Atoms of Death

CHAPTER XXI HANDS FROM THE DARK

CROOKS had moved circuitously following their coup at Basil Tellert’s home. First the two cars had headed northward, toward Long Island Sound; then they had shifted west, north again, and finally east. This had been a move to throw off trailers.

Nestled in the hollow compartment of the coupe’s rumble seat, The Shadow was riding with the crooks themselves. He had tricked the band into a feeling of complete security.

Along an open road, the cars were moving swiftly. Blinking a tiny flashlight in the folds of his cloak, The Shadow consulted a tiny compass on the top of his fountain pen. He could gauge the direction as east. By that he knew that Jark’s new abode lay somewhere on Long Island.

Mile followed mile. The coupe jolted along a stretch of dirt road. Its course was slow and twisting. At last the car’s wheels crunched on gravel. The coupe halted; The Shadow heard muffled sounds of sliding doors. The coupe rolled forward, hit smooth cement and came to a stop.

Footsteps clattered on stone. Voices growled. Doors banged shut.

As sounds moved away, The Shadow reached up and raised the top of the rumble seat. It was loose; but he had kept it clamped by gripping cross-ribs during the rough part of the journey.

Through a tiny slit, The Shadow saw the prisoners being carried through a doorway. The cars had arrived in a large, stone-walled garage. Parked here were other cars; two more sedans and a brightly painted truck. The crooks had dressed up the old, dilapidated-looking vehicle with which they had hauled away the swag from Reisert’s.

There were three lights in the garage. The mobsmen did not extinguish them after their departure.

Knowing that no one was about, The Shadow eased out from his cramped quarters. His figure stretched as he reached the floor. Then it moved swiftly toward the door through which the men had gone.

Testing the knob, The Shadow found the door bolted on the other side. Moving toward the sliding door of the garage, he saw that they had been clamped on the interior. If he left by one of them, anyone coming down from the house would find one catch undone.

Such problems as these did not trouble The Shadow, if he had time to handle them. But the fact that the garage had remained lighted was indication to The Shadow that someone was due. Looking back at the cars, The Shadow laughed softly as he studied the coupe.

It was the only small car in the place. The one most likely to be used if anyone was going out. Moreover, it offered The Shadow the best of hiding places. But before he returned to the rumble seat, The Shadow had work to do. A simple task.

Stepping into the coupe, he seized the knob at the rear of the seat and lowered the back window. Stepping out, he raised the top of the rumble seat.

At that instant, The Shadow caught the sound of a clicking bolt from the house door. Like a telescoping figure, he dropped into the rumble compartment. The top dropped with him; but it did not bang. The Shadow stopped it an inch before it hit.

KEEPING a tiny crevice through which he could peer, The Shadow saw two men approaching. One was Louie; the other was Pete, the mobster who had driven The Shadow to Lamont Cranston’s. The Shadow listened to their conversation.

“You know what the chief wants,” Louie was saying. “Matt and Luke ain’t interested in any of the old gangs no longer. It’ll be a cinch for you to frame things over the telephone. Nicky used to be a pal of yours.”

“He is yet,” returned Pete. “An’ nobody’s goin’ to figger him back on the job. Ownin’ them gas stations in Brooklyn is keepin’ him clear of the dragnet.”

“But he’s losin’ out on the bum gas, ain’t he?”

“Sure. Runnin’ that bootleg gas ain’t no cinch, since the Feds has been makin’ it hot. Nicky’s goin’ to be glad to hear from me.”

“All right. Hop along then. But don’t call him from too close to here. Head across the island. Ten miles, anyway.”

Pete chose the coupe. As he started the motor, Louie unlatched a sliding door. The lid of the rumble seat closed imperceptibly. The coupe backed out. Once again The Shadow was undergoing the inconvenience of a well-cramped ride.

Pete found a good road and traveled for about fifteen minutes. The coupe stopped; The Shadow heard the driver get out. Peering from his compartment, The Shadow saw Louie enter a fair-sized drug store that stood on the fringe of a lighted district. Further on, were the lights of a railway station.

Straight back was the road by which they had come. It paralleled the railway and came directly in from the darkened spaces of the countryside. The Shadow eased down into the compartment. Three minutes more and Pete was back in the car.

The mobster turned the coupe around. He headed along the road beside the railway. Pete was whistling to himself as he drove. Evidently he had made the required contact with Nicky. But Pete, as he watched the road, never realized what was happening in back.

The top of the rumble seat was coming up by inches. Long black hands were probing from the space provided. Pete could not see them in the mirror; for they were below the ledge of that opened rear window. The Shadow had particularly noted, back at the store, that Pete had not closed the glass panel.

One thing else. Coming in, The Shadow had noted a turn and a jounce where Pete had slowed almost to a standstill. He had learned its meaning. The coupe had gone over a railway crossing. That was the spot for which The Shadow was waiting.

It came. Pete applied the brakes and swung the car slowly to the right, shifting into second. It was then that The Shadow rose. The top of the rumble seat was heaved up by hoisting shoulders. The gloved hands shot through the opened window. Like claws of steel, they clutched Pete’s throat.

The mobster struggled, raising his hands from the wheel to fight off the attack. His body writhed, while the coupe, almost stopped, encountered the rise to the crossing and stalled. In gear, it did not coast back. The Shadow’s grip, meanwhile, never lessened. Pete’s body became limp.

LEAVING the rumble seat The Shadow dropped to the ground. He entered by the driver’s side, pushed Pete into the other half of the seat, started the motor and went over the crossing.

He followed the road along the other side of the railway. He came to a small, darkened station.

Here The Shadow pulled the car into a sheltered spot and extinguished the lights. He bound Pete’s hands and feet; then flicked the rays of a flashlight squarely in the fellow’s face. He studied Pete’s features carefully, to find that he had recollected them perfectly from the previous time he had seen the man.

Pete opened his eyes and started to make an outcry. A gloved hand covered his mouth. The Shadow whisked a handkerchief from the pocket of Pete’s coat and used it to gag the mobster. Prior to the binding, The Shadow had pulled that coat from Pete’s limp body. It was conveniently on the steering wheel when The Shadow needed the bandanna.

Pete’s only gun was in the coat also. The Shadow hoisted the unarmed mobster from the coupe, carried him back and sprawled him in the rumble seat. The lid down, The Shadow went toward the little station. He found it locked.

Entering required only a few minutes. Inside, The Shadow found a little ticket office and a pay telephone booth. He chose the latter and put in a call to Burbank. Referring to a road map that he had taken from a side pocket of the car, The Shadow gave instructions.

The map was unmarked; moreover, it was one of several, all showing different states. The Shadow had no clue from the map itself. But he had seen the name Almeda on the station at the town; and he was making this call from a station called Shawlawn. Finding those spots on the map, The Shadow had all he needed.

Back in the garage, he had checked the mileage on the coupe’s speedometer while opening the rear window. He had estimated nine miles as the distance between the new headquarters and Almeda, deducting approximately for the return distance from Almeda to this next station, Shawlawn.

The map showed only one paved road running out in this direction. The Shadow knew that the headquarters was a sizable house within a woods, about one mile from the highway. He gave Burbank the direction.

After other instructions, The Shadow returned to the coupe. Turning on the dome light, he spied a package on the floor. Pete had brought it from the drug store; opening the package, The Shadow found four boxes of cigars, evidently supplies for the mob at the house.

Turning out the dome light, The Shadow removed his cloak. He folded it, pried open the cigar boxes and dumped their contents one by one, through the rear window and down into the rumble seat which he raised for this purpose.

Two hundred cigars formed clusters about Pete’s huddled form. Then The Shadow ripped off the lids of the boxes, broke out the fronts and threw the discarded portions in with his prisoner. He closed the top of the rumble seat.

Using the boxes as shells, The Shadow formed a large container for his cloak. He wrapped the four boxes in the paper and tied the strings. The package was the same as it had been before. The Shadow laid it on the floor; then donned Pete’s coat.

There were objects on the seat beside The Shadow — automatics that he had taken from the folds of his cloak; other items, and a flattened box. The Shadow tucked the guns in a belt that he was wearing. He opened the flat box and turned on a flashlight.

The Shadow was looking straight into a mirror that formed the interior of the box lid. His right-hand glove was off. With fingers obscuring his face, The Shadow was applying make-up from the box. His task half done, his features looked rough and ill-formed.

Then The Shadow turned on the dome light to complete his task. Both hands were working nimbly. Little by little, the features changed until they began to resemble those of The Shadow’s prisoner, Pete.

Hastily, The Shadow applied finishing touches. He turned out the dome light, tucked the make-up box in an inside pocket of Pete’s coat and clicked the front lights of the car.

RETURNING toward the house, The Shadow had no trouble gauging his direction. His directions to Burbank were proving amazingly accurate. His headlights showed several dirt roads veering off to the right. He kept past four, until he found the one that seemed correct.

The coupe’s wheels jounced through jagged ruts; over a little bridge. Points that The Shadow remembered. One mile in, The Shadow came to a drive that led to the left. His sense of direction told him that this was where he should leave the road. He drove a hundred yards on, until the car passed between two stone gates.

The Shadow stopped and extinguished the lights. He crept along through trees for another fifty yards; then reached a clearing. Boughs were creaking overhead. Rising wind was dispelling the clouded sky that had marked the early evening.

Straggling moonlight, increasing in intensity, revealed the stone walls of the house wherein men lay prisoners. Evidently an old lodge of some sort, this building had been acquired by crooks as headquarters for crime.

The building was two stories high. All the lower windows were iron shuttered; the upper ones were barred. But the building had a broad, flat roof, a fact which brought a soft laugh from The Shadow.

There were lights in the upper windows. That second floor was where The Shadow would find both crooks and prisoners. The garage, The Shadow noted, was a one-story extension to the right of the building proper.

Softly, The Shadow moved back into the gloom of the trees. He was returning to the coupe, there to make final plans for his disguised entry into this house of evil.