Atoms of Death

CHAPTER XX THE NEW PREY

BLACKNESS surrounded the blue glow in the corner of The Shadow’s sanctum. Outside it was afternoon; but here, no light of day was present. Twenty-four hours had passed since Rutledge Mann’s visit to Basil Tellert’s office.

Clippings lay on The Shadow’s table. Usually, these came to him through Rutledge Mann. Today, they had been supplied by Harry Vincent. Mann, on new duty, was in contact only with Burbank; and even that touch was limited to necessary phone calls.

The Classic had scooped the town with the story about Professor Baldridge Jark. The front page showed a photo of the shock-haired inventor working at a laboratory table. This picture was an old one, taken two years before.

Alongside was the picture of Mann and Tellert, both sour-faced, looking at a sheet of paper which purported to be a statement to the Classic. The features of both men had been clearly recorded by the camera.

Post-mortems about the Reisert robbery had been relegated to inner pages, along with pictures of the dragnet in operation. Other newspapers had featured this stuff. The Classic had scored a beat with its front-page smash, which credited Rutledge Mann with stating that Baldridge Jark had turned swindler.

A tiny bulb glimmered. It meant a call from Burbank. The Shadow received a terse report. Mann had called Tellert, putting off an appointment until evening, on account of difficulties with reporters. Mann had gone to the Cobalt Club. Tellert was at his home on Long Island.

The Shadow gave terse orders. He clicked out the bluish light. His whispered laugh sounded within the sanctum’s walls. Evening was close at hand; adventure lay ahead. Yet The Shadow’s laugh was grim and mirthless.

HOURS passed. It was half past seven when Rutledge Mann strolled from the portals of the Cobalt Club. Hardly had he appeared before a cab shot up to the entrance before the doorman had begun to beckon.

Mann entered; the cab sped away, leaving the uniformed portal keeper bewildered by the quickness of the service.

Moe Shrevnitz was at the wheel of the cab. Two blocks down the avenue, the speedy taxi driver negotiated a left turn, roared along a side street and swung left on another avenue. He followed with a right turn, then continued a threading course toward an East River bridge.

On the second avenue, a coupe had started up as Moe approached. The driver of that car had followed the taxi’s course through all the maze of streets. The coupe never lost the trail. Only one driver in all Manhattan was capable of keeping so constantly to Moe’s evasive track. That helmsman was The Shadow.

Basil Tellert’s home was in a Long Island suburb not far from Manhattan. It was not until Moe had almost reached the destination that houses thinned and the streets became at all secluded. At last Moe drew up in front of an unpretentious residence. Mann alighted, passed him payment, and Moe drove away.

The coupe had followed to the corner before Tellert’s residence. There, The Shadow had turned right, to park in front of a house. Lights extinguished, he stepped out in darkness. Moving across the blackened street at a spot midway between two well-separated lights, he gained the side yard of a gloomy, unlighted house.

The Shadow gave a soft hiss. A man’s form moved beside the house. Harry Vincent whispered a report that nothing had been observed. The Shadow skirted a hedge in back of Tellert’s house. He reached a vacant lot on the other side. Close to a pile of building stone, he gave a second hissed signal.

This time it was Hawkeye who whispered a response. Like Harry, Hawkeye had seen nothing. But as he stared through the darkness, trying to make out The Shadow’s position, Hawkeye spied a movement from across the street. Faint forms could be seen against a gray stone wall.

The Shadow, too, had spied the motion. Again came his low hiss, this time a warning, before Hawkeye could whisper the news. The Shadow swished softly forward to the edge of the lot. He saw other shapes. The men were cutting through from the back of an empty house.

View of Tellert’s home was partially obscured by a hedge, which lay between it and the empty ground. The Shadow spoke softly to Hawkeye, sending him to relay word to Harry. Approaching the hedge, The Shadow could see shapes beyond it.

There was a light in a living room on this side of Tellert’s. Just in front of its French windows lay a side veranda. One set of windows was open; it was probable, since the night was mild, that Tellert and Mann might decide to come out on the porch.

The Shadow watched huddled men crouch by the house. Then his keen ears caught a slight sound from the rock pile. Moving thither, The Shadow whispered to Hawkeye and Harry. The agents saw his shape, vaguely, as he twisted about between them and the house.

Harry was to watch through the hedge; Hawkeye, to follow The Shadow. The latter task would have been impossible, even for Hawkeye, for cloudy night formed a blackened shroud that The Shadow used as a mantle of invisibility. But as Hawkeye moved forward, he caught slight, hissed signals. He kept close behind The Shadow.

THEY reached the house across the way. Skirting it, The Shadow and Hawkeye spied two cars that had come into an obscure driveway from a rear street. The front machine was a sedan. A man was standing on the gravel beside it. Both The Shadow and Hawkeye could hear the crunch of his footsteps as he moved along by the car.

The rear automobile was a coupe, parked twenty feet behind the sedan. A whisper from The Shadow. Hawkeye followed to this car. Looking at the chromium handle of the rumble seat, he saw what looked like blackness come forth to cover it. It was the hand of The Shadow.

Noiselessly, the rumble seat came up. The Shadow’s hand probed the space beneath. Cushions had been removed. This compartment, when used at all, was required for carrying bulky articles.

Standing in amazement, Hawkeye sensed blackness rising. It settled; he realized that The Shadow had entered that vacant space.

Something clicked almost inaudibly. The Shadow was demolishing the catch that locked the back of the rumble seat. He was doing the job with some small, metallic instrument. Then, as Hawkeye leaned against the fender of the car, The Shadow spoke final orders.

Hawkeye eased back. The top of the rumble seat came downward without a sound. Circling away from the coupe, Hawkeye followed a stealthy course back to the street. Cutting wide, he came in to the rock pile on the vacant lot. He crept up to the hedge and whispered to Harry.

Guns ready, the agents waited tensely. They were to use their automatics only if revolvers barked beyond that hedge. As they listened, Harry and Hawkeye heard footsteps on woodwork. Then voices. Two men were coming out on the porch: Rutledge Mann and Basil Tellert.

Peering through the branches of the hedge, the watching men saw the stroke that followed. From both ends of the porch, attackers rose in pairs. Springing forward, they fell upon the two men and bore them to the soft ground off the porch.

Short choking gasps — no cries. Then growled warnings that noise would mean trouble. Neither Mann nor Tellert decided to fight. Swift workers tied them; the prisoners were gagged. The abductors raised their burdens.

Harry Vincent was quivering from fierce restraint. It was Hawkeye’s hand that held him back. Under those final orders, the agents could make no move unless a battle started. Huddled by the hedge, The Shadow’s agents watched the captors carry their victims across the street toward the vacant house.

Figures disappeared. Then came the faint sound of motors starting. Cars in gear. Crooks were on their way.

Hawkeye spoke to Harry, no longer in a complete whisper. Harry was to take The Shadow’s coupe. Hawkeye would get the car in which he and Harry had come here.

On the way to Manhattan, they were to flash Moe Shrevnitz. The jehu was waiting in his cab, only a few blocks away, ready to join any anticipated chase. But there would be no action from the taxi driver tonight. Like Harry and Hawkeye, Moe would have to wait further word through Burbank.

HARRY VINCENT, on his way to The Shadow’s car, was thinking of Rutledge Mann — and of the Shadow’s actions.

The Shadow, seeing that shrewd methods lay behind the work of criminals, had thrown unexpected bait before the master who controlled the game. By sending Rutledge Mann to Basil Tellert, by presenting startling news which had forced the promoter to lose no time in denouncing Jark, The Shadow had made it imperative that Mann be abducted.

The Shadow had watched Mann in Manhattan. There had been no followers there. Crooks had chosen to wait until Mann had met with Tellert, at the latter’s secluded home. They had bundled Tellert away along with Mann. That was the stroke by which they made it impossible for anyone to give new facts regarding Jark.

Harry knew that The Shadow had foreseen the move. He realized how cagily The Shadow had gambled. The Shadow had played on the fact that the chief of crime was crafty. Crooks could no longer be launched against Bruce Duncan, whose whereabouts were unknown. But Bruce — so the criminal brain reasoned — would not dare issue forth, once he knew that both Mann and Tellert had been kidnapped.

These were the thoughts that flashed through Harry’s brain as he realized that Mann still had a chance for safety. For Harry had learned, from Hawkeye, that The Shadow had found a berth in the rumble seat of the coupe that was covering up the sedan on its flight with newly taken prisoners.

The Shadow had watched for opportunity. When he saw it, he had not missed its knock. He had eased his agents out of sight, that he might seize the golden chance that only a lone trail offered.

Responding to the bidding of a supercrook, mobsmen had issued forth from Professor Jark’s new abode. Their crows had gained new prey. Another agent of The Shadow — as yet unidentified as such — would soon be on their grill.

But in effecting their swift capture, these henchmen had unwittingly gained a passenger for whom they had not bargained. Heading back to their secluded retreat, they were taking the very master whom they feared — The Shadow!