Beneath his pillow was a pocket-model automatic pistol! Half dazed, Cliff remembered a vague fit of wakefulness during the night, followed by a hazy dream that someone was in the room. He rose quickly from his bed and dressed.
With another glance at the door, he raised the pillow, half expecting to find nothing there.
He had not been mistaken. His hand clutched a gun.
A pocket .32, flat as a book, its magazine loaded to eight-cartridge capacity. Standing by the bed, Cliff slipped the handy weapon into his hip pocket. With the revolver was a box of cartridges. He dropped this in the other pocket. Also, he saw an envelope.
With his back toward the wall, Cliff removed a message from the envelope. It was written in code, in ink. It bore these words, as Cliff translated them.
Key on ledge of window. Be in readiness tonight. Act if shots are fired. Otherwise wait until midnight. Then take control of upper wing.
A message from The Shadow! Cliff was elated. Somehow, his leader had managed to penetrate to this isolated spot; to bring him a weapon; to leave him instructions. Cliff understood.
He slipped his hand to the window ledge, found the key, and left it there.
Sometime tonight, The Shadow intended to open an attack. Fiends of crime would meet their match, elsewhere in this strange, castle-like abode. This wing would be under guard. It was Cliff's appointed task to spring a surprise attack, to gain control of the wing, and hold it for whatever purpose The Shadow intended.
Thus The Shadow would strike from two directions. He himself would come from without; Cliff Marsland would hammer from within.