The Shadow 143 The Fifth Napoleon by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1938-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

Both hands of The Shadow completed their grim work. When he let go his grip, the mobster lay unconscious.

The Shadow shoved the limp body into concealment and continued his advance across the dark floor of the garage.

The office door opened slightly, stayed that way for an instant, and then closed again.

The Shadow had gained his first objective.

The room was empty; no sign of Andy Martin or the heavy trunk which he had carried inside. Nor could The Shadow discover any trace of an exit. He turned the knob of the only other door visible—a clothes closet.

The Shadow tested the walls and floor and decided there was nothing unusual about this closet. He waited patiently inside, his keen eye at the keyhole.

In ten minutes, his patience was rewarded. Shuffling steps sounded outside. Two men came into the office, stumbling under the weight of a heavy trunk. One of them was a thug wearing the peaked cap of a taxi driver. The other man was Con Platt.

The trunk was a duplicate of the one which Andy Martin had carried into complete invisibility.

The Shadow, watching through the closet keyhole, soon discovered the nature of that cunningly concealed road to invisibility. It was in the wall of the office, directly opposite the spot in which he was crouched.

As he watched, he saw a whole section of the wall slide away, disclosing a small elevator illuminated by a rose-tinted lamp in its ceiling.

A private elevator shaft! Leading either aloft to the pinnacle of the skyscraper, or down into the bowels of the earth—which, The Shadow had no way yet of determining.

Con Platt entered the elevator, the trunk with him. The wall slid back into place. There was no hum from the concealed lift. Nothing but complete silence. The taxi driver turned and left the office.

The Shadow set grimly to work to discover the hidden mechanism of panel that concealed the elevator shaft. Con Platt’s pudgy body had shielded whatever his hands had done to spring that panel open. The wall itself was no help. It was blank from ceiling to floor. No decorations or carvings of any kind. Pressure undoubtedly did the trick.

The Shadow began to test every inch of that bare wall.

He was still at work, his eyes blazing with concentration, when he suddenly stiffened. From the garage outside came the reverberating echoes of a yell of surprise and rage.

“Help! Over here! Quick!”

The Shadow divined instantly what had happened. Some one had stumbled across the body of the man he had throttled and shoved out of sight. He could hear excited yells and the rush of feet.

THE SHADOW thought fast. He knew he had no chance whatever to escape from the office in which he was trapped. His only hope lay in bluff. Not as The Shadow but as Lifer Stone!

The man he had throttled had been attacked too quickly to catch a revealing glimpse of his assailant. The darkness in the garage would make any one’s clothing seem as black as the disguise The Shadow had used.

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