“He will do,” asserted Thade.
“I shall go to see him,” declared Roderick. “To-night—”
“Wait,” ordered Thade. “It is best that you should stay here for this night. Tomorrow you can communicate with the man who is to assist you. We must spend this night in discussing and arranging the great plan.”
“Treffin calls my apartment at eight in the evening,” nodded Roderick. “He waits an hour if he receives no reply. It is after nine o’clock now. The time for me to communicate with him will be tomorrow evening.”
“But not from your apartment,” advised Thade. “You will not go there again, Roderick. Let Treffin call and receive no reply. You, in turn, can call him before nine.”
The Death Giver’s words were wise. Roderick appreciated that fact. By staying here, Roderick was safe from all tracing by The Shadow. No other man knew the location of Thade’s lofty abode.
“Come,” ordered Thade.
With that word, The Death Giver stepped from his chair and walked toward the anteroom, his green robe drawing along the thickly carpeted floor. Paul Roderick followed to the elevator. He entered with The Death Giver.
Thade clapped his hands. Roderick saw one of the Nubians step to the chair and reach for a lever beside it. Thade closed the door of the elevator; the car moved upward a moment later, impelled by the Nubian’s touch upon the distant switch.
THE elevator stopped on the floor above. Thade opened the doors and led Roderick into a narrow corridor, of which the elevator was an extension.
Roderick had been here before. The doors on the left, he knew, opened into Thade’s laboratories. Those on the right gave entrance to the living quarters.
Thade opened one of the doors on the right; and Roderick followed his insidious chief into a small but exquisitely furnished living room. This chamber was papered with green. Its carpet was green, and the furniture was upholstered in the same color.
The ornaments — fantastic shapes of animals — were all of green jade.
Thade motioned to a chair. Roderick seated himself and gazed toward The Death Giver. He sensed that he was to hear something unusual in this conference.
“The time is here,” declared Thade solemnly. “This is the time for mighty action. Until now, Roderick, I have told you but little of my plans. To-night, I shall reveal all.
“To me, life is useless and futile. I, Thade, spent years in poverty and misfortune. I became an old man young. I was not Thade then. I was called Lucius Olney — and people laughed at my stooped shoulders and wizened face.
“Let us consider Lucius Olney” — Thade was speaking in a strange, reflective voice — “for he was a poor, deluded fool. He studied poisons; he studied lethal gases. More than that, he designed amazing ways of delivering those deadly forces.
“Experiments with living animals. Then Lucius Olney turned to the preparation of self-destroying containers that would leave no evidence of their contents. He went to the government. He was ridiculed. His life work was ended. Lucius Olney prepared to die.
“Death? It was a simple matter for Lucius Olney. He had come to consider life as worthless. In his crude laboratory, he had but to open a jet, or to inject a needle — that would be the end. It was then that Lucius Olney gave himself to death.”
Thade paused, and a fiendish smile appeared upon his cracked lips that still glowed green in the dull light of this room.
“Death!” cackled the robed man. “Lucius Olney was as good as dead. He ceased to be. It was inspiration that stayed his hand — inspiration gained by the sight of those inventions all about him. This world had no place for Lucius Olney. But it did have place for a mighty being who could deliver death!
“Lucius Olney went from that laboratory. From then on, he was a new being. He had found a name. Thade. A name formed by the letters of ‘death’! He was Thade, The Death Giver! Thade, whom you see before you now!
“With wealth gained from subtle schemes of death, I, Thade, took up this high abode. I continued the inventions of my former self — the deadly devices of Lucius Olney. Poison, concentrated in projectiles that shatter and leave no trace. That worked at Felswood. Lethal gas, compressed in tubes that curl and evaporate after they have been set. That worked in Manhattan.
“Other devices — they were but ingenious inventions that served as accessories. They have been a portion of Thade’s schemes. Great wealth has been my goal, Roderick, as you know. I have planned to obtain it. After acquiring my millions, then, I could launch new and strange destruction upon an unsuspecting world.
“My campaign against Bellew was but an experiment at terrorism. I knew that it was in the balance; that it might bring a million dollars, or that it might require death as an example. With Langhorne, I planned more effectively. My purpose was interrupted by this person you call The Shadow.
“So now I shall burst forth with mighty death. I shall be content to linger no longer. Death that will make its mark! Death that will not soon be forgotten!
“You have seen my power, Roderick. That traitor below” — Thade leered as he referred to the man entombed beneath the floor of his den — “spent months in dying as I gauged the gas which entered his glass-covered coffin. I let him die last night. I needed him no longer. It will be easy to replace him if necessary.
“But you have seen nothing, Roderick. In your wildest imagination you could not vision my greatest scheme for the sure delivery of quick destruction. Yet it is simple to the utmost. So simple that its operation requires but the minimum of apparatus. I have retained this method, Roderick, for a startling scheme of death.
“I, Thade, shall make history by my scheme. Yet my brain and hand will remain hidden. You, Roderick, will aid me, with Harlan Treffin as your dupe. Come along with me. I shall show you all.”
Thade led the way to his laboratory. There, in a green-walled room, among green-painted tables and benches, stacked with green bottles and flasks, the two men stood alone. With an evil leer upon his wizened face, Thade, the green-robed monster, cackled forth his newest scheme of death.
Paul Roderick listened in amazement. As the chortled words sounded in his ears, the murderer of Irwin Langhorne became convinced that no one — not even The Shadow — could cope with Thade, The Death Giver!
CHAPTER XV. THE NEXT NIGHT
A KEY clicked in the door of Paul Roderick’s apartment. A tall figure blotted out the light from the hall.
The door closed softly and the tiny rays of a small flashlight circled about the room. An unseen hand pressed the switch of a table lamp. A mild glow pervaded the corner of Paul Roderick’s living room.
The fringe of light revealed the obscure shape of a tall being clad in black. The folds of a long cloak enveloped the stranger’s shoulders. The brim of a black slouch hat obscured the features that lay below.
The Shadow had arrived.
Paul Roderick had been right in his fear that The Shadow would trace him. The dying gasp of Irwin Langhorne, the penciled slip upon the clerk’s desk at the Bastion Hotel — these had been sufficient clews for The Shadow to track the murderer through investigation at the Merrimac Club.
Roderick’s apartment had been the next step. Here, with scrutinizing eye, The Shadow saw that the bird had flown. A low laugh echoed softly through the room.
Paul Roderick’s flight had been precipitous. It was obvious that he had not come back to his apartment.
Roderick was the link to the strange monster who called himself Thade, The Death Giver. Roderick, here, could answer questions under pressure. Roderick, gone, was useless. But somewhere there might lie a clew that would enable The Shadow to continue his quest of the missing clubman.