The Dragon Clan had managed the impossible. They had captured The Shadow.

They'd needed the ambulance for a getaway only, a purpose which it filled to perfection. Neither the police nor The Shadow's own agents had thought of trailing an ambulance, working on an errand of mercy.

Small mercy for The Shadow!

In the solid-walled room where his captors flung him, The Shadow looked up into the glaring light to see the Black Dragon attired in his writhing costume.

The forced voice hissed: "This is your finish, Shadow! You have found me, and the deed itself means death! You are helpless, so helpless that you can not even preserve the secret of your ident.i.ty!"

With that, the Black Dragon whipped away the slouch hat and looked at the face of Cranston in the light. There was just a trace of surprise in the sharp hiss that the Dragon gave. Then, planting the hat at an angle on The Shadow's head, the hooded man sneered: "Perhaps I should also unmask. It would give you satisfaction to know who I.

am. That happens to be the reason why I shall not disclose my ident.i.ty."

Wearily, The Shadow laughed. His tone carried a trace of Cranston's bored style.

"Quite unnecessary," he said. "You have made the whole thing very obvious.

I know who you are."

The Dragon snarled in sudden derision. Turning about, he ordered his followers to shift the light. When they did, The Shadow saw a square-walled room with a door at the other side. At the Dragon's gesture, a pair of pock-faced men lifted The Shadow and carried him to the door. The Dragon opened it, kicked a doorstop and let The Shadow watch the closet floor slide open.

Below was a pit, approximately twelve feet wide. From each of its four walls projected knifelike spikes, a few inches in length. The Dragon reached for a wire that ended in a switch. Pressing the switch, he produced an electric buzz; with it, the spikes issued slowly from the walls. When they had emerged a few inches, the Dragon turned off the current.

"A comfortable nest," sneered the Dragon. "In it, a person could survive about five minutes. By then the spikes will be fully extended, intermingling to cover the entire pit. It will not be a pleasant death. Or should I say - it would not?"

The Shadow studied the pit. Its interior measurements were about six feet by six. The Dragon's five-minute estimate was approximately correct.

With a sweeping motion, The Dragon ordered his men to cut The Shadow's bonds. They did so, then the Dragon personally supplied the quick shove thatsent the cloaked prisoner down into the pit. Grazing the spikes in one wall that he pa.s.sed, The Shadow knew that they were sharp.

"Five minutes," the Dragon repeated. "During that time, anything you care to say will be heard through a loud-speaker in this room above. Simply call me by name - my real name - and I shall stop the spikes. But remember" - the tone came harsh - "no guesses are allowed. One false statement ends my offer!"

Unlimbering, The Shadow stood upright in the pit, his head six feet below the edge. He touched the spikes with his fingertips and gave an indifferent shrug. Reaching for his guns, The Shadow found that he no longer had them. The gesture pleased the Dragon. He beckoned to a man beside him and received one of The Shadow's automatics.

"I appreciate the suggestion," scoffed the Dragon. "After all, Shadow, if your guess fails you will have to accept the spikes. I shall then have no way of knowing how far you quailed at death. So I shall be generous, and give you this gun! Should I hear it fire, I shall know that your bravery is a myth."

The Black Dragon kicked the doorstop in order to bring the floor shut. As the s.p.a.ce narrowed, he dropped the gun. Before The Shadow could catch the weapon, the floor was shut. There was a sharp clicking as hidden catches took hold within the wooden floor.

Swinging the closet door shut, The Black Dragon turned on the current that started the interlocking spikes. The first sound that came over the loud-speaker was the defiant laugh of The Shadow. Arms folded, the Dragon waited, his breath coming with a hiss.

THERE were less minutes than the five that he had promised. That period marked the time when the spikes would be fully home. The Shadow would have to speak before then or take the punishment of the stabbing points. So the Black Dragon waited only briefly, before he snarled through a microphone: "All right, Shadow. Who am I?"

A laugh sounded in amplified tone. Then came The Shadow's reply: "Commissioner Weston!"

With a fling, the Black Dragon threw aside the switch that alone could stop the spikes. Turning on his heel, he paused by the microphone for a final statement.

"A fatal jest, Shadow," he said. "Not knowing who I really am, you thought that you could taunt me or arouse my sense of humor. Your life will be very short from now on. You know it better than I, for you can see the closing spikes. Of course, you still have the gun I gave you!"

Striding across the room, the Black Dragon paused by the door and waited.

His head had a tilt that added greater realism to the open-mouthed hood. He was a dragon indeed, this creature, as he listened for the token that would brand The Shadow as a coward. So well timed was the estimate that the Dragon was uncoiling himself toward the door, his hands dropping like flapping scales, when the sound came.

A gun blast from the spiked pit!

One of the Dragon's followers moved toward the cord that terminated in the switch. With a snarl, the Dragon ordered the fellow back. That switch wasn'tto be touched until the spikes were home. Beckoning for other men to follow, the Black Dragon strode out through the door.

There was a clang from the ambulance as it took the Black Dragon to his next destination. More clangs, that faded in the distance. The last was echoing back when the buzzing ceased, telling that The Shadow, dead or living, was impaled upon four bristling batches of spikes. If The Shadow still lived, he wouldn't survive that hideous ordeal long.

Convinced of that, the Black Dragon had been free to leave. His departure, however, was spurred by a more positive belief. The Black Dragon was sure that he had heard The Shadow deliver a suicide blast, a thing which pleased the Dragon more. In any event, the decree of the Dragon was fulfilled.

Death to The Shadow!

CHAPTER XVI.

TWO KEYS TO CRIME.

EXCITEMENT still reigned outside the Greenwich Village apartment house.

Indoors, heavy footsteps were pounding up the stairs, denoting police who were coming to search the premises. Steve Trask was only half a floor ahead when he reached the door of Myra Reldon's apartment.

Outside the door stood Clyde Burke. Head tilted, the reporter was listening to the sounds from below. When Steve arrived, Clyde reached out a hand, took the breathless man's arm and steered him right into the apartment.

A moment later, Clyde was inside, too, closing the door behind him. The reporter said, "Sit down. The police won't bother us. That broken elevator cable will worry them for a while."

Steve couldn't have accepted Clyde's invitation unless he'd chosen a seat on the floor. Every chair in the room was overturned; some of them were broken.

The room looked like a hurricane exhibit.

Anxiety swept Steve's face.

"What about Myra Reldon?" he panted. "Did... did they -"

"They didn't," interposed Clyde.

He picked up a chair and planted it for Steve. "Myra dodged them while the lights were blinking. She got into the other room and bolted the door just before we arrived to break up the party. Myra will be out in a few minutes."

Clyde picked up two knives that were lying in a corner of the room, where they'd rebounded when they struck the fireproof wall. He handed Steve the souvenirs, then strolled to the window. Clyde beckoned and Steve came over.

Looking across rooftops and down between, Steve saw the cab that Clyde indicated. It was nosing from an alley a few blocks distant, timing its departure between the pa.s.sing of patrol cars. It was The Shadow's cab, leaving with the other agents.

Stout fellows, those. One, Harry Vincent, had impressed Steve by his clean-cut style, which seemed an equal measure of his fighting ability.

Another, Cliff Marsland, was more rugged in appearance, and as hard-fisted as he looked.

But the third, a diminutive man with wizened face, who answered to the name of Hawkeye, was by no means a supernumerary. To say that Hawkeye was a pint of human dynamite wouldn't be doing him justice. He packed a wallop more likeTNT.

Each of the trio had accounted for one of the Dragon's followers, and now the three were departing while the police were gathering the remains. The police would certainly be stymied for a while when they found the a.s.sa.s.sin who had dived down the elevator shaft. They'd wonder why he wasn't inside the wrecked car, instead of lying on top of it!

"They're off to hunt for the chief," observed Clyde grimly. "There's no better hackie in town than Moe Shrevnitz. If there's a trail within a mile, he'll smell it. But the way The Shadow vanished taking that whole crowd with him - well, I just don't get it."

The bedroom door opened and Myra Reldon stepped into the living room. Her dark-blue dress was smartly fashioned, American style, well-suited to a striking brunette like Myra. It did justice to her trim build, quite as well as the Chinese costume which she had worn as Ming Dwan. The girl's real change was in her face.

FOR the moment, Steve was startled. He thought that Myra was deathly pale, on the point of wilting from her recent experience. Then Steve realized that the effect was his own imagination. Remembering Myra as Ming Dwan, he'd cla.s.sed her complexion as that of yellow-ivory. The illusion of pallor faded from Steve's mind when he studied Myra's face in terms of normal white.

Methodically, Myra began to straighten the room. Steve and Clyde helped.

She smiled when she set the footstool where it belonged, but her lips went a trifle grim when she saw the knives that Steve had laid aside.

Then, picking up a dressing gown from the floor, Myra rolled the knives inside it with a pair of slippers and took the whole bundle into the bedroom, where she stowed it deep on a closet shelf with the Ming Dwan costume.

Returning, Myra looked from Steve to Clyde, her eyes asking an anxious question.

"No word yet," said Clyde a bit solemnly. "Moe just took the boys to the hunt. We'll hear from Burbank if they find the chief."

Who Burbank was, Steve didn't inquire. Glancing from the window, Steve saw a big official car nose into the front street, pause as though poking into matters, and then continue on its way.

"Look, Burke!"

"No soap, Trask," said Clyde, when he saw the car that Steve pointed out.

"That's the commish in person. The phony job is out of circulation. Half the force grabbed it."

"They questioned the driver?"

"Yes. I was covering the story when you and the chief went by in Shrevvy's cab. The chauffeur was an A-1 dope who thought he was really working for Weston.

He'd stopped at Gotham Court to pick up a pa.s.senger for Norland's. He was going back to some old garage when the law clamped down on him."

Steve felt an inward groan. There wasn't any way to beat the Black Dragon's game, the way all the trails evaporated the further they were followed. n.o.body had even begun to beat it, except The Shadow, but his technique lay in putting things in reverse. For instance, tonight, The Shadow had let the police swarm after the fake, official car, just so he could locate where it had come from -namely, Norland's house.

A thought hit Steve like a sunburst. He wanted a key to crime and he had one. Why not carry The Shadow's system further, by tracing back to an earlier starting point? The fake, official car had been at Gotham Court before it went to Norland's. There was the place to use crime's key!

Steve didn't express the thought to the others. Myra was becoming really worried, so Clyde was using the phone to call Burbank just in case there was some word of The Shadow. A glance from the window showed that the street was deserted, so Steve strolled from the apartment un.o.bserved and quickened his pace as he started down the stairs.

THERE wasn't any copyright on the idea of checking backward trails.

Clyde, Myra, the rest of The Shadow's agents all had the thing in mind. They'd rejected it because the trail they wanted led ahead to some hidden location where The Shadow had been carried as a prisoner.

So far, the agents hadn't an inkling as to where that place might be.

Even if they'd found it, the atmosphere would have harrowed them. For the pall of doom was heavy in the square-walled room where the Black Dragon had decreed death to The Shadow.

Death delivered!

Two of the Dragon's followers were still present in that room, toying with revolvers they wouldn't have to use. Their ugly faces were exchanging evil leers. They had been ordered to wait, this pair, before withdrawing the spikes that impaled The Shadow's body. Now the time was up. One watcher gripped the door handle; the other turned to kick the stop that controlled the sliding floor. The door stuck as the first man tugged it. He yanked harder.

Flying wide, the door brought a ma.s.s of living blackness that reeled half across the room, came about with a sideward stagger, and disgorged a hand that swung a heavy gun. Blackness materialized into a cloaked figure, whose hidden lips trailed a strangely echoed laugh.

The Shadow, free from the spiked pit of death!

Frozen were the men who viewed this fabulous return. To the eyes that bulged from mud-hued faces, this was not The Shadow in bodily form. The babbled words they uttered were synonyms for the one term: "Ghost!"

The sweep of The Shadow's cloak displayed the proof. The garment was marred with rips from the spikes that must have pierced the human form within. In any language, The Shadow was a ghost, for only such a creature could have emerged as he had.

Reeling toward the man who had yanked the door, The Shadow was an open target for the watcher's gun. Too open, for The Shadow's own drive wavered. He couldn't seem to bring his automatic to aim. A few shots, point-blank, would have drilled The Shadow, but the man with the revolver didn't fire.

Of what use were bullets against a ghost?

Missing in aim, The Shadow swung his gun. His foeman went prostrate ahead of the weapon's sweep. Stopped when his stroke thwacked the door, The Shadow stumbled half across the figure that was bowing, pleading at his feet. He turned, steadying himself against the door, to aim at the other man.

NO aim was needed. That watcher was prostrate, too, hoping that he'd shareThe Shadow's grace. Both babbling men were tossing their guns along the floor, to prove that they wouldn't think of using such weapons, even in a case where bullets couldn't count.

Again The Shadow uttered his chilling mirth.

His tone, like his actions, proved that he hadn't fully recuperated from the plunge in the elevator, but his laugh was all the more ghostly. It was preferable to keep it so, to preserve the illusions held by these dragon men.

Superst.i.tious creatures, these, who had often witnessed the Black Dragon's vanish from his gilded throne and believed it to be real sorcery. They were of the right breed to accept The Shadow's reappearance as superior wizardry. Even their brief sight of The Shadow's face had not shattered their ghost theory.

Lacking his slouch hat, The Shadow was displaying the features of Lamont Cranston. That detail was easily rectified.

The Shadow stepped to the closet. Its sliding floor was already open; the shot which the Black Dragon had mistaken for The Shadow's suicide had served another purpose. With it, the cloaked prisoner had blasted the woodwork above the pit, releasing the simple catch that held the sliding floor.

And now The Shadow demonstrated how he had escaped the sharp-p.r.o.nged spikes.

He pressed the switch that controlled them. As the spikes receded, The Shadow waited until sufficient s.p.a.ce showed in their boxed center. Down into that spiked vortex he descended, using the slowly moving spikes as the rungs of an improvised ladder!

At the bottom, The Shadow paused until the spikes had withdrawn a few more inches; stopping, he reclaimed his slouch hat. Deliberately, he duplicated his original escape, deftly climbing the pointed rods, shifting conveniently from one wall to another, but always avoiding the sharpened spike-tips.

In the first climb, the final spikes had caught his trailing cloak while he was gaining a grip inside the closet door. In wrenching the black garment free, The Shadow had caused those rips that had so impressed the guarding dragon men.

The cowed guards were still prostrate, their noses flat to the floor. The Shadow spoke in a commanding tone. Shaky, but willing, they arose and lunged toward the outer door.

Out into the waiting night, The Shadow marched the cowering pair, confident they would direct him to their former master, the Black Dragon!

CHAPTER XVII.

PATHS TO THE DRAGON.