Then, before Joe or his men could fire a single shot, the unexpected happened.
As Thade pressed the proper switch, the whole ceiling of the room came sweeping downward at the sides. The green hangings were a huge canopy that opened like a parachute. The center, firmly affixed to the actual ceiling, held aloft. The first warning Cardona and his men received was the moment when the tentlike folds had dropped about them!
An instant later, the portal dropped in front of Thade’s great chair. The Nubians sprang back behind the curtain and joined their master on the dais. Muffled shots sounded beneath the canopy which had entrapped Cardona and his men in its insidious folds. Thade’s rejoinder was an evil laugh.
Fight as they could, those men could not force their way from beneath that heavy device. Within the ceiling cloth was a meshwork of steel wire that would resist the fiercest efforts to break loose. The bottom of the canopy was drawn tight by the cables that had pulled it down with the outer layer of the wall hangings. This was the certain trap that Thade had set within his lair!
TWENTY minutes — possibly fifteen — that would be the time required for those prisoners to burst loose.
Within that space they would be incapable of action. Thade’s hand was on a lever at the left side of the chair. His teeth were gleaming, and the broad smiles of the Nubians reflected the master’s joy.
Behind the bullet-proof portal, Thade was ready to release a charge of poison gas, through the ceiling hole where the canopy was anchored at the top. Fifteen minutes! In three minutes, those captured detectives would be dead!
Gloating, Thade uttered a mighty shout, loud enough for the imprisoned men to hear, should they choose to listen. His words of a cry of triumph.
“Death!” shrilled the wizened monster. “Death! I am Thade, The Death Giver! You shall die! Thade has ordained!”
The hand was on the switch; but something stayed its progress. With an angry snarl, Thade stared downward to see another hand upon his own. The glittering light of a sparkling gem shone before The Death Giver’s startled eyes.
It was The Shadow’s girasol. Its reflecting rays betokened the mystery of the man who wore it.
Thade stared upward, to see a form in black beside him. The moment that Thade had dropped the portal, The Shadow had entered this sinister room. Through the curtain, beside the portal, he had stepped to grip and stay the hand of death.
The automatic in The Shadow’s hand was pointing squarely at The Death Giver’s ghoulish face. The Nubians stood helpless. They, as well as Thade, realized that this one black-clad being was more dangerous than the squad of detectives who had entered here before him.
The Shadow’s hand thrust Thade’s claw from the lever. The monster settled back in his chair, afraid to make a move against this spectral foe.
The hand of doom had faltered. Thade, The Death Giver, had ordained; The Shadow had countermanded his decree of murder!
CHAPTER XXI. THE MASTER OF DEATH
THE futile shots within the canopy had ended. The blanketed detectives were grimly trying to force their way from the green shroud which enveloped them. Behind the portal that guarded Thade’s chair-crowned dais, The Shadow was speaking sinister words to the helpless monster whom he had overpowered.
Away from the chair, his single automatic effectively covering Thade and the white-clad Nubians, the black-cloaked master of the night was proclaiming his triumph.
“Your crimes are at an end,” were The Shadow’s spectral words. “Your master stroke has failed. I have brought its undoing. You who gave death, now face it. You may live only that you may confess your crimes.”
“Never!” spat Thade.
“Remember!” The Shadow’s tones quivered with a weird laugh. “I have learned the truth. Harlan Treffin died last night — died by the device you gave him. I was there to see him die. When Paul Roderick came, he found Harlan Treffin — so he thought. It was I whom he encountered!”
Thade’s eye eyes were glowering in disbelief of The Shadow’s statement. The avenger of crime repeated his ghostly laugh.
“To-day,” resumed The Shadow, “Paul Roderick found Harlan Treffin awaiting him to aid in the scheme of destruction. The bubbles of death descended; they found their targets. Those bubbles were unnoticed.
For the false Harlan Treffin had disposed of your deadly poison.
“When Paul Roderick found that he faced The Shadow, he weakened and confessed his crime. He told the secret of this abode. In a futile fit of desperation, he struggled to defeat The Shadow. In that battle, he was killed when he tried to seize this very automatic.”
“Paul Roderick was here to-night,” hissed Thade.
“Not Paul Roderick,” corrected The Shadow. “You thought that Paul Roderick was here. Behold!”
The left hand raised the slouch hat; the collar of the cloak dropped away, and Thade found himself staring at the features of Paul Roderick!
The truth dawned. It was The Shadow who had come here. He had never left. The mission of bringing Treffin, the traitor, was subterfuge. The Shadow had waited in the anteroom. Thade had unwittingly admitted the police, thinking that Roderick was returning.
“Yes,” stated The Shadow, as though answering Thade’s thought, “Detective Cardona was acting under my instructions. I called him after Roderick was dead. I told him to be here, below — at an appointed hour.
“Since I brought him to this place, it is now my duty to rescue him. You, Lucius Olney” — Thade glowered as The Shadow pronounced the name — “can remain alive only upon promise to tell everything. I shall spare you because the law held you a few minutes ago; and the law can use you again. But should you attempt to balk my purpose—”
Thade threw back his head and uttered a ferocious laugh. His parched, evil lips of glowing green uttered chanting words in a strange language. With one accord, the two Nubians flung themselves between their master and The Shadow. These huge fighting men were determined to beat down the enemy of Thade!
THIS startling attack, in which The Death Giver deliberately sacrificed the men who were willing to protect him with their lives, left The Shadow no alternative. The onrush of the turbaned Nubians was swift. Their powerful bodies cleared the short space in a twinkling. The Shadow’s automatic was quicker.
It was unerring.
Two shots rang out; with each report, a white-clad body hurtled to the floor. The Shadow, to escape the falling Nubians, was forced to leap backward from the dais. The first servant dropped close by the chair; the second rolled to The Shadow’s feet.
In that capable defense, The Shadow had not lost his original purpose. At any cost, he was prepared to thwart Thade if The Death Giver tried to release the gas into the canopy which held the detectives. Had Thade remained to press the lever, he would have been doomed that very instant; for The Shadow’s automatic was leveled for a third quick shaft.
But Thade, recognizing the power of The Shadow, fled in the opposite direction. His robed form sprang with surprising agility, and disappeared through the green curtain beyond the lowered portal in front of the raised platform.
Pursuit was useless. Skirting the lowered canopy that more than half filled the room, Thade had clear passage to the anteroom beyond; and The Shadow, with the canopy between, could gain no opportunity to stay him with a shot. The Shadow, however, had an opportunity which Thade had not suspected.
Springing across the bodies of the Nubians, he reached the chair and pressed all but two of the switches that he saw upon the right.
The results were remarkable. The portal rose in front of the platform. The canopy began to lift; and in the floor beneath it, the carpet spread to show the glass-topped coffin, which now held the body of the victim who had been so slowly murdered.