HAD The Shadow paused to fire from a spot along the side wall of the house, his predicament would have been magnified. The revealing flash of an automatic would have betrayed his exact position. Had he dashed on in pursuit of the fleeing raiders, he would also have become a target for the closing cordon.
Mobsters were everywhere, acting with skillful promptness. Those who had seen the flare of The Shadow’s first shot were shouting the news to their comrades. Bullets were flattening against the side wall. A barrage was forming; mere seconds alone promised safety to The Shadow.
Ducking as he passed the dull light of the sun porch, The Shadow gained the front corner of the house. Here an open porch extended, with a stone parapet. It was the bulwark that The Shadow needed. With a quick spring, The Shadow gained the top of the wall. There, his temporary flight changed to challenge.
Upon the parapet, The Shadow paused. At that spot, he delivered a mocking laugh. The taunt rose high above the scattered gunfire of the sniping cordon. Stout gorillas paused as they heard the gibing tones. They knew that laugh — the mirth of The Shadow!
Wild, eerie mockery, clear through the night air. Notes of sinister merriment that brought shuddering echoes from the gray walls of the house. From about came snarled curses, the responses of aroused mobsters who knew the mettle of their hidden foe.
The fleeing raiders had gained the front of the lawn; they were diving into a clump of trees, carrying their swag and aiding their wounded comrade. The Shadow had no thought for them. He was concerned with the surrounding foemen who had placed him in a trap.
A flash of the automatic would have revealed The Shadow’s position. Hence he had delivered his sardonic laugh instead. Its tones did more than spur the escaping raiders to swifter flight. It brought Spud Claxter’s crew out toward the front of the house. Their flashlights spun toward The Shadow.
The laugh had given them an idea of The Shadow’s position. It had also made them stay their shots for the moment. They wanted to locate this dread enemy. Individual mobsters who would have cowered at the sound of The Shadow’s taunt were relying upon mass strength. They knew that they had put The Shadow on the run. This burst of defiant mirth incited them to solid attack.
“Hold it!” came Spud Claxter’s cry. “Hold it until you spot him. It’s The Shadow—”
At that instant, a swinging flashlight found the corner of the front porch parapet. There, half crouched, was The Shadow. A laugh came from his hidden lips as wild revolvers barked. Then The Shadow dropped suddenly behind the parapet; and upon that instant, his weird mirth lost its crescendo. Silence followed the laugh.
MOBSTERS came piling forward toward the corner of the porch. Their object was to scale the wall, to pounce upon their common enemy. Suddenly, their shouts of triumph changed to snarled oaths. From the corner of the parapet came tongues of flame, accompanied by the echoed roar of automatics. Dropping flashlights marked the spots where cursing gorillas crumpled.
They had learned The Shadow’s strategy too late. The Shadow had known that the first shots would be wild. He had deliberately been waiting for a chance light to reveal him on the parapet. With the first shot, he had dropped. Other bullets had whistled above, after he was safe behind the wall.
The Shadow worked in split seconds. His fall had been with the shots; not after them. The breaking of his laugh had been the final touch. The end of the strident mirth had given the mobsters the impression that they had clipped The Shadow.
All had chosen the shortest route to the front porch parapet. They had scurried in from the open. Then The Shadow had changed his method. He had lured the enemy into a frontal attack. All but a few late gorillas were in the spot he wanted them.
The Shadow’s position had become a stronghold. It was a perfect redan, where two parapets met in a salient angle at the front corner of the porch. The Shadow covered an area equal to three quarters of a circle.
Mobsters dropped to the ground. Heaving their betraying flashlights, they opened vicious fire. Bullets chipped chunks of stone from the walls that formed The Shadow’s bulwark. Shifting, gaining new vantage points, The Shadow returned the fire, choosing the spots where revolver flashes showed.
Gorillas groaned. Their fire lessened. Half of the crew was silent. The others faltered. One of the men leaped to his feet and fled. Others copied the example. The Shadow’s laugh rose high as his head and shoulders came up from the wall. His automatics thundered as they sent slugs after the scattering crooks.
Mobsters turned in flight, to deliver wild shots in response. Whenever a revolver barked, The Shadow’s probing aim chose the flash for a new target. Ensconced in his chosen stronghold, The Shadow had won the fray. From the moment that he had coaxed the mobsters out into the open, the victory had been his.
Yet The Shadow sensed other danger. He had ended the frontal attack. Some of the gorillas lay motionless; others were crawling, wounded, for cover. The Shadow wheeled to face the unprotected area of the long porch. He was expecting an attack from the parapet at the other end.
THE SHADOW’S action was well timed. During the fray, two fighters had escaped the frontal attack. They had circled the house, knowing that a rear attack was the one method of entering The Shadow’s improvised redan. As The Shadow swung, a revolver barked from the distant end of the porch. A bullet singed the flowing side of The Shadow’s cloak.
Luke Gonrey was the mobster who had fired that shot. He had come up the parapet, boosted there by Spud Claxter. The gorilla had taken quick aim, just as The Shadow whirled. Had The Shadow merely spun about, Luke might have dropped him. But The Shadow, ever alert, had swung toward the front parapet as he turned.
Before Luke could deliver a second bullet, The Shadow pressed the trigger of an automatic. His aim was hastier than Luke’s; it was also better. The slug clipped the gorilla’s shoulder and sent Luke groaning from the parapet, into the arms of Spud Claxter.
The Shadow’s laugh resounded. Spud did not wait for more. Shoving Luke to his feet, the mobleader started for the hedge, dragging his henchman with him. Meanwhile, The Shadow was weaving swiftly along the porch, firing shots at the blackness above the parapet, to stop any new attackers.
The Shadow had exhausted one brace of automatics. He had drawn a second set and still had slugs remaining. As he neared the end of the porch, he dropped to the new shelter that the wall afforded; then suddenly arose and peered into the darkness below. He sensed that the last attackers had fled. Then, as proof of The Shadow’s belief came the roar of starting motors from beyond the hedge.
The Shadow fired through the darkness. Had the path been clear, he might have stopped the final flight. A cluster of big trees stood between this end of the porch and the hedge. Bullets lodged in massive trunks; those that sped clear were not sufficient to halt the cars in which Spud and others were escaping.
The Shadow knew that the raiders were beyond reach; the men with the swag had probably gained a car parked in the road below the house. Staring though the darkness, The Shadow saw lights glaring from a house three hundred yards away. He knew that the gunfire had caused an alarm. The police would soon be here.
The Shadow tried the front door of the house. He found it open. He crossed a gloomy hall and ascended a flight of stairs. He found an open door; a light from an inner room beyond it. The Shadow entered. Close by the inner door, he stumbled across the body of a servant. The man was rigid.
Peering into the inner room, The Shadow saw four other figures. One was that of a second servant, sprawled upon the floor. The man held a gun. There was a desk in the center of the room; there The Shadow observed the other three.
One was a man some sixty years of age. He was seated behind a mahogany desk. His hands were resting upon the woodwork. His dignified face, embellished with a white mustache, was straight toward a younger man who sat opposite. This fellow, too, had been caught in the midst of conversation.
The third man was at the side of the table. He was middle-aged, with a thick-set, hard-boiled countenance. His position was the most unusual of all. The man had half risen from his chair. He was leaning heavily upon the desk, his weight supported by his left hand.
The man’s right hand was just above his pocket. It clutched the butt of a gun; The Shadow could see the glimmer of the half-drawn revolver. Like the others, this man was stiffened in the stupor of the death sleep.
THE SHADOW did not enter the room. His keen eyes could see tiny drops of moisture upon the surface of the mahogany desk. These were rapidly evaporating. They were the last traces of the condensed gas that had produced this strange scene.
There was still a chance that fumes remained; if so, they would be gone when the final drops had dried. The Shadow did not need to enter. He looked across the room and saw the closed door of a safe. That told the final story.
The swag had come from this room. The raiders had entered after delivering the knock-out bombs. The Shadow’s laugh was soft but grim. He knew the reason for the handkerchiefs that had been upon the faces of the fleeing raiders.
Those had not been necessary so far as the victims were concerned. They had been used to hide something that chance, distant witnesses might otherwise have observed. Beneath the covering of large bandanna handkerchiefs, the successful raiders had worn small gas masks to cover their nostrils. Goggles, perhaps, in addition, to protect their eyes beneath the handkerchiefs.
Shouts from in front of the house. Police had been summoned by the neighbors. The Shadow took a last glance at the desk in this silent room. The final drops of moisture had dried. The Shadow moved into the outer room, found an unlocked window and emerged. He descended by the heavy ivy on the stone wall. As he reached the ground, he could hear thumping footsteps pounding up the inner stairway.
The arriving rescuers had made straight for the house. They had not yet begun to search the grounds. Ghostlike, The Shadow moved off through the hedge. His hidden shape followed the side lane. The Shadow had found no need to linger.
The raiders had escaped; the surrounding mobsters had been overpowered. The Shadow had seen the new victims of the death sleep. He had learned the motive of crime — the robbery of that safe in the second story room.
Though he had not frustrated crime, The Shadow had wreaked vengeance upon a horde of mobsters. He had broken up the forces which opposed him. He had forced a change in coming plans; he had made it necessary for Spud Claxter to produce a new crew before further crime would be possible.
But most important of all, The Shadow had verified a fact which he had suspected. The scene of the crime had told him the definite truth. The raiders had been equipped with more than the gas bombs that had been used at Seth Tanning’s. They had worn masks that had proven an efficient protection against the fumes that they had loosed.
The crooks had gained the neutralizer that they needed. How? Where? The Shadow knew; and that knowledge inspired the whispered laugh that sounded in the darkness of the little lane. The Shadow was thinking of Harry Vincent’s report.
He knew that the false hospital attendant had been a crook. He knew why Skeet Wurrick had visited the blind alley in back of Hoffer’s Pharmacy. Crooks had profited through the experiments made by Doctor Seton Lagwood.
A preparation had been stolen; it had served as an effective neutralizer. Men of crime were ready for new endeavor. The law was in ignorance of their methods. But not The Shadow. When crime again rode high, The Shadow would be prepared to meet it with an unexpected thrust.