With marked agility, he crept to the edge of the door and pointed his gun directly toward the screen in the corner of the living room. The muzzle covered the crouching shape.
Watching, Benson saw the door move open. Delmuth's hand came along the wall. It swept suddenly forward and toppled the screen toward the floor.
Benson was springing forward, his finger on the trigger of the gun that covered the area behind the screen. Simultaneously, Delmuth was coming through the door.
They were sweeping toward their prey — the man whom they believed was hiding in the corner of the room. Both were headed toward the same objective — death to The Shadow!
They stopped as suddenly as they had sprung. The silhouetted form had fallen forward with the screen. There was no one there!
Fastened flat against the inside of the center panel of the screen was a mass of newspaper, cunningly fashioned to resemble the silhouette of a man. The shadow that the plotters had fancied was the form of a living being was nothing more than a paper shape, designed to deceive them!
All that was needed to cap the climax of this artful deception was the sound of jibing laugh from without the window through which The Shadow had departed. That was The Shadow's way — to mock those whom he tricked. But the laugh was not forthcoming.
For The Shadow had departed the instant that he had heard the telephone conversation that Jeremiah Benson had held with the party who had called the wrong number. That had been Burbank's emergency signal!
Even now, The Shadow was talking on a telephone, half a block from the apartment house where Jeremiah Benson dwelt. He was receiving a report from Burbank; a report that told of interrupted plans of a wireless communication that had not been resumed as ordered. The Shadow swung out into the night. A swift, flitting figure, he moved unseen into the darkness and disappeared. No trace of him remained.
A few minutes later, a sleek, high-powered roadster was whirling southward along one of Manhattan's avenues. The muffled purr beneath the hood signified the terrific speed that lay in that powerful motor. As the car sped through the Holland Tunnel, a low, solemn laugh came from the driver. The man at the wheel was invisible in the darkness of the deep-seated car. The lighted dial of a dash-board clock showed half past twelve.