Treffin listened while Roderick spoke. A worried look came over the man’s face. With his left hand, The Shadow plucked the desk telephone from Treffin’s grasp. The man slumped back in his chair and listened in startled amazement as he heard The Shadow continue the talk in a voice that was a remarkable imitation of Treffin’s own.
“What was that, Roderick?” queried The Shadow.
“I was asking if you had encountered anything unusual,” came a steady voice over the wire. “No signs of any er — of any disturbance.”
“None at all,” responded The Shadow in Treffin’s voice.
“I want to see you, then,” returned Roderick. “Stay where you are. I will be there in less than an hour. There is new work to do, Treffin, and this time” —Roderick’s voice became suave — “you will profit by it. You understand.”
“Good,” responded The Shadow quietly. “I will wait for you, Roderick.”
DURING his conversation as Treffin’s proxy, The Shadow had not, for one instant, taken his eyes from the man before him. The muzzle of the automatic was still covering Harlan Treffin.
Now, with the phone call ended, The Shadow became a new menace to the man beyond the table. It was evident that The Shadow intended to continue his quiz.
“What did Thade demand of you?” came the ominous whisper.
“Nothing — nothing—”
Treffin’s attempt at falsehood brought a laugh from The Shadow’s lips. The tall figure in black became more sinister than before, as words of denunciation told The Shadow’s knowledge.
“You are lying, Harlan Treffin!” declared The Shadow. “You were deputed by Thade to place three deadly containers beneath telephone boxes. You caused the death of three innocent men!”
Wildly, Treffin threw his hands before his face as though to cut off thought of his terrible deeds. The Shadow’s accusing words had shattered his morale. The Shadow knew!
“You are a murderer,” continued The Shadow, “even though you obeyed the dictates of another. Speak! Tell me why you followed Thade’s command!”
Harlan Treffin lowered his hands. He stared into the eyes of The Shadow; but his gaze was that of a madman. He could hear the stern words of his accuser, but in his brain, he was visualizing the horrible sight that had lain before his eyes in The Death Giver’s lair.
“I can die!” gasped Treffin. “I can die! But not as I saw — not as the man I saw — the man that Thade was killing — by degrees—”
Treffin’s hands were on the table. They were clawing, crawling, helpless in their frenzy. A convulsive spasm shook the man’s frame. The recollection of the death that Thade could give caused Harlan Treffin to sprawl face foremost on the table. His arms spread apart. He was helpless.
At that moment, there was no thought of resistance in Treffin’s delirious mind and The Shadow knew it.
The black-clad questioner was waiting for Treffin to recover from his momentary fit of fear. After that, the grilling would succeed. The Shadow had expected this temporary collapse.
But Harlan Treffin, as he lay inert, became conscious of a vague sensation. His hand was touching against cold metal — the base of the lamp upon his table! Coupled with the fear of Thade, the sudden touch brought hope. Much as he feared The Death Giver, Treffin was convinced that there was no escape from Thade’s toils.
His trembling fingers were upon the secret switch at the base of the lamp. That, Treffin recalled, was the protection of Thade against such an emergency as this! Roderick would be here soon. Would he find a traitor, or would he find that Treffin had followed Thade’s instructions to the letter?
Up came Treffin’s face, with a gleam of frenzied delight. His fingers steadied and plucked at the switch upon the lamp. This would be the doom of the strange interrogator who was attempting to foil Thade!
IN an instant, The Shadow saw all. Treffin’s quick recovery made it impossible for him to stop the man’s design. It was too late to stay those pressing fingers. Backward swept The Shadow, away from the table and toward the floor, to escape this new device of Thade.
At Treffin’s touch, the center of the lamp spread open, and a cloud of greenish vapor hissed forth in sudden spray. It swept across the center of the table, covering a radius of half a dozen feet. Swirling, spreading, the gas became as nothingness, dwindling into the atmosphere of the room.
The Shadow had dropped away from the poison spray; but Harlan Treffin was within its range. Devised to kill all within arm’s length of the lamp, the swirl of deadly gas performed its mission. As proof of its lethal power, Harlan Treffin lay dying across the table. A last short gasp; Harlan Treffin was dead.
Thade, The Death Giver, had struck. Barcomb — Quinley — Jarvis— now Treffin. These minions of Thade had been sacrificed; and each, by reliance upon The Death Giver, had aided the monster’s plans.
Again, The Shadow had been balked by death.
This time, The Shadow laughed. His sinister mockery floated through the room and faded as mysteriously as had Thade’s greenish gas. Harlan Treffin, a murderer, had died. Before his demise, he had admitted his own ignorance of The Death Giver’s whereabouts.
Useless to Thade now, Treffin would be of use to The Shadow! This death was one which Thade might soon regret! For Harlan Treffin had served as The Shadow’s link to Paul Roderick. It was Roderick who acted as Thade’s lieutenant, and he was on his way to visit Treffin!
By subterfuge and not by threat, The Shadow could now act to thwart the schemes of Thade, The Death Giver. The whispered laugh prophesied swift action. Before its wavering echoes had died away, The Shadow was at work.
Leaning above the upturned face of Thade’s latest victim, The Shadow studied every phase of Treffin’s countenance. The black gloves peeled away from long white hands. The girasol glimmered as careful fingers pushed back the slouch hat and pressed at the face beneath.
Fifteen minutes later, a man was seated at the table. The sides of the death-dealing lamp were closed.
Harlan Treffin’s body was gone. The locked door of a large closet gave no token of the fact that the dead man had been hidden there by The Shadow.
For the figure at the table was one that seemed to belong there. In every feature, the living man was Harlan Treffin! As with Langhorne, so with Treffin. The Shadow had taken the place of the dead as he had taken the place of the living.
Paul Roderick would not be disappointed to-night. He would find Harlan Treffin awaiting him, ready to hear his commands, and heed his bidding.
The Shadow, master of disguise, was prepared!
CHAPTER XVI. ABOVE BROADWAY
AT ten o’clock the next morning, Paul Roderick was eating breakfast in the coffee room of an uptown hotel. The dapper clubman was seated beside a window, and as his eyes noted the somber gloom of the cloudy day, a smile flitted upon his lips.
It was an excellent day in Roderick’s opinion. Not that the weather would interfere entirely with the plans formulated by Thade; but there were certain reasons why a dull morning would be better than either a bright one or a rainy one.
Roderick read a newspaper as he ate. The front page was spread with photographs. Murder was not the theme. The big item in to-day’s news was the welcoming celebration to four men who had just made history in aviation — a quartet of intrepid fliers headed by Commander Allan Hughes, of the United States navy.
The aviators were arriving in New York after a successful round-the-world flight. The parade in their honor was to be one of the greatest welcomes ever. Not only the fliers would ride in review, three governors of large States would also be there, accompanying the mayor of New York. The secretary of the navy was also scheduled to appear, with four well-known admirals.