
enough, Frank. I want you to understand that Ted and I are friends..."
Marian cut off the rest of Frank's epithets by slamming down the receiver. Then, close to her ear, came
another voice, harder than Barstead's. Griff was putting in his say, his gun raised from his hip.
"Did I call you a two-timer?" queried Griff. "I ought to have said triple-timer! Knowing Gern is bad
enough, but Barstead is even worse. I ought to pump you full of lead, and tell Ted about it afterward."
For a moment, Marian shrank from the cold steel of the gun muzzle that pressed against her midriff. Then,
with a sneer, Griff whipped away the gun and swung about to thrust his free hand forward. Clamping
fingers found Marian's bare left arm.
With a quick wrench, the girl wheeled away, swung her right hand forcibly at Griff's head and launched
the telephone for his skull.
Griff saw the missile coming and dived in the opposite direction. It wasn't his own quickness that saved
him; it was the telephone cord. The wire stopped the heavy instrument, inches short of its mark.
Coming to hands and knees, Griff aimed savagely, as Marian scrambled across the room, giving her first
shriek. Griff fired a shot, wide.
Then, hard upon both shriek and shot, came the inswinging clatter of the door, accompanied by a sound
that made all others seem puny. It was a laugh, mocking, challenging, that came from the open doorway.
Fierce mirth meant for Griff Conlad.
Only Griff's lips managed to move, as his eyes saw the figure in the doorway - a tall intruder cloaked in
black, whose burning eyes, peering from beneath a slouch hat brim, had the same glint as his leveled
automatic.
Griff's moving lips gulped the name: "The Shadow!"
Slowly, steadily, the tall rescuer advanced. With each pace that The Shadow made, Griff's smoking gun
jogged downward. Angling across the room as though pivoting on the gun that he kept aimed toward
Griff, The Shadow was coming between the crook and the girl, when Marian gave another scream.
It wasn't a frightened shriek; it was a warning. Unnecessary, for already The Shadow had turned. Still
keeping his gun toward Griff, he had produced another, aiming it toward the doorway. A finger pressed
its trigger, as a surge of mobbies came through the portal.
The foremost attacker sprawled, his gun leaving his hand as he tried to fire. Others, spreading inward,
would have met the same disaster, if Peeper, in the midst of the throng, hadn't pressed the light switch.
As sudden darkness filled the room, there was the clatter of furniture, the blasting of guns.
Marian could hear The Shadow's laugh, triumphant in the blackness. Darkness made the type of
battleground that The Shadow relished. With Marian's life at stake, the cloaked fighter was using
close-up tactics, to keep the fire from the girl's side of the room.
Not realizing that The Shadow was trying to clear the room and send the crooks along their way, Marian
followed a bold inspiration of her own.
Knowing that she could be of no assistance while in the room, the girl came up beside the bed, gathered
up her laid-out clothes in one quick swoop, and dashed for the door.