When this strange contest had begun, Lucien Partridge and five henchmen were still capable of battle.
Five marksmen were aiming for The Shadow. Partridge, alone, was not firing.
Now, in reply to wildly directed shots, The Shadow had fired five times. Every bullet had found a mark.
There was a pause. The form of The Shadow was momentarily revealed. Two spasmodic shots came from the only henchman of the five who had not been incapacitated or killed. One man alone had suffered only a minor wound.
Those shots were futile. They were also fatal to the man who delivered them. Deliberately, The Shadow aimed and his unerring finger dispatched a leaden messenger that found its resting place in the heart of the skulking foeman.
Silence followed, while Vic Marquette, now sprawled upon the floor of the workhouse, stared forth upon the field of battle. He caught one flash of The Shadow's form as it glided into darkness and seemed to sway uncertainly.
SINCE the beginning of the conflict, The Shadow had received no wounds other than those which had first been inflicted on him. In retaliation, he had fought one-handed against the surrounding odds. His strategy, his marksmanship; both had been unfailing.
His twisting course had taken him toward the edge of the cliff. As Marquette gazed, he fancied that he saw the blackened form loom uncertainly against the dawn-flushed sky. For early day was breaking upon the scene of carnage.
Marquette's vision was not at fault. The Shadow had neared the cliff. Now, from the last bush in a clump of shrubbery, Marquette saw another form emerging —a form that crouched as it was silhouetted in the early light.
Vic shouted a warning. It was unnecessary.
The Shadow, too, had seen that lone form threatening him. With uncanny precision, he had directed his course toward the only spot where danger still lingered. The one man who had kept wise silence in the battle was waiting the close approach of The Shadow.
That man was Lucien Partridge.
Marquette saw the old man's hand swing upward. Then The Shadow was upon Lucien Partridge. With time too short to beat the old man's aim, The Shadow had leaped with a mighty spring.
Partridge's gun was discharged upward as The Shadow's left hand struck the old man's arm. Then the two were locked in grim embrace.
The Shadow and the fiend had met!
CHAPTER XXII. ON THE BRINK
THE verge of the cliff was clothed in dawning light. There, two figures had united in a struggle that would mean death to one or both. One hundred feet beneath, the river foamed its way through the gorge, between rock-studded banks.
The Shadow, strong and indomitable, was fighting with a man who was no longer young. Yet Lucien Partridge possessed surprising strength. More than that, he owned the fury of a fiend.
Crippled by wounds, The Shadow possessed but a fraction of his normal strength. Spurred by mad desire for revenge, Lucien Partridge was a demon in human form.
The bodies swayed backward and forward. At times they seemed to sidle toward the edge of the cliff.
First one would urge the other backward; then the situation would change completely.
If Vic Marquette could aid The Shadow, the struggle would be ended. This equal fight could not persist; for The Shadow's strength was waning more rapidly than that of Lucien Partridge.
Despite his wounds, Vic tried to come to The Shadow's rescue. He managed to raise himself to his knees with the help of his one good hand. His gun was absent. He had dropped the automatic in his wild scramble for the workhouse.
Gaining his feet, Vic plunged forward through the doorway. His haste was his undoing. He lost his footing and sprawled crazily upon the ground. When he tried to rise again, his left wrist failed him. He could do no more than writhe painfully forward, in snakelike course along the ground.
The contestants were not aware of his approach. Their struggle was slow-moving. The Shadow was yielding. Slowly, inch by inch, Partridge was forcing him to the edge of the cliff.
Vic's strength failed him as he arrived close by. Gasping, the secret-service man lay helpless on the ground, vainly striving to regain lost strength. He could see the profile of Lucien Partridge, white against the blackness of The Shadow's cloak.
The old man was possessed with a mighty fury. His breath was coming in fierce spasms. Hideous curses were writhing from his livid lips.
Beneath the black slouch hat, Vic could see the glow of two burning eyes. He knew that The Shadow was striving desperately to overcome the old man's amazing power. But still the two moved closer and closer to that threatening brink that towered above sickening depths!
WITH the edge of destruction scarcely more than a foot away, The Shadow gained new vigor. The last vestiges of his waning strength asserted themselves as he held his fierce adversary at bay.
While the two were locked in motionless pose, Vic Marquette urged himself nearer and nearer, staring weakly at the forms that were bathed in the reflected rays of the rising sun.
If The Shadow could only hold out! That was Marquette's impelling thought. He knew that he was feeble; yet his slight strength might prove the weight that would swing the balance.
A few feet more! Vic Marquette collapsed with a hopeless gasp. He had arrived too late. Before his staring eyes, the struggle had come to a terrible conclusion.
The Shadow, yielding under the terrific strain, sank backward, and his tall form bent as Partridge sprang to the attack. The black-clad figure dwindled to dwarfish size as it slipped over the very edge, impelled by Partridge's swift, triumphant thrust.
The Shadow was gone!
All that Vic Marquette could see was the figure of Lucien Partridge, momentarily stooped headforemost, bending clear over the edge of the cliff. The old man's pose made it appear that he was watching the course of a body plunging into the depths.
His hands were just above the abyss; and as Marquette heard the gloating cackle that the old man uttered, he saw the hands swing wildly. They were clutching in the air as though endeavoring to grasp some solid substance for support.
The cackle turned to a frenzied cry as Partridge failed to regain his balance. The old man's head toppled forward. Vic saw his hands make a wild grasp at the edge of the smooth precipice. Then, with a long scream, Lucien Partridge plunged headforemost to destruction!
The scream died in the distance. Vic could not hear the fall of the body. The end of the struggle had sickened him. He could not feel enthusiasm because of Lucien Partridge's fate. The fact that The Shadow had first gone over that terrible brow was appalling.
Vic Marquette lay helpless and miserable, knowing that the futility of his own effort had abetted this result. Had he been able to come to the rescue; had he not weakened and fallen through the doorway of the workhouse, he could surely have saved the man who had saved him.
To Vic Marquette, hours of misery were packed into that one unending moment that followed the death plunge of Lucien Partridge. With eyes still staring, the secret-service man gazed toward the brink of the precipice, trying to visualize the last moments of that now ended struggle.
A groan escaped Vic Marquette's lips. It was a groan of despondency. The secret-service man closed his eyes; then opened them to meet the increasing light of dawn.
Again Marquette groaned while he gazed with hypnotic stare toward the edge of the cliff. Then, unconsciously, the groan became a gasp.
Unbelieving, like a person who is witnessing the seemingly impossible, Vic Marquette stared in amazement at the very brink of the death cliff.
He was stupefied by what he saw.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE SHADOW TRIUMPHANT
A BLOTCH of blackness lay upon the edge of the cliff. Unmoving, it had escaped the notice of Vic Marquette. It had appeared to be nothing more than a shade cast by the angled light of early day.
But now that patch of black was moving. Long, thin, and straight, it developed as an arm! Fingers moved; fingers that were digging into the roughened granite that lined the verge of the precipice.<
br />
With a cry of restored hope, Vic tried to wriggle forward. But that moving hand needed no aid. With incredible skill, it was working its way upward. Now a black object showed over the edge. Vic saw the head of The Shadow!
The body followed. Soon the form in black was back to safety. The head was bowed as the tall figure arose and swayed forward.
Vic Marquette blinked as though witnessing a vision. The tall form moved slowly away. Vic tried to follow it as it approached the lawn; then, before he could turn, he realized that The Shadow was gone.
Impelled by strange curiosity, Vic urged himself closer to the edge of the cliff. There, the explanation of the marvel came to him.
The entire edge of the precipice formed an overhanging curve, beginning with a rapidly sloping angle that formed itself into a dizzy, vertical drop:
When Lucien Partridge had thrust The Shadow downward, the black-clad fighter had taken the only advantage that he still possessed. He had yielded momentarily, to lie, terribly close to danger, against the last possible surface that afforded safety.
The Shadow's collapse had been by shrewd design. It had turned Partridge's fierce impetus into a force that had proven to be the old man's undoing.
Thrusting The Shadow downward with all his vigor, Partridge had given no thought to his own safety. By releasing pressure suddenly; by shifting his body precariously to one side, The Shadow had opened the way for the old man's death plunge.
Had The Shadow been unwounded, the task of regaining the security of the flattened brink would have been a matter of comparative ease. But with only his left arm serving him, The Shadow had chosen to rest, unmoving, with his body just on the verge of temporary safety.
Thus had The Shadow returned to life. In the triumph of justice, he had won all. The work of The Shadow would continue. There would be other fiends for him to conquer, now that Lucien Partridge was no more.
INCREASING dawn, the knowledge that The Shadow was alive—these factors seemed to bring a new strength to Vic Marquette. He managed to rise to his knees, and with foolhardy boldness he approached the edge of the cliff as closely as he dared.
Far below, spread-eagled upon the rocks of the bank beside the foaming stream, Vic saw the vague form of what had once been a human being, even though it had possessed the heart of a vile fiend.
That was all that remained of Lucien Partridge, the shrewd, evil old man who had visioned himself the dictator of all the world. Now his dreams of wealth were ended forever.
Partridge's false gold would be made no more. The vast wealth that he had accumulated would be restored to the world from which it had been taken—a gift of The Shadow's genius.
Vic Marquette rested wearily. He thought of Fitzroy—of the poisoned gloves—of these enemies who had attacked Lucien Partridge to-night. All these details would be reconstructed. He, Vic Marquette, could solve them now, with the aid that had been afforded by The Shadow.
Vic knew from past experience that after The Shadow had triumphed, hidden matters always came to light. His mind was in a presaging mood - and his surmises were correct.
Although Vic did not know it, the documents that The Shadow had taken from Clifford Forster's desk were already on their way to Marquette's headquarters. The Shadow had anticipated the events that had transpired here.
Thoughtfully, the secret-service man stared in the direction which The Shadow had taken. He saw no sign of the black-clad form.
He knew that The Shadow's wounds could not be sufficiently serious to prevent his safe departure. Yet Vic still sought to pierce the shadowy portions of the terrain that surrounded the edge of the battle-scarred lawn.
Bodies of dead men were scattered everywhere. These men had died because they had deserved death.
Creatures of evil who had served against justice, their futile conflict had been designed by The Shadow's desire for retribution.
Vic thought of Lucien Partridge lying far below. To the most terrible of all these evil men had come the most horrible death that any of the crew had suffered.
APPROACHING sounds came vaguely to Vic's ears. He heard the siren of a distant automobile. For a moment he did not understand. Then his mind cleared.
The terrific explosion had been heard throughout the countryside. Rescuers were on their way, hurrying to see what tragedy had occurred at Lucien Partridge's.
The State police were coming. They would take charge. Vic would receive help, even though that aid might be belated.
Looking across the lawn, Vic saw the ruins of the smoldering mansion. The lawn was clear now, and a white object caught the secret-service man's attention. Partridge's laboratory smock, with the gloves beside it!
He must warn the rescuers not to touch them. They must be kept as evidence —the gloves to be analyzed for the poison that they contained.
The creeping death! No more would the insidious malady run rampant, striking down helpless, unsuspecting victims at the desire of an archfiend.
Deaths had been avenged here, upon this body-strewn lawn. But Vic realized that those deaths were but few compared to the ones that had been averted by The Shadow's might!
How many more would Lucien Partridge have slain? Vic Marquette could not surmise. He knew only that he had been saved thrice by The Shadow: once, by the quarry across the river; a second time, when the alarm had sounded; last, when The Shadow had boldly risked death that Vic might reach safety.
The siren was shrill now. The police were nearly here. The task was ended. Vic Marquette listened gladly to the welcome sound. Then, as the noise lulled momentarily, he heard another sound.
A weird, uncanny echo seemed to come from somewhere not far away— somewhere off beyond the lawn. Vic Marquette recognized that sound. It brought proof that The Shadow had still remained nearby until he was sure that help had come for Vic Marquette.
For that sound, with its tones of eerie mirth, could have come from no lips other than those of the strange phantom in black.
It was the triumph laugh of The Shadow!
THE END
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Document ID: 9cf5c0ea-e9ba-4e10-a1af-49a44aaa5b6c
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Document creation date: 25.5.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.53, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
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Maxwell Grant
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The Creeping Death The s-22 Page 14