The elevator was coming up at last. It reached the ninth floor. Down it went. When it reached the ground, The Shadow slipped from the mezzanine.
There, on the steps, he waited for an instant. There was excitement in the lobby. The mail box had been opened. In it had been found the letter to the police.
“J. T.!” Mayhew was shouting. “Who is J. T.? Give me that phone quick. Shoot upstairs, you. Find out who’s been around the mail chute—”
The Shadow drew into seclusion as a plainclothes man came dashing upward. The elevator, too, was rising. With the way now clear, The Shadow glided quickly to the ground floor.
He was nothing more than a thin black silhouette — an untraceable phantom as he swept from the hotel.
He had been detained too long. He had discovered the riddle of those death notes.
He must make use of what he had learned. For death hovered over a helpless man — and The Shadow alone could prevent it!
What was that death to be? That was the mystery. There was not far to go. Only in person could The Shadow thwart the intended crime.
The time element was uncertain; there was no telling what had been intended until the scene was reached.
A coupe shot westward from the street behind the hotel. Five blocks it sped, then it stopped. From it emerged a man in black, who disappeared swiftly into the surrounding gloom, toward an old, four-storied house.