Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 097 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XII. MOCQUINO DECREES

DOCTOR Mocquino stood in full control.

Wisely, The Shadow had stopped all effort to defy the Voodoo Master. The moment for battle had passed. The Shadow had lost the vital opportunity that he always required in such emergencies as this.

Luck had tricked The Shadow. Elridge Rathcourt's sudden, frenzied clutch had stayed his right hand. An unexpected twinge had halted his left. Covered by four weapons, The Shadow was too late to offer immediate resistance.

Rathcourt had dropped away. Seeing The Shadow's dilemma, the cringing man had lost faith in his protector. As Rathcourt sagged moaning into a chair, The Shadow's right hand was lose; but he made no attempt to draw an automatic. Instead, he slowly raised both hands. Wearily, he faced Mocquino.

An ugly chuckle came from the Voodoo Master. Surveying The Shadow, Mocquino saw the soured features, the droopy, tired eyelids of James Rettigue. He knew that this was The Shadow. But Mocquino believed that the superman had yielded.

After a contemptuous leer toward Rathcourt, Mocquino advanced. Reaching The Shadow, the Voodoo Master thrust his hand beneath the latter's coat. He found two automatics. He brought them forth and tossed them to the floor.

All the while, tom-toms pounded in their torturing rhythm like beats of doom upon throbbing ears.

Mocquino uttered a sharp command. The throbs ceased. The silence of the room was charged with menace. Then Mocquino spoke.

“One fool,” he sneered, “has lured another. Both unwittingly. You, Rathcourt—you were the first fool! I knew that you would talk, once you gained the opportunity.”

“He—he made me talk!” panted Rathcourt, pointing toward The Shadow. “He is the one to blame! Take his life, Mocquino—not mine!”

“Silence!” hissed the Voodoo Master. Then, his tone becoming suave: “You were the bait, Rathcourt.

Good bait—only because you did not know my plans. I sent you to Atlantic City yesterday. Why? So that I could turn this penthouse into a snare.”

The Voodoo Master clapped his hands. His four henchmen moved in closer from their opposite doorways. Then two others appeared: one was Manuel, the valet; the other, a rogue who might have been the fellow's brother. Both were carrying tom-toms.

“Manuel and Fernando,” chortled Mocquino. “They prepared this trap. They admitted my servants and myself. All was ready hours ago. Look!”

MOCQUINO went to the wall and pulled away a forward-filled picture. Behind it was a disk: a loud-speaker. The Voodoo Master wrenched the device from its socket. He strode to a corner and whisked the cloth covering from a small table. He produced another amplifier. From a bookcase,

Mocquino yanked two massive volumes. A cord came with them. The books fell apart, to show a third loud-speaker.

Manuel and Fernando had laid aside their tom-toms. They had pocketed The Shadow's guns. They gathered the amplifiers and Mocquino added a fourth that he brought from behind a radiator. He pointed to a telephone that stood on a table in the corner. The instrument had a wire that terminated in a wall-socket.

“Some time ago,” purred Mocquino, “you had special wiring placed in this penthouse, Rathcourt.

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