The Shadow 187 Shiwan Khan Returns by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1939-11-30T23:02:39+00:00

CHAPTER XII. THE VANISHED TRAIL

FACTS were pounding themselves through Cardona’s head; details that jammed themselves into brief seconds. Truman had said that Orlio quit working when the printing shop had closed. He’d told the truth, as in everything else, Truman had.

Whatever his mania, Orlio gained the inspiration from the thumping presses. The first error in a tragic series was the mistake on the part of the pickets, when they thought the police were after them.

They had let the presses start again, and Orlio had gone back to work. Lacking only a few minutes to complete his crazy bathysphere, he had found the time he needed. No wonder he had gone berserk and tried to murder all intruders.

It didn’t occur to Cardona that all of Orlio’s actions were inspired by the restored control of Shiwan Khan. The chance closing of the printing shop had furnished a snag for the master mind who had made allowances for everything else. The thumping elevator in the Hotel Monolith was tuned to the pounding of the presses below Orlio’s storeroom!

Cardona had something else to think about at the end of those crowded seconds. The Shadow was struggling with Orlio, trying to capture him alive. Knowing that even The Shadow might find difficulty with the crazed inventor, Cardona made for the little room.

At that moment, a flashlight glimmered. It belonged to Commissioner Weston; he turned the beam from the stairway door. Seeing the hanging bulb that Cardona had extinguished, Weston dashed forward and tugged the cord.

The glow showed the window in the little room. Orlio had reached it, was thrusting his scrawny body through. Weston saw Cranston trying to haul him back, with Cardona stumbling up to aid in the process.

Others saw that struggle, too, thanks to Weston’s mistake in turning on the light.

Guns barked from outside. Orlio’s body writhed, then slid back into the little room. Wheeling away from the sprawling figure of the inventor, The Shadow grabbed Cardona and hurled him to the floor, just as more shots blasted. Then, crouched low, Cranston stooped above Orlio’s body.

The gaze that The Shadow turned toward Weston told that the bearded inventor was dead.

Cardona was staring about, totally amazed. He saw neither Cranston nor Weston. He was looking for something that should be in this room, but wasn’t.

“The bathysphere!” he gulped. “It’s gone!”

From the way his eyes went upward, Cardona apparently expected to see something the size of a young elephant. Blinking, he looked toward the little window and shook his head.

“Ten feet high,” muttered Joe, “and ten feet wide. A big ball, made of metal. It couldn’t have gone out through there.”

Joe was too bewildered to connect the louder thumps that he had heard with the disappearance of the beryllium bathysphere. But The Shadow, looking round and about, saw immediately how the thing had gone.

This little room was an elevator. Someone had pushed an automatic switch, taking it to the ground floor while the fight was going on in the big room. The bathysphere had been rolled out into the rear alley, below the little window.

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