So far, the chief criminal had not shown his hand on other scenes of death, but he obviously had business here in Lenfell's study.
Drawing still farther into darkness, The Shadow watched. He saw the crouched man reach the safe and begin to thumb the dial without the need of extra light. Evidently, the interloper knew the combination, which indicated that he had visited these premises while Lenfell was alive.
What the murderer was about, The Shadow did not fully know, though he could guess. To substantiate his opinion, he glided forward, moving close behind the man at the safe.
Never before had The Shadow sought to trap an intruder who possessed such sharpened senses. Only the most suspicious of eyes could have spied the glide of darkness across the already dimmed floor. Few ears could have caught the slight swish of The Shadow's cloak.
Perhaps the crouching safe-tapper possessed some uncanny ability to recognize the approach of a challenger. Whatever the case, he sensed The Shadow's presence.
LIKE an uncoiling snake, the crouched man unlimbered. Spinning around, he flung himself straight for The Shadow, whipping out a revolver as he came. There wasn't time to sight the man's face, for the light was behind him. All that The Shadow could do was meet the lightning attack by as quick a counterthrust.
Swinging his gun hand in a wide arc, The Shadow outdid his foe in point of speed. Guns clashed, automatic against revolver, before the unknown man could give a trigger tug. The force of The Shadow's stroke slashed the weapon from his adversary's hand.
With the blow, The Shadow delivered a low but recognizable laugh - a taunt that would have fazed an ordinary criminal. The mirth did not work with this man.
His gun lost, the creeper simply took advantage of his weaponless condition. In bashing the revolver, The Shadow had swung himself off balance, and quick eyes noted the fact. Long arms shot forward; one hand caught The Shadow's wrist, while the other sped to his throat. His own gun forced upward, The Shadow hadn't time to fire.
He did the next best thing. A quick twist, a backward fling, and The Shadow was starting his opponent on a jujitsu flip that should have carried him to the wall. But the master criminal performed an amazing gyration in midair and did a side twist of his own. Though he struck the floor, the twist that he gave The Shadow's wrist was sufficient to yank away the cloaked fighter's automatic.
Undaunted, The Shadow drove anew for his foe. By then, they were halfway to the door, well distant from the desk lamp.
In this first battle with Jan Garmath, the creeper who had come to Lenfell's study, The Shadow was meeting with surprising opposition. But it wasn't the sort that could continue. Clutching his snakish adversary, The Shadow managed to get his gloved hands on the man's neck.
A quick choke and Garmath would be helpless, his identity revealed as soon as The Shadow could drag him to the light. But Garmath, tugging at the gloved hand's that throttled him managed to raise an outcry.
He shouted, not in his own voice but in excellent imitation of Lenfell's tone:
"Help! Andrew - George - help! They are murdering me!"
In the midst of his cries, Garmath managed a side twist toward the desk. He was still wrestling hard against The Shadow when Lenfell's servants arrived. They came with a promptitude that The Shadow had not expected.
Piling through the door, they saw a writhe of blackness blocking off the light from the desk lamp. Hurling themselves upon The Shadow, they tried to haul him from a victim that they thought must be their master, Lenfell.
The servants were only half successful, but Garmath supplied the rest. Out of The Shadow's clutch, he ducked around the desk leaving the cloaked fighter in the hands of Andrew and George. They were too ardent in their attack to observe Garmath's quick flight.
Only The Shadow saw the running man who scooped up the revolver from the floor and kept on his way.
But The Shadow had no chance to spy Garmath's face. The smart crook did not show it.
Flinging Andrew in one direction, George in the other, The Shadow recovered his automatic and went after Garmath, with George and Andrew following. Garmath was at the bottom of the front stairs when The Shadow reached the top; he was slamming the front door when his cloaked pursuer arrived at the bottom of the stairway.
Having a similar lead on Lenfell's servants, The Shadow seemed free for uninterrupted pursuit; but he was due for unexpected opposition. Garmath was across the street by the time The Shadow sprang from the front door, and from an arriving car blockers sprang up to cut off The Shadow's course.
Had they been mobsters, like Dwig and his outfit, The Shadow would have dealt them a proper dose of bullets. But these weren't crooks; they were detectives, backed by none other than Inspector Joe Cardona!
GUNS talked, as The Shadow jogged the hands that held them. Recognizing The Shadow, Cardona was shouting orders that the barking revolvers drowned. From the doorway of the house, Lenfell's servants were shouting: "Get the man in black!" Their cries were louder than Cardona's, after the roar of the guns ended.
Tripping one detective and tumbling him across the other, The Shadow made a dive for darkness, hoping that Cardona wouldn't suddenly change his opinion and decide that, for once, The Shadow might be in the wrong.
Joe didn't decide so, but he wavered, and that was why The Shadow took to the darkness of the side passage leading past Lenfell's, instead of going across the street in chase of Garmath.
Out back, The Shadow found Moe's cab and sprang into it, ordering the speedy hackie to round the block and try to pick up the trail of another car. But the lost time proved costly.
Garmath was gone when Moe made the circuit. The only car that hove into sight was the official one belonging to Commissioner Weston. Sight of that bulky vehicle was cause enough for Moe to veer off in another direction, without awaiting The Shadow's bidding.
The scene that Weston viewed in Lenfell's study was not a great surprise. The commissioner had come to Lenfell's in response to another tip-off. Weston was puzzled merely by the statements of the servants and the detectives. They all insisted that a black-cloaked fighter had fled the house, one who answered far too closely to the known description of The Shadow.
When Cardona listened to those statements, he caught a glare from Weston. Remembering the alibi that he had given The Shadow at Sherbrock's, Cardona was definitely perturbed. With Lenfell's body in plain view, and The Shadow the only intruder on the premises, the cloaked investigator's reputation was encountering a severe strain.
Joe only hoped that Weston would not think back to the Sherbrock case. To forestall such a prospect, Cardona gestured at Lenfell's safe.
"Maybe we'll find the answer there," he said to Weston. "Whoever came here might have been after something important. Suppose we see what's inside."
The idea appealed to Weston and took his full attention, for it wasn't easily accomplished. None of the servants knew the combination, and Weston's guesswork at the dial proved quite unavailing.
Cardona, meanwhile, was consulting a little book that contained the phone number of a specialist in safes.
The man proved to be at home, and he agreed to come right over.
It took the legitimate cracksman fifteen minutes to arrive; another quarter-hour to solve the combination of Lenfell's safe. When the big door came open, Weston poked head and shoulders through and pounced upon the first object that he saw, which happened to be a squarish jewel case.
Opening the box, Weston was too surprised to speak. Cardona had to look over his shoulder to observe what the commissioner had found.