Crime Circus

CHAPTER XVI PLANS FOR CRIME

“WHERE’S Cleed?”

Cap Guffy asked the question as he stood in the Ten-in-One tent. The other freaks and performers were present, clustered about the platform where Baby Liz, the fat lady, sat in solemn state.

When the gang joined in pow-wow, they chose Baby Liz’s platform as a meeting place. It took three men to hoist the fat lady to her platform; once there, she remained. Hence, social gatherings among the freaks were held in her vicinity.

“Cleed?” Luke, the tattooed man, echoed Cap’s question. “I seen him around about twenty minutes ago. Guess he went to his sleeping tent.”

“We’re going to open tonight,” growled Cap. “I hope Cleed ain’t off the lot. With Zoda walking out on me and all—”

“Cleed’s around all right, Cap. How soon are we goin’ to open?”

“In half an hour.”

“I’ll look around for Cleed.”

Luke scrambled from the fat woman’s platform. So did Princess Marxia. Cap beckoned to the snake charmer. He spoke as she strolled along with him toward her pit.

“I’m driving down to the depot,” announced Cap. “They sent word up about that crate of rattlers. They came in this afternoon.”

“Time we got some more,” returned Marxia. “You should have ordered them a couple of weeks ago, when we got the bull snakes.”

“Couldn’t get ‘em,” informed Cap. “These are the kind you want — the ones that ain’t had the poison taken out of ‘em. You won’t be able to use these rattlers right away.”

“That’s all right.” Marxia looked into the snake pit. “I’ve got enough of the harmless ones to last for this stand. When we get to the next town, Luke and I can fix the new ones.”

“You’re welcome to the job,” decided Cap. “You won’t find me trying it.”

“It’s better to extract the poison ourselves,” insisted Marxia. “Them saps that shift the rattlers don’t always do the job right. When Luke and I get through with a rattler, we know he ain’t going to hurt nobody.”

Cap nodded. He looked about but saw no sign of Cleed. He was frowning as he walked toward the closed entrance of the Ten-in-One. Marxia strolled to the back of the tent. She raised the canvas and ducked out, as Luke had done just after talking with Cap.

ACROSS the midway, Cap saw a crouching figure moving on the far side of a tent. He thought it was Cleed; he watched as the figure stopped. Then Cap realized that the stooped form was Jubo the Geek.

Oddly enough, Jubo was also looking for Cleed. He was noting a figure behind some tents further down the midway. As Jubo watched, he saw Cleed slink into view from in back of Tex Larch’s tent.

Cleed straightened. He dropped his slinking role long enough to move across the midway, avoiding people who were going into the big top. Then he resumed his slinking pace past tents and trucks as he headed for the Ten-in-One.

Jubo turned and headed toward the midway. His own tent was beside a concession booth. Jubo ducked under the canvas just as Cap Guffy recognized him. Cap was still eying Jubo’s tent with keen suspicion when the flap moved at the entrance of the Ten-in-One.

Cap turned to see Cleed peering from the opening. He turned and walked into the tent, growling as he joined the cigarette fiend.

“Time you showed up,” Cap announced, as he closed the flap behind him. “We ain’t opening for half an hour yet, but I wanted to make sure you was around. I’m going down to the depot to get a box of snakes that come in this afternoon. Be here when I get back.”

Jubo the Geek, when he had ducked into his tent, had not entered the pit. Instead, he had gone to the front flaps. Peering through the opening, he had watched the man who had been observing him. Thus Jubo had seen Cleed’s face at the flaps of the Ten-in-One. He had seen Cap Guffy turn to go in with the cigarette fiend.

Jubo remained on watch. His eyes roved from left to right. They saw Cap Guffy’s car roll into view from the left side of the Ten-in-One. They also noted Cleed sneaking forth from the other end of the tent.

Shifting his position, the mop-headed geek looked toward a distant tent that he could barely see from the new angle. It was the isolated canvas wherein Cleed and his cronies met. While Jubo watched, a light glimmered from within the tent.

The glare of the midway was tempered by the pinkish rays of sunset. Jubo could distinguish forms of roughnecks moving to form a loose cordon about the tent from which the signal had come. The meeting was an early one. There would be little chance for prowlers to escape the observation of the guarding roughnecks. Jubo moved back into his tent and began to let snakes loose in the pit.

CLIFF MARSLAND, standing beside the truck where he was stationed, had come to the same decision as Jubo. Cliff could see the lighted tent plainly; also the ground between his position and the meeting place. Though dusk was settling rapidly, Cliff felt that tonight’s watch was a mere routine.

Should any prowler appear; should any roughneck move from his position, every member of the cordon would promptly notice it. This fact, to Cliff, was alarming. He sensed that this meeting must be important. He was positive that The Shadow — even if present on the lot — would be unable to approach the watched tent.

Something stirred in the truck above Cliff’s head. The Shadow’s agent did not notice the fact. No sound betokened the unseen movement. Crouched behind the sides of the truck was the tall stranger whom the sheriff had noticed near the office. This uncanny personage was drawing a small flat bag from beneath a seat of the truck.

Blackness enveloped the crouching form. Cloak and hat made the stranger a form of darkness. Groping toward the rear of the truck, The Shadow dropped easily to the ground without a sound. Crouching, he began the task that Cliff Marsland had classed as impossible. The Shadow was making his way toward the meeting tent.

Of all the watchers, Cliff alone saw moving blackness on the rough ground. Yet the form that he observed was no more than a shapeless, crawling mass. Cliff saw this token of The Shadow because he was watching more intently than the other roughnecks; also because he was closest to The Shadow.

Wisely, The Shadow had chosen to begin his creep from the spot where his own agent was established. But as The Shadow progressed; as dusk brought a slightly deeper gray to the terrain, Cliff lost sight of the form that he was watching.

INSIDE the tent, Cleed had dropped his air of silence. Again, he was talking in the evil snarl of Croaker Zinn. Luke and Marxia were listening intently to his words. None realized that The Shadow was without.

“So we’re quitting the racket this week,” Croaker announced, with emphasis. “Those five mugs queered it. They got what was coming to them for being so dumb. If that watchman hadn’t seen them, they’d never have been traced to this lot.

“We were going to play the racket all along the line. Those five gorillas knew their stuff. I had them set to crack a crib each time the show made a jump. Out and back the same night. But they pulled a boner on the first trip.”

“It’s lucky you had me change them tattoo designs,” put in Luke. “Say — those red circles would have made plenty of trouble. But those butterflies and other junk didn’t mean nothing to the sheriff when he saw them.”

“Of course not,” declared Croaker. “Tattoo marks are common on a circus lot. But it wasn’t luck, Luke. I saw what might be coming. That’s why I had you cover up the red circles. What’s more — that’s not all that I figured on.

“Those five gorillas handed me the swag after they brought it into camp. I had it ready for the big shot. When the yap sheriff showed up and put his hick guards around the place, it looked like we were getting in a swell jam.

“But I slipped the swag to the big shot. He took it out right under their noses. So when the sheriff finally got around to looking for it, it wasn’t on the lot. The big shot’s put the swag in a safe place.”

Croaker paused to laugh harshly. Then an evil laugh came from his lips. It was an odd laugh for one who still wore the pasty make-up of Cleed.

“The sheriff is a sap,” decided Croaker. “He figures somebody must have copped the swag. He’s dumb enough to think it might be Zoda. He hasn’t got brains enough to dope out who Zoda really was.”

“The Shadow!” gasped Luke, in an awed tone.

“Yeah, The Shadow!” spat Croaker. “Maybe he’s still around here, figuring that there’ll be another gang go out to crack some crib when we move. But The Shadow, even, won’t wise up to what we’re going to pull now.”

“You got a new game, Croaker?”

“You bet. First of all, we’re going to start shoving the queer, beginning late tonight.”

“What about the Feds?”

“They won’t wise up. We’ll use some sap for a blind. Like we did before. Then I’ll have the cash we take in and any queer that’s left all ready for the big shot to lug off the lot the night we finish this stand.”

“And then the gang will blow?”

“Later. After the big shot gets clear, I’ve got another job to pull. Listen, both of you, and keep mum. You’ve heard of this missing heiress, Lucy Aldon?”

“Sure.” Luke nodded. “Lot of talk about her in the papers. Some lawyer offered five thousand berries to anybody who’d locate her. What’s the gag, Croaker? You figurin’ a way to collect that dough?”

“FIVE grand!” Croaker snorted. “Say — that Aldon moll is heiress to a million. Listen. I know where she is. I know how to get her. She don’t know she’s Lucy Aldon. That makes it sweet.

“Beef Malligan is coming here to Hamilcar. He’ll be on the lot, the last night. After I pass the coin to the big shot, along with any queer we haven’t got rid of, Beef and I are going to blow.

“We’ll head for a place where nobody will find us. When we get there, Lucy Aldon will be with us. Then we’ll get some guy to act as the voice and we’ll tell that old lawyer we’ve got the million-dollar moll.

“He’ll have to come to terms. We’ll be sitting pretty. He’s never seen the girl — get the idea? How can they find a moll when they don’t know what she looks like — when they don’t know anything about her?”

“Say!” Luke was keen with his exclamation. “How did you get wise to where this Aldon gal is?”

“The big shot tipped me off,” explained Croaker. “He had sort of a hunch to begin with. He used his bean and doped it out. But here’s the lay.

“When Beef and I beat it, the rest is up to you. As soon as we get clear, everything has got to go haywire on this lot. Inside of half an hour after we’ve done a scram, you start a riot, Luke.”

“Give ‘em a ‘Hey Rube’?”

“Yeah. The mob will do their stuff. There’ll be a lot of people missing after that scrap is over. Nobody’s going to know where they went.”

“I get you, Croaker. But — but—”

“But what?”

“What’s the ‘Hey Rube’ got to do with you and Beef grabbing the Aldon gal? Where are you goin’ to snatch her from?”

Croaker laughed as he arose and extinguished the light that hung from the tent pole.

“You don’t get it, Luke,” he growled in the darkness. “Well, it’s just as well you don’t. I practically put you wise to the lay — yet you and Marxia don’t get it. Well, if you don’t, after what I’ve told you, nobody else will.”

The discussion was ended. As roughnecks prowled from their posts, the three freaks emerged from the little tent and moved toward the Ten-in-One. They were no more than skulking figures in the deepening dusk.

Silence reigned by the deserted tent. Then came a whispered laugh. It was the suppressed mirth of The Shadow, the unseen listener to the conference of crooks.

In a sense, The Shadow’s laugh was an aftermath of Croaker’s evil chortle.

For The Shadow had divined what Luke and Marxia had been unable to guess. He had sensed the important point of the fell scheme which Croaker Zinn intended to put in execution.

Tonight, counterfeit money would begin a new flow through the circus lot. Its circulation would persist until the final night in Hamilcar. Then would come a stroke of crime that would concern a girl named Lucy Aldon.

The laugh of The Shadow faded. His tall form merged with the descending night. As he had struck before, The Shadow would seek to strike again, with men of crime his prey!