“Then be prepared. This time a great task lies before you. It concerns a most dangerous man — a man who, if he ever suspected the existence of our band, would do his utmost to destroy it.
“That man is called The Shadow!”
“The Shadow!”
“Exactly. Like each member of the Seven, I have purposes. I perform my work so smoothly that no one has ever before suspected me.
“But The Shadow is a superman. It was he who disguised himself as Haggerty, in an effort to force a confession from the lips of Gunner Macklin. I prevented it. Pretending to be an interne, I gave Macklin a poisoned drink.
“The Shadow is now seeking to destroy me. It was he who told you to investigate me.”
“A whispered voice,” gasped Warwick. “It sounded uncanny — over the telephone.”
“The voice of The Shadow,” said Palermo. “The voice of my most bitter enemy! I must thwart him!”
Warwick’s furrowed face took on an expression of determination. He was a fighter, this man. The public knew him as a detective who worked months upon a single clew, a man who would stop at no opposition.
But he owed allegiance to the Silent Seven; that allegiance ruled his life.