THE end of the Silent Seven was a tremendous newspaper story. To Detective Joe Cardona went the credit for the extermination of the most amazing gang of criminals that New York had known in years!
Rodney Paget collapsed under grilling, after confessing to the murders of Henry Marchand and Doctor George Lukens.
The identities of the dead members of the Silent Seven created a tremendous stir.
One was a prominent lawyer; another a well-known politician. Two were figures in the underworld, reputed gang leaders, who had constantly eluded the law. One was a prominent banker.
But the discovery of the body of Professor Jukes, deserted in his limousine just beyond the city limits, created the greatest surprise. This man had been a noted scholar. Now he proved to be the master mind of a powerful organization whose existence the police had scarcely suspected!
Detectives were rounding up members of the Faithful Fifty. Every hour was bringing new disclosures. The Silent Seven had already been linked with half a dozen unsolved crimes.
Investigators were hard at work, tracing the checkered career of this desperate gang that had worked for years in silence, spreading their crimes at intervals, never even leaving a tangible clew.
It was during the lull that followed the first feverish efforts of the police that Inspector Timothy Klein and Detective Joe Cardona arrived at the home of Wilbur Blake.
They sat in the living room of the millionaire’s big house. The inspector looked approvingly toward the detective. Cardona’s face bore signs of tremendous strain. His arm was in a sling.
“Great work, Joe,” said Klein. “Great work.”
“We’re tying up the Seven with that Bradstreet Bank hold-up,” said Cardona wearily. “Their fifty men were at work that time. They killed two bank guards—”
The inspector nodded. Then he waved his hand.
“But what about here, Joe?” he questioned. “How do the Seven figure in this? Who killed Blake? Have you quizzed Paget?”
“Yes. But he couldn’t answer. He was all busted up when I flashed that paper that we found on him.
“It was Marchand’s confession, you know. It told all about the Silent Seven. Paget blabbed after he saw that. Told us how he had seen Marchand opening the secret drawer; how he had stolen the confession.
“He murdered Marchand, and he murdered Lukens — to get the ring that the doctor wore. He used a gun with a silencer. Threw it into the river, over one of the bridges, while he was riding with a drunken friend.”
“I can’t figure out why Blake was killed,” said Klein slowly. “It looks like the Seven did it, right enough. He was about to pull a business deal — that’s all we know. Some stranger mixed himself in it. If we had the motive for—”
“We’ve got to get it.”
“From whom? The only man who could tell us is Blake himself.”
The inspector paused. He looked at Herbert. The butler was staring at the side door with wild eyes. He looked like a man who had seen a ghost.
There, in the doorway, stood Wilbur Blake. The lips beneath the waxed moustache held a faint smile.
Cardona gasped. Had Blake been brought back to life by that amazing man they called The Shadow?
“You thought I was dead,” said Wilbur Blake.
“We did!” said Inspector Klein.
“I saw you dead!” cried Cardona. “Dead — in the room next to this! Dead— in the morgue—”
“It was another man,” explained Blake.
“Another man!” exclaimed Cardona.
“Yes,” said the millionaire quietly. “I was merely abducted. Taken away by order of the Silent Seven. They kept me alive, because they thought they might need me later. I was rescued last night.”
“By whom?”
“By a man in a black cloak. I didn’t see his face, beneath his hat brim. He took me to a hotel, and on the way he told me the facts. Then he disappeared.”
“The Shadow!” cried Cardona.
“After my abduction,” said Blake, “another man was put here in my place. His name was Dodge. This chap you call The Shadow knows a bit about him. Says that if you get his finger prints in the morgue, you will find that he did a term in Sing Sing.
“My friend” — the words were sarcastic — “my friend Paget found this fellow Dodge. The Silent Seven put him in here to raise havoc with my possessions. The Shadow came out here to expose him. In the fracas, Dodge was killed!”
“That lets Otto out,” said Cardona. “Dodge was committing a crime when he took your place. It won’t take us long to trace his criminal record. You’ll have your chauffeur back double-quick, Mister Blake.”
Some one knocked at the door. Herbert admitted Clyde Burke. The ex-reporter grinned at Cardona.
“Hot stuff, Joe,” he said. “I’ve just taken a job with the Evening Classic. I want first crack at this story. I got a tip-off that Wilbur Blake wasn’t dead, after all.”
BURKE’S story of Wilbur Blake’s return was a masterpiece of tabloid news. The caption, “Back from the Dead,” appeared beneath Wilbur Blake’s picture.
It was a sensational conclusion to the story of the Silent Seven. Following it came the identification of the dead man, Dodge; and after that, the conviction of Rodney Paget as a murderer.
But nothing was ever said about the grueling ordeal undergone by Harry Vincent. No mention was made about the part which Blake had played.
The identity of the man who had visited Dodge, and who had later escaped from the overturned speedster, remained a mystery. The battle between the man in the black cloak and the giant Bron was unrecorded by the press.
Those facts were written only in the private annals of The Shadow!