Atoms of Death

CHAPTER XIII CRIME COMES THROUGH

CLIFF MARSLAND, reporting to The Shadow, knew that crime was in the making. How close it was to completion, Cliff had not guessed.

For at the very time that Cliff had started to call Burbank, a group of men were participating in a most remarkable scene, close by the foundation of the big building which housed the wealthy Colonnade Trust Company.

The men where crouched in a circular tunnel that measured five feet in diameter. Extending from the cellar of a vacant house, the tribe had been burrowing for a distance of thirty feet. Along the floor of the tunnel ran an insulated wire which hooked with a mechanism at the inner end.

There, a five-foot concave bowl was faced against solid concrete. The glow of burning light showed from its rim. A singing buzz was coming from the device, with occasional crackles. Matt Theblaw, close against the back of the machine, was pressing it forward in a slow, regular manner, while Digger Wight and others watched him in the dim glow.

The disintegrating ray was eating through the stone foundations of the Colonnade Trust building. Concrete was melting away as if before a sand blast. But Professor Jark’s invention was smoother and more efficient than any old-type device. It conquered steel and other metals as effectively as it withered rock.

“We’re there,” came Matt’s growled announcement, heard despite the crackles of the ray. “Move back — all of you.”

He clicked a switch. The glare of the ray machine flickered into oblivion. Matt swung the shallow bowl sidewise and drew the base of the machine toward him.

“Flashlights,” he ordered in the darkness.

Glimmers came. Digger and Louie aided in pulling the machine edgewise back through the tunnel. Matt groped through to the finish of the cavity; then clicked his own flashlight. He chuckled as he saw the interior of a huge vault. He had picked the right goal.

Crooks went to work at Matt’s order. In and out, in and out, they rifled the contents of the nest to which they had penetrated. Stacks of currency, piles of negotiable securities, boxes of silver coin constituted their spoils.

The Colonnade Trust Company had connections with banks that did a large business in foreign markets. Its vault — the one that Matt had reached — was used to store large quantities of foreign as well as domestic currency. The crooks were making a haul that meant huge profits.

Dragging boxes as they worked with speed, Matt’s picked henchmen brought the spoils into the cellar of the empty house from which the tunneling had begun. Digger was in charge there; he had dismantled the ray machine and boxed it. Matt ordered his crew to carry the boxed machine up with the swag. The workers were to load cars that were parked on streets close by.

DIGGER was engaged in a new task. The short crook had gained his nickname because of his ability to carve his way through barriers. Tonight’s job was one that he could not possibly have accomplished; but it was his work to make it look as though some force other than the ray had done the trick.

Skillfully, Digger began planting dynamite charges all the way through the tunnel, from the vault back to the cellar of the house. He had accomplished this by the time the last boxes were gone. Setting a time fuse, Digger gave the word that he was ready.

“This way, Digger,” ordered Matt, as they reached the ground floor above the cellar. “We’re going out by the front door. So’s I can pass the tip-off to Loco.”

The swag carriers had taken a rear exit. The entire terrain about this vacant house was under guard. As Matt and Digger emerged from the front door, they stepped to a secluded street, where the whiteness of the Colonnade Trust building showed cater-cornered from where they stood.

A man shouldered up to the doorway. It was Loco. Matt spoke in an undertone. This was the word for the cover-up crew to spread. No more watchers were needed between the old house and the bank building.

“We’ll be clear inside of ten minutes,” informed Matt, “but you won’t have to wait that long. Just hold it for a couple of minutes after the soup blows. That’s going to bring the bulls. Give them a chance to spot some of the cars. Lead them a phony chase, with a good start.”

“That’s all fixed, Matt,” assured Loco. “Leave it to me. The whole crew’s posted. But they’ll still be watching out until the blow-off comes.”

Long and lanky, Loco sidled away from the house. Matt nudged Digger. Together they walked along until they reached a passage between two houses. Moving through, they came to a rear street, where three cars were waiting. Matt and Digger each boarded a different vehicle.

The caravan started. With lights dimmed, the cars were moving out into an avenue, there to take up a northward course, increasing speed as they cleared this district. Matt had deliberately planned for the fireworks to start soon after the get-away.

That was because he did not want Loco’s crew lingering longer than was necessary. Rather than figure half an hour for the swag bearers to make distance, he had counted on only ten minutes. To draw in the police and to give them a blind trail of mobster cars, was the idea that Matt had picked as best.

There were few cars passing along the avenue. The leading vehicle in Matt’s procession waited until the broad street was cleared; then it swung out with the other cars close behind. But while the three cars were turning, another vehicle swung into the avenue from three blocks below.

It was a trim coupe that had made haste in reaching this location. The driver, looking up the avenue, spied the three cars coming into the wide street. A whispered laugh came from blackness above the wheel of the coupe.

FROM the details of Cliff Marsland’s report, The Shadow had divined that robbery might be completed by the time that he reached the vicinity of the bank building. He had deliberately arranged his course so that he might spot any suspicious-looking cars that were about.

For even if crime had succeeded, The Shadow had a rare opportunity. He knew that crooks would not expect followers. This was his chance to pick up a trail that would lead him to the new headquarters of Professor Baldridge Jark.

The Shadow had reasoned that Matt and Digger would be the jobdoers; that Jark would still be at the unknown spot where Doctor Baird was held prisoner; that reserve gangsters would be there also. The Shadow also knew that traffic on the avenue would be running without interruption.

Coming in to skirt this district, he had seen the beginning of the get-away. His plan was to keep on the trail. Idling along in the coupe, he gave the three cars more leeway; then, when they were four blocks distant, The Shadow suddenly increased speed.

Well had The Shadow calculated. But chance, which had first favored him, was now ready with a bit of trickery. From a store front on the avenue, sharp eyes were watching The Shadow’s coupe. Those optics belonged to one of Loco Zorgin’s pickets.

The crouching mobster noted the coupe’s increase of speed. He watched the vehicle for a moment; then decided to look along the avenue. That was when the freak of chance occurred. Just as the picket spotted the swag-bearing cars, the leader of the procession swung off the avenue into another side street.

But for this fact, the picket would not have suspected the coupe. As it was, he reasoned backward. He thought that the driver of the coupe had seen the cars turn and on that account had increased acceleration. Leaping from his post, the mobster gave the alarm by opening fire on the coupe.

The Shadow was already fifty feet beyond the picket’s post. His increasing speed made his car an evasive target. The picket’s bullets whistled wide. But other gunmen bobbed into view; like the first, they sought to riddle the coupe.

INSTANTLY, The Shadow decided to run the gantlet. Whisking an automatic as he jammed the accelerator to the floor, he leaned from the window of the coupe and aimed ahead. Mobsters in the rear did not matter. They were firing at a car as it sped beyond them, adding to the range.

But those ahead must be eliminated before the coupe came alongside them. Responding to the picket’s fire, all mobsters on the avenue had swung from their hiding places. They thought it would be easy to stop this suspicious coupe. They had not reckoned on the fact that The Shadow was at the wheel.

An automatic spat flame at the nearest sniper. A searing bullet sent the rogue spinning to the sidewalk. This mobsman had been at The Shadow’s left; but The Shadow had fired in crisscross fashion with his right hand. Left fist still gripping the wheel, The Shadow shifted his form clear across to the window on the right. Out shot that automatic; again its muzzle jabbed a tongue of flame.

An aiming gorilla sank to the curb, his revolver rattling as it struck the gutter. Snarling, the mobsman was clutching his right arm. He was an open target; but The Shadow did not want him. Again shifting to the left, the cloaked driver aimed for a third mobster who was on the left side of the street.

Two guns barked simultaneously. The mobster’s slug cracked the little window just back of the coupe’s door. Shatterproof glass did not scatter. But the burst of The Shadow’s automatic was an effective one. As the coupe sped by, the third foe lay flattened. He, too, had taken a bullet from The Shadow’s .45.

Cutting straight across the avenue, The Shadow was heading for the street that the three cars had taken. The last picket was diving for the shelter of a fat fire-plug. The Shadow, his automatic regained, was ready to drop the mobsman if he tried to fire. But that moment, a new threat roared into view.

From the street which The Shadow had last passed, a mobster-manned touring car had whirled out into the avenue at the very moment of The Shadow’s veer. Whizzing up the right side of the avenue, it was bulging straight for the swinging coupe. Two mobsters were aiming a bulky machine gun from the left side of the touring car as the driver cut in to meet the path of the coupe.

AS he jammed the brakes of his car, The Shadow aimed a straight shot for the most vulnerable point among his foemen; the driver of the touring car. A zimming bullet jolted the fellow up from the wheel. Unguided at this important instant, the long car went into a half skid.

Its rear veered to the left. The man beside the driver uttered a cry as he grabbed the steering wheel to yank the car off the curb. The machine gun rattled; but its aim was hopeless. The sudden swerve of the rakish car caused the stream of bullets to zip in front of the halted coupe and clatter off the brick wall of a corner building.

Then, as the car swung zigzag fashion, The Shadow blazed away at the machine gunners. He nipped the man who was trying to change the heavy weapon’s aim. As the rattle broke off, the touring car took another side skid, squarely into the coupe.

The jar whacked the lighter car half around and sent its front wheels jouncing up upon the curb. But the touring car, with its combined weight and momentum, was due for a worse fate. Its rear wheels caught an oily section of the side street’s asphalt. The big car keeled over on its side as it hit the curb.

At this instant came the muffled roar of a subterranean blast. Digger’s charge in the tunnel between the old house and the bank. The ground shook; glass clattered from hundreds of windows in the surrounding blocks. Amid the reverberations of the explosion sounded the shrill notes of whistles. A siren whined from off the avenue.

The Shadow yanked the coupe into low gear and stepped hard on the accelerator. The car fairly leaped over the curb and out into the avenue. A sharp swing of the steering wheel, a quick shift into high speed second. Whizzing across the avenue, The Shadow sped away into the silence of the side street to the left.

As his car whirled toward the corner, The Shadow added aftermath to chaos. Above the roar of the motor came the chilling mockery of his strident laugh. Sweeping away from pursuing cars, balking the attack of enemies who had all but surrounded him, The Shadow was leaving his disorganized foemen to bear the brunt of a converging police drive.

Left at the post, the mobsters would be forced to scatter in flight. The Shadow had given them the slip; should they take up a chase, they would run risk of dashing squarely into the intervening approach of police cars. Their only choice was to flee up the avenue, leaving stragglers to be captured by the police.

The Shadow had made the most of belated opportunity. Unable to meet crime before it struck, he had sought to gain an important trail. Chance had robbed him of his mission. Outspread mobsters had sought to down The Shadow within their cordon.

Once again, The Shadow had conquered evil hordes. Yet his quest still lay blank against him. Though he had delivered telling blows to the minions who had covered crime, he had made no score against those villains whose game must yet be beaten.