THE door of the elevator slid open at the fortieth floor. Doctor Palermo stepped out. He paused while he looked at the silent, calm-faced operator.
The man was apparently forty years of age. He wore an expression of indifference. His pale-gray eyes expressed no interest as they met the physician’s gaze.
“You are a new man here?” asked Doctor Palermo.
“On duty a few days, sir,” came the reply.
“What is your name?”
“Burbank, sir.”
“From now on, Burbank,” said Palermo, “do not bring the elevator to this floor, unless I summon you.
That is a rule of the apartment house. I chose the fortieth floor so that I would not be disturbed.
“I want no visitors tonight. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The elevator door closed. Doctor Palermo, with a short laugh, twisted the push button beside the elevator door. The button screwed tight.
In so doing, it operated a secret mechanism which the physician had never before utilized. Until he should choose to release the button, it would be impossible for an elevator to come above the thirty-ninth floor.
Palermo rang the bell of his apartment. There was no response. The physician drew a peculiar key from his pocket and inserted it in a crevice between decorations of the door. The barrier opened.
Palermo stepped into the apartment. He stumbled over the bound form of Hassan. He evidenced no great surprise.
From the inside pocket of his full-dress coat, he drew a folding knife. He opened the instrument and cut the straps that bound the Arab. Hassan rose sheepishly.
“He came tonight?” questioned Palermo, in the language familiar to his servant.
The Arab nodded.
Palermo waited a moment; then pointed to the telephone. Hassan nodded to indicate that the instrument had been ringing.
Palermo laughed. He beckoned to his servant to follow him.
They went to the sliding panel. Doctor Palermo gave the finger snap. The opening appeared. The two men ascended to the Chinese room.
Palermo instantly observed the black-clad form that lay, face down, upon the floor, its arms outstretched.
The evil smile began to play upon the physician’s lips. It became a leer as the man turned and surveyed the image of Chong, which still stared steadily at the body on the rug.
The master spoke in a strange tongue. The idol came to life. It clambered from its perch and disappeared through a gap in the tapestries.
Palermo pressed his hand against the wall. A panel slid back. A carrier moved forward, bringing the genuine bronze image to the top of the pedestal. The metal idol was a perfect replica of the hideous dwarf who had just gone.
PALERMO removed his coat and clapped his hands. Hassan came forward with the red robe that bore the golden dragon.
Palermo moved to the throne; there he discovered that the mechanism had been operated. He clapped his hands. Hassan went to the throne, to adjust it to its former condition. Palermo took his place on the throne.
Now he began to evidence real interest in Chong’s victim.
Palermo had withheld his curiosity regarding the man in black. The expression on his face showed that he was realizing something that he had long anticipated.
He clapped his hand and pointed to the black cloak with the form beneath it. Hassan picked up the man’s body as though its weight were trivial and set it in a chair. He turned the seat around so that the unconscious man faced Palermo.
The Arab drew down the black collar of the cloak, so that his master might see the face of The Shadow.
This act revealed the features of Harry Vincent!
A slight expression of surprise came over Palermo. He studied the man in the chair. He had seen that face the night before, in the home of Doctor Brockbank.
Harry’s eyes opened. He stared weakly toward Palermo. The sight of the man’s red robe puzzled him.
Palermo noted his perplexity, but attributed it to his sudden recovery of consciousness.
“So!” Palermo spoke with the solemnity of a mandarin. “The Shadow has come! I am surprised to find him such a youth. But I have heard that he assumes disguises.”
Harry tried to frame a sentence. His voice failed him. Palermo read the message on his lips.
“Where is Burke?” asked the man in the scarlet robe. “He is here, awaiting you. He was surprised last night, as you were surprised tonight.
“I must congratulate you, however. You were far more wary. You avoided all my traps — save one.
“A few weeks ago, you might have succeeded in your mission. But recently I decided that my snares had a failing. I had no way of observing any victim who might enter this well-planned lair.
“So I placed a new trap — one that could see and hear as well as act—”
He stopped suddenly. He observed that Harry Vincent did not understand the full significance of the statements.
Palermo realized that the victim had no idea what had happened to him. The thought brought a chuckle from the physician.
“We can return to that matter later,” he resumed, indulgently. “For the present, let us consider your agent, Burke.
“When you left him in charge of me last night, he was completely within my power. I might mention — if you have not already guessed the fact — that Doctor Brockbank and Doctor Palermo are one and the same person. When I assume the role of Brockbank, I am quite as careful as at present.
“Here”—he waved his hand—”I have many curios, and most of them spell destruction for the man who makes a mistake in handling them.
“Doctor Brockbank’s little sanctum is unpretentious, but effective. Its carpet simply covers a thin wire screen that becomes charged with electricity by the simple procedure of pressing a lever underneath the desk. The spot by the desk is not wired.
“So, while I was at the desk, Burke became my victim. He was stunned by the shock that he received. I took him away with me, through a hidden door at the back of the closet.”
Harry Vincent sat dumfounded at these revelations.
“The Brockbank house,” said Palermo, smiling, “connects — through the cellar — with an old storeroom. A box was shipped from the storeroom to-day. It came to this apartment. It contained Mr. Burke, who was in a drugged state.
“He is now in the laboratory. Hassan will bring him up presently.
“I might add that you were nearly at my mercy last night. Had I known, then, that you were The Shadow, I might have dealt with you.
“I thought, however, that you were merely another agent, and that The Shadow would arrive later. So I notified the police to wait his arrival. You covered your identity well, last night. I have kept Burke to lure you here. You may wish to know what I intend to do with him. You shall learn. It will interest you — since your fate will be the same as his.
“I have dissected many bodies, Friend Shadow. Your man, Burke, has seen my collection of brains, which includes that of Horace Chatham. But I have seldom had good subjects for vivisection. In fact, some of my experiments have been forced to wait on that account.
“Tonight, I shall be able to work as I have long desired. Burke will be my first subject. You will be the next. Hassan!”
THE Arab appeared. Harry, roused to desperation, tried to scramble to his feet. He reached for his automatics. They were gone.
Now the Arab forestalled Harry’s action. He pinned the young man’s arms and held him. Palermo stepped from the Chinese throne.
From the sides of Harry’s chair, he drew curved iron bars. In a few seconds he clamped his prisoner’s wrists and ankles to the chair. Hassan lifted an iron band that was attached to the back of the chair, and fastened Harry’s neck.
“A torture chair,” explained Palermo suavely. “In China, it is used as a pillory. I advise you to remain quiet. Struggling will do you no good.”
Palermo and Hassan pushed the chair to the corner of the room. Harry found himself facing directly toward the tapestry.
“Chong shall see this,” Palermo murmured.
The evil smile appeared as Palermo lifted the top of a taboret and removed a small vial. He held the tiny bottle to Harry’s nostrils. A pungent odor manifested itself. Harry lapsed into unconsciousness.
Palermo uttered a call. The dwarfish Chong appeared. The man in the red robe went to the bronze image and moved it back into the wall. Scarcely had the mechanism closed the panel before the living Chong was in his place.
When Harry Vincent opened his eyes, a moment later, he saw no change in the room. His eyes, as they fell upon the image of Chong, still saw a statue of bronze.
The tapestries moved aside. They revealed a wide but shallow elevator which contained a wheeled stretcher.
Under a white sheet lay the form of Clyde Burke. Only the man’s face, pale as the cloth itself, was visible.
Hassan rolled the stretcher to the center of the room.
Clyde’s eyes were open and staring wide. They turned toward Harry. They seemed to plead, those eyes, as though they could not recognize the helplessness of the other man.
“This, I may state, is a condescension on my part,” remarked Palermo, addressing Harry Vincent. “My experiments are usually conducted in the laboratory. I shall begin here. However, when your turn comes, Hassan and I will move you back to the laboratory.”
While the Arab was attaching a lamp to Burke’s stretcher; Doctor Palermo walked across the room and closed the French doors. He came back and helped Hassan wheel a small motor from the elevator.
The Arab closed the tapestries. Doctor Palermo adjusted the lamp and turned it on, so that it threw a glare upon the white features of Clyde Burke.
Palermo removed his red robe and donned one of yellowish white. The Chinese chamber began to take on the aspect of an operating room.
Harry shuddered. He did not know in which guise Palermo appeared more terrible.
“I might mention one fact,” came Palermo’s voice. “We shall not be disturbed here. So if you have any other friends”—he looked at Harry as he spoke—”do not count on their help.
“I told you once that this was my Gibraltar. I have arranged it so that no elevator can come to this floor.
There is no possible chance of an entry.
“Those lights”—he pointed to a board that was inconspicuous upon the wall—”are now set to notify me of any annoyance. Only when I leave the way open does any person enter here.
“Here we are forty stories above Manhattan. So you may prepare yourself for the same fate that Burke will meet.”
HASSAN brought a case of instruments. Doctor Palermo had discarded the guise of a mandarin for that of a surgeon. He made careful, methodical arrangements that Harry had never before witnessed.
The preparations made Harry tremble. He could only stare in horrified fascination. The motor began to buzz. It purred with a steady rhythm, that made the scene more terrible.
“You are about to witness a most delicate operation,” said Palermo in a cold, heartless tone. “It will be performed on the base of the brain. I shall proceed slowly. It will be several minutes — I hope— before the subject loses consciousness.”
The noise of the motor was maddening. To Harry’s ears it seemed to come from all parts of the room.
His senses were rendered more acute, perhaps, by this terrible drama before him.
He was not thinking of his own doom; he was overwhelmed by his desire to aid his friend. The clamps held Harry as he struggled to free himself from the restraining chair.
Doctor Palermo was oblivious to everything except his intended work. Hassan seemed occupied in watching him. The image of Chong glared steadily, an outlandish figure in this room which had been changed from an Oriental chamber to an improvised laboratory.
Palermo’s right hand was steady as it held a long, thin knife. His left hand turned the head of Clyde Burke as though it were an inanimate object instead of a portion of a living human being.
Clyde’s eyes still held their helpless appeal. The point of the knife rested high on Clyde Burke’s neck.
The throbbing purr that had come to Harry’s ears was dying. Still, the motor was whirling as before. It was a peculiar, unexplainable phenomenon.
Palermo must have suddenly noticed it. He became motionless, standing in the attitude of a listener. A few seconds passed. Palermo inclined his head to proceed.
An instant later he looked up, an expression of profound astonishment upon his features.
THE French doors swung inward with a crash. Out of the black night appeared a tall figure clad in black.
Its arms were spread, and the hanging folds of the cloak appeared like the wings of a huge, monstrous bat.
Bright eyes glittered beneath the encircling hat rim. They were eyes that glowed with unsuppressed rage.
Like some great flying mammal, this being had come from the inky heavens to wreak vengeance upon the white-clad criminal who stood with knife in hand.
The Shadow, master of the darkness, had arrived just in time to stay the hand of the murderer!