They could have used their guns; in fact, they were still ready to do so if the Aztec hatchets budged. But it was better policy to wait, for no shots could reach Xitli. Aztecs were blocking off the path of aim toward the fire G.o.d. This frozen scene at least meant life, if no one disturbed the situation.

It was the voice of Xitli that all awaited; the one tone that could decide between life and death.

The words from the green mask were harsh, yet lulling to the Aztecs. The chant faded and a weird silence gripped the throne room, wherein the slight crackle of the fire seemed to grow in accompaniment to the tone of Xitli. Then the fire G.o.d did a most singular thing.

Gripping the knife by its blade, he proffered the handle to Andy. With his other hand Xitli gestured toward Yvonne, motioning for Andy to cut the thongs that bound her.

Numbly, Andy did so, and he saw the girl's eyes open. A moment later he was lifting Yvonne to her feet, helping her past the fire where Aztecs stood immobile, their hatchets still upraised.

Andy heard the tone of Xitli, a voice that he recognized, speaking in English. As he reached the door he told the detectives to put their guns away. Andy still could not understand the situation, but he knew that he had been spared by Xitli and that the fire G.o.d was a friend.

The detectives pocketed their revolvers, and Xitli's followers lowered their stone hatchets. They retired to the walls and squatted there, like patient lions obeying the mandate of a trainer. Then Xitli himself was coming from the throne room to meet the group in the hall.

He stepped toward the costume room where the Aztecs could not see him. There he removed his mask, to reveal himself as Professor Hedwin.

"BE careful," warned Hedwin in a low tone. "The Aztecs must not know that I am one of you. They cannot be blamed for the murders which they committed. They did those deeds through ignorance."

"You mean you aren't Xitli?" queried Andy. "That is, you weren't the man who brought the Aztecs here?"

"A correct a.s.sumption," returned Hedwin with a smile. "In fact, I actually doubted my own theories for a while. But when I realized that the Xitli cult must actually exist, I decided to disband it. There was only one way: to pose as Xitli myself."

Hedwin was taking off the headdress and the flame-hued robe. But his argument, though it appealed to Andy, did not go over with the detectives. They crowded in upon the old professor, then looked about for Salter. The curator had not yet arrived, but Eugene Brendle was on hand. He gave Hedwin a scathing look.

"It won't do, Hedwin," declared Brendle. "The proof is all against you. Smart business, trying to frame an alibi, but it won't go, under the circ.u.mstances."

"The proof is against me?" queried Hedwin. "You mean these?" He shoved the robe, the mask, into Brendle's hands, along with the headdress. "Bah! What do they mean? Put them back where they belong in the costume room. Let the real Xitli have them when he comes." "The real Xitli?"

"Yes." Pressing Brendle aside, Hedwin pointed a bony finger toward a man who was coming from the corner of the corridor. "Here he is!"

The man was Fitzhugh Salter. He was still breathless from his spill outside the office. Before Salter could say a word, Hedwin had the floor.

"I watched you, Salter," cackled the professor. "Night after night you came to the museum, thinking that no one knew it. But I understood your game. While you pretended that my theories were worthless, you were gathering the Xitli clan.

"You knew that I detested Carland and Dorn. But so did you, Salter. You found a perfect way to murder them, for which I cannot entirely blame you. But it was despicable on your part to throw the guilt on me!"

In his harangue, Hedwin made no mention of Talborn's treasure, which in itself provided a profit motive for the crimes of Xitli. But the question of the treasure merely weighed each side of the balance between Hedwin and Salter.

Either of the two could have learned what Talborn had done. Hedwin might have looked over the shipments from Mexico, while Salter had such opportunity upon their arrival in New Orleans.

"Call Brendle," suggested Hedwin, turning to Andy. "Have him bring back the Xitli costume. Or better still, suppose we take Salter to the costume room and let him put on the regalia. We'll make him show himself as Xitli!"

His face thrust close to Salter's, Hedwin gave the curator a fierce glare. Quite undisturbed, the curator finally found his breath and turned to the detectives.

"Does Hedwin know about the recordings?" he questioned. "If he did, he might change his tune.

Suppose" - Salter was smiling as the detectives shook their heads - "that I tell him."

A baffled look came over Hedwin's face. Then Salter was detailing the scene that had taken place in the office; how, on the night before, he had also listened in on a meeting of the Xitli cult and had kept a record of it.

Hedwin couldn't seem to find an answer; even Andy, whose leanings had turned toward the professor, was convinced by Salter's argument. Only Yvonne still had a plea for Hedwin.

"I shouldn't have screamed," she told Andy earnestly. "When Xitli held the knife above me, my nerves gave way. But he was only trying to quiet the Aztecs."

"Quite right," agreed Hedwin quickly. "I told them that the sacrifice should wait until they returned to Mexico. I had to go through all the drama of an actual threat to show them that Xitli could restrain his hand at the very moment of a sacrifice."

THE detectives were not restraining their hands. They had heard enough of Hedwin's alibis. They started to drag Hedwin toward the elevator, and the professor made no protest. Right then Salter inserted a single word: "Wait!"

Surprised that Salter would intervene for Hedwin, the detectives halted. Facing the slumped professor,Salter spoke in a tone of marked apology.

"I believe your story, Hedwin," he said simply. "But first I had to prove my own. I was never Xitli; neither were you until tonight. Do you remember" - Salter had turned to Andy and the detectives - "how I tried to hold you back downstairs?

"It was because I understood the things that Xitli was saying when Yvonne screamed. He was telling them that there had been enough of blood, that they were to leave this land as they had come here. He said that Xitli would dwell alone within his temple.

"But that was not all. The voice of Xitli was more fluent than it was last night. Then he spoke only in forced phrases; tonight he used the language as if it were his own.

"I have satisfied everyone that I was not Xitli, now I declare Hedwin innocent, too. The proof is in my office. You will all recognize it when I play the records. You will hear the voice of the Xitli that we seek, the one who actually demanded murder -"

They heard it without going to Salter's office. It came from behind them at the very door of the throne room, which everyone had forgotten. Turning about, the startled group saw Xitli himself, come upon them so suddenly that he seemed actually to have materialized himself like a genuine G.o.d of fire.

Masked, feathered, in full regalia, Xitli was throating the order to his Aztecs, who still occupied the throne room - an order which, even to those who lacked all knowledge of Mayan, could mean but one thing. Death!

CHAPTER XX. THE FINAL DUEL.

THE surge toward Xitli was immediate but hopeless. Before Andy and the detectives could bring their guns into action, the feathered fire G.o.d had swept into his throne room.

Hoping to stop him before he roused the Aztecs, the attackers swarmed through the door, only to be met by lunging men with swinging hatchets. Well did Xitli know the speed with which his Aztecs acted, how little they feared death themselves.

In one swift instant it seemed that doom was certain for Andy and the over-ardent detectives. Then, without a single gunshot, Aztecs were plunging headlong to the floor, tripped by two of their own companions - the men nearest the door. A pair of squatly blockers had literally flung themselves in front of the surging horde.

They were not Aztecs, those two, even though they had pa.s.sed as such in the flickering glow of the throne room. They were The Shadow's Xincas, sent to the meeting by their chief with orders to thwart murder when the time came.

The fact that they had not intervened earlier was proof that Hedwin's story was true. All along the Xincas had known that Hedwin, garbed as Xitli, was trying to calm the cult.

But it was a different Xitli who now commanded. His attacking Aztecs had been slowed, but not stopped. Andy and the detectives were plunging into battle, unwisely giving the Aztecs the close range that the squatly fighters liked. Above all rose the triumphant voice of Xitli, with its loud command to kill.

Only a power more startling than Xitli's could turn the tide. Such a power did.

It began with a roar from the throne of the fire G.o.d toward which Xitli himself had turned. The roar was the splitting of the built-in throne as it spread in two parts, revealing a black pa.s.sage behind it. From the blackness came a challenging laugh, the mockery of an invisible foe. At that mirth, Aztecs turned, for they knew the fighter that it meant.

Xitli himself tried to drown the challenge with another cry to kill, but the tone of The Shadow, increased by the hollow behind the throne, still dominated.

Like blocks of stone come to life, The Shadow's Xincas rose and hurled themselves toward the door, bowling Andy and the nonplused detectives out into the corridor.

Starting to shoot at Aztecs, the surprised invaders did not see the Xincas until the pair hit them, below gun level, with the force of battering rams.

The Xincas were simply clearing the battleground, where only one combatant was needed: The Shadow!

Tongues of gun flame were stabbing lead from the sundered throne, clipping the Aztecs who tried to fling their hatchets. Others were dropping back, amazed by the broken throne, which seemed to spell an end to the power of Xitli.

But one thing more was needed to throw the murder tribe into utter confusion. The Shadow supplied the necessary deed.

Springing from the secret pa.s.sage, he reached the seat of Xitli's throne and poised, crouched with his aiming guns, upon the basalt block that was the symbol of the fire G.o.d.

To the Aztecs, it was death to touch that stone. In The Shadow they saw a G.o.d of death, the only sort of being that could defy Xitli!

FROM behind the shelter of his followers, Xitli howled for a new attack that did not come. In desperation, he flung one of his fire vials. The Shadow saw it coming and swept his cloak over his eyes.

The thing burst with a blaze, and with the flare the Aztecs heard the shout of Xitli, competing with the laugh that The Shadow delivered through his m.u.f.fling cloak.

Blindly the Aztecs charged. The Shadow side-stepped, letting them stumble toward the throne, from which they quailed as they felt its touch. Through the ma.s.s of blundering figures, The Shadow was looking for Xitli. He saw the masquerader beyond the throng, coming up from the floor, where he had stooped to shield his eyes.

Xitli saw The Shadow and gave another fling. This time his weapon was a stone ax that one of his followers had dropped. He lobbed it over the heads of the Aztecs and howled new triumph as he saw The Shadow make a desperate twist.

But in that spin The Shadow found the opening he wanted. With his sideward dive he stabbed a shot between the figures of two Aztecs.

The Shadow's aim was perfect. Xitli never saw the finish of the ax fling as the stone blade sliced the brim of The Shadow's hat and harmlessly slashed the black cloak before clattering on the floor. For Xitli's heart had received a bullet straight from The Shadow's gun.

No longer could Xitli command. The only tone that echoed through the throne room was the laugh of The Shadow.

Thrusting Aztecs aside, The Shadow reached the throne. There his laugh ended; he was speaking commands that the Aztecs understood. His voice was in their language; it came from Xitli's throne. It wasthe word of a power greater than the fire G.o.d. Submissively, the Aztecs dropped their weapons.

They heard the clatter of the closing throne. When their blinking eyes could view the change they saw that The Shadow was gone. But Xitli still remained among them, a dead figure on the floor. Death to Xitli meant the end of the fire G.o.d's cult. No longer would these Aztecs murder.

From the corridor, Professor Hedwin entered. He spoke to the Aztecs and they listened, for The Shadow had told them to await another's order. Behind Hedwin came Fitzhugh Salter.

The curator stooped above the form of Xitli and removed the dead man's mask. He beckoned others to come and view the lifeless face of Eugene Brendle, the man who had covered his crimes, along with his ident.i.ty, when he posed as Xitli.

A SHORT while later they found Lamont Cranston down in the curator's office, where he had just arrived. A mere spectator, Cranston listened to the details that the others pieced while detectives were marching the surviving Aztecs out from the museum.

It was easy to fit facts regarding Brendle once he had been identified as Xitli. He had been connected with the Mayan Museum from the start and had heard the Xitli legend. As the contractor who superintended the building, Brendle had easily installed the secret entrance to the throne room.

"Brendle suffered more than either of us, so far as Carland was concerned," said Salter to Hedwin. "The same applied in Dorn's case. But Brendle was clever. He kept up a friendship with Carland so that the blame would be placed on one of us."

"You mean on me," corrected Hedwin. "The throne room was my idea. But do you know" - the professor's eyes gleamed wisely - "I don't think that Brendle expected the Aztecs at all. He intended to use Laboutard for murder; then, perhaps, hold some brief masquerade to draw attention to the Aztec cult.

"The throne room was of my design; Brendle's addition of a secret pa.s.sage would have been attributed to me, though I knew nothing of it."

"But when the Aztecs came -"

"Brendle used them, of course. He posed as Xitli and put the Aztecs to the task that Laboutard refused."

Silently, The Shadow admired Hedwin's a.n.a.lysis. It lacked a few details, but was otherwise correct. The Shadow could have supplied the missing points, for he had recognized them while many were still in progress. But when the story had been thrashed out, The Shadow had something to add, which he could do quite capably as Cranston.

"You speak of a double game," he remarked. "Talborn was after treasure. When Brendle learned it, he followed up the murders of Carland and Dorn by attempting to take Talborn's treasure."

"Quite right," agreed Salter. "The idea of wealth appealed to Brendle."

"He needed money," insisted Hedwin. "He was constantly worried over the fifty thousand dollars that Carland owed him."

"Then why," came Cranston's query, "did Brendle refuse sixty thousand that I offered him for the Carland property this evening. I actually gave him a check for it, but he tore it up and insisted upon this instead.

You will find the duplicate in Brendle's pocket, along with the t.i.tle deeds that still belong to Yvonne Carland." The Shadow produced his copy of the written memorandum. At first sight Brendle's contract regarding the rice lands looked like a generous arrangement, but Brendle, exposed as Xitli, could no longer be regarded as generous. Cranston's lips formed a smile as his keen eyes roved the puzzled group.

"There must be a catch to it," he said. "Otherwise Brendle would not have made the offer. I think the catch concerns the term 'rice lands.' Brendle knew that the property was salt marsh, unfit for raising rice.

All he wanted was a chance to survey the land and find something else, presumably by accident."

"What else?" queried Andy.

"I would say oil," replied The Shadow. "The land was Carland's to begin with, and oil was his business.

His talk of rice was merely a blind. Having to borrow on the property, he did not want Brendle to know its real worth. But Dorn knew all about it. Carland talked to him in terms of oil, not rice."

The whole of Brendle's scheme opened wide. His double murder had been a quest for wealth, not a mere grudge against Carland and Dorn. It brought home another point, which the listeners heard Cranston supply in a matter-of-fact fashion.

"Laboutard knew the delta region," said The Shadow. "He is probably the man who informed Brendle that there was oil on Carland's property. Which made it all the more necessary for Brendle to dispose of Laboutard, the one man who could have blackmailed him later.

"I have heard that there are great possibilities in Louisiana oil land." The Shadow turned to Yvonne. "So allow me to congratulate you, Miss Carland, on the future wealth that you deserve. From what I have learned of Brendle, he would not have played for small stakes. If you need fifty thousand dollars to regain those t.i.tle deeds, my check book is still available."

STROLLING from the office, The Shadow left the museum and returned to his car, where the faithful Xincas waited. They had kept right on through, after turning battle over to The Shadow.

As he started the car, The Shadow gazed toward the great museum, its piles of pyramiding steps leading to the topmost floor, where crime had risen to its heights, then fallen. From Cranston's lips came the laugh of The Shadow.

Those within the museum caught the echoes of that mirth. It was fanciful, weird, seemingly distant, yet as real as the vast bulk of the mighty pyramid above them. Real to those who had seen the fray in which that laugh had resounded from the lips of a black-clad battler who fought for justice.

They knew the parting laugh of The Shadow, the tone that symbolized his triumph over Xitli, G.o.d of fire!

THE END.