The Third Skull

CHAPTER XIV. THE FUTILE FRAY

THE SHADOW’S automatics boomed their opening shots. Two gorillas were beaten on the draw. One mobster sprawled forward from the doorway. The second, partly covered by his falling pal, sagged out into the hall. The Shadow had gained the edge. His sinister laugh came with the echoes of his fire.

But with those two rounds, The Shadow’s vantage ended. This was destined to be a battle replete with surprises. These first mobsters had been sent as shock troops. Some competent leader had profited by the setback at Tobold’s. The reserves were not so unwary as before.

Barks burst from the depths of the outside hall. Mobsters were under cover, ready in case The Shadow intervened. They were opening from ambush; had they been less hasty, they might have scored a triumph.

As it was, whistling bullets did not more than give The Shadow warning. The zipping slugs were wide, discharged from long range. The Shadow saw Professor Morth diving to cover behind the big desk. Built of heavy wood, the desk was sufficient protection. It was not flimsy, like Tobold’s counter.

That meant that The Shadow, too, could seek a bulwark. With a quick swish, the cloaked fighter leaped for the curtained alcove. Shouts from the hall; futile guns barked wildly as The Shadow dived for shelter.

Aiming mobsters missed their whirling target.

Bullets clipped skulls in Professor Morth’s cupboard. Plop — plop — plop — three heads went toppling like tin birds from the rack of a shooting gallery.

Morth uttered a mad gabble from behind his desk, as he saw his prizes fall. The professor’s outcry was drowned by new shots.

Mobsters were aiming for the alcove. Its opening was at right angles to the doorway of the room. They had no chance to clip The Shadow in his shelter. But The Shadow, thrusting a gun muzzle from the curtain, was returning the fire.

One cry from the hallway. Another. Mobsters were writhing, wounded. The Shadow had picked the spurts of their guns. Sharpshooter extraordinary, he was dealing havoc to the ranks of the foe. He was crippling a man with every shot.

An enemy sprang boldly into view, to open rapid fire. The Shadow glimpsed a fierce, hardened face. He knew its owner: Flick Sherrad. The hired mob-leader was not staying back tonight, as he must have done at Tobold’s. Flick was out to get The Shadow.

Revolver bullets chiseled chunks from the woodwork by the alcove. The Shadow’s fire had halted. Flick was delivering the full contents of his revolver. He thought that he had clipped The Shadow. He did not know that The Shadow was waiting.

As Flick’s fire ended, an odd break came in the fray. Flick had loosed five swift shots. The Shadow expected another. Back in the alcove, he waited, believing that the hot-headed mob-leader would loose a final slug for good measure. The Shadow had calculated well. Flick pressed the trigger of his gun to dispatch a useless bullet.

At that instant, Professor Morth bobbed up from behind the desk. Opening with Hothan’s .32, Morth fired at Flick Sherrad. The professor’s aim was bad. His shots went wide of the mob-leader.

This new attack, however, sent Flick diving for cover just as The Shadow swung out from the alcove.

Automatics thundered through the narrow-walled room. But for Morth’s intervention, The Shadow would have dropped Flick Sherrad. As it was, the mob-leader escaped death by a hair’s breadth. His strategy spoiled by Morth’s unexpected action, The Shadow quickly took a new course. He whirled forward toward the outer door.

Stopping short, he used the side of the doorway as a new bulwark. He fired out into the hall. Shouting men went clumping down stairways, front and back. Flick Sherrad and the remnants of his crew had taken flight.

The Shadow did not follow. Instead, he swung quickly back into the study. He had a reason for avoiding that darkened hall; one that was to become apparent later. He knew that he had shattered the venomous morale of Flick Sherrad’s band; but he suspected that another enemy might be present.

ALL during the fast fray, Homer Hothan had been squirming madly, trying to release himself from the mechanical skull. His right hand was lacerated by the pressure of the rowels against which he had tugged.

Blood was showing about the clamping skull teeth.

Out of the path of bullets, Hothan was gasping frantically. As he saw The Shadow turning in his direction, Hothan displayed his cowardice. He wailed for mercy.

“Don’t kill me!” cried the sneaky murderer. “I’ll — I’ll squeal! I–I’ll tell everything—”

As Hothan’s voice broke, The Shadow turned quickly toward the door. A gorilla was crawling in from the hallway. Wounded, the man was on his hands and knees; he was the rogue whom The Shadow had clipped at the beginning of the fight.

The thug had heard Hothan’s plea. Possessed of the mistaken sense of duty that rules the underworld, he wanted to finish this squealer. Alone of all the scattered mobsters, this one knew that Hothan was yellow.

The gorilla could not have clipped The Shadow. Already, the cloaked fighter was swinging an automatic to beat the thug to the shot. But Hothan was a target that the gunman had already spotted. Half sagging, the gorilla fired; then collapsed with a vicious gasp.

The gorilla’s gat was a big “smokewagon.” The slug that it delivered produced a result that not even The Shadow had expected. Aim slipping, the gorilla missed Hothan; but the bullet found another mark — the jaw joint of the mechanical skull that held the squealer prisoner.

The jaws of the skull snapped open. Hothan, tugging, went staggering forward. Straight in his path was The Shadow, turning. With a frantic cry, Hothan leaped wildly upon this formidable foe.

Lucky in his attack, wild with frantic desire for escape, Hothan sent The Shadow staggering backward.

Madly, Hothan grappled for The Shadow’s throat but his clutching hands fell short of their mark. The Shadow’s tall form sagged; as Hothan cried out in fury, powerful shoulders came straight upward.

One gloved hand, dropping its automatic, caught Hothan in a quick jujitsu hold. An instant later, Hothan’s body shot straight upward into the air; it seemed to poise there; then the struggling squealer went plunging headlong for the wall behind The Shadow’s back.

Again, luck was with Hothan. By rights, he should have landed head-first on the floor. But the very power of The Shadow’s thrust brought a different result. Thrown almost to the wall, Hothan, wildly clutching, encountered the cupboard that contained the rows of skulls.

HOTHAN grabbed; then pitched backward. With him came the cupboard. The Shadow, swinging about to stop its fall, was too late in new action. The heavy shelves toppled forward, Hothan with them. The cupboard trapped The Shadow where he stood.

Skulls scattered everywhere as The Shadow was flattened. Again Professor Morth cried wildly. Hothan, whose grab had loosed this cataclysm, was thrown clear of the debris. Finding his feet, he scurried madly for the door to the hall, clutching his torn hand as he ran.

Morth fired wild shots to stop him. Again, the anthropologist showed himself no marksman. Hothan dived past the door; Morth started forward to pursue him. The professor did not heed a warning hiss that came from the overturned cupboard.

The Shadow was coming up between two shelves. Half tangled in the debris, he wanted to stop Morth’s dash. Close by The Shadow’s right hand lay a skull; quickly, the cloaked fighter seized the death’s-head and hurled it toward the professor.

The missile landed against Morth’s neck, just below his ear. The professor tripped and sprawled upon the floor. The skull bounced beside him, rolled a few feet and remained teetering back and forth, grinning as though pleased by the part that it had played.

The fall had knocked out Morth for the moment. Though uninjured, the professor had lost his wind. He was lying helpless, trying to recover when The Shadow came up from the overturned shelves.

Rolling skulls aside, The Shadow recovered his automatics and sprang toward the outer door. Nearing it, he stopped short.

Outside was the darkened entrance to stairs that led to the third floor. Uncannily, The Shadow picked those steps as an ambush. He opened fire; a revolver barked in answer. The Shadow loosed a fusillade, then sprang forward.

His present set of automatics was a new brace that he had introduced for the final fray. With these weapons barking, The Shadow attacked with irresistible fury. He had gained the start; his lurking enemy was in flight. Had Professor Morth dashed out into that hall, he would have been slain by the concealed assassin. But The Shadow was a fighter who moved too swiftly for the hiding foe.

This was not Hothan. The escaping prisoner had fled downward. The Shadow was dealing with the man who had crossed his path before — the supercrook who had slain Channing Tobold. Fiercely, The Shadow was driving the killer upward through the darkness. The foe was in flight toward the third floor.

Just as The Shadow reached the top of the stairs, something thumped from above. The Shadow recognized the sound. It was a trapdoor in the room. Clamps were grating into place. The big-shot had fled in time to close the path behind him.

THE SHADOW laughed. Then, swiftly, he turned and descended to the lower floor. He kept on past Mort’s study; down to the ground floor. He opened the front door. He heard the sound of police whistles; he spied bluecoats coming up the street.

Pietro was on the other side, huddled in an alley with his pushcart. The Shadow knew that the crooks must have come in through the front; but Pietro had been unable to give warning. Nor had he been able to stop the flight of numerous gorillas.

Shutting the door, The Shadow turned back into the house. He spied Logan, bound and gagged upon a couch in a side room. The raiders under Flick Sherrad had rung the doorbell, then had overpowered the servant. Logan was all right. The police would release him.

The Shadow moved swiftly through the house. He found the rear door still bolted. He opened it and moved out into the darkness. This street was quiet. No mobsters had fled by this route. That was to be regretted.

Jericho, across the way, might have dealt with some of them. That was why The Shadow had placed him here, the rear being the most likely exit. But the mobsters had crossed the dope in fleeing by the front.

A foolish course, that flight to the front street; but it had worked well for Flick Sherrad, since Pietro had been there alone. The fruit seller was not one of The Shadow’s first-line fighters. Pietro had been wise in keeping out of it.

Off through the dark. A block away, The Shadow paused, by the blackness of an obscure Village street.

His keen eyes looked back, toward the outlines of houses in the block where Morth lived. A solemn laugh escaped The Shadow’s lips.

The master crook had gone, fleeing atop those roofs. Once again, The Shadow had failed to stop that unseen slayer. But The Shadow’s laugh, though grim, betrayed a note of triumph.

It was still stalemate: The supercrook had gained nothing through the futile fray. Though his two best workers, Hothan and Sherrad, were still at large, the big-shot had played another useless hand.

The Shadow had saved Professor Tyson Morth. The anthropologist was not the custodian of Hildrew Parchell’s hidden wealth. The game of crime was scheduled for resumption. Again, The Shadow would encounter his unknown foe.