“Letters came to him — your letters — the Double Z notes. He copied them. He used your cryptic signature. He sent them to their destinations. Luke Froy mailed them. The young Chinaman knew that it was wrong; but he feared to oppose Loy Rook, and he kept on to please his foster-father.
“Luke Froy knew nothing except that letters came, and that Zachary Shellmann received phone calls from an unknown source. Those calls came from this very room. The old man gloated over your crimes. He felt that he had played a part in them.
“Twice Luke Froy went to Loy Rook’s: once for the li-shun; again to deliver a note which the old man had written to Loy Rook at your order. That was the instruction for my capture. A plot that failed.
“Now, even though you fear me, The Shadow, and your power has waned, you have attempted crime again. Supposedly dead, actually in hiding, you have not been able to repress your desire to kill. You are here to murder your two friends, Hotchkiss and Glover!
“I can recognize your method. An infernal machine planted in your smoking room, where these men have come because they were your friends. A twist of that dial which you are now afraid to touch — the machine will be exploded by remote control. But that plot shall never succeed!”
The Shadow paused and studied the man at the table. Matthew Wade became frenzied.
“The proof!” he screamed. “the proof of what you say!”
“Shellmann died tonight,” said The Shadow quietly. “Luke Froy, stricken by the old man’s death, told me his story with his own lips before he committed suicide. It was he who revealed that a final letter had been sent — a letter which Detective Cardona had kept to himself.”
“You think that I am Double Z?” demanded Wade.
“I know that you are Double Z!” said The Shadow.