by its very pall, to smother the babble which ceased as the blackness came!
With that blot that foretold immediate crime, Margo lost her last chance
to spot The Shadow, as he swung out to pull himself up over the balcony rail!
CHAPTER III
DEATH GOES RAMPANT
THE last moment of light in the third-floor suite showed a scene that
could not be viewed from below - one which presaged the horror that was to be
when the illumination ended.
On tables and chairs in the center of the room were the coffers that had
come from the armored truck, open for inspection by the bankers. The smaller
coffers were by far the heavier, for they contained gold, in coin. Gold from
the treasury of Centralba, stored up through years: governmental proceeds from
such commodities as oil, bananas, and mahogany.
The former president, Francisco Peridor, who still called Centralba by its
old name, had done well for his people. All the results of his economics had
reached the hands of Luis Castenago, the present dictator.
These funds in gold, plus the American currency that swelled from the
larger chests, were payment from Castenago to Durez, and others, who had
fattened on private concessions, now the dictator's property.
But Durez and the rest were more than satisfied, as their laughter told.
Their mirth had simply increased when they saw the two American bankers stare
in awe at so much wealth, particularly the gold.
Then the scene of pelf was vanished in a trice! Not even the gold could
glitter in the blackness that came when the lights went off. The blackout could
mean but one thing: a threat that produced absolute silence. Someone was after
the spoils that Castenago had yielded!
In the pitch-darkness, men trembled. Durez and his associates, fresh from
a land where death could occur at the mere snap of a dictator's fingers, had
thought themselves safe in this healthier clime where law had prevailed.
True, they had heard that criminals could strike in such cities as Miami,
or the Beach, but they had been jesting on that very point when they mentioned
the terrorism that prevailed in Centralba.
Jests were over. The menace was here.
A voice spoke from the doorway. Its rasp was crimeland's edition of a
dictator's harsh demands. The tone belonged to Murk Wessel, big con man, who
had switched from his more subtle specialty to outright banditry because of the
profits involved.
"Anybody that moves gets croaked!" assured Murk. "That dough is going out
of here, and nobody stops it! Savvy?"
This wasn't like Centralba, where the military police stepped up in
daylight and marched their victims off to prison, with the promise of a mock
trial that would mean a firing squad at dawn.
Here, things happened in the darkness, where accusers didn't even show
their faces. Men of crime didn't believe in trials, even of the mock variety.
Death's promise was immediate.
The stir that followed made all hearers shudder, thinking that some of
