It wasn't luck on The Shadow's part. He wouldn't have moved in on Talney if he hadn't seen that the carpet was rightly placed for emergency. In fact, the breaks were all against The Shadow. He had counted upon plucking away the carpet before Talney managed to fire at all. The shot, even though it missed, was disastrous to The Shadow's plans.
Heard below, Talney's gun blast was bringing men up the stairs as fast as they could come. Dwig and his crew, in through the back way, knew that something had happened and they didn't intend to let Talney, their wanted victim, get clear.
Coming to his feet, Talney launched for the door, not knowing that death was hurrying up to meet him.
The Shadow reached the door first, slamming it across Talney's path. Twisting about, he blocked off the tall man and whirled him toward the window.
Something thumped the door and exploded with a smash that reduced the barrier to kindling. It was a bomb, chucked by one of Dwig's henchmen. That bunch was out to get rid of Talney without finesse or ceremony.
The door took the shock of the explosion, but before Talney could congratulate himself on escaping one death, he was confronted by another. Headfirst, he was going through the open window, propelled by The Shadow.
Talney thought it would be a thirty-foot plunge to a cement court below. He overestimated by twenty-nine feet, and he was wrong about the cement. Instead of taking off on a long plunge, Talney simply flattened on a fire escape outside Glevin's window.
The Shadow had noticed the ironwork of the fire escape, even though Talney hadn't. Rolling through the window, The Shadow flattened beside the tall man just as another "pineapple" scaled through the shattered door, zimmed across the smoke-filled room and landed beneath the cot that held Glevin's body.
The second bomb took powerful effect. Glevin's cot was hurled to the ceiling; his body, already bloated beyond normal recognition, was mangled by the blast. Walls cracked great chunks of the ceiling showered down with Glevin's form. The windows ripped outward, showering Talney and The Shadow with a deluge of glass which cascaded from the fire escape, for the iron framework tilted outward at a crazy angle when the bricks that held it weakened.
In time to catch Talney before he rolled from the canted platform, The Shadow, instead of restraining him, steered him to the steps. Badly shaken, Talney no longer offered opposition. He wanted to get away from the exploding room, and was willing to trust anyone who aided him.
Reaching the ground, The Shadow helped the stumbling, horror-maddened man around to Moe's cab. At intervals, Talney faltered as if paralyzed, and during that slow journey The Shadow recognized that there would be no further chance of trailing Dwig and the murder crew.
They had gone down the front stairway, after hurling the bombs. They couldn't have seen who was in the bombed room, for the first of their explosive missiles had struck the closed door; the next had sailed through a clouded atmosphere of smoke.
Having heard the shot, they might suppose that someone was in the room with Talney; but that was immaterial. They would be satisfied that they had delivered death.
THAT fact suited The Shadow.
It meant that Louis Talney was marked off the book. His servant, Glevin, if even considered, was written off, too. But Talney was the one that counted; he was the fifth link in the chain of death. Whether the chain went on from there, was the next point to learn. Already sure that it did lead farther, The Shadow now held the proof.
Talney's bewilderment over the cheap ring that Glevin wore fitted with The Shadow's own curiosity concerning the rings on the fingers of previous victims. Those rings should have had sapphires as gems.
Furthermore, the fact that they did not contain sapphires pointed to the rings themselves as bearing responsibility for death.
Glevin's case backed that point.
The servant had died instead of his master, Talney, and it was doubtful that human poisoners had made the mistake, since Dwig, very active in the chain of crime, knew what Talney looked like.
However, further speculation was hardly necessary, since The Shadow now held a valuable informant: namely, Talney. Should there be a sixth man listed for death, Talney might be able to name him; but there was no rush, for death, if scheduled, was by this time delivered.
Indeed, rush was impossible with Talney. Getting sense from him was equally difficult, as The Shadow learned while riding in Moe's cab.
Beside him, Talney sat staring, muttering useless words. His mind was still numbed by his recollection of Glevin's body and the startling events that had succeeded it. He didn't even see the black-clad battler who sat beside him. At moments, Talney's eyes lighted, when he opened his hand to stare at an object that he had clutched all through the excitement.
It was the dull, glassy ring that he had taken from Glevin's finger. Momentarily, Talney's eyes would brighten, then fade. This ring was not the one that he expected to see. He couldn't understand it.
The cab pulled up at an address around a corner from Park Avenue. It was the side entrance to the office of Dr. Rupert Sayre, who happened to be Cranston's own physician. Sayre was there, and lost none of his professional calm when he saw the cloaked figure of The Shadow bringing in Talney as a patient.
They helped Talney to a couch and let him lie down; hearing The Shadow's version of the patient's ordeal, Sayre nodded, and made a brief examination.
The Shadow, meanwhile, sat at Sayre's desk in another corner. Coming over, the physician stated:
"Our patient will need about an hour. Nothing serious; the combination of mental shock and physical exertion was too much -"
Pausing, Sayre stared at the ring that The Shadow held between the fingers of his gloved left hand. It was a very cheap ring, and The Shadow had been examining it with a powerful microscope on Sayre's desk.
At present, however, The Shadow was doing something that made Sayre think he might be a better candidate as a patient than Talney.
Having laid aside the microscope, The Shadow had picked up an eye dropper and filled it with ink from Sayre's inkstand. He was carefully inserting the point of the eye dropper beneath the colorless quartz that served as a gem for the cheap finger ring.
The Shadow heard Sayre's voice chop short.
"This stone is hollow," spoke The Shadow, quietly. "It is cut en cabochon, as jewelers say, meaning dome-shaped. The microscope shows a special mounting beneath the hollow. Watch this effect, Sayre."
AS The Shadow squeezed the bulb of the eye dropper, the hollow space in the quartz sucked up the blue ink. Only a small quantity, but the effect was splendid. Filled with blue, the worthless gem took on a gorgeous luster. Nor was that all; as The Shadow raised the transformed jewel to the light, Sayre saw scintillating streaks that radiated from the center of the imitation gem.
"A starolite," informed The Shadow. "The trade name for imitations of star sapphires. Usually a starolite is easily detected; but this one is different. The liquid deepens the color and magnifies the marked mounting."
It happened that Sayre had stopped in at the exhibit at Walder's. He couldn't fail to recognize the amazing imitation gem that The Shadow held.
"One of the six sapphires!" Sayre exclaimed. "Those that were cut from the Star of Delhi!"
"Supposedly cut from it," corrected The Shadow. "No one examined them. They were in a sealed casket that had no lights beneath its top of unbreakable glass. Let us try another experiment."
He held the ring to Sayre's desk lamp. As the blue stone heated, little dribs of ink began to ooze from it.
Sayre watched The Shadow wipe the blue dabs away with his glove, while the slow flow continued.