THE INVINCIBLE SHIWAN KHAN
                                by Maxwell Grant

       As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," March 1, 1940.

     From out of Tibet swings the Oriental monster, Shiwan Khan, for another
meeting with The Shadow!


     CHAPTER I

     SPELL OF THE PAST

     STRANGE was the golden room, singular the hush that lay within its
squarish walls. Windowless, it formed a metallic cubicle pervaded by a rich,
yet dullish, gleam.
     Golden, too, was the attire of the room's lone occupant. He was robed in
the richly woven cloth, its hue relieved only by the purple trimmings of a
kingly jacket. Purple, too, was the skullcap that topped his head.
     His face placed him as an Oriental. Saffron in shade, it produced a
chameleon effect, blending with the golden light to render his features almost
colorless.
     Oddly, though, the result was a sharpness of those features. Absorbing the
light about them, they stood out with a clarity that revealed every line in the
man's demoniac countenance.
     No brush could have portrayed a face so fiendish as that which the
gold-robed man produced in life through his own emotionless effort.
     Wide of forehead, tapering to pointed chin, the face was an inverted
triangle. Its eyes were greenish, like those of a night-prowling beast. Above
those eyes were brows that made curved streaks, clear to the wide temples.
Between the eyes a sharp, downward line marked a thin, high-bridged nose.
     Brownish lips, scarcely discernible until they opened, were topped by
thin, drooping mustaches; while a tuft of beard, dabbed to the thin-pointed
chin, gave the final touch to a human physiognomy that a Satan could have
envied.
     The monstrous master of the golden room reclined in a gilded throne. He
was resting his chin upon an elbow propped hand; his body, slanted across the
broad throne, looked snakelike in the folds of the ornamented robe.
     His free hand stretched its long-nailed fingers to a gilded taboret,
plucked a small vial from the tiny table. Like a bird's claws, those fingers
clutched the vial snapped between them. Instantly, the square-walled room was
filled with the perfume of lilacs.
     Catlike eyes fixed in a glistening stare. Brownish lips opened; from them
dripped words that carried a clear tinkle, like ice against the sides of a
glass.
     "I am Shiwan Khan," spoke the man in gold. He paused, as though his words
were directed to a gallery of listeners. Then: "I am Shiwan Khan, the Golden
Master!"
     The hush returned to the golden room; yet, from his expression, Shiwan
Khan seemed to catch the faint hum of a city's roar. It was as if he had cast a
mental message upon the wind, and all New York had answered!
     Livid eyes bored toward the opposite wall. Amazing in their sharpness,
they could have detected the cracks of a sliding door that the reflected
shimmer hid from ordinary sight. But Shiwan Khan was looking beyond that
barrier.
     Though solid obstructions could not melt before his gaze, Shiwan Khan's
mental efforts could produce the same effect. The perfume that filled the
golden room tuned his brain to its objective. From the leer that spread upon
his lips, it was plain that he had completed a process of mental television.
     He spoke again, his tone clear as a bell:
     "Lana Luan... Lana Luan... You hear me... you will obey... Lana Luan -"
     The repeated words stood out amid a low murmur, which faded curiously
under the power of the Golden Master's tone.
     Shiwan Khan, himself, was no longer conscious of the walls about him. Even
the atmosphere was icy, like his voice. But the chill still held the odor of
lilacs.


     STRANGE, the fragrance of lilacs. Standing by a train gate in the
Pennsylvania Station in New York, Beatrice Chadbury breathed the aroma of the
flowers that she held. She favored lilacs, and it was thoughtful of Paul Brent
to present her with this bouquet as a farewell gift before he left for
Washington.
     Somehow, when Beatrice smelled the lilacs everything else faded away. The
vast spaces of the great railway terminal absorbed the murmurs of the passing
throngs. The girl's eyes seemed to close of their own accord. Beatrice was in a
void, a pleasant one, where distance seemed endless.
     The through train from Boston was ten minutes late. People crowded close
as the attendant opened the gate. Then the throng was pressing through. Brushed
aside, Beatrice stood unnoticed, except by a few persons who happened to glance
her way.
     They were a bit puzzled when they saw a very beautiful raven-haired girl
whose face was inclined toward the lovely bouquet of lilacs that she carried.
Primly attired in a dress of midnight blue, with large white cuffs and collar,
Beatrice looked quite young and sentimental. Perhaps that was why passers
smiled.
     They did not hear the voice that spoke to the girl in a far-away, frigid
tone. It was speaking a name that Beatrice remembered from long ago:
     "Lana Luan... Lana Luan -"
     "Yes!" The girl's lips barely opened. "Yes! I am Lana Luan."
     "I am Shiwan Khan," announced the voice. "I am the Golden Master -"
     "Yes!"
     As Beatrice's lips moved in reply, a young man detached himself from the
throng that was going through the gate. He was carrying magazines and
newspapers that he had hurriedly purchased for his journey.
     The arrival was Paul Brent. His tanned squarish face lost its serious
expression, his eyes showed sympathy, as his lips relaxed into a smile. Paul
was starting on a journey that might lead to a longer one; he could understand
why Beatrice felt sentimental over the lilacs that were his parting gift.
     Impulsively, Paul gathered the girl into his arms, along with the
newspapers and magazines.
     "Good-by, darling," he said softly. "Maybe I won't be gone long. Even if I
am, I'll write often. We certainly won't have to postpone our wedding day. I can
promise you that!"
     The lilacs were pressed deep against Paul's shoulder, and Beatrice's face
was buried with them. Paul wondered if she was crying because of his departure.
Gently, he whispered:
     "Do you hear me, darling?"
     Beatrice didn't hear him. What she heard was that cold, far-away voice
that alone could reach her brain amid the overwhelming fragrance of the lilacs.
It was a spell from the past, repeating the name that seemed her own.
     "Lana Luan -" As the voice paused, Beatrice waited breathless. "You hear
me... Lana Luan?"
     "I hear you!" gasped Beatrice. "Yes, I hear you!"
     Paul thought that the reply was addressed to him. He tilted Beatrice's
chin up toward him, smiled as he saw the girl's closed eyes. Paul's kiss was
earnest; Beatrice's seemed the same, though her response was almost mechanical.
     The gateman was about to close the gate. Anxious for a few parting words,
Paul ended the caress too soon to notice Beatrice's lack of ardor.
     "Good by," he said. "You'll go right back to your apartment, won't you,
darling? You know how tired you've been all day -"
     Again, it was another voice that Beatrice heard. A voice repeated:
     "Lana Luan... you will obey -"
     "Yes." Beatrice's closed eyes were turned toward Paul. "I shall obey."


     TURNING, the girl walked away from the gate, toward the exit leading to
the taxicabs. Though her reply had fitted Paul's final question, it struck him
as quite odd. But there wasn't time to ponder over Beatrice's curious
statement; the train gate was about to close. Besides, there was something else
that caught Paul's attention at that moment.
     A lilac had dropped from Beatrice's bouquet. It was lying near the train
gate. Scooping up the precious flower, Paul turned, dashed through the gate and
down the steps to the waiting train.
     A conductor was shouting, "All aboard," but it didn't matter. Paul was
through the gate; they'd have to wait for him. As he neared the bottom of the
steps, the young man smilingly raised the lilac and breathed its perfume.
     Then Paul Brent was stopped stock-still, staring with fixed gaze,
oblivious of the platform, the train, or the conductor's final call. Like
Beatrice, Paul had caught the spell of the past.
     He heard the voice - distant, like a bell, fainter, perhaps, than it had
seemed to Beatrice, yet clear enough to awaken horror as it repeated the name:
"Lana Luan... Lana Luan -"
     Train doors clanked shut. Under the smooth tug of an electric locomotive,
the limited glided from the station. Passing porters grinned at the unseeing
man, who stood entranced, a lilac in his hand. Like the conductor, they thought
that Paul had been too late to bid farewell to some girl who was leaving on the
train.
     "Lana Luan!"
     Mechanically, Paul spoke the name, as the flower dropped from his listless
fingers. A forgotten name, that Paul had never expected to hear again. A name
that Beatrice Chadbury had accepted while under the control of an insidious
master.
     To Beatrice, the name of Lana Luan could be irresistible, when uttered in
the icy tone that she had heard; whereas to Paul, it was a token of dreadful
recollection.
     That distant call had not been meant for Paul Brent. Nevertheless he, too,
had heard it. Only with a fearful shudder was he able to wrench himself from the
partial trance that had accidentally gripped him.
     Then, in a tone that sounded hollow and sepulchral in the cavernous depths
surrounding the underground platform, Paul voiced another name that, to his
mind, meant evil incarnate and all-powerful:
     "Shiwan Khan!"


     CHAPTER II

     DEATH'S CHOICE

     RIDING in a taxicab, Paul Brent found himself wondering how he had got
there. He could remember dashing frantically about the Pennsylvania Station,
looking everywhere for Beatrice. He knew that he must have finally reached the
taxicabs, the only place where Beatrice could have gone.
     Leaning through the partition, Paul repeated the address of the girl's
apartment. The driver gave a sympathetic grin.
     "I'm getting you there, bud," he said. "That's the fifth time you've told
me where you want to go. Your girl friend took a cab, all right; the porters
remembered her when you told them what she looked like. Maybe I'll get you
there ahead of her. So sit back and relax."
     Paul couldn't relax. He was remembering too many monstrous things. He was
thinking of Shiwan Khan, the Oriental crime wizard, whose return to America
meant calamity. Paul knew how Shiwan Khan could sway the minds of men and make
them parties to schemes of evil.
     In such plans, Shiwan Khan used go-betweens, choosing other dupes to play
the part. He made them forget their real personalities, to become mental slaves
who adopted other names and subjected themselves to his insidious bidding.
     Of such dupes, Beatrice Chadbury had been Shiwan Khan's first choice. She
had served him as Lana Luan, working to enmesh others in his toils. Beatrice
had been freed of that mental bondage, when Shiwan Khan had been forced to
abandon his schemes and flee to his homeland of Sinkiang near Tibet. (Note: See
"The Golden Master," Vol. XXXI, No. 2.)
     But the menace of the Golden Master had not been ended, even in defeat.
     Shiwan Khan had returned, to attempt new evil. Again defeated, he had
managed escape. (Note: See "Shiwan Khan Returns," Vol. XXXII, No. 1.) On that
second venture, he had ignored his former targets, Paul Brent and Beatrice
Chadbury. But he was back again, with all his wizardry, and Beatrice had
already succumbed to his far-reaching sway! 
     One being, alone, had managed to cope with Shiwan Khan. He was a fighter
whose ways of mystery rivaled those of the Golden Master, and he stood for
justice, as opposed to evil.
     The Shadow!
     Superfoe of crime, The Shadow moved beneath the shroud of night itself. In
this hour of despair, Paul could only hope that The Shadow had somehow learned
of Shiwan Khan's return. It was already evening; the cab was speeding along
darkened streets. To Paul, night's encroachment was not a thing to fear.
     It symbolized The Shadow, rather than Shiwan Khan. If harm had actually
befallen Beatrice, perhaps The Shadow could rescue her, as he had once before!
     Jamming to a stop in front of a secluded apartment house, the cab actually
disgorged Paul Brent. The young man tossed a bill to the driver and dashed into
the little entry. There, Paul fumbled with the bell to Beatrice's apartment.
     As he spoke into the telephone, Paul thought that he heard the girl reply.
It didn't occur to him that he had called there so often before that he might,
in his present stress, be imagining echoes from the past.
     Strange moods, uncontrollable hallucinations, could grip persons who cut
in on the mental pronouncements of Shiwan Khan, as Paul had tonight!
     At least Paul's ring was answered, for the door buzzed to release the
automatic lock. Pushing through, Paul hurried up to the third floor, and
knocked at the door of Beatrice's apartment. There was no response until he
rapped again; then the door swung open under his hand.


     DESPITE his anxiety to find Beatrice, Paul halted on the threshold. He
remembered the traps that Shiwan Khan could lay; how the Golden Master employed
mighty fighting men in the shape of huge Mongols, who were murderers by trade.
     The place was lighted by a floor lamp in the corner. A quick inspection of
the little apartment showed that the girl was not there.
     Stopping by a writing desk, Paul happened to gaze beyond the furniture
piece.
     Something, stirred. Grabbing the desk telephone as a weapon, Paul made a
lunge past the desk.
     The thing rose to meet him, a human monstrosity that seemed the outgrowth
of a tropical nightmare. Paul was faced by a creature that could be termed
human only for want of another description.
     Its baldish head was fronted by a face of yellow-brown, with features that
were chiefly eyes and teeth, all glistening white. The head was mounted on a
scrawny body that looked like a tawny drumhead stretched over struts that
served as ribs.
     Clawish hands, on the ends of arms that seemed as thin as polo sticks,
lunged into the light. About its waist, the unlimbered creature wore a
drab-gray loin cloth. Its legs, long and spidery, looked like skeleton limbs.
     Paul Brent was husky. He expected little difficulty with this scrawny foe.
His charge was powerful, but he didn't complete it. Half way to the corner, Paul
was stopped by a numbing shock that floored him.
     He thought, at first, that it came from the telephone; but when the
instrument clanked the floor, away from him, Paul still felt the paralyzing
pangs that racked his whole body.
     The spidery man was a human electric eel, who could deliver a staggering
impulse even without contact!
     As he hissed a triumphant snarl between his gleaming teeth, the human
skeleton whisked a long-bladed knife from his girdling belt. The weapon seemed
to leap forward in his clawish clutch; he was restraining it, not thrusting, as
he poised the point above Paul's heart.
     Paul Brent was marked for doom. No living hand could have stayed death's
choice. The thing that saved him was a token that seemed more than human, a
shuddering challenge that demanded answer ahead of any other deed.
     Helpless though he was, Paul recognized that weird mockery, knew the
rescuer that it represented.
     The Shadow!


     WITH a quick half-jerk, the brownish killer wrenched his poised blade away
from Paul's breast and gave his bony hand a twisting thrust toward the door. The
knife seemed to launch from his fingers like a living thing unleashed.
     In the doorway was a moving target, a tall black-cloaked form that was
actually driving in to meet the knife when the brownish assassin loosed it.
     The blade scarcely flashed along its course; judged by eyesight alone, it
might have been traveling at bullet speed. Yet it missed despite the accuracy
of the throw.
     The lunging figure in the doorway was twisty, too, when occasion demanded
it. With his taunt, calculated to save Paul's life, The Shadow was taking
measures to preserve his own.
     He knew what the brownish assassin was, the moment that he saw the
fellow's livid eyes. The man was a naljorpa, an ascetic reputed to have magic
powers, the sort who could be met in the Himalaya Mountains, on the borders of
Tibet.
     Familiar with others of that ilk, The Shadow had made his rapid lunge, not
to start a useless attack, but to clear the doorway and make a sideward dive to
the floor. His forced sprawl was under way when the knife blade zimmed through
the folds of his coat sleeve, slashing the arm beneath it.
     Cold steel produced a red-hot sensation as it slithered past. As The
Shadow rolled across the floor, he heard an oncoming hiss. An instant later,
the wiry naljorpa was flinging hard upon him, intent to complete the murderous
work that his blade had begun.
     Whatever the power of the naljorpas - whether it existed in themselves, or
in the minds of those they met - there was no question that it worked.
     The numbness that had flattened Paul Brent was a common thing in Northern
India, encountered often by those unwise enough to trouble wandering mystics
from Tibet. Just as Paul had expected easy victory over the brownish man, so,
in his turn, did the naljorpa plan a quick end for The Shadow.
     Claws shot for the cloaked throat, hoping to choke a numbed foe into
oblivion. But there was no paralysis in the hands that clamped the Tibetan's
forward-driving arms. The Shadow had a peculiar ability of his own - he was
immune to the shocking current that emanated from the naljorpa.
     Undeterred by his wounded arm, he twisted the spidery assassin, as if
about to tie him into knots. His spindly body bent almost to the breaking
point, the naljorpa writhed in helpless fury until, by a lucky side twist that
drove his shoulder against The Shadow's gashed arm, he gained release.
     It was exactly as if a huge steel coil had sideslipped under the
increasing pressure of a binding machine. Bent double, the naljorpa suddenly
lengthened, shot from The Shadow's grip and arrowed through the door, out into
the hallway.
     Straight ahead, the knife was sticking in the baseboard. The Tibetan's
lurch carried him to it; he grabbed the blade and wrenched it from the woodwork.
     Again, it seemed that the weapon was swifter than the hand, as it came
slashing back across the brownish shoulder. But the naljorpa had taken too
long, despite the swiftness of his moves.


     PRONE on the floor, The Shadow had whipped an automatic from beneath his
cloak. Aiming the weapon with a speed that outdid his opponent's fling, the
cloaked fighter fired.
     Ribs crackled under the bullet's impact. The naljorpa emitted a
high-pitched cry: a shriek of anger, not of pain. Anguish was a thing unknown
to his breed; in their years of training, they tortured all such sensations
from their systems.
     Up from the floor, The Shadow lunged through the doorway, his gun shoved
ahead of him, ready to beat his foeman to the next thrust. Recoiling from the
jabbing muzzle, the wounded naljorpa made another of his tremendous bounds; not
amazing, considering that he had strength proportionate to more than twice his
weight.
     Catlike, the creature reached the ledge of an open window nearly twenty
feet away. His body lighted, twisting; the hand that held the knife was whipped
about as if by the weapon's weight. The blade slid loose as The Shadow's
automatic blasted.
     Again The Shadow had won, by the fraction of a second. The slug from his
.45 carried a bone-crushing wallop that swept the withered assassin clear
across the sill. The knife, launched a few degrees before the required angle,
went through the cloak again, slicing a harmless path between The Shadow's body
and the half-raised arm beside it.
     Hurtled out into the darkness, the naljorpa sent back a trailing cry as he
plunged to the concrete courtyard, three floors below. The call was one that
carried malice, not terror; it was a plea for revenge, that must be meant for
someone close enough to combat The Shadow.
     Swinging full about, The Shadow helped Paul Brent to his feet. He hastened
him down a stairway and out to the courtyard.
     Spreading the beam of a tiny flashlight, he looked for the fallen Tibetan.
The courtyard was empty; amazingly, the dead man had vanished.
     Unquestionably, there had been others, in reserve; for a dead naljorpa
could not have vaulted a ten-foot wall.
     Of all the incredible fighters that The Shadow had encountered during his
exploits, never had he found foemen more unusual than these naljorpas. Torn
from the solitude where they dwelt, they had come half around the world, to
reach New York.
     There were sounds of sirens from the distance. The Shadow's shots had been
heard in the neighborhood; police would soon be here. But on the way, the
officers would not encounter traces of a brown-skinned squad, carrying away a
fallen member. The naljorpas were too well versed in ways of stealth to be
detected, even with a burden.
     The Shadow, too, had ways of blending into darkness. Aiding Paul back into
the building, he steered him through a rear door on the ground floor, out into
an alleyway.
     They reached a waiting cab that whisked them away just before a patrol car
turned the corner. Slumped in the rear seat, Paul was pressing his hand to his
head, while he muttered disjointed words. He had suffered a slight concussion
in his fall to the floor; he would need a rest before he could remember facts
and relate their details.
     But The Shadow did not need to hear the name that Paul so vainly tried to
utter. He already knew it.
     Those naljorpas could never have been induced to leave the Himalayas and
come to America, except by some supermind who knew their ways; who actually
dwelt among them as a tulku, or living deity.
     Even in Tibet, tulkus were rare; and The Shadow knew of only one who had
ever deserted his native land, to come to America. He was a master mind who had
turned his Oriental wizardry to crime.
     A superfoe who had met defeat, yet whose return The Shadow had expected as
positively as the dawn of a coming day:
     Shiwan Khan!


     CHAPTER III

     THE MASTER SPEAKS

     BEATRICE CHADBURY was still riding in a cab. It wasn't the same cab that
she had taken from the Pennsylvania Station; she had transferred from that one,
near Times Square.
     In fact, this was the fourth cab that she had used in her zigzag journey
up and down Manhattan. Each time that she left one cab to take another,
Beatrice had responded to the call of a mental voice that addressed her as Lana
Luan.
     The lilacs were still with her. Breathing their perfume, the girl stared
fixedly ahead when she spoke an address to the driver. The motion of her lips
was mechanical, as though actuated by some one other than herself.
     Nodding wisely, the cab driver watched the mirror as he drove southward.
He recognized the address in question. It was just within the borders of
Chinatown; he had taken other fares there, before. The cabby didn't regard it
as any of his business that the place was an opium den, managed by a Chinaman
named Loo Dow.
     The cab reached the entrance of a too-narrow Chinatown alleyway.
     Mechanically, Beatrice placed a wadded bill in the driver's hand and
stepped out into the darkness.
     With hurried pace, she reached a doorway deep in the alley, where she
could scarcely be seen. The door was of the sliding type, fitting into a wall
of grimy brick.
     Beatrice rapped. A singular thing happened. The cab driver didn't notice
it; if he had, he would have gaped, instead of driving away.
     The door did not move. Instead, a portion of the brick wall slid across
and covered the metal barrier. As Beatrice stepped through the opening, the
grimy surface slithered back in place again, so neatly that the protruding
bricks interlocked like clenching teeth.
     Instead of entering by the narrow passage that led to Loo Dow's opium
house; Beatrice had taken another route that ran beside it, separated by a
thick partition, She was in a passage unknown to Loo Dow's patrons, as well as
to Loo Dow himself!
     The passage was short. It ended in a steep stairway that descended below a
blocking wall. At the bottom, it turned left, twice, setting Beatrice on a
reversed course that led beneath the alley. Beyond that were other steps,
upward.
     All along the route dim lights appeared, subsiding after the hurrying girl
had passed them. Breathless, Beatrice took no notice of the many turns that she
followed, seemingly by sheer instinct. She was repeating the name that she
accepted as her own:
     "Lana Luan... Lana Luan -"
     She wanted to be Lana Luan again. The history of these underground
channels, once used in tong wars and forgotten afterward, did not interest her
in the least. Her goal was at the end of the maze; nothing else counted.
     There, Lana Luan could be rid of the ridiculous American attire that
didn't belong to her. Once clad in Oriental garments she would be a true
Chinese. Seeing an open door at the top of a short flight of steps, the girl
gave a glad cry in a singsong pitch that befitted Lana Luan.
     She had tugged her arms from the dress sleeves by the time she reached the
open room. She was letting her hair fall across her bare shoulders as she closed
the door.
     The room was a tiny boudoir fitted in Chinese style; draped in a corner
were the gorgeous silk pajamas and Chinese slippers that belonged to Lana Luan.
     Soon, the transformation was completed. As Lana Luan, Beatrice actually
appeared to be a Chinese. Her oval face, with languorous lashes and ruddy lips,
gave her an Oriental expression. The silken costume, embroidered with poppy
leaves and peacocks, seemed the proper garb for a daughter of Old Cathay.
     Even her complexion had changed; due, probably, to the subdued yellowish
light that filled the boudoir. Under a different glow, the face of Lana Luan
would certainly have shown American traces; but that was no disadvantage, so
far as the schemes of Shiwan Khan were concerned.
     The Golden Master needed a messenger who could go from place to place
without attracting too much notice. A type like this was therefore suitable, in
a city like New York. She had become a chameleon, who could pass as American or
Chinese, according to whichever appearance might be required by circumstance.


     AS Lana Luan stood admiring her new guise in the mirror, her eyes took on
a fixed expression. Through her mind, clear as a bell, came the tone of a voice
that ordered:
     "Come!"
     The girl opened the door. On the threshold, she stepped back, as a small
procession came along the passage. The advancing group would have horrified
Beatrice Chadbury; but Lana Luan merely surveyed the procession with a mild
curiosity.
     Scrawny brown-skinned men made up the parade. One, with glaring eyes and
large glistening teeth, was in the lead; others were bringing a crude stretcher
on which lay the distorted figure of a comrade.
     They were the naljorpas bringing in the shattered corpse of the assassin
who had failed in battle with The Shadow. In death, the Tibetan still wore his
ugly expression; if anything, it was more pronounced.
     The whitish eyes were glazed, shrunken lips drawn back from the bulging
teeth they surrounded. Bashed ribs, broken limbs, gave the body a mangled look.
Yet the dead Tibetan's fists were clenched.
     One locked claw, poked crazily upward from his disjointed body, kept
wagging as the bearers took the stretcher forward, as if its owner were still
expressing hate toward the formidable foe who had bested him.
     Lana Luan let the procession pass. The human caravan was marching toward a
golden door that shone from the passage end. While the girl waited, the Tibetans
finished their march and ascended curved steps leading to the door. The portal
slid back to admit them.
     In his gilded room, Shiwan Khan was lounging on his throne. The bearers
propped their burden at the doorway, so that the Golden Master could meet the
glare of the dead naljorpa.
     Attentively, Shiwan Khan heard the story that one naljorpa told. The
speaker had evidently been near the scene of combat between his now dead
comrade and The Shadow.
     "You have done well, Ramjan," declared Shiwan Khan. "Later, you shall have
opportunity for vengeance. As for Kushod" - he bowed toward the gruesome figure
on the litter - "he has already completed his long journey.
     "Kushod was a delog, like yourselves. A delog who, in his trances, had
visited the bardo, or land beyond. No delog can find peril in the bardo;
therefore, all is well."
     The listeners joined in a chorus of strange, gargly cries, expressing
elation over Shiwan Khan's words. Turning toward them, Ramjan pointed to the
Golden Master and exclaimed: 
     "Shiwan Tulku! Shiwan Tulku!"
     With a peculiar sidelong gait, the naljorpas filed from the throne room,
carrying the dead Kushod with them. As the golden door slid shut, Shiwan Khan
let his slitted lips form a strange smile.
     His Mongol servitors called him Shiwan Khan; for to them, he was Kha Khan,
the great ruler. But the Tibetans knew him as Shiwan Tulku, a title that
actually pleased him more, considering that the term tulku signified a being to
be worshipped, as well as obeyed.
     Soon, the golden door again slid open. This time, it admitted Lana Luan.
Gleaming their steady green, Shiwan Khan's eyes held the girl fascinated. 
     As she entered the room, she wavered; then her whole body seemed to
incline toward the robed figure in the throne. Slowly, as if drawn by a
hypnotic force, Lana Luan advanced and knelt near the little taboret.
     "Greeting, Lana Luan," spoke Shiwan Khan. "It has been long since we have
met."
     "Too long, Kha Khan."
     "Yet you have no recollection of the life between. Soon, Lana Luan, you
will forget that it ever existed."
     "I shall be grateful, Kha Khan."
     Confident that his domination gripped the girl completely, Shiwan Khan
drew a squarish ivory casket from the taboret. He extended it, and Lana Luan
received it. The casket bore a wax seal stamped with the Khan's own signet.
     "You will keep this casket," he told Lana Luan, "and deliver it when and
where I command. Meanwhile, you will dwell here among the chosen few who serve
me in this temporary domain.
     "Later, Lana Luan, you will be rewarded. With others, you will accompany
me to Xanadu, my hidden city in the heart of Asia. There, through measureless,
deathless years we shall create a new dominion that will spread to all the
world!"


     A LONG-FINGERED hand waved dismissal. Carrying the ivory casket, Lana Luan
walked from the throne room. As before, she wavered near the doorway; but her
step became steady when she had passed through.
     As the portal closed, Shiwan Khan contemplated the past. His lips grew
bitter at the thought of Kushod's failure; his eyes glared as he muttered the
name of The Shadow.
     Slowly, Shiwan Khan's thoughts returned to Lana Luan. Remembering the
ivory casket and its promised delivery to someone, the Golden Master drew a
large-bowled pipe from the taboret. Lighting the pipe, he let thick tobacco
smoke trickle from his lips.
     The aroma was pungent. Amid the wreaths of smoke, Shiwan Khan began to
speak, while his eyes fixed in a faraway gaze, as though penetrating the golden
wall.
     His words were few, but they must have brought mental answers from
somewhere, for there were long intervals when Shiwan Khan listened, his
greenish eyes half closed.
     Then as if settling a conference between himself and a distant speaker,
Shiwan Khan lifted his head, stared through the thickening smoke and
pronounced, in English: "Tomorrow night."
     His mental conversation ended, the Golden Master put away the pipe. Smoke
filtered through tiny openings in the gilded walls. The air was clear again,
ready for some new aroma with which Shiwan Khan controlled the minds of dupes
and tuned their thoughts to his.
     A laugh, jangling like a discordant bell, was Shiwan Khan's expression of
contempt for any who might try to balk his plans. It was a message of malice,
sent upon the wind.
     But there was one for whom it was meant, above all others.
     The Shadow!


     CHAPTER IV

     THREADS TO CRIME

     PAUL BRENT sat in an easy-chair, his head propped against a pillow. It was
mid-afternoon, and he was telling last night's story to two attentive listeners.
One was Dr. Rupert Sayre, in whose office the conference was being held; the
other was Lamont Cranston, noted world traveler.
     Sayre was a taciturn physician, whose understanding manner had helped him
build up a Park Avenue practice. Cranston, in his turn, was quite as
calm-mannered; it was seldom possible to trace a change of expression upon his
hawkish, masklike features.
     They listened seriously to everything that Paul had to tell; as a result,
the young man did not miss a single detail. When he had finished, however, he
wondered if these sober-faced friends could believe his bizarre account.
     Apparently, they did.
     Sayre handed Paul a telegram, with the simple comment:
     "This came to your Washington hotel. It was relayed here this afternoon."
     The telegram was signed Beatrice. It stated briefly that the girl had gone
for a trip in the Adirondacks; that she would answer any of Paul's letters after
she returned. His face troubled, Paul queried:
     "Do you think" - he stammered over the words - "that some one... perhaps
Shiwan Khan... could have sent this?"
     "Very probably," replied Cranston, in a calm tone. "We phoned Washington
and learned that you were to be sent immediately to California, to offer
technical advice on some new fighting planes."
     Paul nodded. He was an aircraft technician, by profession; his firm had
completed several government contracts.
     "Obviously, then," continued Cranston, "this telegram would have kept you
from wondering why you did not hear from Miss Chadbury during the next few
weeks."
     Another nod from Paul. In anxious fashion, he looked from man to man.
     "From which we may conclude," completed Cranston, "that Miss Chadbury will
return after that period. As I understand it, she encountered Shiwan Khan once
before -"
     "But that time," blurted Paul, "The Shadow rescued her!"
     "And by your own account," Cranston inserted, "The Shadow was on hand
again last night."
     Gradually, Paul relaxed. He saw the logic. The Shadow's mysterious
arrival, last night, seemed proof absolute that the black-cloaked investigator
held control. The Shadow had saved Paul; he could rescue Beatrice also.
     "Rest another day, Brent," advised Dr. Sayre, "then start for California.
If Shiwan Khan supposes that you have already gone there, you can help matters
best by preserving his impression that you learned nothing."
     Agreeing to the plan, Paul went back to the little hospital room that
adjoined Sayre's office. The physician turned to Cranston with a look of query,
that might have enlightened Paul had he been present to see it.
     Sayre's whole expression gave away a most important secret: The physician
knew that the visitor who called himself Lamont Cranston was actually The
Shadow!


     LONG ago, Sayre had decided that there were two Cranstons: a real one, and
another who played the part when the actual owner of the name was traveling in
remote lands. There wasn't a doubt that the present Cranston who stood in
Sayre's office was the mysterious member of the duo. That made him The Shadow.
     "The girl has disappeared, Sayre," declared The Shadow, quietly. "You did
well in helping me allay Brent's fears."
     "But she must have called you, last night -"
     "No." The Shadow slowly shook his head. "There was a message at my club,
presumably from Beatrice Chadbury, asking me to come to her apartment. It was a
trap, set by Shiwan Khan."
     "You suspected it?"
     "Yes. Even though I had no evidence that Shiwan Khan had returned to
America. Yet the trap was so clever, Sayre, that I really owe thanks to Brent.
I did not rescue him; he rescued me."
     Sayre understood.
     By blundering in ahead, Paul had been unlucky enough to spring the trap.
Mistaken for The Shadow, Paul had unwittingly turned the game about. By his own
timely arrival, The Shadow had been able to return the favor.
     Opening a tightly wrapped package, The Shadow produced a bunch of faded
lilacs. Sayre gave a jubilant exclamation; then saw Cranston's headshake.
     "The girl switched cabs," said The Shadow. "She finally took an
independent cab, as I considered probable. I had Moe Shrevnitz make the rounds
today."
     Sayre nodded. Moe was The Shadow's own cab driver, and one of his secret
agents; a great hand at making friends with other hackies.
     "She went to Loo Dow's," explained The Shadow, "but there, the trail ends.
I called Dr. Tam. He talked to Loo Dow. Beatrice Chadbury was not seen there."
     Mention of Dr. Tam meant much to Sayre. He was acquainted with Roy Tam,
the Chinese physician. He knew that Tam was a power in Chinatown; one who
worked for good. Such men as Loo Dow feared him.
     "Tam's men have investigated," continued The Shadow. "They think that the
girl must have gone through a gate at the end of the alley and reached another
street. She might have reached any one of several shops whose owners are
questionable."
     "Is Tam checking on them?"
     "Yes," replied The Shadow, "but they are the sort who would lie to him,
because they are at present not engaged in legitimate business. Important, too,
is the fact that Tam has no evidence whatever that Shiwan Khan is in Chinatown."
     "But he must be there!"
     Cranston's thin lips responded with the faintest of smiles. He agreed with
Sayre's opinion, but he knew the difficulty of gaining proof. There was danger,
too, in seeking Shiwan Khan; not to the hunter, but to those like Beatrice, who
were under the Golden Master's control.
     "Under Shiwan Khan's control," The Shadow reminded, "the girl will become
Lana Luan. We know therefore, that Shiwan Khan needs an intermediary, which, in
turn, proves that he is trapping other dupes."
     "But who are they?" demanded Sayre. "How can they be found?"
     "I shall soon have a lead," concluded The Shadow. "I heard from Shiwan
Khan last night, through the message requesting that I call on Beatrice
Chadbury. Since that trap failed, I shall hear from Shiwan Khan again."


     THERE was a letter waiting for Lamont Cranston when he reached the
exclusive Cobalt Club, an hour later. It was postmarked London, and when The
Shadow opened it, he found that it was from a man named Ralph Fayden.
     The letter was quite brief:

     DEAR CRANSTON:
          You will be interested in the curios that I have shipped to the
     Oriental Museum. The curator, Isaac Newboldt, is usually there from
     twelve to three, and from seven to nine. This letter will be a sufficient
     introduction.
                                    Cordially,
                                              FAYDEN.

     Everything about the letter passed muster. The stamp was British; the
postmark, if faked, was a perfect counterfeit. An express liner from England
had arrived that morning; the letter could have come in its mail.
     The letter was written in Fayden's style; when The Shadow studied the
handwriting, it stood the test. But there was one flaw in an otherwise
iron-clad situation.
     The letter had reached the Cobalt Club just after three o'clock. The
Shadow was positive on that point, because he had looked in the box marked
"Cranston" when he left the club at three, to go to Sayre's.
     He had returned before five, another fact that was highly important. Mail
deliveries to the Cobalt Club came at two thirty and five, with none in
between. Thus it was plain that someone other than a postman must have brought
the letter; had lain it on the desk, where it was noticed later.
     Why?
     The answer was in the letter itself!
     Had it been delivered at half past two, there was a chance that The Shadow
would have gone directly to the Oriental Museum, reaching there before three
o'clock. For some reason, he wasn't wanted there until evening.
     Therefore, the letter had been held until after three. But it hadn't been
kept until the five o'clock delivery for another very good reason, this one
quite obvious. Once three o'clock was past, it had been imperative to get the
letter into Cranston's box, so he would be sure to find it and fall for the
seven-o'clock bait.
     Yes, The Shadow was wanted at the Oriental Museum this evening; and,
remembering last night's experience, he knew just who wanted him there.
     Shiwan Khan!
     Many persons would have been so pleased with that deduction, that they
would have carried the quest no further. But The Shadow looked for facts
beyond. He was considering the case of Ralph Fayden, the man who had supposedly
sent the letter.
     Originating in New York, not in London, the letter was faked; but did that
apply to the thing in its entirety?
     The Shadow decided in the negative. He granted, of course, that the
postmark was a fraud; but it struck him that Fayden might have written the
letter. If so, two facts were positive.
     First, that Fayden had not gone to England at all; second, that Fayden,
still in New York, was a party to the scheme involving this letter. Those two
points produced a total. Ralph Fayden must be under the domination of some
master hand, who could be no one other than Shiwan Khan!
     Fayden was a successful inventor. Having accumulated wealth, he had
retired and gone into collecting curios, most of which he gave to museums. But
his inventive genius was as powerful as ever. He was the sort of man who could
prove useful to Shiwan Khan, who liked to filch ideas from other people's
brains.
     In one step, The Shadow had placed his finger upon the Golden Master's
present game. Shiwan Khan was in America to accumulate brains; not dead ones,
but live ones - brains belonging to Fayden, and other men of genius.
     Just as he had used Beatrice to ensnare The Shadow, so was Shiwan Khan
using Fayden.


     RISING, The Shadow strolled into the club foyer; it was approaching six.
Time for a few telephone calls, a light dinner, then a trip to the Oriental
Museum. Seven thirty would be the best time to arrive there; whatever Shiwan
Khan's scheme, it would be best to let it wait a half hour.
     Had The Shadow surmised what chance already was producing, he would have
changed his schedule to reach the museum no later than seven o'clock.
     Death's hand was due - before The Shadow!


     CHAPTER V

     FROM SIX TO SEVEN

     THE Hotel Claybourne was a small establishment, located some twenty blocks
distant from the Cobalt Club.
     The well-dressed gray-haired man who came into the lobby at dusk, noted
the clock above the desk read six o'clock. The gray-haired man inquired if
there was any mail for Mr. Halmers, Room 812.
     There being no mail for Mr. Halmers, the clerk simply handed him the key.
Crossing the lobby, the gray-haired man was approaching the elevators, when a
tall, bleary-eyed customer lurched from the taproom. Seeing Halmers, the bleary
chap loped forward and gripped him by the arm.
     "Hello, Fayden!" he hiccuped. "Say - what're you doing here? Thought you
were in England."
     The gray-haired Mr. Halmers looked squarely into the broad face that
confronted him. Testily, he said:
     "My name is not Fayden."
     "Haw!" ejaculated the accoster. "If you're not Ralph Fayden, I'm not
George Endle. How d'you like that?"
     Mr. Halmers didn't seem to like it. Still insisting that he wasn't Fayden,
that he'd never heard of Endle, he tried to draw away.
     Endle grabbed him all the tighter, until a corps of bellhops entered the
scene. With apologies to Mr. Halmers, they overwhelmed Endle, dragged him
through the lobby and deposited him outside.
     Parked against a convenient fire plug, Endle drew a sobering breath,
looked up at the revolving door and muttered:
     "If that wasn't Fayden, I'll -"
     Endle happened to be right. The man who called himself Halmers was Ralph
Fayden. The reason why Endle didn't complete his statement, was because he saw
something that intrigued him quite as much as the question of a friend's
identity.
     A cab had stopped at the hotel entrance. A girl was alighting, and Endle
could see her face peering from the high fur collar of a long coat. It was a
beautiful face, in Endle's besotted opinion, particularly because it lacked
expression.
     Endle had a habit of eyeing the world from gutters, and people usually
gave him contemptuous glances when he chose such resting places. This girl
didn't; her gaze met his with total unconcern. Then she was gone, into the
hotel, leaving Endle with the recollection of alluring eyes, ruddy lips, and
jet-black hair.
     Grinning, Endle realized that he wasn't quite in the gutter. He decided
that the fire plug belonged there, so he gave it a shove. The push did the
opposite of what Endle expected; it brought him to his feet. Catching his
balance unsteadily, he muttered:
     "She got in the hotel easy enough, huh, Endle? What about you doing the
same? Gotta see Fayden and find out what's wrong with him. Must be drunk,
calling himself Halmers."
     Nobody stopped Endle as he entered the lobby. The girl was gone; bellhops
were busy at their usual duties. Managing to steady his gait, Endle crossed to
the desk and asked for Mr. Halmers.
     Busy sorting mail, the clerk didn't notice Endle's thick tone. He simply
gave the room number, 812. Steadying for another stroll, Endle headed toward an
elevator.


     MEANWHILE, Ralph Fayden was pacing the floor of Room 812, anxiously
wringing his hands. The room was strewn with luggage, and from a corner, a
single witness watched the gray-haired man's nervous pacing.
     The witness was a brown-skinned man, who sat upon a cushion in the
bow-legged fashion of a Hindu mystic. He looked very much like Ramjan and the
other naljorpas who served Shiwan Khan, except that he was better clothed and
better fed.
     In addition to a tunic, he wore a small turban, with a jewel glistening
from its front. Somehow, his calmness had its effect upon Fayden. The
gray-haired man halted suddenly and stared toward the corner.
     "I am glad that you came here, Marabar Guru," he said. "Your presence
helps me. I was very worried when I met that chap down in the lobby. He
recognized me, I tell you!"
     "Be calm." The words seemed to drift from the lips of Marabar Guru. "All
such problems have been foreseen."
     Fayden nodded.
     "They threw Endle out," he declared. "He's probably gone his way, figuring
that he was mistaken. The only name I gave him was Halmers. But there's
something else that worries me, Marabar Guru."
     Brown eyes widened in placid query. Fayden decided to state his case.
Stopping by a table, he drew a brier pipe from his pocket and began to stuff it
with tobacco from a handy humidor.
     "The voice which I have heard so often," said Fayden, "has promised me
great reward if I obey its commands."
     "It is the voice of a tulku," reminded Marabar Guru. "A great tulku, who
calls himself Shiwan Khan."
     Again, Fayden nodded.
     "Yes, Shiwan Khan is a great tulku," he agreed, "and you are a great guru.
It was your teaching, Marabar, that cleared my clouded vision when the messages
from Shiwan Khan grew dim."
     Marabar Guru received the praise without sign of elation. The squatting
Hindu took it as a matter of course that he was superior to the other mystics
that Shiwan Khan had brought from the Orient.
     Like them, he was a naljorpa, possessed of startling physical powers. But
he was a guru, or teacher, as well. He had the ability of transmitting his
forceful faculties to persons who were in a receptive mood to learn them.
     Fayden was lighting his pipe. The pungent odor of strong tobacco floated
through the room. There was a gleam from the dark eyes of Marabar Guru.
     "I believe that there is a city of Xanadu," affirmed Fayden, seriously,
"where Shiwan Khan wishes me to accompany him. Otherwise, I would not have
obeyed his commands so far. I have jeopardized my reputation, staying here in
New York and sending false curios to Newboldt, writing a misleading letter to
Cranston. 
     "But Shiwan Khan has promised a reward; treasures of the sort I value.
Always, I have heard one thought" - Fayden tapped his forehead - "namely, that
I would receive samples of those treasures, as proof that a great store of them
exists in Xanadu."
     "Harken!" croaked Marabar Guru. "The tulku speaks!"
     Fayden cocked his head in listening attitude. His eyes opened wide as he
sensed the tone of a distant voice, that Marabar Guru could also hear. It was
the chiming voice of Shiwan Khan. The aroma of the thick tobacco smoke from
Fayden's special blend was the odor that produced contact between the Golden
Master and his dupe.
     "Shiwan Khan!" Fayden's tone was awed. "He says that his messenger is here
-"


     MARABAR GURU had risen. Crossing the room, the turbaned mystic opened the
door. In stepped the girl that Endle had seen downstairs.
     She let the long cloak fall from her shoulders; instantly, her appearance
altered from American to Chinese. Room lights gave her complexion a yellowish
tinge that went with the Oriental costume that she wore.
     "My name is Lana Luan," spoke the girl in singsong manner. "I bring a
gift" - she extended an ivory casket with both hands - "that is sent by Shiwan
Khan."
     Fayden broke the casket's seal. He shrieked his delight as he lifted the
lid. Trinkets of green, rich in hue, varied in design, poured into the
inventor's eager hands. Like his eyes, those objects glistened in the light.
     "Jade!" he exclaimed. "Finer than any I have ever seen! True apple-green
exquisite in its carving. These come from Xanadu -"
     "They are trifles," interposed Marabar Guru. "In Xanadu, you will live in
an apartment walled with jade. Once you have acknowledged Shiwan Khan as master
-"
     "He is master!" Fayden lifted his head, fixed his eyes in a distant stare.
"Do you hear me, Shiwan Khan? You are master. I shall follow you to Xanadu. You
have heard me, tulku!"
     As Fayden paused, a thumping came from the closed door. The sound jarred
the gray-haired man from his trance. Pouring the jade carvings back into the
casket, he swung to Marabar Guru in alarm.
     "It's Endle!"
     "Admit him," said the guru calmly. "I shall assume the trance condition of
samdhi. When my thoughts are stilled, no eye can observe me."
     "But Lana Luan -"
     "Will accompany me into the land of the invisible. I am a guru; I can
impart my power. We shall both be far away, having visions of the bardo, while
you dispose of your visitor."
     When George Endle stumbled into the room, Marabar Guru was back on his
cushion, staring steadily across the room. Straight opposite was Lana Luan,
motionless as a statue, her gaze riveted by that of the guru.
     His attention centered on Fayden. Endle didn't notice the room's other
occupants. Eyeing the gray-haired man, Endle renewed his downstairs argument.
     "You're Ralph Fayden," he insisted. "Supposed to be in England, but you
aren't. Listen, Fayden, I'm a pal. Be a good guy, admit you know me. That'll
square everything."
     "There's nothing to be squared," insisted Fayden, in a testy tone. "My
name is Halmers; I have never met you before this evening. If you leave here
quietly, and meddle no further in my affairs, I shall consider it a favor."
     As he advanced, Endle spied the ivory casket. With a lurch, he grabbed the
box and opened it. Angrily, Fayden wrested it away, but not before Endle saw the
glittering jade ornaments within.
     "So you're not Fayden!" sneered Endle. "Funny you go in for jade, like
Fayden does. Remember the night you were talking jade to Newboldt, the guy who
runs the Oriental Museum? I was there that night. Yes, you're Ralph Fayden,
even though you call yourself Halmers. All right, I'm satisfied."
     With a sudden semblance of dignity, Endle veered tipsily about and started
toward the door. During the minutes of argument, he had become oblivious to the
presence of Marabar Guru and Lana Luan.
     The Oriental system of invisibility through lack of notice had apparently
been working, since Endle, too, had overlooked the presence of others in the
room.
     But the spell was broken when Endle faced Lana Luan. He ended his stagger,
stared straight ahead and demanded:
     "Say - who's the girl?"


     FAYDEN actually didn't notice Lana Luan until Endle spoke. He saw his
former friend thrust closer and study the girl's expressionless face as though
eyeing a wax figure. Reeling about with a thick laugh, Endle gave another stare.
     This time, he was looking at Marabar Guru.
     "Am I seeing things?" he muttered. "Whatta you got here, Fayden? A couple
dummies? This Hindu guy looks like he was stuffed. Wait'll I find out."
     He approached Marabar Guru. Ignoring the power of the mystic, Fayden
expected Endle to recoil from a shock. Instead, he had almost reached the
seated figure when Marabar Guru raised his hands and snarled. The fingers that
the guru jabbed toward Endle should have loosed a numbing force. Somehow, the
formula failed.
     Angered by the total failure of his accustomed powers, Marabar Guru
whipped out a bronze knife from the folds of his robe.
     In true naljorpa style, the weapon seemed to leap ahead of the brown hand
that manipulated it. It was the tightening of the swift following fist that
stopped the dagger point scant inches from Endle's ribs. Actually, Marabar Guru
had launched death, then plucked it back from midair.
     His bravado gone, Endle reeled away, staring back at the glittering blade.
He saw that it was a dagger; but that didn't lessen his alarm.
     Fayden caught the staggering man by an arm and steered him toward the
door. In the hallway, Endle forgot his animosity and began to stutter about the
things that he had seen.
     "That's right, old chap," Fayden told him. "You've been seeing things.
What you need to do, is go home and sleep it off."
     Stammering his agreement, Endle headed toward the elevator. Fayden went
along with him, saw him into the car, and returned to the room. He met Lana
Luan coming out; she had put on the cloak that served to cover her Chinese
costume.
     Marabar Guru was standing near his corner, still gripping the knife. He
was showing anger because his mental forces had failed with Endle. Then,
calming, the guru spoke:
     "I have told all to the tulku," he said. "Our master, Shiwan Khan
instructs you to leave at once. Concentrate, and you will learn your next
destination."
     Fayden nodded. He was practically packed; all he had to do was add the
ivory casket to his luggage. Picking up his pipe, at the guru's suggestion, he
puffed the thick smoke. Again, he heard the bell-like tone of Shiwan Khan.
     When Fayden looked about, Marabar Guru was gone. His darkish robe drawn
about him, the chief naljorpa had sidled out of the room, to leave the hotel by
the gloomy fire tower that he had previously used for entrance.
     Five minutes later, the clerk downstairs received a call from 812 and
learned that Mr. Halmers was checking out.
     Again, Shiwan Khan was taking precautions to keep the whereabouts of a
dupe unknown. Should George Endle report strange doings at the Hotel
Claybourne, and find persons who would believe his tale, one thing, at least,
was certain.
     No one would find Ralph Fayden in Room 812 should they decide to go there
and look for him.
     No one - not even The Shadow!


     CHAPTER VI

     THE BRONZE KNIFE

     AT precisely seven o'clock, a portly, pudgy faced man arrived at the
Oriental Museum. He was Isaac Newboldt, the curator, and he was pleased to see
that the doors were already open.
     Immediately he was in his office, someone knocked. It was Kent, the chief
attendant, making a formal report. Kent had found the extra key to the
mezzanine storeroom; it had been missing for some time before the storeroom had
been put in use. Newboldt received the key, just as another knock sounded at the
door. Importantly, the curator ordered:
     "Answer it, Kent."
     Two men entered. One looked as self-important as Newboldt. He was a
bluff-faced man, who wore a shortclipped mustache. His companion was a swarthy,
stockily built individual, whose features displayed a pokerfaced expression.
     Rising from behind his desk, Newboldt extended a hand to the bluff-faced
man, exclaiming:
     "Commissioner Weston! What brings you here?"
     "We shall come to that directly, Mr. Newboldt," returned the police
commissioner, briskly. "First, let me introduce Inspector Cardona. I thought it
wise to bring him along."
     Newboldt had heard of Inspector Joe Cardona, ace of the Manhattan force.
He was the chap who usually tackled the toughest cases. The fact worried
Newboldt considerably, for it indicated that the Oriental Museum might be
concerned in some important crime.
     "Don't worry," said Weston with a smile. "We are here on a rather trifling
mission. One that was inspired by my friend Lamont Cranston. You know Cranston,
don't you, Newboldt?"
     The curator nodded.
     "It's about some curios shipped here," Cardona said. "They came from a man
named Ralph Fayden. It seems that Mr. Cranston thinks they may be fakes."
     "Cranston may think that they are fakes," rejoined Newboldt emphatically,
"but I happen to know that they are. That is why I put them in the old
storeroom on the mezzanine floor. Only one genuine item in the entire lot! Some
clever swindlers must have taken Fayden over very thoroughly, since he went to
England."
     From the desk, Newboldt lifted the key that Kent had brought him. He
suggested a trip to the mezzanine storeroom. It was Cardona who suggested that
they wait.
     "Mr. Cranston said he'd like to look them over with us," declared the
police inspector. "Maybe we ought to wait until he arrives."
     Newboldt agreed. He proffered cigars; they were lighting the perfectos
when Kent arrived to announce another visitor. Before the attendant could state
the arrival's name, the man shoved himself through the doorway. His bleary
appearance brought reproval from Newboldt.
     "George Endle!" exclaimed the curator. "What are you doing here?"
     "I'm not drunk, Newboldt," insisted Endle. "I was, a little while ago, but
right now I'm cold sober. What I ran into put me on the water wagon for keeps!
Listen, Newboldt, I've just talked to Ralph Fayden!"
     "By transatlantic phone?" queried Newboldt. "From here to London?"
     "No. Fayden is in New York! He's staying at the Hotel Claybourne. Calls
himself Halmers."
     Newboldt smiled indulgently. Endle slammed a big fist on the desk.
     "I'm sober, I tell you! But I want another drink, bad! Give it to me, and
I'll tell you something that will make your eyes look like a pair of goggles!"
     Catching a nod from Weston, the curator produced a bottle and glass from
the desk drawer. Endle poured himself a drink and swallowed it. Then he began
to pour out his story.


     LIMITED though it was, the tale sounded fantastic. Endle told of meeting
Fayden in the hotel lobby; how he had later gone up to his friend's room.
     He described all that happened there; told of the ivory-filled jade
casket; of the Chinese girl, and how the Hindu had suddenly pulled back the
knife, after making a pass at him.
     "Describe the knife, Endle," Newboldt said, his voice serious.
     "It was bronze," declared Endle, slowly. "Yes, all bronze, blade and
handle, both. It was long, too. It must have been, because at first I took it
for a snake."
     Shuddering at the recollection, Endle poured himself another bracer. He
was swaying tipsily; a few more drinks would render him incoherent. Rising,
Newboldt declared:
     "I would rather not wait until Cranston arrives. I would like to show
Endle a certain item that Fayden sent us. The one which I said was genuine."
     They started to the mezzanine. Endle was a bit unsteady on the stairs, but
Kent helped him along.
     Newboldt unlocked the storeroom, turned on a light. The room was partly
filled with a collection of assorted junk. On the floor stood queer stone
idols; near them, placed upright, was a battered mummy casket. A huge, cracked
vase was in one corner.
     The walls showed other items: odd paddles, used in Malay war canoes; big
spears that might have come from Africa; boomerangs and other weapons,
including some Turkish scimitars. Picking up a list that lay on top of a
moth-eaten war drum, Newboldt shook his head.
     "The stuff is spurious," he insisted. "It looks as if it came from a dime
museum. Why, it wouldn't take an expert to tell that there were imitations,
with one exception."
     Tapping the list, Newboldt lifted his finger and pointed to a side wall.
"Look over there, Endle, and see if you recognize that item."
     Squinting, Endle muttered that he saw nothing but a blank space on the
wall. When Weston and Cardona corroborated the statement, Newboldt stared in
surprise.
     "Why, it's gone!" he exclaimed. Then, swinging to Kent, he demanded: "What
did you do with that bronze Tibetan knife? I said that it was valuable, but I
did not order you to place it elsewhere."
     "It should be here, sir," began Kent. "I haven't touched it -"
     "There it is!" Wrenching from Kent's steadying grip, Endle pointed toward
a corner near the battered mummy case. "It's the twin to the dirk the yogi drew
on me!"
     "I can't understand it," said Newboldt, slowly. "I can't understand how it
moved from one wall to the other, unless -"
     Pausing, the curator shook his head, as though he regarded the only
explanation as more fantastic than the occurrence itself. He looked back to the
blank space on the other wall, then toward the knife again. It was during the
second glance that Newboldt cried a warning:
     "Don't touch it, Endle!"
     Endle had started forward. His own thick utterance was loud enough to
drown Newboldt's call.
     "I'll show you what the yogi did'" Endle was promising. "I'll show you the
way he shoved that dirk at me, then snatched it back. I'll show you -"


     CARDONA, alarmed by Newboldt's shout, was starting after Endle. Kent was
hurrying forward, too, for he recognized real danger in the curator's excited
manner. But they were a dozen feet short of Endle when he grabbed the knife and
pulled it from the wall.
     Half reeling, Endle tugged the blade toward himself. Instantly, he
shrieked, and sidled close to the corner. His arms were twisting with all their
strength, as if trying to control a living thing.
     As he doubled himself above the bronze blade, obscuring, it from sight,
Endle's arms pumped inward, toward his body.
     Jolted as if by the power of his own jab, Endle's toppling figure hit the
floor, his arms outstretched.
     But the witnesses to that heavy fall were not looking at Endle's outspread
hands. They were staring at an object that protruded from the man's breast: the
handle of the bronze Tibetan knife. The blade was no longer visible.
     It was buried to the hilt, in Endle's heart!
     George Endle was dead, slain by the bronze blade from Tibet. Dead from the
very sort of thrust that he had described; one that only a powerful, expert hand
could have stayed.
     The bronze knife had done its work, despite Newboldt's warning, before the
arrival of the only person who could have prevented such a tragedy: The Shadow!


     CHAPTER VII

     THE SECOND SUICIDE

     THEY stood about Endle's body, a silent, awed group. The spell was not
broken until Inspector Cardona voiced the single word:
     "Suicide."
     Commissioner Weston agreed. Nevertheless, he insisted that Endle's death
had been considerably more dramatic than an ordinary suicide case.
     "The poor chap was delirious," declared Weston. "The story that he told us
proves it. He was thinking of bronze knives; when he saw one he went berserk."
     "Funny, about that knife business, though," returned Cardona, moodily.
"Endle must have seen before, a dirk that looked like this one."
     "Not necessarily," argued Weston. "He may have heard of this knife, from
Fayden. Probably by letter, however, since we know that Fayden is actually in
England."
     At that same moment, footsteps sounded outside the storeroom. Jittery men
swung about in alarm; Cardona quickly drew a revolver, then lowered it. He
recognized the figure that stood on the threshold. The arrival was Lamont
Cranston.
     Within a few minutes The Shadow had heard the entire story from men who
were anxious to tell it, in order to convince themselves that they were sane.
     When all details had been given, Cranston started to speak, only to be
interrupted by a call from downstairs.
     Isaac Newboldt was wanted on the telephone. It was a long-distance call.
     The Shadow waited until the curator returned. Newboldt explained that the
call had come from London. He had talked with Fayden, recognized the man's
voice. Fayden had been anxious to know if all his curios had arrived at the
museum.
     "I guess that settles matters," said Newboldt, with a sigh of relief.
"Fayden is actually in London. Of course, I didn't worry him by telling him
what had happened here, nor did I mention that the curios he purchased were
fakes."
     A smile showed on Cranston's lips.
     "Good judgment, Newboldt," declared The Shadow, in Cranston's dry, even
tone. "If you had told him your suspicions of the curios, he might have feared
that you suspected the phone call, too."
     "You mean -"
     "That you just received a faked call, Newboldt," emphasized The Shadow.
"It came at too timely a moment. It is plain that Fayden wants to alibi
himself, by making us think that he is in London."
     "That's right!" inserted Cardona. "A call like that, coming just after
Endle's suicide -"
     "I doubt that Fayden knows of Endle's death," interposed The Shadow, with
a smile. "He was probably thinking in terms of someone else."
     "Who?" queried Cardona, in surprise. 
     The Shadow's answer was a single word, delivered in a most leisurely style:
     "Myself."


     THE statement electrified the listeners. Calmly, The Shadow produced
Fayden's letter, showed it, and related its history. His deduction regarding
the letter's false delivery seemed a very simple thing, the way he related it,
suited much more to the deliberate Mr. Cranston than to the mysterious being
called The Shadow.
     No one caught the deeper inferences. They were thinking of other things -
particularly Commissioner Weston, who ejaculated:
     "Then you believe that Endle's story was true?"
     "Unquestionably," replied The Shadow. "From all you have told me, the man
was anything but demented."
     "If Endle wasn't crazy," put in Cardona, "why did he commit suicide?"
     The Shadow's eyes took on a far-away gaze. Only Newboldt seemed to
understand it. The others waited, expectantly; finally, they saw Cranston's
eyes lower. He pointed to the knife that still penetrated Endle's dead heart.
Turning to Cardona, The Shadow said quietly:
     "Let me examine that blade, inspector."
     Obligingly, Cardona wrenched the knife from the victim, wiped off the
blood and extended the bronze weapon from the folds of a handkerchief.
Receiving the dagger, The Shadow studied it carefully, then announced:
     "My conjecture was correct. This is a phurba."
     Only Newboldt recognized the term. The curator's hesitancy had changed to
eagerness. He stood alert, while The Shadow explained his statement to the
others.
     "A phurba," he said, "is an enchanted dagger. It is supposed to possess
the power of delivering death of its own accord. In brief, the blade possesses
life, given to it by the mystic influence of a naljorpa, or man of magical
ability."
     "Poppycock," exclaimed Weston. "You can't expect us to believe such rot,
Cranston!"
     "Not unless you have been to Tibet," returned The Shadow, "or made a study
of conditions in that strange land. Newboldt can support whatever I have said."
     The curator gave an eager nod.
     "Let me emphasize one point," continued The Shadow. "It is quite possible
that the supposed life of the phurba is due entirely to the imagination of the
victim, not to any evil potency of the naljorpa who magnetized the blade. Am I
correct, Newboldt?"
     "Quite correct."
     "In fact, the naljorpas may be quite limited in everything they do. I can
testify, however, that persons who have attempted to attack such mystics have
found themselves stopped by a peculiar force that resembles an electric shock."
     Weston gave a belittling smile, then asked: "Do you speak from personal
experience, Cranston?"
     "No, I am immune," replied The Shadow, "because I, too, am versed in the
mystic methods of the East. But I have witnessed the effect on others."
     Hearing that, Cardona remembered something.
     "The yogi that Endle talked about!" exclaimed Joe. "He could have been a
naljorpa. But from the way Endle spoke, the guy didn't give him a jolt. I
wonder why?"
     The Shadow did not answer. He had formed a theory which might prove
extremely valuable, later. Endle's immunity, earlier that evening, applied only
to the sort of experience encountered by Paul Brent, and not to actual death
from a bronze dagger. It was something to be remembered; but, at present, The
Shadow was considering another type of case.
     "Let us accept Endle's entire story as accurate," suggested The Shadow.
"He met Fayden, here in New York. We know, therefore, that Fayden is playing
some double game. His purpose, presumably, is to acquire jade, of the rare sort
that Endle saw in the hotel room.
     "Whoever is behind the game wished to dispose of me. Probably" - The
Shadow voiced the explanation very calmly - "because I know too much about
Tibet. Endle's life was spared at the hotel because he seemed unimportant. But
this phurba" - he passed the dagger back to Cardona - "was waiting here for me.
Endle happened to find it, instead."
     Newboldt was nodding agreement to everything that The Shadow said, but
Weston argued otherwise.
     "It's ridiculous, Cranston!" declared the commissioner. "Impossible that a
knife stab could be delivered without the agency of a human hand."


     AT that moment, Cardona provided one of his characteristic interruptions.
He was holding the phurba in one hand, his revolver in the other. Anxious to
clear up the case, Joe thrust his gun into the nearest hand, which happened to
be Cranston's.
     "Hold it," he told The Shadow, "while I reconstruct the suicide. The knife
was here" - Joe strode to the wall and clamped the bronze blade upon the hook
near the mummy case - "and Endle made a grab for it. Just like this."
     Stepping back, Cardona lunged toward the wall and snatched the bronze
dagger with both hands. He reeled, doubling in Endle's fashion. The men who had
witnessed Endle's death thought that Cardona was overacting the part when he
started to pump his hands toward his heart, shoving the blade point first.
     Only one pair of eyes saw what actually happened. Those eyes were The
Shadow's. They spied the brownish, clawlike hand that snaked suddenly into
sight, as if from nowhere, to add an impetus to Cardona's jab.
     In a trice, the inspector was powerless to prevent the coming stroke, for
his pressure was in the wrong direction!
     Another hand could act: The Shadow's. It did act, with Cardona's gun. A
quick trigger finger pumped bullets into a strange target: the fake mummy case
that Cardona was shouldering in the midst of his frantic, losing struggle.
     With those blasts, Cardona reeled away. Wrenching at the bronze dagger, he
twisted it aside, slashing, his coat in the action. The blade didn't reach Joe's
heart, because the hidden hand was no longer there to shove it. 
     But the murderer's fist was visible, and a scrawny body with it. Actuated
by The Shadow's timely shots, the mummy case split open at the side, to send a
spidery naljorpa flinging to the floor, where he writhed in dying agony!
     The naljorpa was Ramjan, the assassin that Shiwan Khan had assigned to
special duty. Ramjan had gained one kill this evening, without detection. He
had almost maneuvered another, when the stream of bullets felled him!
     In the midst of Ramjan's clatter, a mirthless, whispered laugh issued from
the immobile lips of Lamont Cranston, to fade before anyone overheard it.
     They could call Endle's death a suicide, if they liked. In a way, it was
suicide for anyone to grab the bronze dagger that Ramjan had placed so
conveniently at hand before hiding in the mummy case.
     But if Endle's death remained classed as a suicide, Ramjan's finish
belonged in the same category. It could be termed the second suicide; for a
very simple reason.
     Any and all of Shiwan Khan's killers would be committing suicide when they
attempted murder in the presence of The Shadow!


     CHAPTER VIII

     QUEST OF MISSING MEN

     BACKED against the wall, Joe Cardona stared at the dead forms of Endle and
Ramjan, then at the bronze knife which lay between the bodies. Joe's fingers
were twitching, as though they still held the handle of his deathdealing dagger.
     The riddle of the phurba was explained. The enchanted dagger possessed no
life of its own; it needed the hand of a naljorpa to thrust it to the mark.
     Cleverly hinged at the side, the mummy case had a secret aperture, through
which Ramjan's thrust had come. The upright casket had broken open under the
weight of the killer's falling body, when The Shadow's shots had flayed him
through the splintering woodwork.
     Isaac Newboldt recalled the missing key to the storeroom. It explained how
the naljorpa had entered.
     "He must have come in this afternoon!" exclaimed the curator "Once he had
opened the door, he needed the key no longer, so he left it where Kent would
find it."
     Newboldt's finding was correct. The room had an automatic latch. Ramjan
had locked the door when he closed it. But there was more to the mystery.
     "It was the naljorpa who moved the dagger," said Newboldt, soberly. "I
noticed it the moment I entered. Had you been with me, Cranston, you would
probably have been the man who plucked it from the wall."
     "Instead of Endle," put in Cardona. "But he got here early, and he was
thinking in terms of daggers. But it certainly looked like he stabbed himself
with it. I hadn't an idea that this skinny guy" - he nudged toward the dead
Ramjan - "was in the mummy case, until I grabbed the knife myself."
     "Nor did any of us," added Weston, soberly, "except Cranston. If that
knife had reached your heart, inspector, as it did Endle's, we would have
classed you as another suicide. The killer would have been free to leave the
mummy case later."
     Congratulations were in order for Lamont Cranston, but he chose to
belittle his achievement. It was luck, he said, that placed him at the correct
angle to see Ramjan's hand whip from the mummy case and add its murderous drive
to the moving knife.
     Chance, too, had made Cranston the temporary custodian of Cardona's
revolver. He had used it impulsively and very poorly, missing the murderer's
hands at which he had aimed, and hitting the mummy case instead. Wide shots had
scored a lucky result; that was all. The Shadow didn't mention that Cardona's
shift had made it impossible to pick any target other than the mummy case.
     Stooping above the scrawny corpse of Ramjan, The Shadow observed a rounded
mark upon the Tibetan's forehead. Rising, he pointed to the seared spot, and
declared in Cranston's style:
     "This man is not only a naljorpa. He is also a delog."
     Commissioner Weston was puzzled by the term. Newboldt interpreted it. 
     "A delog," said the curator, "is a mystic who has had visions of the
bardo, or land beyond. Considering themselves familiar with the life that is to
come, they have no fear of death. Consequently, when they choose to kill others,
they do so very boldly."
     "What else do you know about them?" queried Weston.
     "They are apt to deal in murder," recalled Newboldt, "because they feel
that they belong in the bardo, and therefore should start others on the way
there."
     Newboldt went on to describe the picturesque but gruesome tortures of the
bardo, according to Tibetan lore. When he paused, the curator heard Cranston
insert a reminder.
     "You have forgotten one thing," said The Shadow. "The delogs, having no
use for this life, invariably cut themselves off from the world. They are found
only in the mountain vastnesses of the Himalayas."
     "Quite right," agreed Newboldt.
     "Which brings us to our present question," The Shadow added. "What is a
delog doing in New York?"


     THE curator recognized the importance of the question, and began to
emphasize it. He agreed with Cranston that no delog would have come to America
except at the instigation of someone greater than himself, probably a tulku,
the highest of all mystics. But Newboldt knew of no tulku who had ever been in
America.
     "I recall one," remarked The Shadow, calmly. "He called himself Shiwan
Khan."
     Weston and Cardona jolted as if receiving electric shocks from the dead
naljorpa. They knew that name well. Twice, they had encountered Shiwan Khan; on
each occasion, they had hoped that his departure meant the end of him.
     Any link to Shiwan Khan needed prompt attention. Hurrying down to
Newboldt's office, Weston put in a call to the Hotel Claybourne. He learned
that a "Mr. Halmers" had checked out a short while before, leaving no
forwarding address.
     "It must be Fayden," gritted Weston. "We know, at last, that Endle's story
was correct. But why should a man like Ralph Fayden be working with Shiwan Khan?"
     The Shadow promptly delved into the past.
     "You will recall Benjamin Twindell," he said. "You remember him
commissioner. Twindell had wealth, all he could ever have used, yet he listened
to the blandishments of Shiwan Khan. It was the promise of priceless treasure
that made Twindell help Shiwan Khan to employ aircraft and munitions for a
reign of conquest."
     The commissioner recalled those facts.
     "Foiled in that enterprise, Shiwan Khan returned," The Shadow continued.
"His purpose was to steal unique inventions, valuable in warfare. He obtained
some, but not the ones that he cherished most. Again, on that occasion, there
were men who came beneath his mental sway."
     Quite familiar with the powers of Shiwan Khan, Weston tried to picture the
present from his memories of the past. The moment was right for The Shadow to
express a solid theory.
     "On this excursion," he said "Shiwan Khan seeks neither munitions nor
inventions. He is trying to enmesh men of genius, gather them together and
convey them back to his hidden domain. The proof lies in the fact that he has
brought a tribe of mystics with him.
     "They are the sort, those naljorpas, who could help him sway the minds of
victims. Moreover, they serve as buffers between dupes like Fayden and chance
blunderers of Endle's sort. In work of this sort, Shiwan Khan prefers invisible
assassins."
     Impressed by the theory, Weston asked Cranston if he thought there were
many others like Fayden; men not listed as missing, yet who were actually out
of circulation.
     "I believe that there are," declared The Shadow, firmly. "It is your task,
commissioner, to check on them. I would suggest that the work be started at
once."
     The Shadow made no further mention of Endle's testimony. It was better
that the law should forget the Chinese girl who had been at the hotel along
with the Hindu that Endle had described. The Shadow preferred that Fayden
should be regarded as the only dupe in that picture.
     The girl was unquestionably Lana Luan. As long as she played her part of
messenger, she would be safe. But if the law classed Beatrice Chadbury as a
missing person, Shiwan Khan might consider Lana Luan to be a liability.
     Knowing Shiwan Khan of old, The Shadow was quite sure that the Golden
Master would dispose of anyone whose usefulness was ended.


     LEAVING the museum, Lamont Cranston entered the big limousine that had
brought him there. Riding toward the Hotel Claybourne, he drew out a sliding
drawer beneath the rear seat and produced garments of black: hat, cloak, and
gloves.
     When the big car stopped, not far from the hotel, the shape that slid from
the half-opened door looked like a mammoth blot. Gliding into waiting darkness,
The Shadow reached a gloomy fire tower. He was following the route that Marabar
Guru had used when he entered to contact Fayden. At moments, hidden lips voiced
a whispered laugh. The Shadow was recalling Endle's testimony; how the mystic
power of the guru had failed in an emergency.
     Endle, though dead, had provided an important clue to the limitations of
Shiwan Khan's wonder workers.
     Reaching Room 812, The Shadow came upon a tangible clue: the odor of stale
tobacco. He noted its pungent touch, knew that the smoke must have come from
some special blend. It fitted with the history of Beatrice's lilacs.
     The girl had favored those flowers; Fayden probably liked his own tobacco
mixture. Such subtle points of contact were sufficient for Shiwan Khan to exert
his mental influence over those he chose as dupes.
     Other clues were absent in Room 812. Finishing his inspection, The Shadow
withdrew suddenly to the hallway and took cover in a side passage. Others were
arriving - Cardona and detectives from headquarters. The Shadow could hear them
talking as they made their search.
     They had traced Fayden's luggage to an empty house, where it had evidently
been picked up and taken away by other trucks. Finding no clues there, the
headquarters men had returned to the starting point, the hotel. But their
search of Room 812 was fruitless. They hadn't even noticed the tobacco smoke.
     From his secluded observation post, The Shadow saw Cardona follow the
others from the room. As Joe reached back to turn off the lights, The Shadow
caught a gleam from the floor. It was gone the moment the lights were
extinguished; but when Cardona had left, The Shadow's flashlight, moving
forward, showed the same glitter once again.
     Wedged between the hallway carpet and the room door was a silver coin,
edge upward. Visible only from the spot along the hall, it was a talisman that
had dropped from Fayden's pocket while he was helping the porter move a trunk
from the room.
     On one side it showed a five-pointed star; on the other, a cobra's head.
The Shadow recognized the token as a rare type of kavacha talisman, obtainable
only from secluded temples in the interior of India, where they were purchased
at great prices by travelers bound for Tibet.
     Blackness suddenly covered the kavacha, although the flashlight still
twinkled. The blackness was formed by The Shadow's gloved fist. Retaining the
silver trophy, the cloaked investigator returned to the fire tower.
     Again, there was a soft laugh in the darkness; one that told the value of
The Shadow's find. Ralph Fayden had retained his priceless jade, the gift of
Shiwan Khan; he would probably think nothing of the lost kavacha talisman, an
earlier gift from the same source.
     A full-fledged servitor of the Golden Master, Fayden no longer needed a
token that would identify him to the members of Shiwan Khan's ruthless tribe.
     But that forgotten talisman could prove a useful token to others, who
might need it more than Fayden ever had.
     The Shadow knew.


     CHAPTER IX

     THE LONE TRAIL

     NEWS of double death in the Oriental Museum created a great stir; but it
was nothing, compared to the startling facts that followed.
     Commissioner Weston lifted the lid on the subject of Shiwan Khan, calling
for any information that might lead to the apprehension of the notorious master
mind.
     Immediately, the bureau of missing persons was flooded with anxious
queries. Sifted, those cases produced prompt and astonishing discoveries.
     Ralph Fayden was but one of a few dozen New Yorkers absent and unaccounted
for. Rumors came in that people who had supposedly gone to far-away points had
been seen around New York.
     Endle's testimony in the Fayden case was matched by at least a dozen
similar reports; in every case, the police kept the names of the informants
secret.
     Noted physicians; key men in large industries; other inventors like
Fayden, scholars regarded as mental wizards - all had gone on trips to places
varying from Bermuda to Timbuktu, and the evidence of their actual whereabouts
was shady.
     Met by people that they knew, such individuals had denied their identity,
emphatically enough to be believed. It had taken a persistent meddler like
Endle to prove that mystery was actually in the air.
     Finding that he had struck a gusher, Commissioner Weston called for the
F.B.I.; when Federal men took over, they found that the epidemic of
disappearances was nationwide.
     Known cases totaled more than sixty, with many others probably unreported.
They weren't confined to men of business ability or genius; they included other
persons that Shiwan Khan decided would be welcome residents in his fabled
domain.
     Listed among the total were two Hollywood movie actresses, who were
supposed to be on vacation; several men and women, prominent in society; and a
few government officials, who held posts that were little known but quite
important.
     Three days after the museum affair, Lamont Cranston paid a visit to
Chinatown, where he talked with Dr. Roy Tam in the latter's office. Tam was a
quiet, sober-faced man, who wore drab American clothes, but frequently spoke in
Chinese, even when chatting with The Shadow.
     "My men are capable, Ying Ko," assured Tam, using the name by which
Chinese frequently addressed The Shadow. "But they have found no trace of the
girl called Lana Luan. How often do you suppose that she has left the
headquarters of Shiwan Khan?"
     "Very often," replied The Shadow. "With the authorities tracking down so
many cases, it is probable that Shiwan Khan is closing deals with all his
dupes. Judging by Fayden's case, Lana Luan would be needed as a messenger."
     "Very well," decided Tam. "If Shiwan Khan is here in Chinatown, he must
have access to more hidden passages than we suppose. Enough to give outlets
beyond the limits of this section, in places where my men cannot go without
proving too conspicuous."
     Unrolling a map, Tam showed the entire Manhattan area, studded with tiny
dots in districts quite remote from Chinatown.
     "These represent my outposts," he said soberly. "They are places, owned by
Chinese - restaurants, laundries, curio shops, other places of business. In each
of these places, I have a friend."
     The Shadow understood. Dr. Tam was the motivating factor among the Chinese
who adapted themselves to American ways. His mission was to create good will
among races, to put an end to prejudice and superstition. His friends that he
had mentioned were capable Chinese, in sympathy with the movement.
     "Our friends are the same, Ying Ko," assured Tam. "Take a copy of this
map, with its key list of names. Should you need aid of any sort, the nearest
of my friends will gladly give it."


     LEAVING Tam's, The Shadow rode past the alley that led to Loo Dow's. The
opium parlor was closed, its door barred. From his cab, the calm-eyed Mr.
Cranston saw Chinese lounging about the alley and knew that they were men
employed by Dr. Tam, watching for anyone who looked like Lana Luan.
     Some were actually leaning against the secret wall that Beatrice Chadbury
had entered several nights before, but they had not guessed that the bricks
formed a sliding door. Nor did The Shadow detect the fact when he viewed the
wall; he was too distant, his glimpse too brief.
     Just outside of Chinatown the cab passed an old garage, closed and
deserted. Cranston's lips formed a smile as he noted the garage. It belonged to
Dr. Tam, and was the place where the Chinese physician stored all sorts of
discarded articles that savored of the antiquated past.
     It would be a bad place for a nervous man, that garage. It was filled with
grinning devil masks, hatchets used in tong wars, regalia used in obsolete
rituals, including the Great Dragon costume, that a hundred men could wear.
     The cab reached the Cobalt Club. In the downstairs grillroom, Cranston
walked into a conference to which he had been invited. Commissioner Weston was
present, Inspector Cardona with him. They were talking to a swarthy man, who
wore a droopy, dark mustache; he was Vic Marquette of the F.B.I.
     All were glad to see Cranston. They had some questions regarding Tibetan
customs. When The Shadow had told them everything they wanted, Marquette gave
the table a resounding slap.
     "That was one of them, all right!" he said. "We thought the fellow was a
Hindu. But I'll bet he's a naljorpa from Tibet, even though Marabar Guru sounds
like a Hindu name."
     Interested by the term guru, The Shadow explained that it was not a name,
but a title.
     "Take Shiwan Khan as an example," he said. "The term khan means ruler; but
it follows the name, instead of coming first. The naljorpas, of course, would
call him Shiwan Tulku, using the tulku to denote master.
     "This man you mention - Marabar - is a guru, or teacher. He probably has
the power of a naljorpa, the knowledge of a delog, but he is also able - as a
guru - to impart his power. He would wear a robe called a zen, something like
an ancient toga."
     Encouraged by that flow of information, Marquette came out with all the
facts. He laid a list on the table, pointed to a name that he had checked.
     "We've traced Hiram Selsby," declared the Fed. "He's a chemist, who goes
in for manufacturing high-power explosives. He's here in New York, living in an
old house that looks like it was closed. Selsby is one of the bunch on the
missing list."
     "How did you trace him?" queried The Shadow.
     "We smelled him!" returned Vic, triumphantly. "That is, we smelled some of
those funny stink bombs that he makes. Not regular stink bombs, you understand,
but a chemical mess that smells terrible until it's stowed in bombs. It goes
off with an awful wham, that stuff."
     "What about Marabar Guru?"
     "He was around the place. A half-wit janitor ran into him; he says the guy
gave him an electric shock. He told the janitor his name and ordered him to keep
silence, which he would have, if we hadn't run into him ourselves and made him
talk."
     "Have you entered the house yet?"
     "No. We're keeping it covered at a distance, from roofs and everywhere.
We're going to close in tonight and find Selsby. I hope we can grab this
Marabar Guru, too. From what you tell me, Mr. Cranston, he's probably Shiwan
Khan's right-hand man."


     ON a sheet of paper, Marquette traced a diagram showing the neighborhood
of Selsby's house. He was marking the routes by which the Feds would approach
the place, when Cranston strolled upstairs to make a telephone call.
     Consulting the map that Tam had given him, The Shadow saw that the old
house was located very close to a Chinese restaurant known as the Shantung
Garden. Its proprietor, Shen Lee, was one of Tam's friends.
     When Cranston returned, Marquette was checking off the names of Federal
men according to their posts. Happening to see the list, The Shadow scanned it,
then remarked:
     "I recall a girl named Myra Reldon who helped you once, Marquette. She
used to pass herself as a Chinese - what was the name she used?"
     "Ming Dwan," replied Marquette. "She worked swell out in Frisco, when we
were after a crowd called the Jeho Fan. (Note: See "Teeth of the Dragon," Vol.
XXIII, No. 6.) Myra was born in China, and she knows the language backward."
     "That lingo always sounds backward to me," put in Cardona. "I remember
Myra Reldon, though. She came here to New York, later."
     "Yes, when we were after that crooked inventor named Bardsley," replied
Marquette. "The fellow who called himself Li Hoang. Only, Myra's make-up didn't
stand the strain. When Li Hoang found out she wasn't Chinese, she was on the
spot."
     Cardona remembered the case. He recalled, too, that it was The Shadow who
had saved Myra from death. (Note: See "The Golden Pagoda," Vol. XXV, No. 1.)
     "We couldn't risk Myra after that," added Marquette. "If this Shiwan Khan
business turns out to have a Chinese angle, we might use her as an interpreter,
but that's all. She's here in New York, studying Japanese at the International
Language Institute."
     Vic returned to his plans for the evening raid. He was setting the hour at
eight o'clock, when it would be fully dark. His men would close in when the
signal was passed, and take the entire house by storm.
     Cardona agreed to form his own men as an outer cordon, bringing them up in
patrol cars after the Feds began to move. Together, Vic and Joe traced working
diagrams on the chart, while Weston nodded, remarking that the preparations
appeared ironclad.
     While the others were thinking in terms of Hiram Selsby, whose protection
would be assured, and of Marabar Guru, who would be downed by bullets if he
made a single false move, The Shadow was considering another possible factor.
     He was thinking of Lana Luan.
     This might be the night when Selsby would receive a reward from Shiwan
Khan, as had Fayden before him. The go-between would certainly be Lana Luan,
otherwise Beatrice Chadbury.
     Totally under the domination of Shiwan Khan, the girl could provide no
information if captured. She wouldn't remember recent experiences in the domain
of the Golden Master.
     Nor would she be of value if she returned to Shiwan Khan, unless -
     His thoughts at that important point, The Shadow arose, made his departure
in Cranston's leisurely fashion. He was thinking beyond the word "unless,"
considering a plan that carried hazards, which might prove worth while, despite
their danger.
     Stopping at a phone booth, The Shadow made three calls. One was to Dr.
Tam; it concerned his friend Shen Lee, proprietor of the Shantung Garden.
     The second call was answered by a quiet-toned speaker named Burbank, The
Shadow's contact man, who kept in touch with active agents who served their
mysterious chief. Finally, The Shadow called the International Language
Institute and learned the present address of Miss Myra Reldon.
     Strolling out into daylight, Lamont Cranston displayed a bored expression
as he gazed at the afternoon sun.
     He was looking forward to nightfall, when he would again become The Shadow!


     CHAPTER X

     PATH OF DARKNESS

     THERE was a note with the package that lay on the table in the living room
of Myra Reldon's little apartment. Myra opened the note first, scanned its inked
lines and gave a slight gasp. As she gasped, the inked lines faded.
     She knew who had sent that note: The Shadow.
     The note carried no signature; but the proof still was present. On the
sheet that had lost its writing, Myra saw a hawkish silhouette. As it absorbed
the light, the profile faded also.
     Myra remembered that The Shadow was expert in the use of inks that rapidly
disappeared.
     She had read the note, however; that was why she pursed her lips and
murmured, reflectively:
     "Ming Dwan."
     Looking at herself in a mirror, Myra saw a face that was anything but
Chinese in appearance. She had the light complexion of a blonde; her hair,
though brown like her eyes, was not deep in shade. Furthermore, her eyes were
large, and though her features were alluring, they were distinctly American.
     Nevertheless, Myra was ready to play the role of Ming Dwan.
     She opened the package. In it, she found a dark Chinese costume, a make-up
kit, and a box that contained a yellow powder. The final item interested her
most.
     Turning on the hot water in the bathtub, Myra faced a mirror and carefully
adjusted a bathing cap on her head, fitting it so that it followed the exact
line of her hair. That done, she began to undress, watching the filling bathtub.
     When the water had reached its highest possible level, Myra sprinkled the
yellowish powder on the surface. The water absorbed it.
     Gingerly, Myra dipped one foot into the steaming tub; then, finding the
temperature bearable, she plunged completely under. After a half minute, her
bathing cap poked above the surface. Thirty seconds before, it had been white;
now, it had changed to yellow.
     So had Myra. As she drew a white towel about her, she observed the
contrast. From a distinct white, her sleek body had taken on a saffron hue.
There wasn't any chance that this make-up would be discovered. It was complete.
     Half draped by the towel, Myra sat in front of the bedroom mirror and
busied herself with the make-up kit. Like the yellow dye, the black that she
applied to her eyebrows had a permanent look. She removed the bathing cap and
treated her hair with a liquid that rendered it dark and glossy.
     Using strips of transparent tape and applying them to the outer corners of
her eyes, Myra completed the makeup. Drawn outward, the strips changed her eyes
from a roundish shape to an almond slant. Flesh covered the strips, rendering
them invisible.
     Even without her Chinese costume, Myra Reldon was Ming Dwan. She had used
the disguise often, but for the first time, it was foolproof. Putting on the
Chinese clothes, Myra surveyed herself in the mirror and gave a bubbling laugh.
     It was dusk outdoors, allowing Myra opportunity to leave the apartment
house unnoticed and arrive at the Shantung Garden, where she was due on the job
before eight o'clock.
     The Shantung Garden had another new employee, a huge African, attired in a
resplendent uniform, who served as doorman. His names was Jericho Duke; he had
been assigned to the job at The Shadow's order.
     There were customers, too, who knew The Shadow, for they were his agents.
Some of them arrived in Moe's cab, to have dinner at the Chinese restaurant.
     All such arrivals, including Ming Dwan, passed inspection from a group of
silent watchers who were stationed throughout the zone. Feds were on hand, in
plenty, observing everything from roofs and windows. They were making sure that
people looking for the Shantung Garden did not go elsewhere.
     Away from the restaurant's lights, the street was gloomy, yet people who
passed were discernible, with one exception. In that semidarkness, no eye could
have spied the black-cloaked shape that crossed the street, some fifty feet from
the Garden, and chose a route through the nearest alleyway.


     THE SHADOW had arrived in person, to take up special vigil. A one-man
squad, he was closing in upon the house where Hiram Selsby was a temporary
resident. From a half block distant, he could scent the disagreeable odor that
represented the missing chemist's bomb mixture.
     The house was shuttered. Most conspicuous were the windows on the third
floor; their barriers looked more solid than the rest. But The Shadow was not
interested in the interior of the house; at least, not as yet.
     Weaving in and out among narrow passages between old buildings; he was
looking for the logical route by which a visitor could quickly reach the house.
He finally found it - a passage leading in from a side street, where the low
awning of a small book store formed shelter against street lights.
     At twenty minutes of eight, a cab rolled up just past the book store and
paused, as if waiting for traffic to pass along another street not far ahead.
During that brief halt, the cab door opened and a darkish figure stepped nimbly
across the sidewalk.
     It was Lana Luan!
     She passed, with a stride that was almost stately, her gaze centered
ahead. Pressed against the wall, The Shadow could have reached out and stopped
her. It was a difficult urge to resist, even for the Shadow, for he knew that
he might be able to break the spell which had caused Beatrice Chadbury to
accept this false identity.
     But there were other persons to consider; many who had accepted the
dictates of Shiwan Khan. Buried in hiding places that they had voluntarily
sought, they were no longer their own masters. To reclaim Beatrice at this
moment would mean that dozens of dupes would be transported from America
against their actual will.
     At present, Beatrice Chadbury was the instrument of Shiwan Khan. The
Shadow hoped to turn that human weapon against the fiend who controlled it,
just as the Golden Master's naljorpas made knives recoil upon the persons who
held them.
     Silently, a blotted shape in the gloom, The Shadow followed the route of
Lana Luan.
     The girl reached the house next to Selsby's. Using a key, she unlocked a
small rear door, which she closed behind her. Opening that door, The Shadow was
just in time to see a panel closing in a side wall. He spent several seconds in
finding its catch; then moved along the trail again.
     From light that filtered through the battered shutter of a stairway
window, he saw Lana Luan, wearing a long cape to hide her Chinese costume. Then
The Shadow was taking that same upward course.
     The house was silent, ghostly. Rooms contained bulky furniture covered
with dusty covers that gave them the appearance of shrouded specters. But even
an onlooking ghost would have been a tame creature, compared to the stalking
figure that kept to the trail of Lana Luan.
     From the second floor, The Shadow saw Lana Luan pause at a landing halfway
to the third. She was plainly visible, for the shutter, through solidly
constructed, had its slats raised. Streaks of light gave a view of the girl's
fixed face, and showed something bundled beneath the front of her cape.
     Then Lana Luan was gone, on the last stage of her journey. It was The
Shadow who approached the landing.


     FOR the first time, the cloaked trailer slackened pace. He could see the
little landing, the darkened steps above it.
     The route beyond the streaked light looked as safe as the portion that The
Shadow had already passed. Complete silence clung to the scene; even the slight
sound of breathing could have been heard.
     Nevertheless, The Shadow paused, his own breath bated. He peeled a glove
from one hand, then shoved a bare fist into the ribs of light. Opening his
fingers, The Shadow revealed a silver disk upon his upturned palm. The design
of a pentagram was plain in the glow. It was the kavacha talisman.
     The fist closed, opened again, with the coin reversed. The Shadow was
displaying the side that bore the cobra. He let his hand move toward the
darkened steps; this time, he was rewarded by a stir. Eyes were looking at the
talisman; a hiss told that all was well.
     All well for The Shadow, but not for the lurker who hissed the signal to
advance.
     The Shadow's hand went back into darkness; then his entire figure came
forward in a driving lunge, his direction guided by the hiss. Long hands that
shot from arms as powerful as plungers, were perfect in their grab as they
caught a scrawny neck.
     A hand whisked toward The Shadow stabbing a long blade of bronze. The
knife point missed, for the creature that drove it was flying through the air,
whipped like a thing of rope under The Shadow's lashing strength.
     The knife buried itself in the wall as a spidery naljorpa struck the floor
shoulder first, with The Shadow wheeling in upon him. The snarling lump of
undersized humanity took a rubbery bounce, wriggled full about, and made
another grab for the lost knife.
     Smothering that attempt, The Shadow caught the eelish fighter in a
bundling grip, hooking his twisty arms and legs in pretzel fashion. Out of that
writhing muddle, two viselike hands gripped the thin neck in another, and more
powerful, clutch.
     Tricked by the display of the token that identified the friends of Shiwan
Khan, the naljorpa who guarded the route to Selsby's hideout was learning what
others of his kind had previously found out, that writhing methods and hypnotic
forces were useless against the power of The Shadow.


     CHAPTER XI

     THE DOUBLE THRUST

     IT took The Shadow no longer than two minutes to subdue the struggling
naljorpa. Mere choking tactics were not sufficient, for these curious creatures
from Tibet could hold their breath for much longer periods than most humans.
     What The Shadow did was apply pressures upon the bulging vertebrae that
formed a line of knobs behind his foeman's thin neck. Under that treatment, the
naljorpa caved. The Shadow picked up the loose knife, gave a soft laugh as he
placed it beneath his cloak.
     This was one phurba that lacked the enchanted powers that it was supposed
to possess. As for the dagger's owner, The Shadow had expected to find watchers
of his type along the way. Producing strips of rawhide, he bound the unconscious
mystic in a tight bundle and tied a cloth gag between the bulging teeth.
     Ascending the steps, The Shadow found a door that was stout but unbarred.
Locking it after Lana Luan's entry had seemed unnecessary to those within, for
they had relied upon the guarding naljorpa to handle all comers.
     The Shadow looked into a large room that was crudely fitted out as a
laboratory. Among the collection of beakers and big, tubes, he saw a man who
answered the description of Hiram Selsby. The chemist was elderly,
white-haired, and stoop-shouldered. He was bent almost double above a
workbench, for he was looking into an ivory casket that Lana Luan had brought
him.
     With excited fingers, Selsby plucked out rods of coppery metal that looked
like short lead pencils.
     "Bronzium!" he exclaimed, in a tone of high-pitched glee. "The lost metal
of the ancients! Shiwan Khan was right; it was an element, not an alloy. These
are mine -"
     An interrupting figure moved between Selsby and the light. It was Marabar
Guru, wearing purple tunic, and turban adorned with a star of diamonds.
     "They are yours," he told Selsby in a low, calm tone, "If you acknowledge
Shiwan Khan as master."
     Selsby's eyes took on a misty, distant gaze. The sickening odor of his
laboratory was perfume to his nostrils. It was the contact that placed him in
communication with the Golden Master.
     "He promises me even more," cackled the chemist. "In Xanadu, I can work
this priceless metal. It will be mine, great stores of it! You ask me if I
acknowledge Shiwan Khan" - with a shake of his head, Selsby turned reproving
eyes upon Marabar Guru - "when I have already told him that I recognize him as
supreme!"
     "It is well," decided Marabar Guru. He looked toward Lana Luan, who stood
a few paces away, and gave a gesture of dismissal. "We shall leave this place,
to go to our next destination."
     Lana Luan turned toward the door. The Shadow drew back to let her pass.
Knowing her route, it would be possible to overtake her; there was still time
before the Feds began to move.
     Time, too, to settle Marabar Guru, as The Shadow had handled the guarding
naljorpa. As for Selsby, The Shadow expected no trouble with the aged inventor.
     Reaching the stairs, Lana Luan passed The Shadow without observing him.
Her thoughts were fixed upon one purpose: her return to the domain of Shiwan
Khan. She reached the landing, where the naljorpa lay bundled in the corner
below the lines of light.
     Preferring a .45 to the captured dagger, The Shadow drew an automatic and
wheeled suddenly through the door that Lana Luan had drawn shut behind her. His
entry into the laboratory produced a singular result; one which, at first sight,
seemed to better The Shadow's cause.
     As the door smashed inward, Marabar Guru went flinging ahead of it. The
turbaned mystic had been about to bolt the door when The Shadow struck it.
Though the guru was something more than a living skeleton of the strict
naljorpa type, his weight was light.
     He also had wits enough to add to his dive after it commenced. With his
turban scaling ahead of him, Marabar Guru became a whirling mass of purple that
somersaulted past a workbench, not stopping until he reached the wall.
     Selsby was at that wall. With a shriek of alarm, the white-haired man
gripped his precious casket under one arm and tugged a hanging cord with his
other hand. The cord ripped loose from the wall, as was intended. With the jerk
came a rumble, as a sheet of steel slid wide.
     The opening showed an elevator, arranged as part of the hideaway, in
preparation for this final departure.


     BEFORE The Shadow could take aim at the rolling shape of Marabar Guru, the
scene was changed. Selsby, bounding to the foreground, blocked all chance of
shooting the guru.
     With remarkable agility, the chemist snatched a square box from a
workbench. Both hands occupied, he used his knee to overturn the bench squarely
in The Shadow's path.
     The Shadow ripped shots at the elevator, hoping to nick Marabar Guru. The
Hindu was inside, hopping about the car like a huge lump of popcorn, literally
dodging The Shadow's aim. He had a moving shield in front of him, in the person
of Selsby, who was sidling frantically toward the elevator trying to pull
something from the box he carried.
     Then Selsby's hand came free, holding an oval object shaped like a small
pineapple. His arm was going back to make a fling - and over his shoulder came
the head and hand of Marabar Guru!
     Instantly, The Shadow dove back across the laboratory. He was more
concerned with Marabar Guru than with Selsby, for the brownish man's hand was
already beginning a swing when The Shadow spied it. Trickiest of all the
assassins employed by Shiwan Khan, the guru should be most capable at flinging
a deadly phurba.
     But it wasn't a matter of one thrust. Two came together. Selsby's hand,
joggled by the whip of the forearm just behind him, let the bomb go just as the
knife whizzed across the room!
     The guru saw the course of his blade as it whirred straight for the
somersaulting shape in black. He spied the bomb going in the same direction,
arching in a high parabola, a curve that threatened to graze the ceiling.
     With a triumphant hiss that would have made a cobra sound tame, Marabar
Guru grabbed the elevator door with his other hand and slashed it shut, a metal
curtain that saved him and Selsby from the blast to come.
     They were safe, that pair, with escape through the cellar assured; while
their last sight of The Shadow showed him motionless, the knife handle
projecting from his back, the bomb descending upon his prone body!
     The quick slide of the door prevented the pair from witnessing the amazing
thing that followed. Despite the bronze dagger of Marabar Guru, The Shadow came
up from the floor, to his knees. His gun was gone from his grasp, but he didn't
snap back empty-handed. He was clutching a light workbench, that he flung
straight over his head, in the direction of the elevator door behind his back.
     The wooden missile never could have reached the elevator door. The Shadow
didn't intend it to travel that far. He was as trusting that it would find a
nearer target, which it did. The target was the flying bomb.
     Metal met wood, a dozen feet from The Shadow. The bomb exploded with a
force that shattered the workbench. The concussion flattened The Shadow to the
floor, away from the bronze knife that had implanted itself, not squarely in
his back but between his body and his arm.
     Walls shuddered from the blast. Sheets of flame scorched the ruined
laboratory; chunks of ceiling were striking down upon the floor. Amid that
deluge of masonry and plaster, The Shadow came to his feet, staggered toward
the open door to the stairs.
     Ignited by the flames, other chemicals exploded with furious bursts,
throwing fiery jets in every direction. Mere seconds would have meant a hellish
death for anyone trapped in the laboratory, but The Shadow was no longer there.
     His lurch had been in the right direction; straight for the open door. The
new concussions didn't stop him; instead, they helped his dive.


     WITH roaring blasts hurling him forward, The Shadow made the stairs and
pitched headlong to the landing. Out from the doorway came a mighty wall of
fire, an inferno in itself. Sufficient to wither any victim in their path,
those flames found no human fuel.
     Tumbling down the steps, The Shadow was below the level of the consuming
fire when it made that terrific lash.
     A figure rose to meet him. It was the naljorpa; this twisty killer had
wriggled half free of the thongs. Dazedly, The Shadow grappled with his
slippery foe. Rolling sideways, they moved through empty space, struck the
steps to the lower floor.
     Bounding downward, both were preserved for further struggle; had they
remained on the landing, they would have met sure doom. While they were still
somersaulting on their trip, the roof of the building caved in.
     What had been a third floor was now a mighty beacon, lifting its lofty,
increasing fire to the sky. Rolling flames had taken over the landing that The
Shadow and his opponent had left.
     Crackle of flames dim in his ears, The Shadow sensed that fall as a
strange, slow-motion journey. All the way, one thought was drumming through his
mind: He must be on top when the crash came. Painfully, he was striving for that
advantage upon which life depended and he won it.
     They both struck. The naljorpa buckled beneath The Shadow's weight.
Rolling farther, the cloaked fighter found his feet. He didn't notice the
bronze dagger that dropped from his cloak; nor did he pay attention to the
naljorpa, who was moving feebly on the floor.
     He had intended to carry that pet of Shiwan Khan's along with him, a
living trophy to be delivered to the law. But such was impossible under the
circumstances. Reeling as he sought to find the lower stairs, The Shadow
recognized that he had no strength for extra tasks.
     Besides, he had to find Lana Luan.
     Yes, that was it. The throbbing thought guided him in his staggering trip
to safety. Marabar Guru was gone, so was Hiram Selsby. One was a self-witting
villain; the other a dupe, forced to deal in evil against his true judgment.
     But they didn't matter, any more than the groggy naljorpa, who never
should have slipped his bonds. They could be traced later, Selsby and the guru.
In these pressing moments, one trail alone remained important: that of Lana Luan.
     Tremendous thuds were resounding through the doomed house; they sounded
like the smashes of a mighty mallet, those breaking beams, when The Shadow
reached the basement. He didn't look for the connecting panel; instead, he made
for the door of the house that he was in. The barrier was locked, triple bolted,
but The Shadow found the hinges. 
     He treated them with bullets. One gun exhausted, he employed an other. The
door gave; splintering the woodwork that still clung in place, The Shadow
shouldered through and sprawled sidewise in the little courtyard behind the
house.
     Only a few yards distant was Lana Luan, her cape drawn up around her
shoulders. She was hurrying back toward the passage to the side street. Even in
her half trance, the girl was alarmed by the roar of billowing flames from
Selsby's house and the vivid light that the holocaust produced.
     The Shadow was again on the trail. His plans for Lana Luan were still a
thing that could be realized.


     CHAPTER XII

     TWISTED BATTLE

     As The Shadow found his feet and started in pursuit of Lana Luan, a
piercing shriek came from a spot above. Long, shrill, like a voice from some
wild, forgotten region, it drowned out the roar of the fire. Instinctively, The
Shadow turned, looked upward.
     At a window of Selsby's house he saw the freed naljorpa. His leering
countenance reddened by the flames, the devil man looked like a creature that
had found some chosen hell. Red, too, was the dagger that the assassin wielded.
     The Shadow fired with his only gun. His footing shaky, he reeled from the
recoil of the gun, his bullet missing, just as the naljorpa launched the knife.
But the hand from the window had lost its usual skill, as a result of the recent
fray; it was less capable than The Shadow's. 
     Scaling wide, the knife missed its cloaked prey by half a dozen feet.
Stretched from the window, the naljorpa uttered another shriek, this time from
sheer terror. Trained though he was to forget all fear, instinct overcame him,
for he realized what was coming.
     Before the foiled assassin could pitch himself to the paved court below, a
cascading wall descended on him, bringing a great cataract of hot flame. Carried
with that deluge, the servant of Shiwan Khan buried in a fiery grave, more
terrible than any pit in the imaginary bardo he had visited in his trances.
     The first cry had been heard. As The Shadow swung from scorching heat to
follow Lana Luan, the shriek was answered by others. Posted naljorpas were
springing out from cover, hoping for revenge upon The Shadow.
     Weaving a quick course, The Shadow demonstrated a timely return of his
skill. His shots were quicker than the knives that scaled in his direction;
flingers were lurching, clipped by bullets, as they flung their weapons. There
were others who might have found their chance to knife The Shadow, but they
were suddenly pressed by a new attack.
     Submachine guns were talking, with naljorpas as their targets. The
explosion of Selsby's house had brought in the Feds ahead of schedule. Spotting
the scrawny men who hung from roofs and windows of houses all about, the Feds
knew them for enemies.
     The Shadow had settled three of the assassins. The Feds accounted for half
a dozen more. The rest of the tribe - they were thick upon the scene tonight -
were quick enough to bound for cover and get away through passages too narrow
to be illuminated by the vivid reflection of the fire.
     The Shadow had opportunity to reach the passage that Lana Luan had taken.
Speeding through to the street, he reached there just in time to see the girl
reach the opposite curb, where a taxicab was waiting.
     Lana Luan did not get into the cab. She was too late; she had been spotted
by stationed Feds. Sighting this mystery woman from the Selsby premises, the
Feds called upon her to stop.
     Wavering at the cab step, Lana Luan suddenly rallied to the situation.
Darting in back of the cab, she crossed a lighted stretch of sidewalk and made
for another passage.
     The Feds didn't open up with machine guns. Instead, they came on foot,
hoping to overtake the fleeing girl. Reaching the cab, The Shadow saw why Lana
Luan had not entered it. The cab had no driver; he had scurried for cover when
the shooting began.
     It was just a chance cab, ordered here to await a passenger. It offered no
clue to Shiwan Khan, but it served another purpose.
     Springing to the wheel, The Shadow kicked the starter; the cab shot
forward on a rocketing trip for the nearest corner. Seeing the fleeing vehicle,
Feds trained their machine guns on it; but the cab cut close to the curb and
swung the corner just before the volley began.
     Ditching the cab half way along the next block, The Shadow leaped out and
cut in between two buildings; to head off Lana Luan. He knew that the girl's
mad flight would take her squarely into the outer cordon, managed by Joe
Cardona.
     Dashing straight for a street where she would have been promptly trapped,
Lana Luan met the lunging figure of The Shadow. Grabbing the girl, he swung her
full about, pushed her to a short-cut leading through to another street.
     Wresting away, Lana Luan was visible when flashlights licked in from two
directions; then The Shadow had yanked her from sight. Shouts told that two
groups were on the trail: Feds from one direction, police from the other.


     THROUGHOUT a twisty route, The Shadow kept Lana Luan with him. Pausing at
intervals, he stabbed shots, wide and high, to discourage the misguided
pursuers.
     Those shots were very necessary, when he shoved Lana Luan across an
intervening street. She was spotted as she went; but before men could open
fire, The Shadow fired from the darkness that the girl had left.
     His lagging tactics worked. Lana Luan reached cover. Springing from his
own shelter, The Shadow followed recklessly, for he knew that gliding tactics
would delay him too long to regain the girl's mad trail.
     A hail of bullets accompanied The Shadow's crossing, but his trip was so
rapid that he reached cover unscathed. He was outside the area that the Feds
had occupied; his present opponents were detectives. They came after him in a
cluster.
     Of the ardent detectives who spied The Shadow dashing into darkness, none
had previously met him. To them, he was simply a fugitive in black. He could
have been Marabar Guru, decked out in special garments suited for a flight by
night.
     Overtaking Lana Luan, The Shadow whirled her on a side trip that formed
the final stages of his route. Lighted windows showed above an obscure door.
Like a ghostly challenge from the night, The Shadow's laugh produced strident
mockery.
     That shivering taunt made pursuers stop. They didn't recognize it as a
signal, meant for men beyond the lighted windows. The door yanked open as The
Shadow neared it, bringing Lana Luan along. With a long, hard swing, The Shadow
rocketed the girl into the arms of agents who were waiting within a rear room of
the Shantung Garden.
     It wouldn't do for the trail to end here. Making for the front street, The
Shadow sent back his quivering gibe as a come-on for pursuers. As he crossed the
street, uniformed police appeared from the corner, but failed to sight him.
     Unfortunately, The Shadow's beckoning laugh brought others. Like the law,
Shiwan Khan had posted a reserve crew in this terrain. A lumbering truck was
swinging in from the opposite direction; its occupants spied The Shadow, thanks
to the chance veer of the headlights. They also recognized his laugh.
     Four huge Mongols, of the sort that Shiwan Khan had brought on earlier
expeditions, were the men who formed the truck crew. But their advantage over
The Shadow was discounted by a handicap of their own. Arriving police had
failed to spy The Shadow, but they couldn't help spotting the Mongols.
     Guns delivered an earnest volley. Two of the Mongols hit the sidewalk. A
third, ducking, behind the truck, would have gotten clear and gone after The
Shadow if it hadn't been for the new doorman from the Shantung Garden.
     His uniform flashing as gaudily as his grin, Jericho overtook the servant
of Shiwan Khan, who turned to meet him. African and Mongol locked behind the
truck. Giants both, their struggle threatened to be titanic. It could have
lasted long had they been content to grapple.
     But both wanted quick results and the Mongol thought himself equipped to
get them. With one huge hand, he yanked a knife that had the look of a short,
curved sword. He was handy with that weapon, as he slashed its edge toward
Jericho, but he lacked the quick skill of the naljorpas.
     The Mongol wasn't fast enough for Jericho. With one big fist, the African
clamped his foe's descending arm. He let the Mongol's other hand reach his
throat, for it wasn't going to stay there. Jericho had a free hand of his own
and a chance to shove it across the fist that tried to throttle him.
     Coming like a sledge hammer, Jericho's big fist met the Mongol's ugly
face. The blow struck with a sickening crunch as it hooked up beneath the
Mongol's huge jaw. It took the killer's feet from under him, carried him across
the back of the truck, where he balanced limply, then pitched headfirst to the
curb. There was another crack as the Mongol's skull met the cement.


     JERICHO was past the truck, while the police were pouncing on the wounded
pair that they had downed with bullets.
     In darkness just beyond the sidewalk, the arriving African saw the
weaving, lunging shoulders of another Mongol. The last of the four was
struggling with an opponent who could only be The Shadow.
     A gun spoke, muffled, before Jericho could reach the fray. The big doorman
saw the Mongol sprawl; knew that The Shadow had downed him with a last bullet.
The Shadow was gone when Jericho reached the slumped figure of the final Mongol.
     Ahead, Jericho saw a glowing flashlight; he made out two figures, saw the
glitter of guns that the men held. They were detectives, in from another
street. They had heard The Shadow's final gunshot. They were probing a basement
entrance, where someone had taken refuge.
     "We got you covered," one gruffed. "Come out with your hands up! Five
seconds, and we fire!"
     There wasn't a stir from the darkness. Guns aimed toward the space. Intent
upon taking their prisoner, the dicks didn't hear the surprisingly soft-footed
approach of a very bulky figure. They knew of Jericho's arrival when a pair of
hamlike hands clamped on their necks.
     Yanked upward, the detectives fired in air. His big hands gripping tight,
Jericho sideswiped two heads in a very gentle fashion - for Jericho. He let the
detectives drop, with their clattering guns and flashlight. Stooping into the
darkness, Jericho lifted the groggy figure of The Shadow, weak from the choking
tactics of the Mongol whom he had finally overcome.
     A cab had wheeled up opposite the Shantung Garden. Its driver was leaning
out, on the street side, talking to the police. Coming from the other side,
Jericho opened the door and slid The Shadow into the rear seat. The cabby was
Moe Shrevnitz. He heard the door go shut; promptly, he pulled away.
     Then Jericho was in sight, beckoning to the police. He pointed to the
alley where the groggy detectives lay, past the body of the Mongol.
     "Some of them big fellows went right through there," informed Jericho.
"One's lyin' in the way, like he was dead, so I didn't want to look no farther.
But from some bangin' I heard goin' on, it's likely they run into somebody
comin' from the other way."
     Investigating, the officers found the two detectives, who swore that each
had been grabbed by a separate foe. Their plight was laid to imaginary Mongols.
No one thought of blaming Jericho. In fact, he actually received thanks from the
two detectives when they learned that the doorman had reported the scuffle in
the alley.
     Two blocks away, Moe's cab was stopped by Vic Marquette and Joe Cardona,
who had joined forces. They were the very men that Moe was looking for.
     "I've got a fare in back," Moe told them. "A gang of big guys tried to mob
him when he was getting out of the cab. I started up and took him away."
     Cardona yanked the door open. Marquette caught the tuxedoed figure that
rolled from the cab. Both saw the battle-wearied face of Lamont Cranston when
it turned up into the light. But the cab showed no signs of a hat or cloak. The
Shadow had tucked those garments out of sight.
     Cranston's story was a simple one. He had received a message at the club
asking him to join the raiders. Supposedly from Commissioner Weston, the word
must have come from Shiwan Khan. Fortunately, Cranston had shaken loose of the
crew that grabbed him when he reached the appointed destination.
     Wearily, The Shadow let them help him back into the cab. As Moe drove
away, he caught the echoes of a whispered laugh, and understood. Again, The
Shadow had preserved his dual identity; but that was not all.
     Far from being duped by Shiwan Khan, The Shadow had completed his own
scheme to trick the Golden Master!


     CHAPTER XIII

     WITHIN THE LAIR

     "My name is Lana Luan -"
     Beatrice Chadbury was repeating the singsong formula to a sympathetic
listener. Whisked to safety by The Shadow's agents, she had eventually found
herself in a secluded room of the Shantung Garden, alone with a girl who looked
more Chinese than she did.
     "I am Ming Dwan." With that reply, Myra Reldon went into a volley of rapid
Chinese that Lana Luan did not understand. Finally reverting to English, she
added quaintly: "You do not understand our native tongue?"
     Lana Luan seemed to understand nothing.
     She was groping, seeking thoughts. Her eyes held their faraway look. Ming
Dwan produced a small bottle of perfume, spilled a few drops upon a table
cloth. The scent of lilacs became apparent in the room.
     There was a brightening of Lana Luan's eyes. The pleasing aroma brought
the thoughts she wanted.
     "Yes!" Her tone was breathless; her gaze indicated the presence of an
invisible listener. "I am safe... Yes... The message was delivered... I can
return -"
     Catching some mental answer to her statements, Lana Luan walked stolidly
toward the door. She was wrapping her bedraggled cape tightly, indicating that
she was going outside. She found her path blocked by Ming Dwan.
     "It will not be safe," the other girl told her. "You must trust me, Lana
Luan."
     The suggestion was a timely one. Having caught the instructions of Shiwan
Khan, Lana Luan was working toward one purpose - her return to the Golden
Master's lair. Anyone who offered to help her gain that goal would be welcome. 
     Pausing, Lana Luan let Ming Dwan lead the way.
     Men waited below. At a nod from Ming Dwan, they opened the door and let
her guide Lana Luan farther. As soon as the two had turned the nearest corner,
the men were in action.
     There were three of them, who had dined at the Shantung Garden: Harry
Vincent, a youthful chap, but a veteran in The Shadow's service, Clyde Burke, a
newspaper reporter, who also worked for The Shadow; Cliff Marsland, who covered
the badlands for his chief.
     Of the three, Cliff was the least presentable, for he had a toughened look
that he had acquired by habit. But when he left the confines of the underworld,
Cliff shaved his face and smoothed his manner. By rights a gentleman, he could
pass muster in respectable company.
     Leaving the restaurant, The Shadow's aids took separate routes, all
checking to make sure that no police were close. Smoke had replaced flames
above Selsby's house; the neighborhood was filled with the shrieks of fire
sirens. Busy with gathering crowds, the police were helping the firemen and had
little chance for anything else.
     Satisfied that the trail would be theirs alone, the agents converged at a
spot where a wizened man beckoned. He was Hawkeye, a clever trailer who helped
Cliff patrol the badlands. He couldn't have passed as a patron of the Shantung
Garden.
     Trusting to Ming Dwan's guidance, Lana Luan was moving much slower than
usual, largely because Ming Dwan was lagging, to let the agents come along the
trail. At the same time, Ming Dwan was in a quandary, for she hadn't an idea as
to where her companion intended to go.
     It was a case of letting Lana Luan lead the way, restraining her as if on
leash. At times, she had to be held back; there were other occasions when it
was necessary to turn her along another course in order to avoid patrol cars.
     Always, however, Lana Luan bore back to her original direction as though
tugged by some magnetic force.


     THEY reached a corner some six blocks from the Shantung Garden. A cab was
waiting there; its driver sat low, a muffling-collar around his chin.
     Ming Dwan noted that his shoulders were high, despite his posture. She
caught a chance glimpse of his face, saw that it was yellowish.
     The cab driver was another of Shiwan Khan's Mongol servants. The Golden
Master wasn't trusting Lana Luan to an ordinary cab, after tonight's adventure.
     The Mongol noted Ming Dwan. Classing her as Chinese, he made no objection
when she entered the cab with Lana Luan. Soon the cab was bound on a roundabout
journey in the general direction of Chinatown.
     Other cars trailed it, but not too closely. Ming Dwan had signaled back to
be careful the moment that she saw the Mongol driver, for she knew that he would
be alert. Hawkeye spied the signal, passed it along to the others. They acted
accordingly.
     Near Chinatown, the Mongol-driven cab disappeared. It was lost somewhere
among the narrow streets outside the area where Dr. Tam's watchers would have
surely spotted it. The best The Shadow's agents could do was identify an area
of about eight square blocks, wherein the Mongol must have delivered Lana Luan
and Ming Dwan.
     They reported it directly to The Shadow, for Moe's cab had been reached
through Burbank and had come in to follow the trail. But ill luck had it that
The Shadow should arrive just after the Mongol had given his agents the slip.
     Meanwhile, the Mongol dropped his passengers at a building entry, and Lana
Luan advanced so eagerly that Ming Dwan was forced to follow along to avoid
suspicion.
     The entry had a grilled gate, and there was a clever trick to it.
Normally, it opened by a heavy latch, allowing entrance to the squarish
vestibule of an old brick residence. But Lana Luan did not touch the latch; she
pressed a hinge instead.
     With the latch serving as a hinge, the door swung in the wrong direction,
pushing the vestibule wall when it arrived there. Through that opening, the
girls descended hidden steps; both the wall and the big gate swung back to
their original positions as soon as the pair had passed.
     After a rapid trip through maze-like passages, they reached Lana Luan's
boudoir. By then, Ming Dwan had lost all sense of direction, but she was sure
that they were near the heart of Chinatown; moreover, she noted many other
burrows that might reach various exits from this hidden realm.
     Fresh lilacs were in a vase on Lana Luan's table. Closing her eyes, Lana
Luan must have heard a voice that said "Come!" for Ming Dwan sensed the same
impression. She followed Lana Luan alone the passage to the golden room.
     Entering, Ming Dwan felt a peculiar dizziness, which lessened as she sank
beside Lana Luan in front of the golden throne.
     There, she saw Shiwan Khan. Through slitted eyelids, the Golden One
surveyed this stranger that Lana Luan had brought back. After a few words with
Lana Luan, he dismissed her, then concentrated upon Ming Dwan. He wanted to
hear her story. In bell-like tone he commanded, in English:
     "Relate how you came here."
     Ming Dwan poured out the tale in voluble Chinese. She said that she worked
at the Shantung Garden; how, tonight, there had been shooting and Lana Luan had
stumbled into the rear of the restaurant. Taking Lana Luan to be Chinese, like
herself, Ming Dwan had befriended her.
     The subsequent adventure actually intrigued Ming Dwan; she seemed to trust
Shiwan Khan rather than fear him. In fact, there was a point on which she felt
that he should be informed. It concerned Lana Luan.
     "She is not of China," said Ming Dwan, very simply. "I learned that soon
after I met her. It is strange that you should have chosen her for some
important purpose."
     "Why strange?" came the discordant query.
     "Because she could be traced here," replied Ming Dwan. "There are many
meddlers in Chinatown, who would suspect her as soon as they saw her."
     By "meddlers," Ming Dwan could only refer to Dr. Tam's men, which
indicated that she disliked that faction. Shiwan Khan scrutinized the
dark-haired girl, noted the smooth shade of her complexion.
     "Perhaps you have heard of me," he said, dryly. "I am called Shiwan Khan."


     MING DWAN'S eyes opened as wide as the hidden strips of tape could allow
them, which was not very wide. Her expression registered true Chinese
admiration.
     "I might need another messenger," continued Shiwan Khan, his tone as
tinkly as music. "Should you choose such service, Ming Dwan, I shall reward
you. I shall take you to China, and beyond - to the famed city- of Xanadu,
where my power is absolute!"
     The eagerness of Ming Dwan's expression, her ardent sigh, were evidence
that she had accepted the choice. Shiwan Khan smiled blandly. Though Ming Dwan
apparently did not know it, she had made the only choice. Strangers never came
to this domain and went away again. Once here, they had to recognize Shiwan
Khan as master.
     Stepping down from his golden throne, Shiwan Khan extended a long hand and
helped the kneeling girl to her feet. Then, in the subtle fashion that had
caused many followers to term him the "Unfathomable," Shiwan Khan put Ming Dwan
to the test.
     In rising, the girl felt dizziness return. She swayed; to catch her,
Shiwan Khan plucked the low collar of her silken jacket. As if by accident, his
long nails tore the cloth, ripped it deftly from shoulder to hip.
     Caught by the Golden Master's other hand, Ming Dwan couldn't seem to
gather the torn portions of the jacket. Shiwan Khan's sharp eye scrutinized the
girl's bared side, saw that its yellowish hue did not blend into white.
     Then, spinning Ming Dwan about, Shiwan Khan held her balanced by both
elbows, while his slitted eyes met hers. Under the spell of those greenish
orbs, Ming Dwan felt that the golden room had melted. She was in vast space, it
seemed, oblivious of all except that hypnotic gaze.
     Shiwan Khan was asking questions in Chinese, using, his icy tone. Ming
Dwan was answering them in the same language; but soon their voices spoke no
more. This wasn't ordinary hypnotism that Shiwan Khan was using. He was
exerting a mesmeric influence through the sheer force of his giant will.
     Their thoughts were tuned. In this state, telepathic messages could flash
between them. Shiwan Khan still held the mastery, for he was acting in
accordance with design. He was asking questions mentally, not verbally, but
Ming Dwan still fancied that she heard icy, spoken words.
     Literally, Shiwan Khan was probing the brain of Ming Dwan. He was putting
questions about China, all in a fashion peculiar to the Chinese, and he was
analyzing Ming Dwan's mental responses. The Shadow had foreseen this grueling
test, had known that Ming Dwan would meet it.
     For Myra Reldon, when she played the part of Ming Dwan, could carry it to
absolute perfection. Her thoughts, like her speech, were in Chinese, the
language which she had learned in childhood!
     His probe ended, Shiwan Khan spoke aloud, giving commands in the Chinese
tongue. He told Ming Dwan that she would obey his dictates; in a far-away tone,
the girl agreed. Guiding her to the golden door, Shiwan Khan slid the barrier
aside and pointed Ming Dwan along the passage.
     Rigid, fixed of gaze, arms straight downward, Ming Dwan walked away in the
mechanical fashion of Lana Luan. The ruined jacket, draped from one shoulder,
revealed the girls entire back. Again, Shiwan Khan was deceived by the perfect
yellow dye that showed no splotches, no trace of white beneath.
     Shiwan Khan had obtained another messenger, one who could carry his gift
caskets more safely than Lana Luan. His jangling laugh, the smiling twist of
his brownish, slitted lips, told that he was thanking the demons of the bardo
for bringing Ming Dwan to him.
     This was one instance wherein Shiwan Khan was mistaken. Real, or
imaginary, the bardo dwellers deserved no credit for the arrival of Ming Dwan.
     Shiwan Khan owed thanks to his archfoe, The Shadow!


     CHAPTER XIV

     THE DOUBLE TRAIL

     DURING the next few days the public, like the law, was stirred to a
feverish pitch. The truth was out - somewhere in New York there dwelt a
superfiend named Shiwan Khan, who, by strokes of Oriental wizardly, could pluck
helpless people out of safe places and put them nowhere.
     He had done just that with Hiram Selsby, the famous chemist. The case was
far more dramatic than the disappearance of the inventor, Ralph Fayden, and the
evanishment of several dozen others. A search of the ruined house where Selsby
had dwelt incognito revealed no traces of the missing chemist, or Marabar Guru,
who had vanished quite as completely.
     The authorities did not find the tiny elevator, flattened beneath a mass
of wreckage, its cables melted from the heat.
     Gone, too, was a narrow tunnel that led from Selsby's house to an outlet
across the street. Marabar Guru had led Selsby beyond the closing circle of
Feds and through the ranks of the police before the latter could tighten their
net.
     One body was found in the ruins - that of the naljorpa, who had failed to
knife The Shadow. Others of the skeleton men had been picked up nearby; and the
fact that such strange creatures were roving New York was startling in itself.
Quite a few of them were still at large, the Feds and police admitted.
     Besides, there were the Mongols. Identified with Shiwan Khan on his
previous excursions to America, those giant fighters were another proof that
the insidious master was at work.
     Nobody guessed that The Shadow had been the main factor in the whole case
- not even Marquette, or Cardona. In fact, they rather doubted that The Shadow
had been around at all. Reports had it that a man in black had tiffed with Feds
and police; but that didn't suit The Shadow's style.
     The authorities considered The Shadow's part as no more spectacular than
that of Lamont Cranston, who had also come and gone from the scene. As for Lana
Luan, she was scarcely remembered, in view of all the other things that
happened, while Ming Dwan hadn't appeared in the picture at all.
     Such a set-up suited The Shadow.
     The black-cloaked investigator and his agents were busy patrolling the
sector outside of Chinatown, where the Mongol had delivered Lana Luan and Ming
Dwan. The cab had been traced, but it offered no clue. It was found in - of all
places - the garage where Dr. Tam stored his relics of fading Chinese
superstitions.
     A subtle touch of Shiwan Khan's genius, to have the cab left there. The
garage was deserted; it had been easy for the Mongol to wheel the cab into the
place, and make a later departure. But Tam wasn't going to be fooled again. He
had put men in the old garage, hoping that some of Shiwan Khan's Mongols would
return.
     So far, none had appeared.
     However, The Shadow was counting upon Ming Dwan appearing very soon,
because he knew that Shiwan Khan must have other missions requiring a messenger.


     AGAIN, The Shadow had guessed it right. On this night, Shiwan Khan was
ready for another move. He was lounging on his golden throne, watching curls of
blackish smoke that rose from a dragon-headed incense burner.
     The smoke produced a dull, heavy aroma. Shiwan Khan took on a state of
deep contemplation. His greenish eyes gained a fixed sparkle; the odd twist of
his lips told that he was holding mental conversation with some distant person.
     At last, the Golden Master spoke aloud:
     "Be ready!" The words were sharp and clear. "My messenger will arrive
tonight... Within the hour... You will receive the reward that you, alone, have
visioned -"
     His trance ended, Shiwan Khan poured sand over the burning powder. The
door slid open, at his pressure of some hidden switch.
     Two naljorpas entered; their leers showed that they deemed it a privilege
to be picked for a dangerous task. Shiwan Khan addressed them in a curious
jargon.
     "I am sending the new messenger," he declared. "Her name is Ming Dwan. She
will be constantly under my influence, but I want you to follow her and see that
no one interrupts her journey."
     The naljorpas babbled their readiness.
     "You are delogs," reminded Shiwan Khan. "What is death" - his tone was
contemptuous - "to those who have already visited the bardo? Remember Kushod,
Ramjan, and the others. They have gone beyond sorrows. Be prepared to join
them."
     Happy at the thought of possible death, the spidery naljorpas retired,
approaching the door in the peculiar sidelong fashion they always used when
they left the Golden Master's presence.
     Bringing a bunch of poppies from the taboret, Shiwan Khan drew a deep
breath of their aroma and spoke a musical word:
     "Come!"
     Soon, Ming Dwan entered, staring straight ahead. She seemed to lean toward
the golden throne as she steadily approached it. There had been poppies in her
room, too, but she had not brought them along. Plucking a few of the flowers
from his own bouquet, Shiwan Khan worked them into strands of the girl's thick,
jet-black hair.
     They went with the new costume that Ming Dwan was wearing, its dark jacket
a mass of poppies, all deep in hue.
     From the taboret Shiwan Khan brought a sealed casket, of the same ivory
pattern that he had used before. Giving it to Ming Dwan, he pointed to the
doorway. The girl turned and departed, her shoulders bent forward, her eyes
fixed on the casket.
     On the way, Ming Dwan stopped to put on a cape like the one that Lana Luan
had used. Continuing, she was trailed by the slinky naljorpas. Out through the
labyrinth of passages, Ming Dwan took the route to the remote exit, which would
keep her clear of Chinatown.
     It was Cliff Marsland who heard the soft clang of a metal gate across the
street from where he was posted. To his astonishment, Cliff sighted the grille
swinging in the wrong direction. Drawing closer, he noted the girl who
appeared, but could not tell whether she was Lana Luan or Ming Dwan.
     She came in Cliff's direction; he drew back. About to follow her, Cliff
felt a slight creep of numbness in one arm. He was quick-witted enough to
realize that he was within the paralyzing range of a naljorpa. Wisely, he
dropped back.
     Slinky figures passed, evasive in the gloom. Cliff felt the numbness go.
Easing from cover, he shambled in the opposite direction making no effort to
avoid the light. Cliff hadn't shaved since the night at the Shantung Garden. 
Street lamps showed him as a shabby bum, evidently making the rounds of the
grogshops, judging from his tipsy condition.
     He was the very sort of character to be found along these streets. He
hoped that the naljorpas wouldn't waste knife thrusts on such a type,
particularly so close to their secret entryway. Cliff's hope was realized; the
killers, when they spied him, decided to let him stagger along his way.


     AROUND the corner, Cliff's reeling pace ended. Straightening, he reached a
doorway, blinked a flashlight signal. It was passed along by Hawkeye, who was on
the rove. From then on, everything clicked.
     A cab appeared suddenly in the next block, just before Ming Dwan arrived
there. She had instructions to take a cab, but the naljorpas wanted to look it
over first. Sidling ahead, they reared up like venomous cobras, to peer into
the windows.
     The sleepy-looking driver could sense that they were present, for he could
feel an encroaching numbness in his arms and legs. Then the sensation dwindled;
the naljorpas were gone, and Ming Dwan was in the cab. The girl spoke a
mechanical order, the cab started eastward.
     Two blocks away, it reversed its course, pulled along a street where the
driver caught the glow of a flashlight that glimmered red, then green. The
cabby was Moe Shrevnitz; merely slackening, not stopping, he picked up a
passenger: The Shadow.
     Ming Dwan heard whispered words, but gave them no attention. She gripped
the ivory casket firmly, angrily, as a gloved hand touched it. Then, seeing the
poppies that adorned the girl's hair, The Shadow drew them away instead. Ming
Dwan relaxed.
     She answered questions that The Shadow put in Chinese, preferring to use
that language. But her words were slow, hesitant, as though she could remember
very little. Shiwan Khan's influence had obliterated her memory, as with Lana
Luan.
     The fact pleased The Shadow. Since Ming Dwan had forgotten that she ever
had been Myra Reldon, her security would be complete. He could rely upon Cliff
to point out the return path to Shiwan Khan's domain.
     Knowing that the naljorpas were off the trail by this time, The Shadow
ordered Moe to make another detour. During it, The Shadow blinked a green light.
     When the cab reached the destination ordered by Ming Dwan, a coupe rolled
up behind it, with Harry Vincent at the wheel. Ming Dwan alighted; Harry joined
The Shadow in the cab.
     They watched Ming Dwan's course; it was easy to trace. The cab was at the
water front; the girl was descending steps to a low dock.
     Below bobbed the lights of a little launch, and Ming Dwan wasn't the only
person who was going on the motorboat. A few others were coming up, persons who
moved with slow, mechanical stride. The Shadow whispered who they were.
     "Dupes, like Fayden and Selsby," he told Harry. "Probably the last of the
lot. The trail is yours; take it, and have this ready."
     Into Harry's hand The Shadow pressed the kavacha talisman, that silver
token that had served so well at Selsby's. Stepping from the cab, Harry heard
it pull away, knew that The Shadow was returning to seek Shiwan Khan.
     Ming Dwan had produced exactly what The Shadow wanted - a double trail
that led to dupes as well as to master; a trail that gave a twofold chance of
ending Shiwan Khan's evil rule!


     CHAPTER XV

     ONE MAN'S PRICE

     ON the trim gray launch, Harry Vincent found half a dozen passengers whose
eyes had fixed looks of rapture. They were not like Ming Dwan, whose gaze
indicated the complete control by another brain.
     These were persons who were looking forward to some beautiful dream of the
future, living their own thoughts, but under the baleful inspiration created in
the past.
     Harry recognized one as a midwest manufacturer who had turned out not to
be in Europe. He saw a dazzling, well-gowned blonde across the way and promptly
identified her as one of the missing movie stars. The others, of course, were
various dupes, all of whom had listened to the mystic voice of Shiwan Khan.
     The launch crew consisted of two sturdy men who had dream looks of their
own. Lurking in the background was a Mongol, apparently ready to take over if
either man came out of his happy trance. Certainly no boatload of passengers
had ever rivaled this group. To Harry, it was a nightmarish scene, of which he
could scarcely believe himself to he a part.
     A motor was throbbing, but the launch didn't start. Harry supposed that
new passengers would arrive; and they did, ten minutes later. But they weren't
dupes, they were naljorpas, two of them. Harry knew that they must be the pair
who had followed Ming Dwan to the cab.
     At ease among this boatload, the naljorpas exerted none of their attacking
power. They simply crouched among the passengers and grinned, as the launch
shoved off. They didn't have to behave like electric eels in such a company,
and they were pleased - if a naljorpa could experience pleasure - because Ming
Dwan was on board.
     The boat was proceeding northward with rhythmic smoothness. Following, the
channel of the East River, it passed police boats on the way. None made an
effort to stop the launch. It struck Harry instantly that the craft must be too
well known to be under suspicion.
     Who was its real owner?
     That question was answered after the launch had passed beneath great
bridges and was nearing Long Island Sound. A well-lighted yacht hove into
sight; it was a sleek, streamlined vessel of modern build. Harry remembered it
from a photograph that he had seen a few months before.
     It was the Nautilus, the million-dollar craft owned by a wealthy man named
Felix Bryson, who wasn't listed among the missing persons sought. Bryson lived
on the yacht, but frequently came ashore, and recently he had announced that he
was going on a cruise, taking a party of his friends.
     Those "friends" were the dupes of Shiwan Khan!
     Again, master strategy was evident. Shiwan Khan had picked Felix Bryson as
a special brand of dupe; one who could stay in circulation and would also offer
the most select of hideaways for the rest. This trail was everything that The
Shadow had desired, and Harry felt exuberant.
     He wasn't going to find a few isolated victims gathered in by Shiwan Khan.
Harry would soon be viewing the entire lot, all in one place where they could be
rescued at a single stroke. But such a deed would require The Shadow.
     Realizing his own position, Harry knew that his one task was to keep
himself unsuspected.


     THE test came when the launch reached the yacht. The passengers began to
ascend the steps that were lowered from the yacht's side. Harry let others go
first, and watched what happened. They were showing talismans to some one on
the deck.
     Clutching the kavacha token, Harry followed, remembering to keep his eyes
set straight ahead and a raptured grin upon his lips. From the corner of his
eye, he saw a brownish man who wore a purple tunic and a diamond starred
turban; knew that it must be Marabar Guru.
     Opening his hand, Harry showed the kavacha. He was allowed to pass when
Marabar Guru saw the insignia on the silver disk. Fortunately, the guru did not
know everything. He was acquainted with some of Shiwan Khan's dupes, but not
with all. Tokens were sufficient with those that he did not recognize.
     Newly arrived passengers were spreading along the decks like normal
individuals bound on a cruise. Harry strolled a short way, then turned about
and saw Ming Dwan come aboard.
     With a bow, the guru conducted Ming Dwan toward a flight of steps.
     Harry played a hunch, and followed.
     He saw them reach an open door. Marabar Guru bowed Ming Dwan across the
threshold, then entered himself. Harry found a vantage spot from which he could
see what happened within. Marabar Guru had not closed the door, for he suspected
no spies on board the yacht.
     At a desk, Felix Bryson was rising to greet Ming Dwan. A portly, smiling
man, Bryson looked quite unlike the other dupes; it was plain that he had not
yet accepted the full sway of Shiwan Khan.
     The attitude of Marabar Guru added proof to Harry's conclusion. The guru
actually showed anxiety as he watched Ming Dwan give the casket to Bryson.
Since Marabar Guru was fully concentrated on the scene at the desk, Harry felt
it safe to draw closer.
     Examining the casket's seal, Bryson laid the ivory box aside. Folding his
arms, he looked at Marabar Guru and chuckled. Serious, the Hindu lighted a
small incense burner that stood upon the desk; Bryson gave an approving nod.
     "I am willing to communicate with Shiwan Khan," he said "His previous
messages have interested me immensely. I believe his story of a fabulous city
called Xanadu, founded by his illustrious ancestor, Kubla Khan."
     "There is such a city," assured Marabar Guru, in an impressive tone. "I
have seen it!"
     "We agree then," continued Bryson. "But I still have certain doubts. Once,
Shiwan Khan considered schemes of world conquest -"
     "Those contemplations have ended," put in the guru. "He is no longer
Shiwan Khan. He is Shiwan Tulku."
     "So he says," conceded Bryson, "and knowing the subtle ways of the Orient,
I am willing to grant that such could be. Shiwan Khan has given me visions of a
happy land, where many of us can dwell in peace and contemplation - a perfect
race.
     "But there is a chance" - Bryson wagged a chunky finger - "that the tulku
may again become a khan. He says that such will not happen, and bases it on the
claim that his mind is all-knowing. When I proposed a test, he agreed. The
answer lies within this casket."
     Harry began to understand the reason why Marabar Guru was uneasy. Leaning
toward the casket, Bryson pressed his fingers upon the seal and turned his eyes
upon the guru.
     "I warn you, guru!" affirmed Bryson. "I am still master here. If the test
fails, I shall inform the authorities that all missing persons are on this
yacht! Only if the test succeeds, will I acknowledge Shiwan Khan to be the
unfathomable being that he claims."
     Bryson drew a revolver from the desk drawer, laid it in readiness, in case
the guru made trouble. Harry slid an automatic from his pocket. He, too, would
be ready.
     "An interesting test," declared Bryson, his fingers loosening the seal.
"Shiwan Khan gave jade to Fayden, Bronzium to Selsby. Others, I understand,
wanted jewels; one man even asked for rare butterflies."
     "All received what they requested," reminded Marabar Guru. "Shiwan Khan
can supply what every man desires."
     "But in my case," chuckled Bryson, "Shiwan Khan has not been told what the
desire is. I have wealth; I am interested in many things. The master brain of
Shiwan Khan must first have met the test; he must be able to divine what I want
beyond all else. Unless this casket contains it -"
     Bryson did not repeat his former threat to the guru. Instead, he broke the
seal and raised the casket lid. He turned the ivory box into the light, so that
Marabar Guru could see its interior.
     Harry saw the guru flinch; a moment later, the casket was turned in his
own direction and Harry understood.
     The ivory box was empty!


     THE guru looked stunned. He stared helplessly as Bryson lifted the
revolver. Then, at the very moment when Harry expected real results, Bryson let
the weapon drop back into its drawer.
     "Shiwan Khan knows all!" affirmed Bryson, in an awed tone. "He knows that
I no longer care for wealth, or material things; that my one desire is the
higher understanding that only the mind can give. He, Shiwan Khan, has
recognized my unspoken request, by sending me an empty casket!"
     Marabar Guru leaned forward, eagerly. His move was unnecessary, for
Bryson's eyes had already taken on a fixed, distant gaze. The room was filled
with the heavy aroma of the incense; Bryson's thoughts had tuned in with those
of Shiwan Khan.
     "I hear you, Shiwan Khan," spoke Bryson. "I acknowledge you as tulku.
Those material belongings for which I have no love are yours. But they are too
puny for one of your great mind. I am thankful only that I can be of service to
your vast plan for the future.
     "This yacht, worthless though it is, has value because it can convey us
over the first stage of our journey to Xanadu. Those who have joined me are
willing to accompany you. I, too, am willing. We await your arrival, Shiwan
Khan!"
     Harry's gun slid back into his pocket. Of all the amazing things that he
had witnessed, this scene astonished him most. It meant that Bryson, the one
man who could have stopped disaster, had become Shiwan Khan's most ardent ally!
     Numbly, Harry drew from the door. Somehow, he found cover before Ming Dwan
appeared, followed by Marabar Guru. The girl was going back to Shiwan Khan,
probably to take some special message that the elated guru thought should be
delivered in person.
     They went up the steps. Harry heard Marabar Guru summon the waiting
naljorpas. There was a thrum from the departing launch, as it left with Ming
Dwan and her bodyguards.
     The schemes of Shiwan Khan had reached their zenith. Before this night was
over, the Golden Master would be on board the yacht, with all his dupes as
passengers, bound upon the promised voyage.
     His own position helpless, Harry Vincent knew that only one hope remained:
     The Shadow.


     CHAPTER XVI

     WORD FROM BELOW

     DEEP in Shiwan Khan's domain, The Shadow was completing a survey of the
labyrinthic passages that gave access to the Golden Master's own headquarters.
A gliding shape of blackness, The Shadow had so far escaped the notice of the
many eyes that served Shiwan Khan.
     Except for the cluster of rooms near Shiwan Khan's own golden apartment,
the extensive premises consisted entirely of narrow passages, many of them so
deeply buried that it did not seem surprising that Dr. Tam's searchers had
failed to trace them.
     Many of the passages were tricky; they could be cut off, like water-tight
compartments on a ship. The automatic barriers that The Shadow discovered were
all at turns of corridors, or where steps produced new levels. The Shadow could
tell that they were camouflaged, those barriers, to give the appearance of
closed walls.
     Thus, should invaders try to blast their way to the heart of the Golden
Master's realm, they would spend most of their time hacking away at the wrong
walls.
     The only remedy was to chart the passages for future reference, which The
Shadow was equipped to do. He knew his starting point: the house with the
reversible gate. He had a tiny compass in the bottom of his special flashlight.
     Pacing distances as he went along, The Shadow mapped out an accurate
diagram, indicating the turns and changes of level.
     Always, he was cautious, studying the route ahead before measuring it.
Cautious, too, because of the eyes that he knew were present. Sometimes The
Shadow spied the owners of such eyes: slinky naljorpas, who were moving from
place to place.
     At other intervals, patrolling Mongols passed.
     During the course of his accurate, but rapid, investigation The Shadow
discovered outlets other than the one Ming Dwan had used. He didn't test those
outlets; he simply identified them by the fact that certain passages ended at
blank walls, which had the look of camouflaged barriers.
     All these exits were within the bounds of Chinatown, which meant that they
were being reserved for emergency use. Shiwan Khan was wise enough to know that
Dr. Tam had men on duty throughout the Chinese quarter. In fact, from the look
of certain exits, The Shadow decided that they might be permanently closed.
     One isolated passage was of peculiar interest. From its direction, The
Shadow knew that it must be the way by which Beatrice Chadbury had originally
entered, for it led toward Loo Dow's abandoned opium den and ended in a brick
wall.
     Removing a black glove, The Shadow let his fingers run along the brick
edges; from this inside vantage point, he was able to trace what Tam's men had
not observed from outside; namely, that the bricks themselves were a portion of
a dog-toothed sliding wall. Beatrice's amazing disappearance was explained.


     HIS map complete, The Shadow moved toward the heart of the premises. From
convenient lurking spots, which Shiwan Khan had designed for his naljorpas, The
Shadow studied the route ahead and advanced by degrees.
     Passing an open door, he saw a small boudoir, knew that it must be Ming
Dwan's. Opposite was another room, its door closed; The Shadow felt sure that
it was the apartment of Lana Luan.
     Then The Shadow's keen gaze was attracted by the golden door that meant
the throne room of Shiwan Khan.
     Knowing the tricky ways of the Golden Master, The Shadow did not attempt
to pass that barrier. He could picture the interior - a room with golden walls,
like one that Shiwan Khan had used on a previous sojourn in New York.
     The former room had been designed to crash apart at the stroke of a great
brazen gong - a trick of Shiwan Khan's to ensnare others, while he made his own
escape. It was wise, therefore, to study the passages around this new throne
room before attempting to beard the Golden Master in his lair.
     There were passages that ran outside the throne room, and some of them had
steps. Making a separate diagram, The Shadow was able to draw an outline of the
cubicle itself. He found steps that crossed above it; they were built on solid
brick.
     Descending, The Shadow came to a damp, low-built tunnel that seemed like
an oversized drain pipe. It ran directly beneath the golden room, showing no
outlet below. His diagram complete, The Shadow was quite sure that the throne
room had no outlet except its golden door.
     In fact, the cubicle was situated completely within thick walls of solid
brick, its floor reinforced by concrete at ground level. Confident that his
domain could never be invaded, Shiwan Khan had made no arrangement for secret
exits from the throne room itself. Boxed inside that chamber, he could
certainly be trapped.
     A whispered laugh shuddered through the damp tunnel, confined to that
space alone. All was in accord with the Shadow's plans. He was considering a
surprise stroke that had not occurred to Harry Vincent, the agent who had gone
on board the Nautilus.
     Thinking in terms of the double trail, Harry supposed that The Shadow
would let Shiwan Khan reach the yacht and attack the Golden Master there. But
The Shadow had a better plan; it was to trap Shiwan Khan in his own
headquarters, to prevent him from ever reaching the ship that had a passenger
list of dupes.
     To complete his map of the underground realm, The Shadow made a quick trip
through the tunnel. He found a long passage that ended in a fair-sized
stone-walled storeroom. In one corner were stacks of teakwood boxes, beside a
mammoth iron chest.
     Some boxes contained costumes, beautiful robes of rare silk, many woven of
a golden cloth. In others, The Shadow found odd curios: heavy statuettes, bronze
vases, objects of hand-carved ivory, including boxes of the sort that Shiwan
Khan's messengers delivered.
     There wasn't time to open the great iron chest, which stood five feet high
in its corner, for it was solidly locked. Besides, The Shadow knew what its
contents probably were: spare munitions and weapons that Shiwan Khan kept for
his fighting men.
     Leaving the cul-de-sac, The Shadow returned to a higher level. Following
his own chart, he picked a zigzag course that led him back to the lone passage
which ran beyond the limits of Chinatown.
     Pressing the tricky wall, The Shadow brought it inward, the closed gate
with it. After peering from the house entry, he gave a signal with his
flashlight.
     Hawkeye arrived. To the little spotter The Shadow gave the diagram of the
underground realm, and added complete instructions. Hawkeye sidled away; The
Shadow stepped back into the entry. Descending the steps to the underground
passage, he pressed the lever that swung the gate and wall back into place.


     AGAIN The Shadow was making a rapid journey to the heart of Shiwan Khan's
great burrow. Reaching the door of Lana Luan's room, he opened it softly and
entered.
     Lana Luan was reclining on cushions in the corner. Hearing the door close,
she came to her feet, gave The Shadow a fixed stare.
     Approaching, The Shadow drew a small vial from his cloak, uncorked it and
extended it toward the girl's face. The strong smell of collodion penetrated
the room. The banana odor of the liquid smothered the lighter perfume of lilacs.
     The girl's eyes remained fixed, but her lips were hesitant as they spoke
the mechanical words:
     "I am Lana Luan -"
     Light caught the sparkle of The Shadow's eyes. Under that burning gaze,
the spell of Shiwan Khan faded. The girl heard a whispered tone that echoed
completely through her thoughts:
     "You are Beatrice Chadbury!"
     "Yes!" - Beatrice's tone had changed; it came breathlessly - "Yes! I
remember!"
     "Be ready," The Shadow told her. "You will be needed. Should you meet a
girl named Ming Dwan, take good care of her. She aided you once; it may soon be
your turn to repay her."
     Burning eyes were gone; blackness faded past the closing door of the
boudoir. But the words that The Shadow had uttered remained paramount in
Beatrice's mind. Slowly, she was grasping her actual status, in that room where
a sharper odor than lilacs still pervaded.
     Elsewhere, Dr. Roy Tam was studying a penciled chart that had been
delivered to him, comparing it with a large map of Chinatown. The Chinese
physician was in his office, a telephone at hand. He read a message that
Hawkeye had also brought him; it was in writing that faded, leaving only The
Shadow's silhouette, which also vanished later.
     Tam reached for the telephone.
     In conference with Commissioner Weston and Inspector Cardona, Vic
Marquette was informed that he was wanted on the telephone. He answered the
call, heard a voice that spoke in English but with traces of a Chinese accent.
     Returning to the grillroom of the Cobalt Club, where the conference was
being held, Marquette said:
     "Listen to this."
     Word for word, he repeated what Tam had told him over the wire.
Commissioner Weston sat amazed, scarcely ready to believe. It was Joe Cardona
who arose and snapped to Marquette:
     "What's holding us? Let's go!"
     Through Tam, The Shadow had gained the allies that he wanted. The law was
moving in to aid in the trapping of Shiwan Khan!


     CHAPTER XVII

     THE GREAT DRAGON

     CHINATOWN was in the middle of an extended celebration, one that had
lasted for several days. That afternoon, an Honorable Lion had danced through
the streets, across a hotbed of exploding firecrackers.
     Of course, the Honorable Lion was simply a Chinese in an outlandish lion's
skin. He was part of a very modern parade that included Chinese boy and girl
scouts, along with representatives of other organizations.
     In the past, such celebrations were the cause of much apprehension.
Usually there were rival lions, favored by different groups, and if the
Honorables happened to meet together in one of the narrow streets, plenty of
trouble could result.
     So, this year, a lone lion had danced amid the beat of drums and the crash
of cymbals, to the accompaniment of exploding firecrackers. Tomorrow, another
lion was to strut his stuff, while pleased spectators tossed money into
outstretched banners that were carried along the street - funds for the relief
of homeless folk in China.
     Time was when there had been great displays of fireworks, and huge parades
of many Chinese masked in fantastic costumes representing devils. Sometimes
those costumes had contained paraders who were not thinking in terms of the
celebration, but whose desire was to bury the hatchet - in someone else's back.
     A newer and more sober spirit had replaced the old and dangerous
festivities. Feuds in Chinatown were a thing of the forgotten past. Dr. Tam and
his associates had done much to bring about the present sentiment; but there
were persons - even among that group - who felt regret at the passing of old
traditions.
     Every year, Tam was pressed with petitions to restore some of the older
customs, the argument being that since feuds were gone, no harm could result.
It was well known that Tam had stored away an extensive collection of old
costumes; that if he wished, he could put on the greatest show that Chinatown
had ever seen.
     This evening, the same talk was in the air. It suddenly began to swell,
along with the increasing burst of firecrackers. No idle chatter, this time!
Dr. Tam had called his friends, to tell them the parade would be in order.
Chinatown was united, Dr. Tam believed, and a well-managed celebration would
prove it.
     Some of Tam's men had gone to the garage, to dig up the old costumes and
put them on. Others were along the narrow streets mingling with the expectant
throngs, to make sure that all was well. Squads of uniformed police had arrived
to rope off the sidewalks. A big event was due; hence such precautions were
needed.
     Among those who watched these happenings were certain slant-eyed men whose
expressions showed a sinister satisfaction. Some were roaming the streets;
others gazed from isolated stores. They were residents of Chinatown who had
come under the baleful influence of Shiwan Khan.
     The Golden Master had his spy service throughout the district. Silent men,
very careful of their actions, they had reported everything to Shiwan Khan. They
knew all about the futile search that Tam's workers had made near Loo Dow's. In
tonight's celebration the spies saw a desperate effort on the part of Dr. Tam,
as ridiculous as it was futile.
     Apparently, Tam was trying to win the good will of certain Chinese who did
not approve his newfangled notions. With such men as his friends, Tam probably
supposed that he would eventually gain some lead to Shiwan Khan. But such was
entirely impossible.
     Shiwan Khan's spies formed a select and secret society of their own, who
never talked to anyone outside the ring. In addition, they believed that Tam's
heroic efforts were hopelessly belated. By tomorrow, so these spies understood,
Shiwan Khan and his cortege would be gone from America.


     CHINATOWN, as a whole, was ignorant of Shiwan Khan's presence. All other
matters, small and large, were forgotten when a distant shout told that the
parade was coming in from the outskirts.
     The wave of acclaim swept along the narrow, crooked streets; then, to the
smash of drums and cymbals, the paraders came in sight.
     They were led by a group of grotesque demons and hobgoblins: Chinese
dressed in trailing, fanciful robes, wearing big masks that covered their
entire heads. The masks, themselves, were remarkable contrivances; they had
bulging eyes that rolled when actuated by hidden strings.
     As they advanced, the mummers sped pace as though pressed by others in the
rear. They were dancing, circling along the street, making grimaces with the
mechanical faces. From their robes they were chucking firecrackers to encourage
similar action from the sidewalk throngs. 
     The whole street was crackling with such salutes, while the gleeful crowds
shrieked applause. It was a merry occasion, one that modern Chinatown did not
take too seriously, yet enjoyed to the full. These rampant hobgoblins, so long
in storage, were much more entertaining than the Honorable Lions who had
paraded earlier.
     Then arose a shout that made the windows clatter all along the streets. It
was a tidal wave of human voices, shrilled to the highest possible pitch.
     The Great Dragon had appeared!
     It was weaving along the street, the greatest dragon of them all. It had a
great head that snorted fire through its huge nostrils; a head so great that it
took five men to carry it. Behind the head came the undulating body, twisting
like a mighty sea serpent, a hundred men within its silken coils.
     Despite its ancient origin, the dragon gave a streamlined effect that was
distinctly modern. It was a monster in reality, for the cloth that covered its
articulated framework was too thick for anyone to see the men within it; and
its flanks had trailing drapes that swept the street, hiding the many feet
beneath.
     Observers would have been surprised had they known that Dr. Tan was the
front man in the dragon's head. While others were shooting smoke and flame
through the great nostrils, Tam was looking through peepholes beneath the
dragon's lower jaw, picking the exact route that he wanted.
     The dragon began to zigzag. Its serpentine course carried it toward one
sidewalk, where laughing, screaming spectators spread apart to let it pass.
     Darting across the street, it made for an opposite wall, while its long
flank actually grazed the building wall on the side that it had left.
Scattering persons vacated doorways, giving the dragon more room as it came
along.
     Never had the Great Dragon performed more capably than tonight. Its head
rounded a corner, counting upon the body and tail to follow, which they did.
But the observers, interested chiefly in the fire-breathing head, failed to see
what took place amid the dragon's coils.
     As the flank swept a doorway where a droopy-faced Chinaman was standing in
his shop, it disgorged four men, who came rapidly from beneath its folds.
Stooped low, they drove into the doorway, bowling the astonished Chinese
merchant ahead of them.


     THEY were Americans, those invaders, and they flashed badges in the face
of the amazed merchant. Recognizing them as detectives, the Chinaman made a
grab beneath a counter and brought out a hatchet.
     They took it away from him; while two were suppressing the fellow, the
other pair tore down a curtain and found a thick wooden panel. They chopped
through it with the hatchet, splintering a route to a passage beyond.
     Undulating past a basement restaurant that was empty except for two
drab-looking waiters, the Great Dragon disgorged another group of crouched
invaders. They were Feds, who flashed badges with one hand, while they
brandished automatics with the other.
     Overpowering the waiters, they found the side wall that they wanted.
Bashing away the plaster with gun butts, they came to a steel wall beneath.
They didn't let the barrier stop them.
     Two of them had magnum guns, new-style weapons powerful enough to
penetrate steel. They drove bullets through the wall as if the guns were
riveters. The perforations cut the opening they needed.
     With firecrackers bursting along the street outside, the rapid blasts of
the magnum guns passed unnoticed by the crowds.
     Farther along, detectives were invading another shop marked on the list
that Tam had prepared from The Shadow's chart. That crew had a fire ax; they
made rapid work of another hidden doorway, and started through.
     In fours and fives, detectives and Feds were alternating in their rapid
duty, as the Great Dragon coursed through Chinatown. Never once were they
spotted by Shiwan Khan's spies, except those who were in the buildings. Such
men had no chance to escape, or spread the alarm.
     The Great Dragon still curved along its route. It had started with full
capacity; it could unload fifty men without yielding to the strain. It was
sagging a trifle as it swung past the alley leading to Loo Dow's, but
spectators thought that its droop was part of the act.
     Police had kept all alleys open. The dragon brushed the side walls of this
alley very closely, to release its last and largest quota. Like human torpedoes,
a dozen men shot from beneath the folds at intervals. They were Feds and
detectives, combined.
     They reached the brick wall, probed it for cracks. Finding some, they
quickly drilled holes and inserted charges, working in darkness after the
dragon had passed. They dropped away to the inner end of the alley, waited
while the explosion ripped.
     The blast from the alley was loud enough to be heard throughout that
section; the flames that it coughed were gigantic. Invaders poured through the
smoke that issued from the shattered wall; but people who packed the outer
street knew that something more than firecrackers had caused the detonation.
     Spies of Shiwan Khan declared themselves; shouting for others to join
them, they grouped together and headed into the alley. They didn't notice that
the great dragon had rounded the block and was bearing down upon them. Out from
the head came Dr. Tam, followed by trusty Chinese who issued from the coils.
     With drawn guns, Tam and his men withered the flock of spies by a rapid
rear attack. The few who escaped that gunfire surrendered. Not one could get
through to warn the Golden Master.
     The Shadow's call was heeded; the plan that he ordered had worked. The
domain of Shiwan Khan had received a mass invasion from nearly a dozen
different channels.
     Thanks to the co-operation of Dr. Tam, the law was pouring in its forces
to aid the black-cloaked fighter who had penetrated, alone, to the heart of
crime's domain!


     CHAPTER XVIII

     WITHIN THE THRONE ROOM

     So rapid, so well-timed, was the massed invasion that it caught Shiwan
Khan's servitors unawares. They heard battering sounds from many passages, ran
to see what all the tumult was about. They learned, to their own confusion.
     Submachine guns spoke from shattered outlets, revolvers joined in the
fire. Big Mongols were felled by bullets; witnessing their fate, others fled,
along with scrawny naljorpas, who had been clever enough to wriggle away from
harm.
     The roar of battle brought Shiwan Khan from his throne room. Leaving the
golden door wide, the Unfathomable moved calmly along the passage. He paused at
the empty room belonging to Ming Dwan; then glanced at the closed door opposite.
     Coldly, firmly, he spoke: "Lana Luan."
     The door did not open. Shiwan Khan wrenched it wide. On the floor he saw
the Chinese costume belonging to Lana Luan. It was ripped and trampled.
Beatrice Chadbury, restored to her own self, had torn off that garb of
servitude and shown her hatred for it.
     Shiwan Khan allowed himself the privilege of a scowl. Then, opening a
closet in the corner of the room, he looked for Beatrice's own clothes and
found them gone.
     Despite the approach of battle, Shiwan Khan buried his bearded chin in one
long-fingered hand. He was trying to calculate how his methods had failed. He
knew that only one being could have produced Beatrice's transformation: The
Shadow.
     The din of strife brought him to a further conclusion. Shiwan Khan was
sure that The Shadow had departed, taking Beatrice with him. Battle had been
left to others; therefore, The Shadow's one route must have been the passage
that led beyond the outskirts of Chinatown.
     It was a route that Shiwan Khan could follow. Stepping from the empty
room, he raised a long, penetrating cry for his warriors to hear. Then, with a
stately but rapid stride, the gold-clad fiend headed for the passage that
offered escape.
     His followers came clustering about during his progress. Knowing the many
turns of the underground burrow, they were well ahead of pursuers. Shiwan Khan
sent snakish naljorpas ahead, while he turned to speak with some of the
Mongols. Before the Golden Master could give his intended order, he heard
snarls that told of a new obstacle.
     The naljorpas had paused at the beginning of the lone passage. They were
shooting out their knives with the quick motion that characterized their way of
battle. Bronze daggers, launched in that fashion, usually found a target. This
time, they failed.
     From deep in the corridor the naljorpas were answered by a formidable
laugh; that came with sinister, eerie echoes. Interspersed with the
reverberating mockery were the blasts of an automatic. Staggering naljorpas
reached Shiwan Khan.
     The Shadow had taken over the needed outlet. Having clipped the naljorpas,
he was sure to get the Mongols if they tried to battle him. Strident mockery was
coming closer, indicating that The Shadow wanted to meet Shiwan Khan in person.
     The way things were going, he might have his chance. For the shouts from
many passages told that Feds and police were closing in; that they would take
care of the Mongols while The Shadow handled the Golden Master.


     WITH a fierce snarl to his Mongols, Shiwan Khan forgot his calm. Wheeling
about, he dashed back toward the golden room, issuing orders as he went. But
his Mongols didn't have a chance to obey. Invaders had sighted them, were
shooting at them.
     Taking cover in rooms along the way, the Mongols drew guns and answered
the barrage, while Shiwan Khan reached the throne room alone.
     This was The Shadow's opportunity. Coming from his passage, he was ready
to be the first attacker when the fire of the Mongols lessened. He wanted the
privilege of meeting Shiwan Khan alone, but it was to be denied.
     From a safe niche in the side of the long passage came a girl's frantic
cry. Wheeling about, The Shadow left the scene to the law, in order to learn
why Beatrice had called. He soon saw the reason.
     Another girl was coming in by the passage. It was Ming Dwan, returned from
the yacht. Her arrival at this moment was most untimely, but it had to be taken
into account.
     Speeding past Beatrice's niche, The Shadow gave a quick order as he went
by. Then, halfway along the gloomy corridor, he flattened against the wall and
let Ming Dwan pass.
     Beatrice grabbed the girl, to drag her into cover. It was The Shadow's cue
to swing into sight. He made the move, a rapid, elusive whirl, and as he came he
opened fire in the direction of the outlet.
     Knives whirred amid The Shadow's shots. They were launched by the two
naljorpas, who had returned on Ming Dwan's trail. The Shadow's shots were
blind; whereas the Tibetans had a target, for they saw their whirling foe. It
was a long chance, a double risk that The Shadow had taken in this crisis.
Nevertheless it succeeded.
     One blade, a trifle high, cleaved the brim of The Shadow's hat, carving it
cleanly away. The other, a bit wide, grazed his body as he twisted. It skimmed
his ribs, deflected by his spin, ripping a long slice in his cloak.
     Striking the opposite wall from the speed of his rapid whirl, The Shadow
was off balance long enough for the scrawny men to start their flight. He fired
shots that ricocheted from the walls; thinking his aim was bad, the killers sped
more rapidly.
     They found out the reason for those wide shots as they neared the outlet.
In came a surge of men who threatened to drive the naljorpas back into The
Shadow's range. Hawkeye had seen the scrawny men trail Ming Dwan down into the
passage, and had brought on The Shadow's agents.
     It took the entire squad to subdue the snakish fighters, for the naljorpas
used their long-nailed hands like weapons. It was impossible to slug their
bobbing heads, so the agents settled it with bullets - the only way to dispose
of the strangling hands that dug into their throats.
     Hearing the shots, followed by a piping call from Hawkeye, The Shadow knew
that his agents had won. Reaching Beatrice, he found her struggling with Ming
Dwan. Quickly, The Shadow pinned Ming Dwan's arms behind her and propelled her
along the passage, while she shrieked defiantly.
     Cliff Marsland took prompt custody of the deluded girl. The agents retired
to guard the outer exit, and Beatrice went with them. She knew The Shadow's
method of breaking Shiwan Khan's spell. When Beatrice found time to apply it,
Ming Dwan would be transformed into Myra Reldon, just as Lana Luan had become
Beatrice Chadbury.
     Meanwhile, The Shadow had his own task to perform. He wanted to meet
Shiwan Khan before it was too late. Gunfire had ended from the distant depths
of the Golden Master's burrow. Turning about, The Shadow hurried toward that
focal spot to see how matters stood.
     Already, Vic Marquette and Joe Cardona had ascended the twisty steps that
led to the golden door. With half a dozen stolid supporters behind them, they
were hammering at Shiwan Khan's own portal. If they couldn't smash it with such
methods, they intended to drill it with magnum guns, or blast it open.
     As they hammered, the golden door slid wide.
     Crossing the threshold, with drawn guns, Cardona and Marquette were
followed by their men, who clustered behind them. They had been assured by Tam
that the room itself was solid, with no secret outlets. But Tam had warned them
to lookout for trickery if they found Shiwan Khan inside.
     The Golden Master was there.
     Reclining on his golden throne, his chin propped sidewise on his hands,
Shiwan Khan surveyed the foemen that he had voluntarily admitted. The mighty
master of insidious crime was calm; he seemed in a mood of deep contemplation.
     Yet his fixed eyes must have observed the invaders, for he spoke. His
words were in English, precisely put, with the clear ring of a bell.
     "You have come to take me," said Shiwan Khan, as he raised his
gold-sleeved arms, to show his long hands empty. "Very well, you may enter. I
am ready."


     CHAPTER XIX

     THE WAY OF SHIWAN KHAN

     STRANGELY subtle was the tone of Shiwan Khan. It was emotionless, yet it
carried a singular touch that set the nerves of listeners taut. The law held
the Golden Master powerless, for he was covered by many bristling guns.
Nevertheless, the calmness of the reception was something that promised trouble.
     Marquette was studying the sleeves of the golden robe, Cardona was
wondering if the garment was bulletproof. One expected hidden weapons to come
suddenly into play, the other felt that Shiwan Khan might be immune from harm.
     "Close in on him," growled Vic, to the men behind him, "but watch those
sleeves of his. If we can, we want to take this guy alive."
     "That's just what we're going to do," gruffed Joe, by way of further
advisement. "Jump on him if he gets tough, but don't shoot unless he tries to
make a getaway."
     They pushed forward, all of them. It was then that Shiwan Khan made his
move. Hands still raised, and empty, the Golden Master uncoiled and whipped up
from his throne, voicing a triumphant snarl as he launched, barehanded, toward
the throng.
     With a surge, the eight invaders drove for him with pointing guns. Shiwan
Khan made a crazy twist, half way toward the floor, but did not lose his
balance. Men grabbed for him, but missed. They were lurching dizzily as they
came.
     Twisting among them, Shiwan Khan met the slashes of guns in unaccountable
fashion. He not only dodged those strokes; he actually seemed to control them,
for hands that swung, in his direction were curving away.
     Together, Marquette and Cardona were reeling across the room, past the
golden throne. Striking the wall, they swung about, first one, then the other.
     Vic aimed first, and fired. He missed the weaving figure of the Golden
Master by three feet. Cardona took a steadier shot, but failed by the same
margin.
     Some invisible, unaccountable force was pulling their guns wide. They saw
the leering face of Shiwan Khan, heard his musical laugh strike a harsh discord
as he pushed men away and made for the open door.
     Every one of the invaders had felt the same influence. All were staggering
drunkenly across the room. They were actually pushovers for Shiwan Khan.
     Then, as the Golden Master wrenched free from a tiny, groggy cluster of
men, a black-clad figure launched in through the door. A fierce tone of
sardonic mockery drowned Shiwan Khan's jarring chuckle.
     Turned for his exit, the Golden Master saw the muzzle of a .45 automatic
looming down upon him; the gun was gripped by the gloved fist of The Shadow!
     Bent queerly, Shiwan Khan made a sideward shift. The Shadow stopped
abruptly; his gun tongued flame. It was a close-range shot, the sort that never
should have missed; but the bullet was wide by the fraction of an inch. Its heat
fanned the side of Shiwan Khan's wide forehead.
     The Shadow had made just one misstep, but it was enough to preserve the
life of Shiwan Khan.
     In that one step, The Shadow had guessed the riddle of the golden throne
room. Solid within the cubical walls of inclosing brick, it had no trapdoors or
secret outlets. As The Shadow had surmised, the golden room was a box.
     But this was the first time that The Shadow had actually entered the room.
     In its entire construction, the chamber was a clever snare. Its floor
seemed level, the walls were perpendicular, but the whole thing was tilted at
an angle. There was a slant to the curved steps outside that made the illusion
perfect.
     Anyone entering the room for the first time took it for granted that the
place was normal. Actually, it had a slant of its own that threw people off
balance unless they knew the secret of its tilt. That was why Shiwan Khan
always sat in leaning attitude on the golden throne, why persons like Beatrice
and Myra had felt dizzy when they entered.
     They had tried to stand upright, but it wasn't possible. Later, influenced
by Shiwan Khan, they had entered and left in the fashion of the naljorpas,
changing their balance to conform to the room's crazy construction.
     Trapped by Feds and police, Shiwan Khan had coaxed them into an attack,
knowing that the faster they came the harder they would fall. Aiming guns had
gone wide, because the hands that held them shifted. Even The Shadow, by his
one misstep, had missed fire.


     FROM the doorway, Shiwan Khan hurled a knife that seemed to travel on a
curve, bending in to reach the cloaked fighter's heart. It missed, for a very
simple reason.
     Shiwan Khan, knowing the room's tilt, had made allowance for it but he had
also figured that The Shadow would still be off balance, as the others were.
     The latter part of the calculation was wrong. Without moving his feet, The
Shadow had shifted position. He was standing at an odd angle, tilting, farther
toward the true perpendicular. Eyes half shut, he was gauging how things were
by his sense of balance alone.
     As the blade missed The Shadow's upswaying form, Shiwan Khan vaulted the
rail of the steps outside. It was well for the Golden Master that he chose such
quick departure. The Shadow opened fire straight through the center of the
doorway an instant after Shiwan Khan had gone.
     Starting pursuit, The Shadow was followed by the others. By the time they
reached the doorway, Shiwan Khan had disappeared, and The Shadow was almost to
the corner that the fleeing fiend had turned. But there was a new sound now
within this strange domain. It was a rising roar, accompanied by a vivid, ruddy
flicker.
     The whole place was ablaze!
     Flames were sweeping in from the passage that Shiwan Khan had taken. By
the time that Vic Marquette reached the corner, a wall of fire blocked him. He
swung toward another passage, to be met by an onrush of leaping, fiery tongues.
     Scattered Mongols had introduced a new element to drive away the foes of
Shiwan Khan. Knowing that such was due, the Golden Master had waited coolly in
his throne room, hoping that his enemies would be trapped. It was The Shadow's
arrival that had brought them to their senses in time to escape.
     Joe Cardona had spied an open passage and was shouting to the others. He
was heard above the roar of the rising holocaust; when Cardona started along
the only route to safety, the others followed, with Marquette bringing up the
rear. In his flight, Vic hesitated and looked back, but only for an instant.
     He was thinking of The Shadow, but he saw that there was no chance to
follow along the cloaked fighter's trail. It occurred to Vic, however, that The
Shadow would be safe. Close behind Shiwan Khan, the crime avenger could use the
Golden Master's own route, wherever it might lead.
     With that surmise, Marquette took after the others. As they fled, they
heard the fire roaring in behind them like a great flood of doom. But they were
through a shattered exit before it reached them. Though foiled in their
attempted capture of Shiwan Khan, these representatives of the law had at least
escaped unscathed.
     Meanwhile, The Shadow was finding things less easy than Marquette had
supposed.
     Through cataracts of flame, he was keeping to the trail of Shiwan Khan,
but at no point did he get a chance to drill the Golden Master with a bullet.
With fire as the background, Shiwan Khan was wearing the perfect attire. His
golden robe blended with the flames as The Shadow's black cloak merged with
darkness.
     Only by fleeting glimpses did The Shadow manage to keep along the trail.
Shiwan Khan turned corner after corner, picking his path uncannily despite the
heat and scorch of the ever-increasing fire. At times he reversed his course,
actually leading The Shadow back through the flames.
     Somewhere, the route would have to end, either in safety or in doom!
Shiwan Khan must have recognized the fact, for he suddenly took a straightaway
course, leaping across a gap in the floor where flames formed a blinding screen.
     The master crook was through the fire, and The Shadow was close behind
him. Still imbued with the desire to end the flight of Shiwan Khan, The Shadow
took aim while he leaped through the screen of flame, tugged the trigger of his
automatic the instant that his feet struck the passage floor.
     That shot failed. The Shadow didn't find the solid footing that he needed.
Charred timbers had crunched beneath Shiwan Khan's weight, they gave when The
Shadow struck them. The whole floor caved in, jarring the aiming gun upward.
     Amid a mighty puff of flame, The Shadow was carried downward along with
burning beams. He struck heavily on the stone floor of a lower passage; a chunk
of flaming woodwork glanced from his head.
     Flattened, The Shadow lay motionless, until the crackle of the fire
aroused him. It was as loud as the shout of the applauding crowd that had
welcomed the Great Dragon's return to Chinatown.
     Slowly, painfully, as if hunting a place to die, The Shadow crawled
forward, seeking safety somewhere in this fearful pit where the rain of flaming
firebrands cast a hideous, torchlike glow upon the scene.


     CHAPTER XX

     SHIWAN KHAN ESCAPES

     IT was the greatest fire that Chinatown had ever known, that holocaust
started by the desperate servitors of Shiwan Khan. They had chosen the proper
setting for a terrible conflagration, for many of the buildings that held the
concealed passages were antiquated structures of the rabbit-hutch variety.
     Among the narrow streets, thousands of Chinese were fleeing the flames, as
if seeking refuge from a mighty volcano. All along the curve of Dovers Street
flames were spurting from every window and roaring up through roofs. Showers of
sparks that fell in huge eruption were carrying to the corner of Mott and Pell,
the principal streets of Chinatown.
     Police had given way to firemen, who were responding to repeated alarms.
The smoke-eaters were pouring tons of water on the sea of flame, from a
respectable distance. When they pressed too close, their rubber coats began to
melt.
     Residents of the section had managed to get clear, but the firemen were
bringing up nets, expecting figures to leap from windows. They had been told
that persons were trapped somewhere in the tremendous blaze. But even when the
walls began to crumble, no survivors appeared.
     They had found a different refuge.
     Traveling down a sheltered stairway behind the golden throne room, Shiwan
Khan had reached the damp passage that lay below the basement level. He wasn't
alone; several of his Mongols and a few surviving naljorpas joined him.
     Scattered by the law's invasion, those servants had made for this refuge
after they had set the fire.
     Through the passage, side-stepping burning embers of wood that had fallen
in the corridor beyond, Shiwan Khan led the way to his storeroom. It was badly
wrecked, for its roof had caved in and the whole floor was in flames.
     Kicking the burning brands aside, Shiwan Khan reached the wall and
examined his precious teakwood boxes. Some were scorched, but all were intact,
which pleased Shiwan Khan. He valued his many robes, and was glad of this
chance to save them.
     Pointing, to the huge iron coffer, he told the Mongols to move it, which
four of them did, with difficulty. When they shoved it too near the flames,
Shiwan Khan snarled and pounded them with clenched fists. He didn't want the
inflammable contents to explode too soon. The Mongols pushed the coffer to a
safer place.
     Behind the five-foot iron box was an opening in the wall, almost as high
as the coffer itself. It was large enough to admit the teakwood boxes, which
measured four feet in each dimension. Stooping, Shiwan Khan went through the
outlet; his Mongols followed, dragging the teak boxes along.
     This was one route that The Shadow had not uncovered while roaming Shiwan
Khan's premises. It led to an abandoned water main, which the little caravan
followed for a few blocks. They finally came to a thin wall, which Shiwan Khan
smashed with his shoulder, taking them into a cellar.
     The other side of the plywood wall was faked to look like plaster. The
Golden Master and his men were in the cellar of a vacant house east of
Chinatown, and beyond the fire lines.


     THEY reached an alley. The brilliance from the flaming sky produced a
revealing glare that did not please Shiwan Khan, although it had been caused by
his own design. He managed to crowd his Mongols into a darkened place barely
large enough to hide them; then he sent the naljorpas ahead to scout.
     A clang came along the street, from just beyond the alley. Peering out,
Shiwan Khan saw an odd-looking fire wagon slackening to a halt. It was an
insurance patrol ordered to Chinatown, only to find that it couldn't be of any
use.
     Shiwan Khan gave his Mongols the word. The mighty mob surged out and took
the patrol by storm.
     They didn't use their knives; they simply tossed the truck crew to the
street and piled the boxes into the captured vehicle. The patrol clanged on its
way, carrying a motley bunch of occupants. A big Mongol was at the wheel, with
the others facing each other on the lengthwise seats in back.
     Shiwan Khan and the naljorpas were also passengers, riding safely through
groups of police, who allowed the insurance patrol free passage. 
     As always, Shiwan Khan saw that the course was reversed. He and his
companions ditched the vehicle when they reached a dark street near a subway
entrance. The direction that they took on foot was eastward, through devious
routes that the naljorpas picked for them.
     All was dark in this vicinity, particularly when they reached the water
front near the East River. The launch was waiting at its dock; the teak boxes
were loaded on board, and Shiwan Khan followed with his crew. The launch glided
northward, passing police boats, as it had before.
     The trip on the launch was killing the trail completely. As for the
destination, the Nautilus, Shiwan Khan was quite sure that The Shadow could not
have learned about the yacht.
     In fact, things would have been very much to the Golden Master's liking
had he known the exact details. One man did know that the Nautilus was being
taken over by Shiwan Khan, but the man in question wasn't in a position to make
use of his knowledge.
     He was Harry Vincent. As a passenger on the yacht, he was as badly off as
Shiwan Khan's own dupes.
     There were others, agents of The Shadow, who could follow the trail as far
as the little dock; for Moe, the taxi driver, knew that it led there. But they
didn't have a link beyond. As for Ming Dwan, Shiwan Khan felt no concern over
her case.
     Even if Ming Dwan came out of her trance, she couldn't offer evidence.
Under the influence of Shiwan Khan, her trip to the Nautilus had been a total
blank.
     As for The Shadow, his case was least troublesome of all. Shiwan Khan had
seen him plunge into a pit of flame, taking a fiery journey from which there
could be no return. His own adventures in the torrid holocaust convinced Shiwan
Khan that The Shadow could not possibly have survived.
     When the launch reached the Nautilus, Shiwan Khan was met atop the
gangplank steps by Marabar Guru. Passengers had gone below; like a great prince
arriving incognito, Shiwan Khan was conducted to the owner's cabin, where Felix
Bryson awaited.
     From the moment of his entry, Shiwan Khan held absolute command. With
profound bows to the Golden Master, Bryson turned over ownership of the
Nautilus, and all that went with it.
     Outside, the creak of davits told that the launch was being hoisted to the
deck of the yacht, so that Shiwan Khan's precious boxes could be removed and
stored away by the men he had brought with him.
     While that was being done, Shiwan Khan spoke a command that Bryson relayed
to the yacht crew.
     Smoothly, its motors purring, the yacht got under way and glided in the
direction of the East River. It was reversing the course that the launch had
recently taken, but it did not intend to stop at any pier.
     The Nautilus had her clearance papers. She was going past Manhattan,
putting out to sea!
     Along a watery boulevard, Shiwan Khan was escaping openly, carrying more
than sixty missing persons for whom the law had hunted high and wide! 


     UNDER the lighted streaks that were big bridges; past teeming shores where
the law's search still persisted; past police boats, ferries, tugs and other
craft, the streamlined Nautilus slid unsuspected toward the lower Bay.
     Ahead was a welcoming blanket of gathering fog. Other ship owners might
dread that mist, but Shiwan Khan appreciated it. Filtering whitely through the
darkness, it was like the shroud of a beckoning ghost that offered to convoy
the Golden Master on his strange voyage.
     There were thicker billows of white that Shiwan Khan appreciated even
more, as he turned toward the yachts stern. Still clad in his fire-scorched
robe of gold, Shiwan Khan looked back at the clouds of smoke that rolled above
fire-gorged Chinatown.
     As he watched, the Golden Master saw a vast display of fiery tongues lick
upward in those billows, making a last lash toward Manhattan's glowing sky. He
heard the roll of a thunderous roar that must have shuddered Chinatown like an
earthquake shock.
     It was the blast from the munitions in the iron coffer that the Mongols
had left in the storeroom, near the pit where The Shadow had fallen. To Shiwan
Khan, that last flare was more than a mere beacon waving him on his voyage.
     The flames betokened a mighty funeral pyre, completing the doom of the
only foe that Shiwan Khan had ever feared:
     The Shadow.


     CHAPTER XXI

     THE HAND FROM THE PAST

     MILES out to sea, the Nautilus was a creeping shape of gray studded with
lines of lights, that glowed dimly through the thickening fog. Her captain, a
man long in the employ of Felix Bryson, was keeping the yacht at half speed,
along a course that shipping seldom followed.
     Word had spread through the vessel that Shiwan Khan was on board. The
passengers, sworn to serve the Golden Master, were eager to meet their mighty
chief. To some, he was Shiwan Khan; to others, Shiwan Tulku. The exact title
did not matter; the two were interchangeable to anyone who fully acknowledged
the Golden Master's sway.
     One cabin remained totally dark, for no passenger had been assigned to it.
The cabin was the one where lumbering Mongols had stored their master's teakwood
boxes.
     Some of those squarish chests held costumes; others were filled with
weightier objects, of bronze and other metals. The Mongols had carried them
with due allowance as to weight - two men to each heavy box, one to each
lighter chest.
     In the gloom of the cabin, a box lid lifted. It had been up a half inch
all the while, wedged in that position by a jamming chunk of cloth. No one had
noticed the cloth in question for its hue was not golden. It was dark, like the
color of the teakwood.
     Pushed wide, the lid allowed a figure to roll from the box - a shape that
was barely discernible in the deck-light glow that issued feebly through the
cabin's porthole. A low tone, more like a sigh than a laugh, quivered in the
darkness. There was a dull thud as the black-clad form sank to the floor. The
thud was the thump of a gun wrapped in the folds of a cloak.
     The Shadow had come along with Shiwan Khan! 
     Back in the pit beneath the Golden Master's lair, The Shadow had crawled
along the only route that offered: to the storeroom that contained the teakwood
boxes.
     There, with more flames licking down upon him, he had sought temporary
refuge. He had flung off robes from one of the teakwood boxes, and crawled
inside the improvised shelter.
     The blaze that had greeted Shiwan Khan and the Mongols had risen because
of new fuel that it had rapidly consumed: the robes that The Shadow had tossed
to their fate!
     His strength strained far beyond the breaking point, The Shadow had lapsed
into unconsciousness while boxed within a room that had reached a furnace heat.
Even the trip to the yacht had not revived him. Here, miles at sea, he was
finding his senses for the first time since the beginning of his journey.
     Reaching a porthole, The Shadow wrenched it open, drank great drafts of
cooling, fog-laden air. His whispered laugh came steadier, then faded.
Footsteps were lumbering in the passage outside his door. Wheeling across the
cabin, The Shadow closed the box that he had occupied, slid a light one on top
of it.
     He was behind the boxes when two Mongols entered. Ready with a gun, The
Shadow heard them fumbling with the boxes. They lifted the lid of the topmost
one, found robes inside it. Soon, they clamped the box shut again.
     Shiwan Khan had sent them to bring him another robe. Having found one in
the first box in which they looked, the Mongols had seen no need to open other
chests.
     When the Mongols were gone, The Shadow returned to the porthole. His
strength recuperating steadily, he listened to sounds along the deck. The whole
yacht seemed astir; The Shadow could understand why.
     Shiwan Khan's fresh robe was the explanation. The Golden Master intended
to hold a conclave with the dupes who were going with him on this journey. He
wanted proper attire for the occasion.
     And again, The Shadow's laugh throbbed the darkness.


     AWAY from the darkened cabin, people were assembling in the dining saloon
of the Nautilus. The room was large enough to accommodate all sixty passengers,
with space for more. Its portholes were tightly shut, for the saloon was
air-conditioned. Its coolness was as comfortable as the subdued lights which
illuminated it.
     Among the persons at the tables was Felix Bryson. He had given up his
position as owner of the yacht, and regarded himself an ordinary passenger.
Near him sat Ralph Fayden, the inventor; across the saloon Hiram Selsby, the
gray-haired chemist, was chatting with other persons.
     Those three were but few of the many distinguished passengers. This throng
consisted of individuals who were tops in intelligence and personality. They
were the hand-picked leaders in American affairs chosen by Shiwan Khan as
fitting candidates for higher posts in his realm of Xanadu.
     They had relaxed from their tense condition; still, the influence of
Shiwan Khan was traceable in their faces. All were engaged in one subject of
conversation: the glorious times that would await them in the mystic realm
where Shiwan Khan was supreme.
     One man alone avoided that discussion. He was Harry Vincent. The Shadow's
agent was uneasy.
     Harry knew that something must have happened to his chief. Soon, Harry
would be facing Shiwan Khan, and he feared that the Golden Master would be a
keener judge of faces than Marabar Guru. Once picked out from the throng, Harry
could be forced to show his hand. He knew that his strength would be puny,
worthless.
     Only one being could make a worth-while thrust into this ironclad
situation: The Shadow.
     Yet Harry wondered how his chief would handle the situation, if present.
On this yacht, as in his gilded domain, Shiwan Khan was master, surrounded by
dozens of followers who saw as he did, eye to eye!
     A stir swept the dining saloon. The door had opened: Shiwan Khan was on
the threshold. Resplendent in a new robe of gold, with colorful ornamentations,
the great ruler stood motionless as his new subjects came to their feet and gave
him loud acclaim. 
     Moving to a separate table, Shiwan Khan sat down and faced the group.
Following him came Marabar Guru, who perched himself on cushions beside his
master's table.
     The guru lighted a curious brazen lamp that raised a wavering flame. It
was fed by a sweet-scented oil that threw an exotic fragrance through the room.
The thickness of the atmosphere did not increase, however, because of the
air-conditioning system, which kept the fragrance at a uniform level.
     Stewards were bringing in refreshments - choice foods that would suit the
palates of Shiwan Khan's recruits. A cryptic smile showed on the Golden
Master's slitted lips. He was making allowance for the tastes that his new
followers had cultivated. Gradually he would wean them from such viands and put
them on a spare diet, the sort that would be necessary to their future.
     There were no drinks among the refreshments. Shiwan Khan had dispensed
with liquors, even with coffee, as a starter in the course of training that his
chosen followers were to undergo.
     "Once I planned great conquest," spoke Shiwan Khan. "I believed - and
still believe that the world would improve under the rule of a single mind. My
golden city of Xanadu, hidden beneath the mountains of Sinkiang, was to be the
capital of one great empire. Unreachable by enemies, I could be secure, while
my own forces spread their power everywhere."
     Then, with a wave of his long-fingered hand, Shiwan Khan dismissed that
dream of conquest.
     "The world is not yet ready," he told his listeners. "It is better that I
should deal with minds in harmony with my own. In Xanadu, we shall dwell for
centuries, creating ourselves into superminds such as the world has never
before known! Yes, for centuries! Because I, as tulku, not as khan, have found
the secret of prolonging life.
     "Perhaps" - his tone carried a chime - "I shall solve the riddle of
perpetual life. If so, we shall dwell in Xanadu forever, while nations beat
themselves into ruin and starve into oblivion. Then, when misery has taken
precedence over ambition, the world will listen. We shall dominate, as the
creators of a new civilization!"


     THERE were shouts of "Kha Khan!" others of "Tulku!" To his amazement,
Harry found that he was joining in. A hope was overwhelming him - the hope that
he would be permitted to remain with these chosen followers of Shiwan Khan.
     "The path will not be easy," declared Shiwan Khan. "You must rid
yourselves of the restraints of ordinary life, in order to understand the
higher existence. You must learn the mystery of the samadhi, or trance
condition, in order to learn the perils of the bardo, that strange land beyond
this life.
     "Each of you will become a delog, one who has returned from beyond. With
fear of the future banished, you will understand what this life holds and be
ready for my teachings. Already, each of you has been given a kavacha, the
silver talisman all mystics recognize."
     As Shiwan Khan paused, listeners began to raise their hands, showing the
silver tokens that he mentioned. Harry was fortunately able to do the same; but
as he looked about, he saw Ralph Fayden fumbling, looking for a token that he
didn't have.
     Even the stewards held kavachas. They were standing within the swinging
doors that led to the yacht's pantry. Like the passengers, those crew members
were staring fixedly at Shiwan Khan, drinking in his words of honeyed promise.
     The closed doors blocked view of a black-clad figure that had arrived in
the pantry beyond. Through the crack, The Shadow was watching the scene that
Shiwan Khan dominated. He noted the sweet aroma that filled the saloon, knew
that it was important to the Golden Master's mental sway. Turning about, The
Shadow saw exactly what he wanted: a panel in the pantry wall.
     He opened the panel, to reveal heavily frosted pipes, part of the yacht's
refrigerating equipment. Drawing an automatic, he muffled it in his cloak,
jamming the muzzle squarely against a pipe. His free arm lifted across his
face, The Shadow fired.
     The shot was heard, but it did not matter. Wheeling away, The Shadow swung
wide the swing doors and leveled his .45 across the heads of diners, straight
for Shiwan Khan. With The Shadow's smashing, spectacular entry came something
else: a deluge of overwhelming fumes that produced utter chaos.
     The Shadow had loosed a pipeload of ammonia into the dining saloon. Its
powerful, stifling pungency was drowning the mild perfume that had hitherto
predominated
     Stricken by the fumes, diners were leaping for the portholes, smashing
them. Like The Shadow, Shiwan Khan was burying his face in his golden robe,
while Marabar Guru was clapping a cushion across his nostrils and eyes.
     From the protecting folds of the muffling cloak came The Shadow's
challenge: a laugh that told his purpose.
     The Shadow had found his chance to ruin the final schemes of Shiwan Khan!


     CHAPTER XXII

     THE HOST DIVIDED

     A HAND from the past had struck, to break the grip of Shiwan Khan. In
loosing that deluge of fumes, The Shadow accomplished a master blow. He proved
that Shiwan Khan was human.
     Temporarily, Shiwan Khan was out of combat; so, for that matter, was The
Shadow. Both were blinded by the terrific influx of ammonia fumes, as were the
others in the saloon. But the smashed portholes, along with the
air-conditioning apparatus, were carrying off the devastating fumes.
     The showdown would be next.
     Blindly, The Shadow was keeping his .45 in Shiwan Khan's direction.
Raising his eyes, he blinked to clear them. He could see Shiwan Khan, but he
did not fire. No shot could be sure under these circumstances; and if one
missed, The Shadow's own cause would be lost.
     It was better to appeal to the host of dupes. They were prepared to listen
to The Shadow. They could hear, even though they were yet unable to see.
     The potency of Shiwan Khan's hypnotism could not compete with any
staggering effect upon the human senses. The cue to that had been the meeting,
between George Endle and Marabar Guru.
     In the style taught by Shiwan Khan, the guru had tried to remain
unnoticed, through a trance condition, but Endle had seen him. Again, Marabar
Guru had tried to paralyze Endle with one of the forceful shocks that Tibetan
mystics could produce. In that, the guru had also failed. The reason was
simple. Endle had been drinking too much before he came to Fayden's room.
     Realizing that alcohol had rendered Endle immune, The Shadow had used
collodion, with its content of ether, to awaken the entranced Lana Luan. The
method had restored Beatrice Chadbury to her waking senses, proving The
Shadow's theory.
     Here, on the Nautilus, he had loosed the ship's ammonia supply, knowing
that the powerful vapor would produce a similar result.
     The ammonia fumes were clearing. So were the minds of the persons who had
inhaled those fumes.
     Like The Shadow, they could see Shiwan Khan. They saw him as an ordinary
mortal, a crouching man garbed in rather tawdry gold, whose face seemed to wear
its ugly expression only by an effort of its owner. As for Marabar Guru, he was
simply a squatting Hindu, as much a fake as his master.
     Listeners heard The Shadow's mocking tone.
     "Those talismans that you hold are worthless," he told them. "They are
charms against evil only because conniving naljorpas have agreed not to harm
the persons who display them. A kavacha means safety for travelers to Tibet,
for such travelers have paid the price.
     "Shiwan Khan has power, of a sort, as do the creatures who serve him. But
it is not the power of tulku. It is a mesmeric influence, long practiced in the
Orient, that produces telepathic ability. Anyone can match it, through the
proper form of practice."
     The Shadow spoke with a tone of confidence, indicating that he was
practiced in the method that he mentioned. To intelligent listeners, such as
these, he had chosen the most forceful form of argument. To clinch his victory,
but one step more.
     He could show these dupes that Shiwan Khan was human, by letting them
complete the capture of the Golden Master!
     "Shiwan Khan awaits!" taunted The Shadow. "Let him show his power when you
try to take him!"


     A DOZEN men sprang for the Golden Master. Frantically, Shiwan Khan thrust
out his long hands, hoping to stop them with numbing shocks. Marabar Guru was
using the same system, but both were merely going through the motions.
     No longer did these dupes believe in Shiwan Khan's imaginary powers. They
knew that his force was mental, not physical, and their own minds were able to
combat it. Shiwan Khan was buried beneath a surge of captors.
     In that moment, which seemed to carry absolute defeat, Shiwan Khan showed
his genius. Floored, entirely in the grasp of bold, unflinching captors, Shiwan
Khan remembered two things.
     First: he was temporarily safe from The Shadow; again, there were others
present besides these fighters who had dared to attack him. His mind snapped up
the thought that he could put The Shadow in a similar plight by calling, on
those who still hesitated!
     Uncanny in his guesses as to which dupes might yet be loyal, Shiwan Khan
shrieked promises - not of long life in the happy city of Xanadu, but of
material rewards that his followers had forgotten.
     He was shouting that Fayden could have his room, with its walls of jade.
He was calling to Selsby, reminding him of Bronzium. To others he was promising
gold, jewels, whatever they might desire.
     Hearing those utterances, The Shadow started forward. Before he could
wrest his own allies away, to get at Shiwan Khan, others pounced upon him. Amid
mad battle cries the dining saloon became the fighting ground of a furious,
milling throng - a host divided, half for The Shadow, half for Shiwan Khan!
     The leaders in that fray were separated. At moments, The Shadow tried to
aim shots toward the golden figure of Shiwan Khan; but, always, figures
intervened. Once, Shiwan Khan tried to hurl a knife, when he saw cloaked
shoulders and a hat with a sliced brim above them. Then closing fighters
spoiled the opportunity.
     Ardent in The Shadow's behalf was a burly, shock-haired man, Professor
Arthur Graydon. A student of ancient languages, he had been promised access to
long-lost Sanskrit manuscripts which Shiwan Khan claimed to own. Graydon had
received specimen pages in an ivory casket; but he doubted, how, that Shiwan
Khan possessed the rest.
     Graydon was rallying other intellectuals, who proved themselves men of
brawn as well as brain. But on his side Shiwan Khan had such men as Fayden and
Selsby, plus one other, the greatest fanatic of them all. Shiwan Khan's most
loyal ally was Felix Bryson, the man to whom he had promised nothing!
     Factions were separating as they brawled, trying to leave the dining
saloon by opposite doors.
     Ahead of them went Marabar Guru, off to rally the naljorpas and the
fighting Mongols. From the other door squirmed Harry Vincent, who knew that he
could gather allies from the yacht crew.
     During his sojourn on the Nautilus, Harry had guessed that certain members
of the personnel were merely following regular orders, rather than the commands
of Shiwan Khan.
     The fight rolled to the deck, where The Shadow. wrenching clear of many
hands, at last found his chance to bear down on Shiwan Khan. Before he could
take aim at the Golden Master, he saw naljorpas swinging into action, prepared
to murder anyone to whom Shiwan Khan might point.
     Whipping a second gun from beneath his cloak, The Shadow gave those
scrawny killers a double hail of bullets, from two barrels that carried sharper
stabs than any knife. Their daggers clattering from their bony fists, the
naljorpas sprawled about the deck.
     Big Mongols, driving in to aid Shiwan Khan, were intercepted by the crew
members that Harry had rallied. Not expecting such interference, the Mongols
were outflanked. Some fell; the rest made for the fo'c's'le. Keeping a screen
of loyal followers between himself and The Shadow, Shiwan Khan retreated in the
same direction.


     FROM amidships to the stern, the yacht was under The Shadow's full
control. At his command; many hands were lowering the launches, two at the side
davits, a third at the stern. Those smaller boats were sufficient to carry the
thirty-odd passengers and the crew members who were on The Shadow's side.
     But the black-cloaked fighter still hoped to take over the yacht itself.
He was weaving forward, while Harry was getting the others clear.
     By advancing alone, The Shadow evidenced his contempt for Shiwan Khan.
Just as he had won over half the dupes by such tactics, so he could impress
some of the rest. Meanwhile, he was making sure that the persons who had been
redeemed were safe.
     The launches were in the water when The Shadow reached the bridge. By the
glare of spotlights slicing through the fog, observers from below could see The
Shadow. Harry was at the bow of the foremost launch; he watched his chief
approach the bridge with drawn gun that probed for Shiwan Khan.
     Suddenly, the Golden Master bobbed into sight, his hands raised but his
smile serene. Beside him was Hiram Selsby, grinning in apish fashion. The
chemist was holding a wooden block which was mounted with an electric switch.
     "Be cautious, Ying Ko," Shiwan Khan advised The Shadow, dryly. "Selsby is
ready to touch off an explosion that will blow this ship to fragments! What
will it profit you to end your life along with mine? There are others" - he
gestured to the close-packed followers around him - "who would die. It is not
your way, Ying Ko, to deprive innocent victims of the right to live."
     The Shadow paused, expecting a further proposition. It came. Pointing to
the rail, Shiwan Khan spoke.
     "Keep at a distance, Ying Ko," he suggested. "I shall make no interruption
while you speak from there. If others choose to join you, they are welcome. You
will do me a favor, Ying Ko, by weeding out the faint in heart. I want only
ardent followers in Xanadu."
     Behind the tone lay the great ego of Shiwan Khan. The Shadow decided to
put it to the test. He retired to the rail, but all the while he kept a gun
trained on Shiwan Khan, expecting some treacherous move.
     The stroke came, but Shiwan Khan was too crafty to supply it in person.
The Shadow looked quickly upward, to see a figure launching, itself from beside
the funnel, just behind the bridge.
     It was Marabar Guru, coming like a living arrow, his face leering as he
dived. Out ahead, a long blade of bronze was shafting for The Shadow's heart, a
brown fist gripping the handle, to guide the point in whichever direction The
Shadow wheeled!
     In the split seconds of that death-dealing dive, The Shadow took the one
direction that the guru did not expect. Hand on the rail, he vaulted upward,
flinging his body high in air.
     The lunge carried him above the knife point by scant inches, but The
Shadow did not travel high enough to clear the free hand of Marabar Guru as it
clawed for his cloak.
     Twisted across the rail, The Shadow plunged along with his foe. Watchers
saw the guru make a frantic stab with the bronze dagger; they also spied the
accompanying jab of flame that came from The Shadow's gun. Then the locked
forms struck the fog-laden water, and went beneath the surface.


     THE Nautilus was in motion, bells were clanging, but Shiwan Khan and
others had hurried to the rail. Like Harry and the others in the foremost
launch, they saw the turbaned head of Marabar Guru come up from the ocean's
surface.
     A wild cheer echoed along the yacht's rail; it faded as a leering face
tilted backward and stared straight up, with sightless eyes. Marabar Guru was
dead, a bullet in his heart. Nor had his bronze knife found its intended victim.
     Another head appeared, wearing a slouch hat with a slashed brim. Long arms
were in motion, coming from cloaked shoulders. Harry and others in the launch
were reaching out to drag The Shadow on board. A dripping gun still in his
hand, The Shadow turned to look for the Nautilus.
     The yacht was gone, save for the last glimmers of its stern lights, which
seemed to trickle off through the fog. Speedier than the launches, it was sure
to escape in that dense blanket that covered the open sea. The launches had but
one course: to return to shore, guiding by their compasses.
     The fog still echoed with a maddened glee from many voices. The shout that
faded at the death of Marabar Guru had been raised again by those who were happy
to be safe with Shiwan Khan. In that last lapse of laughter, The Shadow could
hear the chimelike chuckle of the Golden Master, carrying like a final note.
     From the launch, The Shadow answered that gleeful outcry with a strange
laugh of his own. It carried far, a mocking tone meant for Shiwan Khan. Then it
sobered into a mirthless tone that trailed to nothingness, bringing shudders
even from those who had accepted The Shadow's rescue and were with him on the
launch.
     They sensed the pity in that laugh. Pity for those who had gone with the
Golden Master to his realm of Xanadu. They had chosen their course; The Shadow
could not stay them. But their future, dependent upon the promises of Shiwan
Khan, was a thing of grave doubt.
     As for Shiwan Khan himself, The Shadow's laugh was full of challenge; not
for the present, but for the future. It was a double prophecy that the Golden
Master could well heed.
     It mean that when Shiwan Khan returned to America he would find The Shadow
ready, that their next meeting would not result in divided victory, but in death.
     The Shadow was ever willing to stake his life upon any course that could
bring doom to Shiwan Khan!


     THE END