dozen members of the mob picked up the rear wheels and
let them spin, cutting the net mileage down to about a dozen feet.
     The only thing Clyde could do was chase around to the vacant lot in back
of the rickety old building; so he did. At least, he was the first person to
have that idea. The mob was too busy trying to pack itself through the front
door.
     In the crush, Clyde saw the faces of Helm and Woburn, still bawling for
the mob to desist. They were getting hearty jeers in return and a great, hollow
echo of the battle cry that they themselves had so foolishly begun:
     "Find Rexford!"
     Clyde took two things for granted: first, that Rexford had not been found;
second, that no man of reason could hope to do anything with that mob.


     ON both counts, Clyde was wrong. Rexford was found, and he was managing
something through reason. Rexford was on the stairs leading up to Amon's loft.
Across his arm, he was dangling the Prince Poverty costume, while he gave the
crowd a poker-faced stare.
     Despite the dim light, Rexford could make out individual faces in the mass
confronting him. Recognizing persons who should have been his friends, he
singled them out as he spoke in his self-confident style.
     "It seems you're looking for me," he asserted. "Very well, I'm here. We'll
decide what we're doing next after you've told me what this ovation is about."
     Voices howled their responses. They were amplified by a flourish of
weapons, that ranged from monkey wrenches to metal pickets that the mob had
ripped from the fenced-in flowerbeds surrounding the hotel. Rexford ignored the
bludgeons, while picking out the men who shouted loudest.
     They were telling Rexford that he knew why they wanted him. They were
jeering the news that Dane was still alive, forgetting that members of the mob
itself were still outside, trying with punches to do to Dane what a knife had
failed to deliver.
     Others were telling Rexford that he was coming along. Some were suggesting
that he be made to carry the rope with which the mob intended to hang him. More
bawled that a rope would be too good; that somebody ought to provide a knife
bigger than the one that butchered Traymer.
     The loudest shouts dwindled automatically, for the simple reason that
Rexford, in his cold but assured style, looked directly at the persons who gave
them. He was nodding, Rexford was, and speaking names aloud. The people that he
named were quick to duck their faces and sidle toward the door.
     The citizens of Industria weren't geared to lynchings, and Rexford
recognized it. He was on the point of quieting the unruly mob - an achievement
that might have won him lasting fame, whatever the legal verdict might be in
the case of Traymer's death. But Rexford had forgotten the out-of-towners in
the throng that faced him.
     The rabble from the hinterlands had let the local talent show them the way
to the costume shop. Now the outlanders were pressing into the place. They'd
seen the parade, as advertised, but it had turned into a double feature and
they weren't going to miss the second half.
     Hearing the shouts for knives, these newcomers produced them. Rexford's
eyes, as glittery as the blades, were quick to spot the rounded muzzles of
revolvers appearing along with the knives. Instantly, he switched his policy.
     Flinging the Prince Poverty costume into the mob, Rexford made a quick
scramble up the stairs. Guns barked, knives came flinging, but all were far too
late. The second wave of missiles, bullets included, bashed the iron front of a
strong door that Rexford slammed and bolted from the other side.
     Therewith, the whole mob went into action.
     Reaching the bolted door, men found that it was merely sheathed with
metal. It might have stalled a crew of burglars, but it couldn't do more than
slow this human wolf pack. Clyde's thoughts of a barricaded hotel room would
have made him feel quite silly, had he witnessed what happened to Amon's strong
door.
     Revolvers punched it with bullets; metal spikes drove through the holes.
Crowding hands pried with the improvised levers, using shoulders as fulcrums.
The maddened mob treated the heavy hinges as a strong man would a pack of
cards, tearing them in half with a single twisting operation.
     Rexford had scarcely passed the top of the stairs, to dive headlong into
the debris of scenery and stage props collected by old Amon, when the door went
with a smash and the stairway rocked under the feet of an ascending herd that no
longer yelled of ropes and knives.
     All they wanted was to treat Rexford as they had the door - to batter him,
rip him, and carry his head on one of the picket spikes in a parade that would
inform Industria that Progress was as dead as the costumed king who had so
unwisely represented it in the recent pageant.


     SUCH tumult was enough almost to rouse the dead.
     Inasmuch as The Shadow wasn't dead, it roused him. Down in the cellar pit,
he'd been gaining his senses slowly, very slowly. The Shadow was enjoying a
state very close to coma, which rose gradually to the dream stage, then
dwindled.
     It was a serious condition, the sort that could have prolonged itself into
a lethargy. Continuing such, The Shadow's dwindling strength could have left him
helpless in this forgotten abode. Any physician, even Gault's overadvertised
specialists, would have prescribed just one treatment for The Shadow: namely,
to shock him from his present daze and set him into motion.
     The mob furnished the needed treatment.
     Howls, bashing feet, the quiver of the entire building, stirred The Shadow
like a tonic. He came half upright in the thick darkness, clutched a metal post
beside him and shoved away something that was a heavy burden on his shoulder.
     No longer was The Shadow on a physical dead center. He was himself again,
the cloaked fighter who could challenge all comers. Instinctively, his famous
laugh came from the lips that needed no hiding from the hat brim that jammed
his forehead, since all was blackness anyway.
     True, The Shadow's thoughts were in a weird whirl. He wanted action. As
proof, his bare hand slid into its glove and finished by gripping an automatic
from beneath his cloak. But The Shadow couldn't place himself, nor did he
understand why tumult and shouts of murder were everywhere except the place he
wanted them, which was here.
     The Shadow recognized the monstrous turbulence of a mob unrestrained. It
was the sort of thing that needed settlement, and his specialty lay in
providing such balance sheets. Wherever this inhuman, murderous mass might be,
The Shadow preferred the shortest way to find it. Without bothering to use his
tiny flashlight, he groped in darkness.
     Finding a hanging rope, The Shadow tugged it. Oddly, his action took place
just as the vanguard of the mob reached Amon's loft and pressed the light switch
by the door. Pushed by those behind them, men with all sorts of weapons were
pouring into the loft, looking for Rexford along the lighted path toward the
far wall.
     That happened all at once, but so did The Shadow's own experience. He'd
found the shortest way to meet the human wolf pack, and the quickest. The
moment he tugged the rope, his path was straight upward on the fastest elevator
he'd ever ridden.
     It was silent, too, this flat platform between four posts that old Amon
had invented to bring a flock of wood nymphs on the stage so fast that eyes
could not detect their arrival. In fact, the elevator was intended for their
disappearance, too, but it had been at the bottom when Amon opened the trapdoor
wide.
     Whizzing upward with a speed that clocked itself in tenths of seconds, the
platform clicked a special tripper that whipped the sections of the trapdoor
wide. The pause that those sections made was just sufficient for the elevator
platform to replace them as a solid floor.
     Arrived from forgotten depths, The Shadow was standing in the glare, fully
visible against the butterfly backdrop that old Amon prized. So rapid was his
appearance, that the men who sought Rexford thought surely that this cloaked
figure had been awaiting them while they battered their way upstairs.
     And the bloodlust of the mob, based at least on the initial premise that
vicious death was the right fate for a killer, could apply to The Shadow even
more than Rexford. If ever maddened men had sought a murderer's proof of his
crime, this mob had found it.
     For on the solid floor beside The Shadow lay the weighty burden that he
had shoved aside in darkness and forgotten - the body of old Amon, its head
twisted so that the face delivered a grotesque stare of death toward the flood
of unbridled cutthroats who were here to seek a victim!


     CHAPTER XIV

     CRIME'S HOLOCAUST

     WITH one engulfing motion, a wave of fiery humanity enveloped The Shadow.
Driving straight into the opposition, The Shadow met the blanketing surge with
a spurt. He was the spearhead of his own attack, his gun delivering what his
opponents tried to give, slashing swings that counted hard.
     His other hand was out from the cloak, bringing a second automatic.
Downward, side-arm or backhand slashes, all were alike to The Shadow. His
pommeling guns rang an anvil chorus against the assorted hardware that came
slinging at him.
     The Shadow's strokes carried through, whereas the others didn't. That was
the simple reason why a human whirlwind in black continued to revolve
unscathed, while his dazed opponents cluttered up the floor. One against many
could be the best of odds, the way The Shadow operated.
     The cloaked fighter could slug everywhere without a miss, whereas his
foemen had to find him. Which they did, but in reverse style. Crowding in each
other's way, pausing too long or swinging too hurriedly, those who actually
reached The Shadow found him whirling their way before they could do him damage.
     In clearing a space about him, The Shadow sent men scattering among the
junk that was piled throughout the loft. The fighters who dived for such
shelter didn't look back to witness the further devastation that The Shadow
wreaked.
     However, there was a man who viewed the progress of the lopsided fray.
     That man was Roy Rexford, who should have been a reliable witness,
whatever his other shortcomings. Rexford at least could judge things sanely,
having demonstrated that ability when he faced the mob earlier. But Rexford was
ready to doubt his own sanity as he peered through the eyehole of an old theater
curtain hanging deep in Amon's loft.
     It didn't seem possible that any single fighter could flay a horde as The
Shadow did. Rexford was learning how a mob could really be handled. He must
have remembered, though, that he'd done quite well up to a certain point, when
things had gone amiss.
     Perhaps The Shadow's formula would fail. Whether Rexford hoped so, his
face didn't tell. In any event, he was forgotten by the mob, though it might
have struck him that if the howling tribe managed to find The Shadow's weakness
and dispose of him, all pressure would be off.
     Already branded as Amon's murderer, The Shadow could easily be made the
scapegoat for Traymer's death. Still, Rexford was a man who calculated coolly.
He might consider it to his own advantage if The Shadow shook loose from the
mob, especially if it carried the would-be murderer off to a farther chase,
away from Rexford's present location.
     So far, the only heads that were taking punishment belonged to men who
carried picket spikes on which they hoped to impale a victim. The Shadow had
battered those pikemen badly by slugging in between their clumsy weapons. In so
doing, he was paving the way to what might prove his own disaster.
     Rexford saw it coming, but didn't budge. A return of common sense, rather
than antagonism toward The Shadow, accounted for Rexford's immobility. There
was simply nothing he could do to aid The Shadow, even if he'd wanted.
     Into the space that The Shadow had cleared sprang the husky outlanders
with their knives. They came a dozen strong, all slashing with weapons that
were made for close-range massacre. The Shadow looked like a black-clad Caesar
falling beneath the stabs of assassins when that avalanche hit him.
     Seeing the cloaked figure disappear under the flood of assorted costumes,
Rexford thought it was all over.
     It almost was.
     A shout rose from the stabbing throng. Rexford saw men rise and point at a
figure that had squirmed from their surrounding ranks. It was The Shadow,
stumbling as he reached his feet, pitching his guns ahead of him as he tried to
break his fall. Men spun about with their knives, thinking they could pounce
upon the elusive victim before he could regain his guns.
     At that moment, The Shadow grabbed a handier weapon. Most of the throng
mistook it for a pike that had fallen, propped where some fighter lost it. A
few saw that it was a lever, but they didn't guess its purpose until after The
Shadow pulled it.
     With one quick tug, The Shadow banished a dozen foemen. Old Amon's dead
face seemed to grin from the floor, as though his sightless eyes viewed the
disappearance from the corner where trouncing feet had pedaled his body.
     The men with the knives evaporated as wood nymphs should have. Amon's
elevator trap was perfect.
     The platform went with a downward whiz, the side sections slapping shut to
replace it, all so rapidly that witnesses were wondering why the men with knives
weren't stopping The Shadow from picking up his guns, only to look and see that
the assassination crew was gone.
     Other men, lunging forward to be present at the kill, stopped short when
they found the vanguard missing. They were so stupefied, that The Shadow could
have pulled the lever again and literally dropped them without benefit of the
elevator as a brake.
     That would have crippled a few dozen who deserved it - those who fell, and
the crowd on which they landed. But The Shadow wasn't holding the mob
responsible for its own murderous mood. He preferred that these fools should
suffer only minor injuries.


     SO far, The Shadow had beaten sense into numerous thickheads and had dazed
others with a ride resembling a tailspin. He felt that he could convince the
rest regarding their folly. Therefore he whirred upon the rooted tribe, shoving
his regained guns ahead of him.
     This time the automatics blasted. The shots they jabbed had the appearance
of a point-blank fire. The Shadow was aiming at narrow spaces between his
enemies and giving his shots an upward angle to avoid persons in the
background. But it didn't look that way.
     From the dives men made, the stumbles they took over Amon's props, The
Shadow's gunnery seemed to be clipping fighters two to a bullet. He'd have
cleared the loft immediately, if routed men could have found an exit. It
happened that there was no exit.
     The door from the stairway was still teeming with an incoming mob. The
human maelstrom couldn't reverse itself, even though it wanted. Things were
happening as Rexford expected. He'd seen how pressure had prevented the mob's
retreat; this time, The Shadow was experiencing the thing that soured victory.
     Indeed, The Shadow had put himself in an utter dilemma.
     The very shots that he fired so freely were ruining his cause. He'd
exhausted his guns with rapid fire to complete the rout that couldn't happen.
Like a tribe of apes, this mob was quick to copy any measure that it could.
Amid the mass that jammed the doorway were men with revolvers. They took over
where the vanished knife crew had left off.
     Slicing in from various angles, the gunners opened fire toward The Shadow.
From his peephole, Rexford was counting the shots, calculating that by ten the
frenzied shooters would have found the range and The Shadow would be receiving
bullets for the shots that he had wasted.
     Rexford's calculation was fairly accurate. It was the ninth shot that
clicked. But it didn't find the range.
     It found the stove.
     With a speed that showed inspiration, The Shadow had plucked Amon's
loft-warmer from its moorings and was using it as a shield. It was a sizable
stove, but it wasn't overly heavy. Its one fault was its heat, for the wood
with which Amon had stoked it was now burning briskly. How long The Shadow
could keep crouched and swing it, keeping himself well covered, was something
that Rexford hadn't time to calculate.
     The spreading gunners did that for themselves. Having put The Shadow on
the absolute defensive, they converged upon him, springing out of the maze of
scenery like wild cats from the woods. And The Shadow, finding the stove even
hotter than the battle, promptly employed his improvised shield as the last
thing the attackers expected: an offensive weapon.
     Upward, forward lunged The Shadow, sweeping the stove sideward as he came.
The open front disgorged fire, not the sort that guns gave but a kind that could
thoroughly scorch. Live coals and flaming chunks of wood were flying everywhere.
The jolts that the stove made helped the process.
     The jolts came when the stove thudded men who shoved into its sweeping
path. Next thing, the gunners were diving back into the lighted path that led
to the door, all choosing it as the way that would give them the greatest
distance from the red-hot weapon that The Shadow wielded.
     By then, The Shadow was finding the stove too hot to handle further, so he
flung it. Howling men dodged the flame-belching missile as it struck the floor
amid a terrific deluge of sparks. But the bloodthirsty pack seemed as
inexhaustible as The Shadow's own measures. A final flood, that had followed
the gunners, came for The Shadow like a human tidal wave.
     There were too many for the trapdoor treatment, even if The Shadow had
applied it. As a last resort, the cloaked fighter sprang for the butterfly
tapestry that adorned the wall of the loft. He was gone behind that flimsy
backdrop when a score of hands ripped it from its hooks. Then, in the tangle of
the curtain, men were grabbing for The Shadow, while all about, scattered flames
were beginning to gulp the other scenery.
     Several heads were soundly thumped while the mob tore the butterfly
masterpiece to shreds. But none of them belonged to The Shadow; they were
simply heads of men who had helped tear down the flimsy hiding place. The rest
of the mob stared bewildered in the glow of the fire that was spreading through
the loft.
     The Shadow was gone, vanished like a batch of blackness!


     ONE thing, at least, had worked in The Shadow's favor. He had reached the
door that he knew was behind the butterfly curtain, and he had been lucky
enough to find it unbolted. The Shadow had gone through as he opened it, and
therewith yanked the barrier shut behind him.
     Only Rexford saw the outline of the door. The mob was still looking for
The Shadow. That search ended abruptly as flames rose with a surprising roar.
The whole loft was catching fire, and nobody cared to stay.
     Following the stampede that went down the front stairs, Rexford was forced
to concede that The Shadow had finally provided the sure cure for a human horde
gone berserk.
     Oddly, The Shadow hadn't done too well for himself.
     He was through the door, into welcoming darkness, when he found its
greeting was none too pleasant. What The Shadow hit was space like the
blackness that engulfed him when Amon pulled the trap. This door was in the
rear wall of the loft. It didn't lead to another room, nor even a stairway. It
opened right outside, with a sheer drop to the ground.
     At least, the plunge was shorter, promising a better landing. That thought
flashed to The Shadow as he took the fall. His midair twist helped him somewhat,
but the best break came when he struck. He landed in a group of men, odd members
of the mob, who had picked up a ladder and were trying to use it as a short
route to the loft.
     They sprawled as The Shadow struck them, but they were quick to grab at
their unexpected prey. The Shadow was punching back at them, when another man
tore in furiously. Clyde Burke was on the job. The first man to reach the back
of the building, he'd bided his time when the others arrived to dispute his
claim.
     Clyde's punches helped. They lacked weight, but their sincerity made up
for it. Men forgot The Shadow, the fighter they couldn't see, and turned to
suppress Clyde. That was their big mistake, for it gave The Shadow a chance to
get in motion. Once he did, he scattered them with gun-weighted fists and
plucked Clyde from the ground where four men had flung him.
     When Clyde became himself again, he was in his hotel room. He recognized
the place and wondered why it wasn't barricaded. Clyde's mutters were heard by
a black-cloaked friend who sat beside the window. Hearing the tone of a
whispered laugh, Clyde turned over on his pillow, satisfied and reassured.
     In fact, Clyde didn't even open his eyes. Therefore, he failed to see the
spectacle that The Shadow was watching from the window.
     Huge flames were rising from the outskirts of Industria, and the fire
marked Amon's costume shop. Fire engines were clanging to the scene, where a
maddened mob had found its senses and was helping combat the mammoth blaze.
     Crime's holocaust had become a real conflagration that was wiping out all
ideas of lynch law, along with Amon's premises. Rexford, the hunted man, was
safe, with the question of Traymer's murder to be decided later.
     Even safer was The Shadow, the unknown battler whose identity still
remained unknown, the master who could provide the proper vengeance for a crime
as yet unsolved!


     CHAPTER XV

     CRIME RETRACED

     THE SHADOW wasn't in his sanctum.
     Usually he preferred his sanctum for the work he was doing at present. The
sanctum was a hidden room, black-walled and secret, that only The Shadow
entered. But it was in New York, and at present The Shadow was in Industria, a
town that he did not intend to leave until an important case was settled.
     However, this hotel room, occupied in the name of Lamont Cranston, might
as well have been the famed sanctum. Its shades drawn, the room was completely
dark except for a corner where a blue light glowed. Under that special bulb,
long-fingered hands were busy sorting evidence on the surface of a table.
     There was this about the blue bulb. It had ultraviolet properties, very
useful at times. For instance, when The Shadow held a small glass to the light,
the liquid in it showed a dull brown instead of the colorless effect that
certain purple substances gave under ultraviolet light.
     The tiny glass contained the residue of the wine from the flagon that
Prince Poverty had handed King Progress during the parade. The brown color was
evidence of a virulent poison that would have been quite as effective as the
knife that Prince Poverty used later. In brief, there had been two attempts at
murder during the pageant that had taken place a few nights ago.
     At present, The Shadow was reviewing facts in an effort to retrace crime.
His hands were sorting clippings, and all the while a strange gem shone from
one of The Shadow's long fingers. Its hues changing in the light, the fire
opal, known also as a girasol, seemed to reflect the chameleon traits and the
mysterious moods that were famous with The Shadow.
     The first batch of clippings referred to Ellery Gault.
     Being the principal citizen of Industria, it was only right that Gault
should take precedence. Officially all affairs, large and small, should come
under Gault's personal notice and final jurisdiction, whether those affairs
were good or bad.
     The fact that Gault left so much to others caused him to be publicized as
a man of liberal ideas who had no trend toward paternalism. The clippings on
Gault all registered that theme. They mentioned the directors' meeting, stating
that Gault had presided there. In connection with the pageant, Gault's name
topped the list of judges. At the coming pantomime, to be held in the opera
house, Gault would be on exhibit in a private box, unless the pressure of
important business interfered.
     Important business of counting pennies by the thousands. Such was the
story that the clipping didn't tell.
     The Shadow was sure that Gault would not attend the pantomime. He wouldn't
be able to sit still long enough. Directors could overlook his behavior at their
meeting; judges could cover for him during a parade. But if Gault's inevitable
mania seized him in the opera house, the truth would become public.
     Easy to picture Gault breaking up the show by suddenly rising and tossing
pennies by the handful to the audience, tuning his cackle to the clatter of the
coins. However, Gault wouldn't have his chance at it. The specialists had put
the clamps on him, establishing a cordon of servants to keep him in the
counting room whenever he went there, because Gault's visits to that chamber
were a sure sign that his mind was wandering.
     As a subhead under the name of Gault, The Shadow stacked the clippings
referring to Diana.
     They were social notices, mostly. Descriptions of her part in the parade
were limited to Diana's marvelous portrayal of Queen Industry, in glowing
accounts that took up a few pages, had The Shadow bothered to assemble all the
clippings.
     There was chitchat about the house party, the pink teas and other minor
events on schedule. The final theme again was the pantomime, because Diana was
to play a part in it. She was to be Marguerite in a silent show based on the
opera "Faust." Tactfully, the newspapers did not mention that George Traymer,
lamented and forgotten, had written the adaptation. Instead, there were a few
columns on the life of Gounod, the composer of the original opera.
     Next, three names in order of local importance.


     WARREN HELM was in the news. As president of the foundry, he was demanding
a thorough investigation of a preliminary event which he regarded as the first
symptom of local crime. Helm wanted facts on a cloaked marauder who had tried
to murder Ferris Dane with long-range shots from across a channel of flowing
steel.
     Find that malefactor and the law would hold the culprit who later had
driven a knife to the heart of George Traymer. Said murderer would likewise
prove to be the person who had blasted Amon with bullets in the loft of the
costume shop.
     Laird Woburn echoed the opinions of Warren Helm. In due course, Woburn
would make a check-up of the personnel at the dyeworks in quest of a suspicious
character who might be the killer in black. Woburn, too, was stressing Dane's
preliminary experience as the thing first to be unraveled.
     In every interview, both Helm and Woburn came back to the beginning. They
wouldn't express themselves on the pageant murder, nor the riot that had
followed it. Though they didn't term him by his proper name, they were
practically shouting, "Find The Shadow," just as they had once cried, "Find
Rexford."
     Two clippings formed a link between Helm and Woburn. In each, the two men
suggested that a blackclad killer had somehow secreted himself upon the royal
float and managed to knife Traymer. Likewise, Helm and Woburn took it for
granted that the cloaked marauder had murdered Amon later: namely, when he
reached the costume shop ahead of the excited mob.
     The next name was Roy Rexford.
     Totally unmentioned by Helm and Woburn, the last of the Big Three occupied
a unique position.
     As usual, Rexford was handling his affairs in a manner as noncommittal as
possible. He'd simply played Prince Poverty; nothing more. Traymer's death was
a shock to him, but he expressed no surprise over the fact that Traymer, and
not Dane, had worn the King Progress costume.
     Rexford simply stressed his first trip to the royal float, considering all
the rest to be byplay. He intimated that if he'd wanted to murder anybody, he'd
have done it then. By casually classing Traymer as a close friend, Rexford let
people imply what they wanted, where Dane was concerned.
     Reading between the lines, checking Rexford's omissions as much as his
actual statements, The Shadow saw how cleanly the scales were left in balance.
Offsetting the supposition that Rexford might have wanted Dane put away was the
inference that Rexford had recognized Traymer despite the latter's mask. If that
had happened during their first encounter on the royal float, the right Prince
Poverty would have had no reason to murder the wrong King Progress later.
     The last batch of clippings covered Ferris Dane.
     The new vice president of Gault Consolidated had only one statement to
make. He considered Traymer's death an irreparable loss to the community. Dane,
in particular, could feel it, because he had counted on Traymer to handle the
accounts and finances of Gault Consolidated, so that Dane himself could
concentrate on co-ordinating the three industries.
     Traymer's death hadn't altered Dane's plans. He intended to go ahead with
his own program. Financial matters being bottle-necked until the chemical works
supplied its final figures, Dane intended to let them wait until he found
another man like Traymer.
     Mention of the chemical plant and its tardy accounts could be a subtle dig
at Rexford. Dane made an even broader one when he expressed the hope that Helm
and Woburn might provide him with a man as good as Traymer, for in that
statement, Dane actually ignored Rexford as a member of the Big Three.
     But Dane had softened those points. In mentioning the chemical works, he'd
made allowance for its reorganization and expansion. In speaking of Helm and
Woburn, Dane had termed them "men of long service and prestige" in Industria,
whose "choice of capable subordinates" had included Dane himself. So Rexford, a
comparative newcomer, was not exactly slighted.
     Furthermore, Dane had never worked under Rexford. Dane had left the
chemical plant, gone to the dyeworks, and graduated to the foundry before
Rexford arrived in Industria.
     From a large clipping, The Shadow sheared little strips that dropped, one
by one, on other heaps. The big clipping was the one referring to the
pantomime. Since Diana was to play Marguerite, one slip went on her clippings.
     The others fell respectively on the press clips of Helm, Rexford and Dane,
since all were likewise to appear in the gala show, in various roles. One name
was absent from this list: Woburn's. But at the very bottom of the large
clipping, The Shadow found mention of Woburn as one of the guests who would be
at the box party arranged by Ellery Gault.
     Though Gault wouldn't be there, Woburn would. So The Shadow lopped a final
item to go with Woburn's clippings.
     Then, with an undertoned laugh, The Shadow did a most singular thing. He
took three stacks of clippings and piled them all together. Those were the
heaps belonging to the Big Three: Helm, Woburn, Rexford.
     As industrial leaders, those three belonged in the same category; but The
Shadow wasn't making a business survey - he was investigating crime. His
classing of Rexford along with Helm and Woburn meant that the three must have
something in common that had so far escaped the average eye.
     Perhaps the reports of The Shadow's agents were responsible. From beside
the clippings, The Shadow was picking up a sheet that Clyde Burke had compiled.
The telephone on the table was ringing and when The Shadow answered it, speaking
in the calm tone of Cranston, he heard the voice of Margo Lane.
     Clyde's description of death's masquerade was a lead-up to the information
that Margo was at present providing. The call finished, The Shadow left the
pitch-black room, his lips phrasing a whispered laugh.
     Out into the night, The Shadow became a gliding, unseen figure. Roving the
streets of the very town where he was sought as crime's scapegoat, The Shadow
was on his way to obtain new data toward the solving of two murders which, when
explained, would clear him of false blame!


     CHAPTER XVI

     SETTING FOR MURDER

     BACKSTAGE lights were glimmering in the old opera house which had once
been Industria's pride, and still was an imposing building. Unfortunately,
opera had never become an established attraction in the model city, and its
failure had accounted for Amon's thwarted ambition.
     However, the opera house was occasionally used, particularly around
pageant time, and Traymer's pantomime of "Faust" had been arranged accordingly.
The lights backstage were proof that things were being put in readiness for the
big night to come.
     This evening, the main attraction was to be The Shadow. Like a ghost from
a long-forgotten past, he approached the stage door, where he became visible
only as a mass of blackness during the moments he took to enter. The door
closed and The Shadow showed as a batlike figure, human size, until he glided
from the lighted entry.
     He went through another door connecting with the auditorium itself.
Passing a row of boxes, The Shadow circled into the orchestra seats. From the
far side of the blackened footlights, he saw two persons standing on the great
stage. They were in the light of extension lamps that reached from the wings.
     One person was Ferris Dane; the other, Diana Gault. The Shadow expected to
see them here, because Margo's call, made from the Gault mansion, had informed
him that Diana was to meet Dane on the opera-house stage.
     Dane was discussing the coming show with Diana.
     "Traymer did more than adapt the story of 'Faust,'" declared Dane. "He
threw in a dash of 'Pygmalion,' too. Anyway, the scenes are simple enough, and
brief. It will be a good prelude to the feature picture that the audience will
prefer to see."
     Diana nodded. She knew the local tastes.
     "There are three scenes," explained Dane. "I appear with Helm in the
first. I'm Mephistopheles and he's Faust, so I tempt him into carving a statue
which I shall bring to life."
     Pausing, Dane turned through the pages of a script. He found it difficult,
because he was leaning on a crutch to rest his injured ankle.
     "The second scene shows the statue," continued Dane. "I am standing behind
it as Mephistopheles. Old Faust shows up, bringing young Valentin to witness the
transformation. The scene ends with a flash of lightning, a roar of thunder. The
statue crashes when I wave my hands, along with the lightning flash."
     "And the third scene?" inquired Diana.
     "It shows Faust and Valentin looking at the fallen statue. Rexford is
Valentin and, like Faust, he thinks the experiment has failed. But you have
replaced the statue during the brief blackout. So you come to life as
Marguerite.
     "Old Faust has fallen in love with you, of course. That's the Pygmalion
slant. But when you see Valentin, you fall for him instead. In fact, you both
fall - into each other's arms. While old Faust tears what hair he has, I appear
as Mephistopheles, giving a final gloat to prove that the devil always serves
his due."
     Before Diana could express her opinion of the script, a rumble came from
offstage. A stoop-shouldered man appeared, dragging the life-sized statue of
Marguerite, a demure figure in a medieval costume, with a carved veil hanging
from her head and shoulders, above an elaborate costume.
     "This is Marguerite," introduced Dane, referring to the statue. Then,
turning to the man with the stoop, he added: "And this is Barlow."


     DANA had heard of Barlow. He was a character like Amon, but less
ambitious. When opera became a past issue in Industria, Amon had entered the
costume business, but Barlow was content to serve as caretaker at the opera
house.
     He was part of the place, Barlow. He acted as janitor, handy man, stage
manager, everything else that might be required except ticket seller. Barlow
was too slow-witted to work in the box office. He belonged backstage and stayed
there.
     "The statue came from Amon's," explained Dane. "Fortunately, it was
shipped here with most of the scenery and props before the fire. We salvaged
the rest from Amon's cellar, but it's too bad we don't have Amon, too. He might
have arranged an instantaneous transformation to take the place of the blackout
between Scenes Two and Three. However, it's pretty fair as is."
     Dane gestured to Barlow, whose drab face showed some understanding. Barlow
pushed the statue to the center of the stage, standing it beneath an open
archway flanked by two imitation pillars that were simply wide slats of painted
woodwork.
     "Set it at an angle, Barlow," ordered Dane. Then, when the caretaker
stared dumbly, Dane hobbled over on his crutch. "Here, I'll show you. It has to
be at an angle so they can see me behind it."
     Turning the statue, Dane took his place behind it, in the archway.
Stepping forth, he took a look at the statue's face.
     "It doesn't look enough like you," Dane told Diana. "However, I think we
can sculpture it a bit... Paint and brushes, Barlow, and a chisel."
     As soon as Barlow shambled from the stage, Diana gripped Dane's arm. Her
words were an undertone, but the acoustics of the opera house were perfect. Her
voice carried to The Shadow.
     "You said you had something to tell me, Ferris," expressed Diana.
"Something about Roy Rexford -"
     Dane interrupted with a quick nod. Leaning against the statue of
Marguerite, he spoke to its living duplicate.
     "You probably wondered a lot the other night," he said. "I mean when I
took Roy's part -"
     "You were grand, Ferris," inserted Diana. "Why, the way you punched the
mob from the car window, without letting anyone give a real blow in return -"
     "I mean before that," put in Dane. "When I didn't accuse Rexford of
murdering Traymer. Didn't you wonder then?"
     "Frankly, I did wonder."
     "That's because you didn't see what I saw from the tower behind the
throne. I was looking along the street and I saw Prince Poverty twice."
     "Why, so did I!" began Diana. "We saw him more than twice. He came on the
float three times."
     Dane shook his head as he smiled.
     "What I mean," he declared, "was that I saw Prince Poverty twice at once -
though that's an odd way to put it. The one that leaped from the float was still
in sight behind us when the second barged on the scene with that big flagon."
     Diana's eyes showed the amazement that Dane expected. But there wasn't any
surprise on the part of Dane's unseen audience, The Shadow. This was the very
thing that The Shadow had analyzed from Clyde's report. Prince Poverty, by
Clyde's own description, had reappeared too suddenly to be the tattered clown
that Clyde had first seen!
     There was a sudden exclamation from Diana.
     "Then Roy had a double!"
     "He may have had two doubles," suggested Dane. "Prince Poverty popped up
too far ahead the third time, and from the wrong side of the street. The first
man might have taken a short cut, but I don't think so. Let's say there were
three."
     "And only one was Roy." Diana paused, her forehead furrowed anxiously, the
wrinkles disappearing into her red hair. "But which of the three was he? Not the
third man, I hope!"
     "I'd say he was the first," decided Dane. "The others wouldn't have risked
showing themselves until they thought Roy's act was over. What's more, I'd say
that each took a turn at killing Traymer, thinking he was me. One man failed,
the other succeeded."


     DANE'S analysis was perfect, as The Shadow could testify. The cloaked
investigator held the very evidence needed. Clyde Burke had seen Roy Rexford
putting on his mask to make his appearance as the first Prince Poverty. The
poison in the wine from the flagon proved that the second Prince Poverty had
tried to murder King Progress before the third prince settled the situation
with his knife.
     "Tell me, Ferris," insisted Diana earnestly. "Who could the two other men
have been?"
     "In my opinion," replied Dane slowly, "one was Warren Helm, the other
Laird Woburn."
     Mere mention of such important names left Diana quite agape. However, she
gradually began to realize that since suspicion had fallen on Rexford, it could
be tossed on them as well. What Diana wanted was a reason, so Dane provided one.
     "You wonder why those two would want to murder me," he said, in an
impersonal tone. "I would say that they were simply jealous of Rexford; so
jealous, that they wanted to ruin him."
     "Then why didn't they try to kill Roy?" asked Diana.
     "I was a more logical victim," replied Dane. "I'd just taken the jinx job.
My death would have made the earlier accidents look like murder, too; all
Rexford's work."
     "Of course!" exclaimed Diana. "And I remember something else" - the girl's
eyes were flashing furiously - "the way Helm and Woburn stirred that mob into
going after Roy!"
     "I've been looking for their motive," continued Dane, accepting Diana's
statement at face value. "My talk of letting financial figures wait was just
bluff. I've gone through Helm's accounts and Woburn's with a fine-tooth comb."
     "And there was something wrong with them?"
     "Not a thing." Dane shook his head. "That was a puzzler while it lasted.
Then I struck the answer. Rexford's accounts are still to be delivered."
     "But Roy's accounts would certainly be in order!"
     "That's just it," assured Dane. "Too much in order to suit Helm and
Woburn. Rexford is doing so well with synthetic rubber that his total will
exceed those of the foundry and the dyeworks combined."
     Herself a product of Industria, Diana could see the logic. She knew that
in this model community, all men, large as well as small, were slaves to a
great master called "output." She was ready to believe that men like Helm and
Woburn would go to any limit to eliminate a man whose output might exceed their
own.
     Between them, they had branded Rexford a murderer, and had therewith
stirred a mob to take immediate vengeance upon him. The actual murder, which
one of the conspirators had perpetrated, was merely the wedge to Rexford's
doom. Had the mob caught him, Rexford would not have lived to state his
innocence.
     Diana's eyes met Dane's, as the girl queried:
     "Does Roy know this?"
     "He must," answered Dane. "If I could reason it out, he could do so even
better, because he didn't have to argue his own innocence."
     "But the man in black, the mysterious person who is now blamed for
Traymer's death, and Amon's -"
     "He was trying to help Roy," inserted Dane. "I know, because he did the
same favor for me. I'll tell you all about it later, Diana. Here comes Barlow."
     The return of the human relic belonging to the opera house was the cue for
The Shadow's exit. Skirting the boxes, he left the stage door while Barlow stood
watching Dane remold the features of the Marguerite statue.
     A laugh whispered in the outside darkness. Its strange sibilance seemed to
summarize all that The Shadow had heard. But it carried an individual note that
bespoke The Shadow's own opinions on the final points that Dane had mentioned.
     The matter of motive went deeper than Dane had stated. In considering
Rexford as crime's target, Dane had forgotten factors that concerned himself,
or at least let them dwindle. There could still be reasons why Helm and Woburn
wanted to dispose of the man who held the jinx job as vice president of Gault
Consolidated.
     If Dane happened to be free from danger for the present, that was
explainable, too. Indeed, Dane himself had provided the key to his own safety,
in the course of his statements to Diana.
     The Shadow knew, and his knowledge was the sort to prove valuable. For The
Shadow had already picked the setting where crime's next stroke could be
expected.
     That setting would be the stage of the old opera house; the time, the
evening of the scheduled pantomime!


     CHAPTER XVII

     DRAMA OF DEATH

     ELLERY GAULT was polishing his pennies, twenty thousand of them, for he'd
added to his total recently. It was a long, arduous task, the polishing, and
the psychiatrists regarded it an excellent sign.
     They declared that Gault's complex, or fixation, was reaching a crisis or
crux. Unless it retrogressed or deteriorated into a new phobia or psychosis,
Gault's condition would become the equivalence or simulation of a norm or level.
     Such, at least, was the general verdict of the specialists, who had
finally agreed on everything except the use of words that meant the same thing.
All they had to say was that Gault would either get better or worse; but that
would be putting it too directly.
     As for Gault, he didn't care. Apparently, he didn't realize that the
doctors' bills would cost him many dollars' worth of nice bright pennies. On a
basis of words alone, the fees would climb to great proportions. But Gault was
happy.
     They'd said he could keep his pennies. He could polish them all he wanted,
so their lovely coppery color wouldn't tarnish. Gault could even invite people
to his counting room and show them his hoard of pennies. If he wished, he could
charge admission in the form of new pennies themselves.
     Thus it happened that when Lamont Cranston called at the mansion for Margo
Lane, an invitation was extended him to visit Gault's quarters. This was on the
evening when the pantomime was to be held, but Cranston was well ahead of time.
So he and Margo went up to see Gault.
     Faithful retainers were on duty, stolid servants specially assigned to
Gault. One of them ushered the visitors through the room with pearl lamps and
purple curtains, into Gault's counting chamber. There, Gault was busily
polishing pennies with little squares of chamois, slowly building stacks of
coins.
     Gault gave his visitors a delighted smile when they laid some pennies on
the table. He kept polishing his coins, breathing on them before he rubbed
them, holding them to the light after he shined them. When the visitors were
about to leave, Gault forgot that he was collecting pennies and became generous.
     "You'd each like a penny, wouldn't you?" he queried, with a tilt of his
head. "A nice bright penny?"
     Jingling some coins as he spoke, he extended his hand and opened it. With
a bow, Cranston reached to take two pennies, one for himself, the other for
Margo. His hand had a faster approach than Gault realized. With a sudden
reversion to his miserly self, Gault whipped back his hand, doubling it tightly.
     Then, gingerly opening his fist, he let pennies drop one by one to his
other hand, all the while watching Cranston warily. There was a fanatic glint
in Gault's old eyes, but gradually it faded. As he dropped the sixth penny, he
stopped suddenly, and thrust the coin to Margo. Then, counting more coins one
by one, he regained his trust of Cranston and gave him a penny also.
     Downstairs, Ferris Dane was showing Diana Gault a sheaf of account sheets
that he'd brought from his office. They hadn't time to go over the sheets in
detail, so Dane thrust them into a brief case, which he placed beneath a desk.
Dane was speaking when they came out to the hallway.
     "I can't find a flaw," he declared glumly. "Helm and Woburn have accounted
for everything to the last penny."
     Diana gave a shudder. Mention of pennies made her think of her uncle and
his obsession. In Diana's opinion, Ellery Gault was getting worse instead of
better.
     "I'm sorry," said Dane, realizing his slip. "What about your uncle?
Wouldn't a sanitarium help him, Diana?"
     "We're ready to send him there," the girl confided. "What's more, he'll go
if I think best, because I asked him. All he insists on is a private ambulance,
with his own servants as attendants. There's one waiting out in the garage. I
only hope it won't be needed."
     Cranston and Margo arriving, the group left in the big limousine. Looking
back from Gault's commodious car, Cranston studied the great stone mansion.
There was something about the place that reminded him of Ellery Gault.
     That blank section, where a wide, solid buttress formed the connecting
foundation of the mansion's two sections, seemed barren of reason, like Gault's
mind. Yet above that grim base were glimmers from the windows of Gault's own
apartment, which was directly over the solid foundation.
     Faint glimmers, shaded by purple curtains, just as Gault's own mind was
clouded by fantastic ideas that shrouded its pearly glow. But where there was
light there could be reason. The Shadow was convinced that Ellery Gault could
still be stirred to sanity, under proper treatment and with the right
conditions.


     AT the opera house, Cranston conducted Margo into the private box, to find
Laird Woburn already there. Usually flabby, Woburn was rather a revelation on
this occasion. He seemed dignified, self-important, quite the perfect host. For
Woburn was taking the place of Ellery Gault, and was therefore in the public
eye. Even when the house lights dimmed, to mark the start of the pantomime,
Woburn was posing for the benefit of the audience at large.
     By then, the box party lacked one member.
     Lamont Cranston had stepped out through the box curtains. Reaching the
door that led backstage, he plucked a black cloak and slouch hat from beneath a
small table. Putting on those garments, he became The Shadow.
     This black-clad stranger that everyone was seeking was actually to be a
participant in the coming drama. His part, however, would be an invisible one.
Hundreds of onlookers from the auditorium of the opera house would never dream
that a cloaked actor was stalking behind the scenes.
     Backstage, The Shadow contacted Clyde Burke, who was standing near the
switchboard where Barlow handled the lights. His arms gripped by an unseen
hand, his ears catching a low whisper, Clyde let himself be drawn into deeper
darkness, where he heard The Shadow's instructions.
     The Shadow intended to keep close watch on the Big Three: Helm, Woburn and
Rexford. If the trio was under surveillance, a fourth man, Dane, would be cared
for automatically, since none of the big three could encounter Dane without the
fact being noticed.
     Should any member of the watched trio attempt to revive the jinx that
failed the other night, the murder attempt could be forestalled by The Shadow.
The cloaked guardian was sure that either Helm or Woburn would give away their
intentions if they planned murder.
     Thus The Shadow was instructing Clyde to exert his reporter's privilege
and stay backstage for the express purpose of watching Helm. As a member of the
box party, Margo was already keeping tabs on Woburn. Each agent was to notify
The Shadow immediately if either of the suspects showed symptoms of a criminal
move.
     The Shadow would be watching Rexford.
     There were still some doubts regarding Rexford. He could have made that
call to Creep Hubin, the night of the foundry episode. Rexford could have
murdered old Amon, for Clyde had seen him coming from the costume shop and
found Amon missing from the loft. Those points made it possible that Rexford
had been the first Prince Poverty and the third on pageant night, though The
Shadow doubted it.
     However, it wasn't right to overlook the fact that Rexford's accounts had
not yet been delivered to Gault Consolidated. In brief, Rexford was by no means
in the clear.
     Such factors, by The Shadow's analysis, were actually in Rexford's favor,
because they pointed to a frame-up on the part of Helm and Woburn. Therein lay
The Shadow's strongest reason for watching Rexford. Having failed to pin blame
for Traymer's death on Rexford, Helm and Woburn might be planning to murder
Rexford himself, to prevent him from some day bouncing guilt back on them.
     There was still another reason why The Shadow was personally handling the
Rexford situation. It might prove more important than all the rest combined.
However, The Shadow was keeping that reason strictly to himself as the
pantomime began.


     THE first scene was between Dane and Helm. Attired in a deep-red costume,
Dane appeared as Mephistopheles and whispered satanic wisdom in the ear of
Helm, who represented Faust. Helm was wearing the cavalier's costume that he'd
used in the pageant, but it had undergone some alterations since then.
     There were no masks in this drama, but Dane's features were made up
heavily, with the ruddy color and the exaggerated eyebrows that suited
Mephistopheles. In pantomime, Dane put across the idea that Helm was to hew a
life-sized statue; and the first scene ended.
     The shift to the next was rapid. Hustling Barlow from the switchboard,
Dane had him roll the Marguerite statue on the blackened stage. There were
voices in the darkness as Dane set the statue's angle by clamps nailed to the
stage. Then came the quick setting of the powder pan that was to produce the
lightning flash.
     The Shadow saw Barlow rig a wire to a rumbler that was to produce the
thunder. Then Barlow took his place at the switchboard and turned up the stage
lights. Checking on Clyde, The Shadow saw him close to Helm, who was pacing
nervously in the wings. Looking for Rexford, The Shadow saw him knocking at the
door of Diana's dressing room, to tell her that the second scene was on.
     Barlow fixed a final gadget, a wire from the rumbler to a cutoff on the
switchboard. It made the setup perfect, this arrangement. A flash of lightning
would be Dane's cue to lunge at the statue and overturn it, amid a roar of
thunder which would produce a blackout without depending upon Barlow to gather
his slow wits and pull the switch.
     From the audience, there came an approving murmur as the lights revealed
the second scene. Mid-stage stood the Marguerite statue, a fair resemblance of
Diana. Behind the statue was Mephistopheles, motionless in the archway. The
distorted leer that Dane had practiced was showing at its best, or worst.
     Not only would this tableau hold the stage alone; it would continue when
Helm returned as Faust and beckoned for Rexford to appear as Valentin. Helm was
in the wing, timing his cue by a stop watch, with Clyde watching him from close
by. The Shadow, shrouded completely in the backstage gloom, was checking
Rexford's departure from Diana's door. Helm was depending upon Rexford to catch
his proper cue.
     From her seat in the box, Margo was fascinated by the tableau. Dane was
stealing the show, as a wave of applause indicated. To retain an utterly
immobile pose was an art in itself, but Dane was accomplishing it under
exacting circumstances. His slightest waver would form a bad contrast to the
rigid statue that stood before him.
     Dane didn't waver. Moreover, his Mephistophelian figure was well in view,
because he had set the statue at a proper angle to reveal the archway,
particularly to those persons on the side of the house where the box party was
located.
     In her fascination, Margo almost forgot that her business was to watch
Woburn. Fortunately, when the box curtain stirred, it brushed Margo's shoulder
and made her turn.
     Old Barlow was peering into the box. He saw Woburn, gave his shoulder a
tap and whispered something to him. With a look of annoyance, Woburn arose and
followed Barlow from the box. Quickly, Margo left her seat and started to
overtake them on their way to the door that led backstage.
     Margo had a pretext ready. All she'd have to say was that Diana expected
her. Woburn would certainly be gentleman enough to let Margo precede him
backstage. Her mere arrival there would tell The Shadow that Woburn was coming
next.
     It was all very simple, even though the connecting door was completely
dark. At least, it would have been quite simple if that darkness hadn't held a
menace that Margo couldn't see. Barlow was the first person to encounter the
thing; he dropped back with a puzzled grunt. Pressing past the slow-witted man,
Woburn met the hidden issue.
     Or rather, the issue met him in a style inhuman.
     A tongue of flame stabbed straight to Woburn's heart as sharply, as
suddenly as a knife thrust had once jabbed Traymer. Woburn's lunge was useless,
like his grab. He collapsed heavily, hitting vacancy as he fell forward.
     For the door had slashed open, and through it the killer was darting
backstage, gone so quickly that neither Margo nor Barlow had a chance to
identify him as more than a vague, darkish shape.
     Horrified, Margo stumbled across Woburn's body to reach the closing door,
wondering, despite herself, whether she'd be right in carrying word of this
unexpected tragedy.
     For the figure that had dodged from sight after dealing death to Laird
Woburn, was showing speed and manner far too similar to those of an unseen
actor whose avowed purpose was the prevention of crime, rather than its
delivery.
     The Shadow!


     CHAPTER XVIII

     DEATH DEALS DOUBLE

     COMMOTION was beginning backstage when Margo Lane arrived there. Nor was
she the only person who saw the reason for it. Clyde Burke saw the thing that
happened, too late to prevent it.
     First came the clang of the connecting door, caused by a figure that
swooped past in the dimness. Then, before Clyde could even budge, Woburn's
murderer had reached Helm.
     Even more than Margo, Clyde gained a horrified impression of The Shadow.
The figure that seized Helm looked cloaked, though Helm's own costume, with its
Faust cape, might have caused the illusion. Whoever the attacker, Helm must have
recognized him by the light from the stage, for Clyde heard Helm bleat a cry of
recognition.
     There wasn't time for Helm to voice a name. In the midst of their grapple,
his attacker gave him the same treatment that Woburn had received - a shot
straight to the heart. Leaping forward, Clyde was met by Helm's slumping form
as the killer flung it toward him. Cutting between Clyde and the wing, the
murderer was away again. Margo's view of that darting shape was no better than
Clyde's.
     Two point-blank shots, each a token of instant death, yet neither had
reached the audience nor the stage. The first was lost in the passage by the
connecting door; the second was muffled by the body that received it. Except
for persons backstage, people hearing those dull blasts would never have
defined them as gunshots.
     On stage, the tableau still held full attention, though the audience was
getting restless. People didn't want to look at a statue all night, even though
Dane, the Mephistopheles behind it, was setting an endurance record for perfect
immobility.
     The audience wanted other contrast. People were awaiting Faust and
Valentin. If Helm and Rexford came on stage and went through their motions, it
would add to Dane's portrayal of a frozen Mephistopheles. Hand-claps were
beginning with precision beats. Voices from the gallery called:
     "Bring on Faust!"
     It wouldn't have done to bring on Faust, Helm's present state not being
suited to public display. As for Valentin, his business was to await the beckon
that this Faust would never give. Still, with Dane holding his on-stage pose so
well, Rexford might have helped the cause by coming on alone.
     The trouble was that Rexford had begun an unrehearsed show of his own. Not
far from where Helm's body lay, Rexford had put in a sudden appearance to begin
an offstage struggle. He was grappling with a vague figure that matched his
strenuous efforts, and the two were disputing the possession of a glimmering
revolver - unquestionably the gun that had slain both Woburn and Helm.
     The tussle was very brief. As the pair reeled toward a rear wing, they
tripped across a sandbag that formed a curtain weight. Hitting the floor they
rolled apart, the gun skidding from their combined clutch and bounding off to a
corner.
     With that, the unknown assailant disappeared in the darkness by the deep
wing. Rexford, however, remained visible; plainly so. He was diving for the
revolver, hissing a sharp, vengeful snarl. Reaching the gun, he scooped it up
and wheeled to look for his adversary. He saw Clyde springing toward him, and
either through mistake or sheer madness, Rexford would have done some trigger
tugging there and then, if intervention hadn't come.
     A cloaked shape whirled from darkness. It seemed that this figure must
have circled Rexford to reach him. Gloved hands caught Rexford with a speedy
hold, wrenching him full about and sending his gun upward as its muzzle spoke.
Then Rexford was doing a somersault combined with a sideward twist, the gun
flying from his hand again.
     Witnessing this climax, Margo hadn't any doubt regarding the identity of
Rexford's present antagonist. Only The Shadow could deal out such timely and
efficient treatment. Likewise, The Shadow was unique in the way he disappeared.
He didn't dive for darkness; he simply twisted and let it gather him.
     Arriving from her dressing room, Diana's reaction differed. Her thoughts
were all for Rexford. Seeing him land with a sprawl that left him groggy, Diana
rushed over to help him to his feet. About to stoop and pick up the revolver,
Clyde desisted when he heard a whisper close beside him.
     Things were due to follow double death. The Shadow knew, and his
instructions to Clyde were specific. The same applied with Margo, when The
Shadow contacted her a moment later. In keeping with The Shadow's prediction,
things did happen - rapidly.


     THE stage tableau ended with a lightning flash, a peal of artificial
thunder, and a total blackout, all automatically produced. By then, the curtain
was already hissing downward.
     Barlow's wits were slow, but capable, when once he gathered them. As the
curtain struck, Barlow pulled a switch that lighted the entire stage.
     People were coming through the connecting door, a flood of them. Ushers
had started back to find out why the tableau had been prolonged. Finding
Woburn's body, they'd naturally summoned other persons, including members of
the box party.
     Arrivals were pointing excitedly toward Helm's body. Others, looking
beyond, saw the stage itself. There, Dane was stepping from the open archway
behind the Marguerite statue. His costume, blackish in the background, showed
its maroon hue as he reached the light. His face, too, lost the expression he
used for Mephistopheles and showed anger that was rightfully Dane's own.
     "Who ruined the scene?" demanded Dane. "Helm or Rexford? How could I
finish the Mephistopheles act without either Faust or Valentin on stage? What
was I to do - dump the statue for a laugh?"
     Looking past stunned faces, Dane saw Barlow. Striding over, he thumped the
old stagehand on the back.
     "Good work, Barlow," complimented Dane. "You showed judgment when you
dropped that curtain. I saw it falling when the flash went off, so I held my
pose right into the blackout."
     Barlow nodded, but his face looked twitchy. Dane thought that the devil
costume scared him and started to laugh. Then, as Barlow pointed, Dane saw
Helm's body. He sprang over to stoop above the motionless form.
     It was weird, that sight, considering Dane's costume. Almost as if a real
Satan had arrived to claim a victim that belonged to him. The grotesque act was
completed when Dane heard word of Woburn's death and went to view the other
body. When Dane returned, he was grimly peeling off the Mephistopheles costume.
     Bluntly, he demanded: "Who murdered them?"
     Eyes turned toward Rexford, who was coming from his daze. Staring back,
Rexford slowly shook his head.
     "I don't know," he declared in halting tone. "There was somebody...
somebody I grabbed... all in black -"
     People expected Dane to continue the quiz. He was certainly the man most
eligible, considering that he had been in view of an entire audience all during
the drama of death that took place backstage. So Dane proceeded to question
whatever witnesses he could find.
     Clyde Burke was first. He declared he'd been backstage, and he stated how
he'd seen an unknown assassin murder Helm, then spring to darkness past the
wings. He remembered a bouncing gun, with Rexford going after it, to finish
with a headlong sprawl.
     Margo Lane told how she'd started backstage behind Barlow and Woburn.
She'd seen the shot that killed Woburn and had glimpsed an assassin flee
through the connecting door. Arriving backstage, Margo had witnessed Helm's
death, exactly as Clyde described it.
     Diana Gault could add nothing of consequence. Everything was over when she
came from the dressing room. She'd seen Rexford's flying tumble as he finished
it. That was all.
     Rexford became suddenly coherent.
     "You mean I imagined everything?" he demanded, with a glare that included
Diana with the other witnesses. "You're all crazy, I tell you! I saw the killer
and I grabbed him, back by the rear wing. I'd gotten his gun, when we spilled
and fell apart.
     "I went after the gun and was looking for him when he hit me from in back,
where I never expected him to be. Who he was, I don't know, but he was all in
black, like" - Rexford hesitated, then continued boldly - "like the man who
murdered Traymer and Amon!"
     The looks Rexford received were wooden. People were beginning to think
that Rexford himself was the very figure that he mentioned. After all, Rexford
could have grabbed a black cloak for a disguise, that time he raced to Amon's
loft ahead of a bloodthirsty mob. If so, he'd logically have killed Amon when
the latter witnessed his attempt at disguise.
     Even Diana's face had lost all sympathy. The only countenance that Rexford
could consider impartial was that of a calm-mannered member of the box party:
Lamont Cranston.
     Not for an instant did Rexford connect Cranston with the cloaked mystery
man upon whom he wanted to pin guilt for four murders. Perhaps that was why
Cranston's face remained so impassive that Rexford characterized it as friendly.
     But Rexford couldn't look for help from Cranston. Instead, he swung to
Barlow and asked what he'd seen.
     Barlow shook his head. His eyes weren't too good in dim light. However,
Dane realized that Barlow's testimony could be valuable. So Dane picked up
where Rexford left off.
     "Miss Lane said you came out to the box," reminded Dane, "and that you
asked Woburn to come backstage. Who sent you, Barlow?"
     "I don't know," replied Barlow slowly. "Somebody tapped my shoulder, here
at the switchboard, and said to get Mr. Woburn right away. It couldn't have
been Mr. Helm; he was at the wing, timing his cue. It couldn't have been you,
Mr. Dane, because you were on the stage.
     "It wasn't Miss Gault. She was in her dressing room. Besides this was a
man's voice that spoke to me, very low." Pausing, Barlow looked about as though
his slow-motion thoughts had just completed a long train. Jabbing a finger at
Rexford, the stoopish man exclaimed:
     "It was you, Mr. Rexford!"


     THAT settled it. A dozen hands gripped Rexford. They were firm but not
violent, because Dane, limping forward on his weak ankle, announced that he'd
settle the first man who showed any trend toward mob law. Dane intended to see
that Rexford received fair play.
     Two persons present stared benumbed: Clyde Burke and Margo Lane. They knew
another factor in this game - their chief, The Shadow. He, even more than
Rexford, could have been the person who whispered in Barlow's ear. For if
Rexford had really sent for Woburn, The Shadow would have stopped crime at that
moment.
     Clyde and Margo didn't doubt The Shadow; that would have been impossible.
It was their lack of doubt that left them so at sea. It seemed as though crime
had at last provided a riddle too great even for The Shadow to unravel!


     CHAPTER XIX

     TRAIL FINDS TRAIL

     AS soon as everything was quite controlled, Ferris Dane went out to the
box office and phoned the local police chief. When he returned, Dane found
Diana Gault awaiting him. She'd changed from the Marguerite costume and wanted
Dane to take her home.
     Margo was to go along - which she did, after looking toward Cranston to
receive his nod. Diana didn't see the nod because she was giving Roy Rexford a
cold, final stare as she passed him. Rexford scarcely caught the glance; he
looked too bewildered.
     All this had taken about fifteen minutes; it was another ten before the
police chief appeared. Cranston gave Clyde a signal to slide from sight, rather
than be taken along as a material witness. Later, Clyde could be summoned if
needed; for the present, The Shadow might find his services useful.
     Following the throng out through the front of the opera house, Cranston
dallied there, awaiting his chance to stroll away. As soon as all had thinned
out indoors, Cranston intended to return backstage, reclaim his black garb
where he had secretly placed it, and again become The Shadow.
     Though the bodies of Woburn and Helm had been removed, there were still
some curious prowlers around the stage when Clyde poked his head through the
archway where Dane had posed as Mephistopheles. He saw the Marguerite statue
right beside him; it had been moved back against the scenery. Before Clyde had
time to study the statue closely, men arrived to take it away, along with the
rest of the scenery.
     They were truckmen, who asked for Barlow, only to learn that he'd gone to
police headquarters. So the truckers took the stage set without further
question, which rather puzzled Clyde. The stuff could not be going back to
Amon's shop, because it was no longer in existence. So Clyde followed along to
have a look at the truck.
     The truckmen had to set the statue upright when they worked it through the
stage door. A dozen feet behind them, Clyde halted and gave an amazed stare.
Barlow's eyes weren't the only ones that were bad in dim light; that, at least,
was Clyde's first opinion. Then, as the statue was swung through to the alley,
Clyde was more than ever anxious to learn facts about the truck.
     No time to wait for The Shadow. Sliding through the stage door, Clyde
reached the darkened alley and approached the truck. The statue was lying in
with the scenery, and Clyde crept alongside for a closer look.
     Then, from the darkness, two husky men sprang upon Clyde, taking him
totally by surprise. Pitched forward, his head hit the side of the truck and
Clyde went completely limp.
     Promptly, the stunned prisoner was placed in the truck, alongside the
statue. The truck pulled away, its occupants quite satisfied that their
departure would remain unchallenged. Thinking in terms of the load, the
truckers forgot the empty stage that they had left behind them.
     At that very moment, The Shadow, returning by the connecting door, paused
in Cranston's guise to view the vacancy. The last of the curious crowd was
leaving, but none of them was carrying fragments of scenery as souvenirs.
     Reaching for his cloak and hat, The Shadow overheard the truck's departing
rumble. Three steps toward the stage door and his stride became The Shadow's, as
did his garb.
     All in one sweep, that transformation. In the gloom of the alley, The
Shadow continued his swift transit toward the parking lot where he had left his
roadster. He could hear the truck fading in the distance, but the direction told
him the logical road that it would be taking out of town.
     Three miles from Industria, the truck swung to a side road on the far side
of a hill. There, its crew began to unload. It didn't take them long to stack
the stage equipment on the ground, because none of the set was very heavy, not
even the wooden statue.
     Finding Clyde still unconscious, the truckers left him with the stuff.
That done, they backed around and started for the main road.
     Into the glare of headlights came a thing that made the driver falter. It
looked like the most enormous bat that he had ever seen, rising with a swoop so
startling that the driver jammed the brakes and almost ditched the truck.
     That pause was enough. The thing, whatever it was, came lunging into the
truck itself, slashing with claws that felt like prongs of steel. Men dived
from the truck and fled for the road, unwisely entering the glare of their own
headlights on the assumption that the mammoth creature would stay in the dark.
     Folly, it proved, was better than wisdom. Delivering a laugh that made the
fugitives falter and look back in horror, The Shadow swept into the glare. For
the first time, the scared truckers saw that the bat was human, its steel claws
looming guns. They turned with their hands raised, seeking mercy.
     Guns talked. Screeching men flung themselves to the ground. But The
Shadow's guns hadn't opened the barrage. The shots were coming from the spot
where the truckers had left the load for others to pick up. Those others were
on hand, and they were shooting at The Shadow.
     Wheeling into darkness, The Shadow returned the gunfire, at the same time
shifting toward his foemen. There was a dart of whiteclad figures in the night;
then a vehicle was speeding away along the side road, taking the curve of the
hill. Murderous men were off, along with the transferred load that they had
gathered.
     Meanwhile, the original crew was back in the empty truck, making a mad
getaway by the highroad.
     This business of unarmed truckmen shifting a burden to a crowd of crooks
merely fitted with The Shadow's well-formed theory. His laugh, though grim,
seemed actually to approve the getaway, particularly of the men in white.


     WHEN Margo Lane heard The Shadow's laugh, it was like a whispered echo of
the earlier mirth. Margo was in the music room at the Gault mansion, waiting
for Ferris Dane and Diana to finish a private conference. Turning, Margo saw
the blackness of the garden terrace just outside the door. Knowing that The
Shadow must be there, she went in that direction.
     From the darkness, The Shadow asked if Margo had heard any cars arrive. At
first, she started to shake her head, but then she remembered:
     "Why, yes! One did. But it was only the ambulance. It is to stay here, in
case Mr. Gault gets worse."
     The Shadow's eyes looked across the garden toward a garage where dim
lights were burning. His hand took Margo's arm, as he queried in a tone quite
like Cranston's:
     "If you dropped a penny somewhere, how would you go about finding it?"
     "Why, I'd drop another and see where it fell," replied Margo. "Some people
might call it silly, but I'd say that where one rolled, the other would go, too."
     "I've lost a penny named Clyde Burke." The tone was much more The Shadow's
own. "If you would like to be the other penny, go to the garage and snoop around
that ambulance."
     Going straight to the garage, Margo learned how quickly things could
happen. In the ambulance, she rounded a folded theater curtain, the only
remaining item of a load already removed. She'd just unfolded the curtain far
enough to find that it belonged to the "Faust" set, when hands clapped across
her face and bent her arms behind her.
     Dragged from the ambulance, Margo found herself gripped by two of Gault's
confidential servants, recognizable despite the white coats that they wore
while posing as ambulance attendants. Since Margo didn't struggle, the pair
weren't overly rough when they marched her to the house, going in by an obscure
door that led to Gault's own apartment.
     The Shadow followed by the same route. About to ascend the stairs, he
heard voices outside the hallway curtain. Dane was speaking to Diana.
     "I'm going up to see your uncle," declared Dane. "I think he ought to know
all that has happened. It can't hurt him, and it might actually shock him into
sanity."
     Gliding upward, The Shadow entered the room with purple curtains and chose
a corner away from the pearl-hued lights to let Dane pass. Coming through, Dane
entered the counting room without knocking.
     Reaching the door almost as it closed, The Shadow turned the knob slowly,
deftly, and peered through a narrow crack. One glance was enough to prove his
full theory regarding crime, plus a few recent developments which fitted
closely to the pattern.
     One trail had found another. The rule didn't just apply to Margo Lane and
Clyde Burke, though they were deeply involved. What was more vital, in its way,
was that the trail of Ferris Dane had disclosed the trail of Ellery Gault!


     CHAPTER XX

     PARTNERS IN PROFIT

     THERE were no longer any pennies in Gault's counting room, unless Margo
Lane could be termed one. She was in the custody of Gault's white-jacketed
servants, and when Dane saw Margo, he gave his eyebrows a surprised lift.
     "Burke saw your truck," Gault told Dane, "and the Lane girl found my
ambulance. So my men brought them here."
     "That makes it even up," said Dane, with a cold laugh. "However, we did
better, transferring the stage props to the ambulance. Thanks for the
suggestion. The truck was my only worry."
     Old Gault cocked his head. His gaze was so shrewd, so sane, that it proved
his mania was all a fake - as The Shadow had long suspected. About to speak,
Gault noted Margo and gestured to his men. They took the girl into the alcove
where Gault kept his penny coffer.
     Gault closed the door, drew back a small panel and pressed a button. The
Shadow heard a faint rumble, proving that Gault's penny closet was an elevator,
going down to a secret cellar in the foundations that made the mid-section of
the mansion.
     "Now, Dane," said Gault, "what about this stage equipment? Did it have
anything to do with the ironclad alibi you mentioned over the telephone?"
     "It did," replied Dane. "I knew you'd be glad to hear that I'd disposed of
your two partners. One good partner is better than two bad ones."
     Gault clucked his appreciation. It was obvious that he preferred one
partner on a fifty-fifty basis, to a pair who demanded one-third each; hence
Dane was better than the combination of Helm and Woburn. Having put that point,
Dane pressed another.
     "Of course, I went over the accounts," he declared. "It was all bluff, my
saying that I'd have to wait until I had another man like Traymer. I found that
Helm and Woburn had anticipated an idea of my own. They'd marked up their taxes
to correspond to the local rate elsewhere, and were pocketing the difference.
     "Those two had grabbed better than half a million dollars, while you were
playing with pennies. It didn't make sense, if you'll pardon the pun. I
couldn't figure Helm and Woburn teaming on such a proposition, unless you were
the man higher up. So when I found I really had a jinx job, as the man who
could ruin the game, I turned it the other way."
     All the while, Gault was nodding approvingly. He stopped when Dane put the
blunt query:
     "And now, Mr. Gault, where is the cash we're going to split? I mean half a
million dollars, not twenty thousand cents."
     Gault pressed the elevator button and brought the car up. He gestured Dane
to a seat on the penny coffer.
     "We'll go down to my strong room," declared Gault. "I shall show you how I
put half a million dollars where no one would suspect it. In turn, you can
reveal your system of committing murder while in plain view. I should say that
we have much in common, Dane."
     The two went down in the elevator. Hearing the faint rumble fade, The
Shadow was about to enter the counting room when footsteps came from the outer
hall. Deftly avoiding the many furnishings, The Shadow blended with the deep
hue of a purple curtain.
     In from the hall came Diana Gault, bringing Roy Rexford, whose present
residence should have been a jail cell!
     Roy was protesting his innocence. He'd broken away from the police in the
hope that he could prove it. He wanted to talk to Dane, and Diana was granting
him the privilege.
     "I don't think Ferris will believe you," declared Diana firmly. "And I
know my uncle can not help. Nevertheless -"
     Opening the door of the counting room, Diana was surprised to find it
empty. A horrible thought gripped her.
     "Uncle Ellery may have locked himself in with the pennies!" exclaimed
Diana. "Perhaps Ferris is trapped there with him!"
     Seeing the panel that Gault had forgotten to close, Rexford pressed the
button. He tried the door, but it didn't open until after a short buzzing. Then
the door came free so suddenly, that Roy saw the slight jolt of the stopping
elevator. When he told Diana what the room was, she wouldn't believe him.
     "Step inside," suggested Rexford, "and I'll prove it."
     This time, The Shadow was at the door of the elevator when its downward
trip began. His ear against the panel, he could detect the entire trip.
Listening for any commotion from below, he heard only the opening of another
door, which slid shut a few moments later. With a satisfied laugh, The Shadow
pressed the button to bring the car up.


     THOUGH Roy and Diana found their trip quite enough, there was plenty
awaiting them when they stepped openly from the elevator. Two of Gault's
servants heard the clang of the door and covered the arrivals. As the door
slapped shut, Roy and Diana found themselves prisoners with Clyde and Margo.
     From beside a machine that stood on heavy mountings in the center of a
concrete-walled room, old Ellery Gault gave an angry glare that was meant for
his niece as well as Rexford. Then, calming himself, Gault sneered:
     "Well, you've found this place at last, so you might as well know the
whole story - Dane's as well as mine."
     "An excellent idea," agreed Dane, who was standing by. "Since none of
these prisoners will ever leave here, they are the proper persons to appreciate
our methods. Go on, Gault. We know that Helm and Woburn fed you a hundred
thousand dollars by faking the records they gave to Gault Consolidated. But how
did you invest the money?"
     "I put it into gold," gloated Gault. "There is plenty of gold obtainable
if you know the right people, as I do. Gold will always hold its value, as
nothing else will."
     "But the gold itself, where is it? Certainly your former partners would
have insisted that it be available."
     For answer, Gault turned to the machine beside him and pressed a switch.
Smooth wheels began to turn, a stamping device thudded, and out from a chute
clanked pennies, shiny pennies, that dropped into a pan below. The device was a
counterfeiting machine!
     Dipping his hand into the pan, Gault brought out a batch of coins. His
scheming laugh was a contrast to the insane cackle that he no longer needed to
practice.
     "Who would think of counterfeiting mere pennies?" chortled Gault. "I did -
and I thought of more. Take some of these pennies, Dane. Feel their weight!"
     Gault poured coins into his partner's hands. Letting them trickle, Dane
suddenly exclaimed:
     "Gold pennies, all of them!"
     "Of course," nodded Gault. "Counterfeit pennies worth better than five
dollars each. One hundred thousand is in my penny coffer, Dane. And who would
think of stealing pennies from a crazy old man? Twenty thousand pennies, a mere
two hundred dollars' worth?"
     "But you asked for pennies, and you gave away some."
     "All for effect, Dane. There are some copper pennies mixed in with the
gold. Whenever I gave any away, I always picked them out by weight." Gault gave
a cluck of disapproval. "It wouldn't have been right for me to pass counterfeit
money, you know."
     Gault's attempt at jest was feeble, compared to the sinister laugh that
toned from the elevator door. There stood The Shadow, both automatics drawn,
one trained on Gault, the other covering Dane.
     Servants wheeled with revolvers, only to pause at Gault's quick cry. The
best thing was to hold The Shadow on even terms. If guns barked his direction,
his return fire would take out Gault and Dane, to start.
     The Shadow seemed to relish the situation. In sinister tone, he put the
query:
     "How many pennies did you pay Creep Hubin, Gault?"
     Turning to Dane, Gault explained that Creep was the man hired for the
foundry job.
     "I wanted to kill you then," declared Gault. "The moment the servants told
me the directors had phoned, I knew you were elected, because otherwise I would
have heard from Helm or Woburn. So I called Creep and told him to start. That's
why this line was busy actually before Rexford phoned Diana. I had to dispose of
you, as I had the three other vice presidents before you - make it look like a
jinx murder - until the directors elected someone who would play ball with me."
     Dane took it quite for granted that Gault should once have sought his
life. The Shadow's attempt to split the partners had failed.
     "It was up to Helm and Woburn then," continued Gault. "Each ordered a
Prince Poverty costume from Amon. You were to be King Progress, Dane, so Helm
was to give you poisoned wine. Should it fail, Woburn's job was to stab you."
     "But Traymer became the victim," chuckled Dane harshly, "because I saw
what was coming and talked him into taking my place. Amon made a bad slip when
he almost mentioned those extra costumes."
     It was The Shadow's turn to insert a statement.
     "A very bad slip," he commented. "When you returned to get his ledger page
as evidence and found it gone, you murdered Amon as a consequence."
     Dane's glare proved that The Shadow was right. But Dane, a master of the
cover-up, decided to dispute the point.
     "How could I have killed Amon?" he demanded. "I'd crippled my ankle going
out the door."
     "You faked that fall," declared The Shadow, stating a fact he hadn't known
at the time. "But after you killed Amon, you jumped from his loft door, knowing
your weak ankle would take the brunt. You hobbled to your office and were there
when the doctors arrived."
     Diana saw Roy's fists tighten.
     "Dane must have worn my costume when he killed Amon," gritted Rexford. "I
found it on the table in the loft. It should have been down on the counter.
Since Helm and Woburn were out to frame me, Dane decided to clinch it!"
     It was obvious that Helm and Woburn had set the mob on Rexford so he
couldn't disclaim Traymer's murder. Conversely, Dane had acted in Rexford's
behalf because, though anxious to frame him, he wanted to keep Helm and Woburn
worried, which they would be, as long as Rexford remained alive.
     Having thus handicapped his real enemies and bluffed them into supposing
that he hadn't guessed their game, Dane was ready to deal murder on his own
against the very men in question!


     STRIDING toward a corner of the room, The Shadow reached the stage set
that Dane had shipped here. The Marguerite statue was standing at an angle in
front of the open arch. With a gun, The Shadow pried a wooden flap that fronted
one of the flat, painted pillars.
     Swinging like a door, the flap filled the arch, revealing itself as a
mirror. Reflecting the back of the Marguerite statue, the image portrayed a
perfect replica of Mephistopheles that was carved on the back of the statue!
     Dane hadn't been standing in the archway during the second scene of the
pantomime. This reflection had been doing service for him while he stalked at
large in the backstage darkness. It was Dane who had told Barlow to summon
Woburn.
     Unwatched, Dane had been free to murder Woburn and follow that by killing
Helm. Rexford had grappled with him, only to be handed the death gun while Dane
had sped backstage to clear the arch by folding in the mirror the moment the
blackout came!
     Starting first to aid Rexford, then preventing Roy from mistakingly
shooting Clyde, The Shadow had seen the extra figure in the gloom backstage and
had known the man could only be Dane. The quick removal of the scenery and
statue was proof sufficient that Dane must have discovered one of Amon's stage
secrets in the set and adapted it to his own use.
     With a laugh that left Dane glowering, The Shadow stepped back toward the
elevator. There, he concentrated his gaze on Gault, though he still kept Dane
covered with the other gun.
     "You overdid your penny act," The Shadow told Gault. "I didn't have to see
your counterfeiting machine to know you had one. If you had really wanted
pennies, Gault, you could have owned millions instead of thousands. But twenty
thousand coins of penny size, all made of gold, would just about represent your
illegal profits. Inasmuch as they were counterfeits, I confiscated them."
     With a sweep of his foot, The Shadow sent Gault's coffer from the
elevator. As it struck, the lid flung open, showing the coffer empty except for
a few hundred pennies, real ones, that The Shadow had left as contrast to the
huge supply that was no longer there.
     With a wild scream, Gault sprang forward - too far. The Shadow swooped to
meet him as he pawed the coins to see if any gold ones were among them.
Whirling Gault toward the servants, The Shadow held their master as a human
shield.
     As the servants dodged to gain an angle of fire, The Shadow heard a shriek
from Diana. Knowing what it meant, The Shadow hurled Gault blindly in Dane's
direction.
     It was Gault who took the ripping shots from a gun that Dane had drawn.
Meant for The Shadow, that fire found Dane's partner instead. Then The Shadow
was among the servants, slugging them left and right while their guns popped
like blanks.
     Before Dane could take new aim at The Shadow, Rexford was upon him. Dane
turned, bringing his gun about. This time, he wasn't trying to frame Rexford;
he was out to kill him.
     Clutching Dane's gun hand, Rexford could feel it bending closer, closer,
almost to his chest. The muzzle was only an inch short of Rexford's body when a
big automatic roared.
     Reeling from Rexford's clutch, Dane sprawled to the floor, a bullet
through his heart. The murderer who had slain many victims point-blank and
betrayed a friend to doom, was taking payment of the sort he deserved. The
Shadow's lead, not Gault's gold, was the reward that Ferris Dane received for
his deeds of crime.
     Released by Diana, Clyde Burke was helping Roy round up the four servants
who had received The Shadow's gun swings. While Diana was getting Margo loose,
they heard the elevator go up. When they pressed the button, it came down
again, empty.
     Clyde sent the girls ahead, saying that he and Roy would bring the
prisoners on the next trip. Thus Diana and Margo reached the counting room
alone, to find a brilliant glitter awaiting them. On the table lay Gault's
gold, awaiting Diana's disposal.
     How much of that wealth might rightfully be hers, Diana neither knew nor
cared.
     "It will go back where it came from," Diana told Margo. "All of it, every
-"
     Diana halted. She had just been about to add the word "penny." The word no
longer applied, so Diana omitted it. After all, she'd stated her intention
plainly. Very plainly.
     From the room with the purple curtains came a final token of approval, the
strange laugh of The Shadow. Its tone was mirthless, this departing note that
marked The Shadow's conquest over crime. The departure in the laugh was
evidenced by trailing echoes that drifted back from the stairway, to be blotted
by the final curtain down below.
     A final curtain that marked the end of a drama wherein crime had met its
master.
     The Shadow had gone, but his justice remained!


     THE END