Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 262 - Death's Masquerade

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DEATH'S MASQUERADE
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," January 15, 1943.
Music and gaiety offered cover for a strange stroke of death to challenge
The Shadow!
Hidden crime was at work in the model city of Industria. And to The
Shadow, master over all crime, the idea of stalking crime in ghostly style was
excellent. His own hand hidden, his very presence a mystery, The Shadow was
qualified to be a ghost of the future. As such, he could crack crime's riddle
and the hoodoo that went with it. The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER I
DEATH TO COME
THE man at the darkened window was anything but nervous. At most, he was
impatient, and to some degree annoyed by the luxury of his surroundings. For
Creep Hubin, specialist in murder, wasn't used to hiding out in first-class
hotels like the Progress House.
It simply chanced that the Progress House was the only hotel in the model
city of Industria, where everything revealed a perfect system of civic
planning. Not only was money plentiful in Industria; the town's income was
properly applied and always had been. Hence the Progress House, community
owned, provided luxury along with economy and thus crowded out all
competition.
Such fine points did not interest a specimen of human riffraff like Creep
Hubin. He was staring from his window like a rat from its hole. He formed a
hunched figure, his ugly face and narrow neck thrust forward from the
shoulders. The lights from the side street below showed sallow features with
leathery lips and beaded eyes, plus a pointed nose that suited Creep's
character as a human rodent.
Off beyond parks and boulevards, Creep could see the huge buildings that
had brought prosperity to Industria. One was the great foundry, the town's
original industry. Another was the dyeworks, in operation more than a quarter
century. The third, a comparative newcomer, was the chemical plant that had
recently switched from the profitable manufacture of plastics to the more
lucrative production of synthetic rubber.
Each on a hillside, these three plants formed a golden triangle that had
become Industria's horn of plenty. But that concerned Creep Hubin only because
somebody in the model town was wealthy enough to pay Creep's price, two
thousand dollars, for the prompt and efficient elimination of some other
resident of this ideal community.
This elimination, otherwise murder, was to occur at a time and place that
would be stipulated upon delivery of the cash. Meanwhile, Creep remained a
guest in the fastidious Progress House, occupying a room to which his unknown
client had assigned him. Needless to say, some proxy had signed the register
under an alias that went for Creep, because a stranger of his thuggish ilk
would have excited too much comment if seen in the luxurious lobby.
Not having heard further from his client, Creep was naturally impatient.
It was evening, about half past eight, a time when Creep had hoped to be
started on his mission.
Just around the corner of the hotel was the parking lot containing the
"borrowed" automobile which Creep had brought to Industria. If the job didn't
go through tonight, that stolen car might be traced too soon to suit Creep's
future plans, a thing which bothered the assassin more than a mere matter of
murder yet to be committed.
There was more that should have worried Creep Hubin, had he been
acquainted with recent events in Industria, which he wasn't.
In a pretentious office building several blocks from the hotel, the
directors of Gault Consolidated were holding an important meeting. Now the
name, "Gault Consolidated," meant nothing to Creep, but it counted much in
Industria. For Gault Consolidated was the holding company that controlled the
three industries on which the model city thrived.
The nominal head of the holding company was old Ellery Gault, nephew of
the man who had founded Industria back in the '80s. Ill health had caused
Gault
to retire a few years ago, and he seldom left the family mansion, which
dominated another hillside. Thus the directors were running Gault Consolidated
through an official known as "Vice President in Charge of Co-ordination," and
this evening they were choosing a new man for that office.
The last vice president had died very suddenly. So had the vice president
before him, and the one before that. Not only suddenly, but swiftly, which
meant that the office of vice president was a jinx job. It paid well, that
office, but who wanted a job that led to heart failure, an airplane crash, or
a
fatal automobile accident?
One man wanted it. His name was Ferris Dane, and he was likely to get the
job. Dane was the only supervisor who had served in all three factories, and
was therefore qualified to handle their various interrelations. And Dane was a
man who laughed at any mention of the word hoodoo.
Perhaps that accounted for Creep Hubin being in Industria. If design lay
behind the deaths of three successive vice presidents, a stronger dose might
be
needed in the case of Ferris Dane. By the same token, if Dane didn't happen to
be chosen for the jinx job, Creep's services might not be necessary. Which
meant that Creep's two thousand dollars was hanging from a tantalizing line
that might be yanked away before he could grab the prize.
KNOWING nothing of the possible situation, Creep stayed at his window and
glared at what he saw of Industria. His beady eyes went narrow, like his face,
when he saw a sleek, expensive roadster pull to a stop near the parking lot.
Creep was afraid that it was going to park across the little-used exit by
which he intended to leave the lot. But the driver noted the obscure exit and
pulled past it.
Watching, Creep saw a tall, well-dressed man alight from the car and
glance up at the hotel. It was odd how Creep shrank instinctively into the
deeper darkness of the room. Nobody could possibly have spotted a figure at a
blackened window four stories above, yet Creep felt that eyes were searching
for him.
Unused to such sensations, Creep gave a snarl, which turned to an oath
when he stumbled across a chair in the middle of the dark room. He was rubbing
his shin and muttering half aloud, when a knock at the door interrupted.
Reaching the door, Creep opened it a crack. A bellboy was holding a small
package, announcing that it was the order from the drugstore. It bore Creep's
room number, 415, so the rat-faced thug dug into his pocket and tipped the
bellboy a quarter in return for the package.
Locking the door, Creep started for the window; then, changing his mind,
he sidled to a deep corner of the room and turned on a table lamp beside the
telephone.
Among other items, the package contained a box holding a tube of tooth
paste, a luxury which Creep never used. Intrigued by such an oddity, Creep
opened the cardboard box. Instead of a tooth-paste tube, a roll of bills slid
into his hand. Gleefully, Creep counted the money and found that it came to
just two thousand dollars.
No instructions were included, because they weren't needed. Timed to
Creep's puzzlement came a jangle of the telephone bell. Answering the call,
which he would earlier have ignored, Creep heard a voice he recognized. It
spoke coldly, steadily, giving explicit instructions; but Creep was forced to
call for a halt.
"Wait a minute," he undertoned. "I gotta draw a pitcher. I don't want to
miss nothing important."
"You may use a diagram," affirmed the voice, "but be sure to destroy it
later. I would suggest -"
Creep grinned as he heard the suggestion, for he'd begun to have the same
idea. He was still grinning when he completed the diagram and tore it from the
telephone pad. By then, the voice had finished too.
Creep dropped his own receiver in response to a click from the other end.
Running his hand along his belt, he stopped and shifted it to his hip pocket.
From a chair, he slid a dark sweater over his shoulders, dropped his diagram
in
a cap and planted the latter on his head.
Opening the door, Creep looked warily along the corridor, then sneaked
for
the fire exit that led down to the parking lot.
In the lobby, the tall man from the roadster was checking into the
Progress House. As he wrote his name, Lamont Cranston, on the hotel register,
his eyes ran down the list of guests. Strange eyes, those, keen, boring in
their gaze, though the hotel clerk did not notice it, since Cranston's glance
was lowered. What did impress the clerk was the expression upon the man's
features.
Calm, immobile, the new guest's face was masklike. As Cranston turned
away, the clerk noted his hawkish profile and decided that it was the mark of
a
distinguished visitor. There was something cryptic in Cranston's manner, as
though, in mere moments, he had learned something of importance that he was
keeping to himself.
Since Cranston had noted nothing except the hotel register, the clerk
studied the names he saw there. All but Cranston's had been inscribed before
this clerk came on duty; still, nothing seemed amiss in any of them. What the
clerk should have observed were the room numbers alongside the names.
One of those numbers, 415, showed figures slightly smaller than the rest.
Someone other than the preceding clerk had written in that number, while
putting a false name on the register. Whoever was hiring Creep Hubin for
murder
hadn't wanted the sneaky assassin to be disturbed during his sojourn at the
Progress House.
How promptly Cranston could put a clue to use was demonstrated when he
reached his own room, on the sixth floor. The departing bellboy was still
closing the door when Cranston plucked a brief case from amid his luggage,
inverted it, and opened a compartment beneath.
Wedged between the sections of the brief case, this hidden compartment
disgorged a black cloak and a slouch hat. From the rolled cloak came a brace
of
.45 automatics, which Cranston placed in holsters beneath his coat. Then, with
a
single sweep, the tall hotel guest blotted himself from sight.
It was an amazing process, though simply accomplished. All Cranston did
was put on the cloak as he stepped toward a corner of the room. His stride
carrying him away from the light, the cloak did the rest. Merged with the
corner's gloom, Cranston became a voice, nothing more.
Singularly, the voice was Cranston's own. Usually, when cloaked in black,
he spoke in sinister accents befitting the personality of The Shadow, which he
now represented. The reason for the Cranston tone was explained by the ensuing
conversation. The Shadow was using the telephone to inform the hotel operator
that any calls for Mr. Cranston should be switched to Room 415.
A FEW minutes later, darkness stirred within the room that Creep Hubin
had
so recently deserted. Next, a tiny flashlight licked the gilded furniture,
finally concentrating its narrow beam upon the telephone desk. Expecting a
call, The Shadow was naturally interested in that corner, but he was further
intrigued by sight of the pad that lay beside the telephone.
Such pads could carry clues, even though their surface was blank. This
pad
was no exception. Under the beam that focused to silver-dollar size, The
Shadow's long, deft fingers produced a tiny bottle of fine black powder,
sprinkled some grains upon the paper and gave a spreading rub. Under such
treatment, Creep's crude diagram appeared, its lines tracing black amid the
gray, like a carbon-paper replica.
The Shadow's hidden lips phrased a low-toned laugh, a whisper that
befitted his mysterious personality. Facing toward the window, his keen eyes
picked out a portion of the distant landscape that Creep Hubin had earlier
ignored.
All three of Industria's factories were visible, for they were running
night shifts and hence were well illuminated. The one which The Shadow chose
was most conspicuous of all, for, as he gazed, a puff of light rose from amid
its buildings, revealing the whole plant with its glare. Those buildings
belonged to the old foundry, the keystone of the Gault fortunes.
The glare came from a blast furnace, and at this distance it chopped the
buildings of the foundry to the proportions of Creep's diagram. Though the
drawing was rough, there was no mistaking the buildings that it represented.
As if in response to The Shadow's low-throbbed mirth, there was a ring
from the telephone bell. Answering it promptly, The Shadow again used
Cranston's tone, until he recognized the voice that he expected.
"This is Burke," informed the caller. "They finished the director's
meeting. Ferris Dane gets the vice president's job, but they've got to notify
old Ellery Gault in order to make it official."
"Continue."
This time the tone was The Shadow's own, and it spurred Burke to the
delivery of further details.
"They're phoning Gault's house," informed Burke, "but it's hard to get
hold of him. The servants say he's busy and won't be disturbed. They're going
to call again and talk to his niece, Diana. She's the one person who can
interrupt him when he's cutting paper dolls, or whatever else he thinks is
important."
"And then -"
"That's about all," declared Burke, "except that when the directors
receive Gault's approval, they're going to inform Dane that he's elected.
Their
messenger is a chap named Traymer, and he's going over to the foundry where
Dane
is supervising the new night shift that goes on at nine o'clock."
"Report received."
The Shadow's final words carried a tone that startled Burke, for he had
never heard his mysterious chief end a call so abruptly. It was as if Burke's
last statement had simply corroborated something which The Shadow already
knew.
Such was the actual case.
Thrusting Creep's duplicate diagram beneath his cloak, The Shadow was
gliding from the room that the murderous crook had left earlier. More than
that, the red light of the fire tower was guiding The Shadow along Creep's
short route to the parking lot below.
The Shadow, master of vengeance, was on the trail of death to come. His
hand was to play its part in shaping crime's pattern into a mold of justice!
CHAPTER II
MOLTEN DOOM
LIKE a beckoning beacon, another vivid flare lifted amid the foundry
buildings, then dwindled, leaving blackness. A minute passed; again the glare
was repeated. Ominous things, those flaming bursts from the blast furnace.
They were tolling off the minutes that marked a race between life and
death, wherein The Shadow, master of night, was hard on the trail of Creep
Hubin, the sneaky assassin whose purpose was to murder an unsuspecting victim
named Ferris Dane!
How Creep intended to enter the foundry grounds was plain from his
diagram. Once inside, the route that he would take was also marked. It was The
Shadow's task to clip the start that Creep had gained, then choose a short cut
to the spot marked for murder, something that he knew would be quite possible
from his brief study of the diagram.
Naturally both Creep and The Shadow were avoiding the main entrance to
the
foundry, where big gates were guarded by armed watchmen. Those gates, however,
were open to anyone who had normal business in the place; hence a third factor
injected itself into the race. He was a human factor named George Traymer, who
arrived in his own car just as another puff from the blast furnace lighted up
the scene.
Recognizing Traymer, the guards passed him through. Everybody knew
Traymer
by sight, because he served as secretary to the directors of Gault
Consolidated
and acted as go-between in matters involving the various plants. But Traymer
wasn't familiar with the operation of the individual industries, hence he
wasn't qualified for the vice presidency that had just been given to Dane.
Nor was Traymer the executive type needed for such an office. He was a
studious-looking man, who peered through tortoise-shell glasses and spoke in a
weak, unoffending voice. The factory hands dubbed him Lady Traymer, and the
nickname was rather appropriate.
When Traymer inquired for Dane, the guards gestured toward the
supervisor's office. Whereupon Traymer drove ahead very carefully, giving wide
berths to building corners, slowing his car to avoid ruts that big trucks had
dug, even proceeding cautiously through puddles that might splash water up
through the radiator.
Indeed, the car looked ladylike, the way Traymer handled it. Commenting
on
the fact, the guards were too busy watching Traymer's driving technique to
notice the hunched figure that slipped past another building corner. Nor did
they look toward the high wall where a black-cloaked shape was dropping in
from
outside.
They might have spotted Creep Hubin, but they couldn't have sighted The
Shadow. He timed his drop between two of the furnace flares that marked the
minutes in his race against time - and death!
Alighting near the supervisor's office, Traymer skirted some rubbish to
avoid damaging the patent-leather shoes. Finding two brawny foremen in the
office, Traymer inquired for Dane. A foreman glanced at the office clock, then
gave a nudge.
"Gone up on deck," the foreman said. "Gone up to size the pour. You'll
find him there, unless you want to wait until he gets back in about ten
minutes. You know where the deck is, though -"
Traymer knew, all right. The "deck" was a small platform reached by a
fifteen-foot ladder, a dizzy climb in Traymer's estimate. But the climb was
itself a trifle compared with the terrors of the platform. The deck was
situated just above a channel through which molten steel flowed when released.
That such a flood was due, went without saying, otherwise Dane wouldn't have
gone to size the pour.
The mere thought of molten steel made Traymer shudder, and that in turn
pleased the foremen. But they didn't reckon with Traymer's obedience to duty.
Having heard from Ellery Gault right after Burke's call to The Shadow, the
directors had instructed Traymer to contact Dane without delay. Hence this was
a case where duty counteracted Traymer's natural timidity.
To the surprise of the horny-handed foremen, George Traymer turned on his
heel and strode boldly toward the terrifying platform that was perched on the
far corner of a big foundry building.
ALREADY on the platform, Ferris Dane was finding none of the horrors that
Traymer pictured. To Dane, this trip to a perch that measured six feet square
was a matter of routine. A flare of light revealed him leaning from the
platform, holding to its narrow end rail. He was looking along the deep canal
toward a buffer, much like a dam, which retained a lake of steel, ready for
the
nine o'clock pour.
The brief glare showed Dane's face was solid and square-set, like his
build. Ruddy light rendered his tawny complexion florid, otherwise the glow
showed Dane's features in their proper detail. He was a handsome man in a
careless, rugged way.
His eyes, though deep-set, had a flash that offset their hollows. His
lips
were thickish, like his nose, but not overly so, considering his heavy jaw.
Dane's hair was a tangled shock, but it was the light-brown sort that couldn't
be kept sleek.
In brief, Dane portrayed a natural toughness that accounted for his
popularity among the workmen, except in those rare cases where he settled an
argument with his fists and won out the hard way. Such incidents, however, had
only served to increase his prestige with the majority.
As Dane gazed, the buffer lifted. Down through the channel poured a flood
of living steel, like lava disgorged from an erupting volcano. Near the bottom
of the ladder, Traymer heard the roar of the unleashed deluge and hesitated.
He'd hoped to reach Dane before the floodgate opened.
Again a flare of vivid light. This burst showed Dane still leaning from
beside the rail, coolly surveying the white-hot stream that gushed past below
him. It was a good pour, this, and Dane was sizing it by marks along the
channel edge, caring nothing for the hellish heat that seared upward from the
flow.
This flare showed another figure than Dane's, that of a man who was doing
something far more daring than leaning from a platform above the molten flood.
Along the building wall which formed one side of the channel was a narrow
ledge, on the platform level. That narrow path was no more than two feet wide,
and it literally hovered above the deadly stream. Yet a man was using that
dangerous walk.
The man was Creep Hubin.
Creep's nickname fitted. He was creeping along the ledge, the last lap of
the route on his diagram. He was accomplishing his crawl in sidewise fashion,
so his weight wouldn't shift from the wall. There were moments when he paused,
but even then he was disdainful of danger. That was proven when his hand gave
a
careless fling that sent a wad of paper into the molten flow below.
The wad was the diagram that Creep no longer needed. The bubbling steel
swallowed it as a living mouth would.
Next, Creep was at the very corner of the platform. He clutched the
building edge with one hand, using the other to draw a revolver from his hip.
A
blast of light disclosed Creep rising to aim his gun straight at Dane, who
needed only the shock that a bullet could provide, to be pitched into the
foaming steel below!
The flare revealed still more.
Diagonally across the gulch of molten metal, a black figure was outlined
against a building wall. Reaching a corner by his short cut, The Shadow was
ready to drop back from sight at the moment of this fateful flare. Only for an
instant did he pause to get a flash view of the scene, and that one glimpse
was
enough.
Seeing Creep take aim at Dane, The Shadow forgot darkness. His gloved
hand
whipped an automatic from his cloak with a deft swing of the wrist. Through
the
thin cloth, his finger tightened in an immediate trigger squeeze. The .45
stabbed, but its bark was drowned by the tumult of the steel cascade.
What Dane heard was the whiz of a bullet past his ear, the ping as the
slug bashed the corner of the wall beside the platform. Turning from the rail,
Dane saw Creep, who was more startled than himself.
The huddling assassin knew that the shot was meant for him. There seemed
a
purpose in the fact that it had missed its mark. For Creep was definitely on
the
spot, a thing he realized. If he tried to retire along the ledge, he would
become easy prey. If he lunged forward to the platform, an unseen gunner could
rake that square deck as the flare subsided.
In that case, Creep would become a wounded victim, easily captured when
Dane returned with others. For by rights, Dane should have swung down the
ladder the moment that The Shadow's shot whizzed past. It was a warning, that
bullet, which even a man of stout heart should have accepted at face value.
Not Ferris Dane.
Imbued with the same purpose as The Shadow - that of bringing a creeping
assassin into the open and softening him for capture - Dane lunged Creep's
way.
Witnessing Dane's drive, The Shadow withheld his fire, but swept forward on
his
own just as the last flicker faded from the flame-tonguing blast chimney.
DANE reached Creep before the killer could aim anew. The pair locked in a
struggle that provided the weirdest of imaginable settings. More, perhaps,
than
Dane had bargained for when he ignored the safety of the ladder and launched
his
foolhardy attack.
Two men were beginning a death grapple on a corrugated platform six feet
square. Their figures were vaguely visible, by the lurid gleam of the molten
steel that flowed below them, its white-hot surface raising an unearthly glow,
like the phosphorescence of a rotted tree stump.
This struggle had its obbligato - the loud hiss of the simmering steel
itself, which had all the threat of a rattlesnake's deathly welcome. Molten
death was begging for its prey, caring little which victim reached its craw,
hoping perhaps that both would tumble into its bubbling oblivion.
The luminous metal revealed another figure, visible only because he was
closer to the scorching stream. The Shadow was straight across the channel
from
the platform, but on a brink that stood a scant two feet above the molten
flow.
Looking upward, with his gun following their gyrations, the cloaked avenger
was
trying to distinguish between the fighters who twisted in their fray of doom.
Precariously, they writhed toward the brink; then, as if by mutual
consent, they reeled against the rail and caromed across to the wall. In those
zigzag tactics, they avoided the ladder where Traymer had at last begun his
climb, too worried by the sizzle of the steel to notice or interpret the
clatter from the deck above.
No halfway measures would suffice with Dane or Creep. They were going to
see it to a finish on the platform, until one had the other utterly at his
mercy. Of the two, Dane, whose cause was justified, was winning an advantage
through his ardor. That much The Shadow discovered when an arm went flinging
wide, to have its wrist clutched by a following hand. There was a twist and
something scaled from tortured fingers.
The object landed in the molten stream and was gulped as a pool would
take
a pebble, or rather a hailstone. For the liquid steel was absorbing a chunk of
the same alloy in solid state: Creep's gun. So instantly did the revolver
vanish, that it seemingly was melted at the moment when it struck.
Dane having chopped the struggle to equal terms, Creep was quick to
counter. His gun gone, Creep exaggerated the twist that Dane began and
wrenched
free from his antagonist. Driving his head against the pit of Dane's stomach,
Creep butted his burly foe against the wall, then made a crablike dart to the
rail at the far edge of the platform.
They were like two prizefighters about to resume their contest after a
devastating round. Instead of a gong, a flare from the furnace marked the
start
of another minute. It showed Dane still slumped, but beginning a slow rise,
with
Creep starting a forward dive to reach him. Bad enough for Dane, but to make
it
even worse, Creep wasn't coming unarmed.
From his belt, the assassin had whipped out a long-bladed knife and was
starting an underhand stroke for Dane's ribs, intending to literally pitchfork
his victim into the steel sea that was just beyond the platform's edge.
One hand alone could block the thrust that would slide Dane into the
flood
of molten doom. It belonged to a cloaked marksman on the lower brink, that
hand
that never failed.
The Shadow's big gun spoke.
CHAPTER III
GHOST OF THE FUTURE
IMMEDIATE events upon the fateful platform were witnessed by a man in no
mood to fully understand. The witness was Traymer, coming up the ladder, his
head and shoulders rising above deck level just as The Shadow fired to stop
Creep's drive toward Dane.
From Traymer's distorted viewpoint, events were like a nightmare. The
lurid flare etched everything in fantastic proportions.
Straight across the platform, beyond and below the torrent of threatening
steel, stood a ghostly, black-cloaked figure. Traymer saw The Shadow first of
all, viewing him as a blackened silhouette traced against a building wall.
From that mass of blackness that looked strangely human came a stab of
flame that Traymer somehow knew must be a gunshot. With The Shadow furnishing
the background, the fiery thrust was plainly visible. It wasn't directed
Traymer's way; instead, it was angled slightly to the left. Thus it wasn't
until the stab occurred that Traymer saw its human target.
Turning his head as he heard a clatter on the platform, Traymer spied
Creep almost within reach. The assassin's long, low drive ended with the
gunshot, for the bullet stopped Creep's charge. Jolted by the wallop of a .45
slug, Creep bounced erect and staggered across Traymer's path of vision,
blocking further sight of The Shadow.
Traymer couldn't have seen The Shadow again, because at that moment the
flare from the chimney vanished. Even Creep was blotted from sight, except as
a
stumbling mass that cut off the luminous glow of the flowing steel. Imbued
with
the thought that Dane was the only person on the platform, Traymer naturally
mistook the staggered assassin for the intended victim. Half reclined against
the wall, Dane wasn't in Traymer's sight at all.
Thinking that the marksman across the steel stream had deliberately shot
Dane, Traymer could only hope that the staggered man would halt his lurch
before he tottered from the far edge of the platform. Creep might have managed
it but for Dane, the man unseen by Traymer. Dane hadn't seen The Shadow's
shot;
its sound was lost amid the roar of steel. With the vanishing flare, Dane
glimpsed Creep alone and caught the glint of the raised knife that the
staggering man still gripped.
Without guessing why the assassin had chosen such half-crazed tactics,
Dane gave a forward slide along the platform, thrusting his foot across
Creep's
path. Tripping headlong, the thwarted killer pitched from the brink, sending
back a short-lived screech as he plunged into the foaming steel.
There wasn't any splash. Knife and all, Creep Hubin was absorbed by the
molten mass so suddenly, that he vanished more completely than The Shadow.
Still shaken from his impact against the wall, Dane lay panting on the
platform, while Traymer, gaping from the ladder, was still convinced that his
friend, and no one else, had found a molten doom.
Horror, more than reason, stirred Traymer to the proper course. He did
the
thing that The Shadow had expected Dane to do. Dropping from the ladder,
Traymer
bounded from rung to rung until he reached the bottom. Shakily, he started
running toward the supervisor's office to summon the foremen.
They were already in sight. They'd come out to learn if Lady Traymer had
nerve enough to scale the towering height of fifteen feet up to the deck.
Spying them, Traymer shrieked that Dane had plunged into the molten depths.
Remembering the figure across the steel-filled canal, Traymer turned and
pointed just as the blast furnace gave another of its every-minute flares.
It wasn't only Traymer who saw The Shadow this time. Any chance that the
cloaked shape belonged to Traymer's imagination was dispelled by the view the
foremen gained.
Following Traymer's wild point, the foremen saw the corner of the
opposite
building that The Shadow had used as his original base. The cloaked avenger
had
wheeled back to that station, but he still held an automatic in readiness. The
Shadow, too, was awaiting the telltale flare, in order to make certain that
Dane, not Creep, was the survivor on the platform.
From their angle, the foremen could see past the corner. There wasn't a
chance for The Shadow to dwindle in the sudden light. The gun in his gloved
fist, the very weapon that had saved Dane's life, erroneously marked The
Shadow
as a creature of murder.
The foremen had revolvers. Like the watchmen, they were armed because
rumors of sabotage had started recently. Having guns, the pair were quick to
use them. They opened an earnest, but blind, fire in The Shadow's direction.
The shots were haphazard because the brief flare that disclosed The Shadow
ended itself, quite freakishly, the moment the foremen began to shoot.
BY then, alarm was rife.
Succeeding flares showed watchmen and workers arriving from many
directions, some crossing bridges over the canal of turbulent steel, others
swinging into view beyond outlying buildings. All were shouting the word of a
phantom fugitive who had come and gone like a ghost.
At intervals, pursuers glimpsed The Shadow, but the flares weren't
sufficient to insure the chase. The call went out for searchlights, and they
were switched on, sharp brilliant beams that swept the foundry yard from
several angles. One glare caught The Shadow near the wall; he reversed his
dash; then, as the searchlight wavered, he continued for his original
objective.
The effect was amazing - that of a black ghost shaking moonbeams from its
shoulders. The path of light stayed brilliant, but it revealed only a blank
wall, through which The Shadow had seemingly vanished. Then the searchlight
was
on the move again, but its probe showed nothing.
That was, nothing except a few depleted junk piles, too shallow to hide a
human figure. The searchlight handlers didn't realize that The Shadow could
blend with anything that afforded patchy darkness. Crouched behind an odd
assortment of old iron, the cloaked unknown was half hidden by the discarded
equipment, half in the stretch of gloom that lay beyond it.
He was part of the shadows, this mysterious being who gained his title
from his ability to merge with fleeting blackness. He was The Shadow in fact
as
well as name!
Searchlights widened hastily to the far reaches of the foundry premises.
Where buildings cut off the beams, small groups of armed men started an
intensive search, only to meet each other coming around corners. The hunt
began
to spread like the streaks of light that guided it. In widening, the searchers
left huge gaps between them - innumerable outlets for The Shadow, had he
sought
immediate departure.
Instead, The Shadow continued his unexpected tactics by choosing the
place
where all was placid - the storm center from which the surge of pursuers had
whirled. He was no more than a blot of blackness when he crossed a narrow
bridge above the lessening stream of steel. When the chimney flared, its glow
was absorbed by the searchlight beams, focused to distant points.
There wasn't a trace of The Shadow as he slid beneath the platform ladder
to the sheltering wall of the building where the supervisor's office was
located. Gliding farther along, The Shadow passed the door of the office
itself.
The office wasn't quite deserted as The Shadow expected. It contained one
man, but he was too occupied to observe the cloaked shape that paused
momentarily at the door, then sidled past a corner to choose the black
background of an opened window.
The man in the office was George Traymer. He was at the telephone, trying
to put through a call to the directors of Gault Consolidated.
All the foundry wires were busy, flashing the word for a general manhunt.
While Traymer waited for a line, he kept staring at the office window.
Blackness faded oddly as a searchlight beam reflected its distant sweep.
Traymer stared harder at the window and stepped forward with the telephone,
摘要：

DEATH'SMASQUERADEbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"January15,1943.MusicandgaietyofferedcoverforastrangestrokeofdeathtochallengeTheShadow!HiddencrimewasatworkinthemodelcityofIndustria.AndtoTheShadow,masteroverallcrime,theideaofstalkingcrimeinghostlystylewasexcellent.Hisownhandh...

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