Gray Fist

CHAPTER XII GRAY FIST SPEAKS

THE SHADOW had challenged gangdom. He had fought an indomitable battle to show that he intended to remain in New York despite Gray Fist’s threat. In so doing, he had chosen to meet the terms imposed by Gray Fist; and had then turned his compliance into a mocking derision of Gray Fist’s power. With gibing mirth, punctuated by bursting gunfire, The Shadow had sent his answer to the hidden criminal.

The Shadow’s actions were destined to have their effect. The echoes of his booming shots were carried to Gray Fist. A new result was in the making and it concerned two men whom The Shadow had aided in the only way that had been possible. Those two were Cliff Marsland and Harry Vincent.

Both Cliff and Harry had been beaten down by the ruffians who had captured them. Cliff had been the first to meet with that experience. He was the first to regain the consciousness that he had lost. Awakening from a grogginess, The Shadow’s agent found himself stretched helplessly upon a small cot in a stone-walled room.

A dull light greeted Cliff’s blinking eyes. It came from a single incandescent in the ceiling of the room. Cliff looked about him. His surroundings were not cheerful. There were no windows in the room. The only means of exit was a heavy door which Cliff knew must be locked.

A dozen feet away, Cliff saw another cot. A man was stretched upon it. Cliff knew that this must be a second prisoner. As Cliff managed to rise to one elbow, he stared toward the other man’s face. He recognized the features of a friend. The other captive was Harry Vincent.

Slow minutes moved by. Cliff felt a dazed whirl sweeping through his brain. He realized that his period of unconsciousness had been extensive. He had dim recollections of a partial awakening; then new oblivion. Cliff knew that he had been doped by those who held him prisoner.

The passage of time was impossible to gauge. Nevertheless, Cliff was positive that more than a dozen hours must have passed since the time when he had been captured. This was the day after the episode when mobsters had overwhelmed him.

Harry Vincent stirred. Cliff watched his friend come slowly into consciousness. Harry’s actions proved what Cliff had conjectured. Harry was waking from a groggy sleep. He, too, had been doped by his captors.

HARRY blinked as the light met his eyes. He stared steadily toward Cliff, and blank seconds passed without a sign of recognition. Then a weary smile began to flicker upon Harry’s lips.

“Hello, Harry,” greeted Cliff.

“Hello, Cliff,” returned the second agent. “So they got you — too—”

“Yeah,” grunted Cliff. “Up by the Mandrilla Apartments. A bunch that I was trailing.”

“In a parked sedan?” queried Harry, coming to life.

“That’s right,” answered Cliff.

“No wonder we’re here together,” stated Harry. “The same mob piled on me.”

Cliff Marsland was looking about the room. His senses restored, The Shadow’s agent was on the alert. He knew that hidden ears might be stationed close by. He saw Harry Vincent about to speak, and held a warning finger to his lips. Harry nodded as he noticed the sign.

“I’ll tell you who got us,” declared Cliff. “It was Ruff Shefflin. He’s a mighty tough gang leader, that fellow. I suspected he was up to something when I saw him with a sneak named Snakes Blakey. I followed them up to the street near the Mandrilla.”

“That’s where I was,” explained Harry. “I came to the apartment in a taxicab. I wanted to see a lawyer named Ruggles Preston. He was — well, he was one of a list of men whom I wanted to meet on business. The mob grabbed me after I left the place.”

Cliff was sober. He wanted to talk, yet he knew the wisdom of keeping silent. Harry understood. Both men had a question which neither asked. Each wanted to know if the other had made a telephone call to Burbank.

Cliff Marsland was piecing bits of evidence. He knew that he had uncovered the gang leader who was responsible for whatever might have happened to Seth Cowry, the missing racketeer. Harry Vincent, too, was thinking. He realized that he had discovered the person who had been in back of Worth Varden’s disappearance.

Ruff Shefflin was the man whom Cliff had spotted. Ruggles Preston was the one whom Harry Vincent had uncovered. Cliff, in his naming of Snakes Blakey, had announced the identity of a crook who was concerned with both Ruff and Preston. Harry — like Cliff — now knew that Snakes Blakey was the go-between.

A peculiar sense of dizziness began to weaken Cliff. Hunching upward along the cot, Cliff managed to prop himself against the wall. Harry Vincent began to experience the same reaction — a hangover from the dope. He copied Cliff’s example. Drearily, the captured agents of The Shadow rested, while minutes glided by in dull monotony.

THE lock of the door clicked. Neither Cliff nor Harry became aware of the sound until the door began to open. The dull light of the room seemed hazy as a man entered and closed the door behind him. An evil chuckle caused both Cliff and Harry to stare weakly toward the entrant.

The visitor was dressed entirely in gray. To the men who looked at him, his form was a blurred outline. A long gray overcoat hung from his shoulders. A gray hat adorned his head. A thick gray muffler was wrapped about his neck and chin. His face, like his form, was blurred to those who saw it.

The chuckle continued. To Cliff and Harry, the sound was threatening. They knew that this must be the man who had ordered their capture. They realized that they were in the presence of a superfiend.

The man came closer, yet his form still retained its blurred appearance. He began to speak, and the watchers could see the gleam of teeth behind the moving lips. The words that the visitor uttered were harsh, discordant tones.

“I am Gray Fist!” was his announcement.

With the statement, the man raised his right arm. He thrust a clenched and threatening hand toward the faces of his prisoners. The hand was wearing a large gray glove. It seemed to loom larger than the man behind it, like a photograph out of perspective. The men on the cots stared at that outstretched hand. They saw the fingers open, then close into the clutching form of a fist.

“This,” declared Gray Fist, in his discordant tone, “is the hand with which I grip my enemies. Those who have felt the clutch of Gray Fist have never known it to loose!”

Cliff Marsland was studying the features of the speaker. In the dim light, Gray Fist seemed grotesque. The harder Cliff stared, the more he found himself blinking. A sense of dizzied weariness made him give up the effort. With a tired, sidelong glance, Cliff observed that Harry Vincent was leaning back against the wall at the end of his cot. Harry’s eyes were closed; yet despite his fatigue, he too, was listening.

Cliff copied the action. He saw a purpose in it. He feared that Gray Fist would become demanding; that this fiendish captor would want to know the identity of the master whom his prisoners served. By feigning grogginess, Cliff realized that he might be able to escape a cross-examination at the hands of Gray Fist.

A chuckle came from Gray Fist. It broke into a harsh strain of chortling laughter. The captor had evidently divined the thoughts that his victims held.

“Rest yourselves,” ordered Gray Fist, in an ironical tone. “You need not worry that I shall inquire into your affairs. I know the parts that you have played. You are servants of that ridiculous masquerader who calls himself The Shadow.

“I have proven my superiority to The Shadow. My henchmen are stronger than you. The ease with which they captured you is proof of that fact. But they did more than capture you. They learned the crude method by which you communicated with The Shadow.

“You — the pair of you — were mere tools in the hands of a so-called master who was no more than an apprentice. Those who serve me are crafty as well as capable. Last night, one of you telephoned a message to an agent of The Shadow.”

Cliff Marsland opened his eyes instinctively. Gray Fist, his arms now folded, was more blurred than before. The fiend chuckled as he saw Cliff’s surprise.

“My men traced that call,” continued Gray Fist harshly. “They found the place where The Shadow’s agent was in hiding. From there they traced another line — to The Shadow’s own abode.”

GRAY FIST’S words ended with a tantalizing chuckle. Cliff closed his eyes and set his jaw. He realized now where his mistake had been. That telephone booth, beside the window! Snakes Blakey must have been watching from the outside, and noted the dial numbers when Cliff had rung up Burbank.

“There were two men whom The Shadow sought,” remarked Gray Fist, in a scornful voice. “One was Seth Cowry. He is dead. He has been dead — ever since he thought himself too important because he knew Gray Fist.

“The other was Worth Varden. He was my prisoner. Since The Shadow wanted Worth Varden, I sent Worth Varden to The Shadow. The Shadow’s wish was Varden’s death warrant. Varden’s corpse was placed at my order within The Shadow’s secret room.”

Cliff and Harry heard these words with consternation. They gave no sign of their emotions. They listened while Gray Fist chortled on.

“I sent a message to The Shadow,” resumed the supercrook. “I gave him my ultimatum. He must leave New York — or else you two would die. Such was my injunction — that he should depart under my surveillance — and he, the fool, accepted it.

“The cards were set for him to die, once he had committed that absurd folly. His death would have meant yours. Luck, however, favored your dull-witted chief. He saw the trap that I had set. He managed to escape it by sheer good fortune.

“That is why the pair of you are still alive. You are my hostages. You shall remain such so long as The Shadow lives. When he dies, however, you shall die also. That will be the sign of my final victory.”

Cliff Marsland felt a dazed exultation. Despite the mistake of his agent, The Shadow had escaped Gray Fist’s snare! A smile appeared upon Cliff’s face. His eyes opened again. He saw the receding form of the man in gray. He heard a fierce chuckle from the doorway.

“Do not exult!” warned the fiend. “The Shadow’s freedom will be short-lived. He is a hunted wretch, hiding in the midst of enemies. He has no refuge other than a temporary shelter. He can not return to his old haunts. Your safety will exist only during the short time that it will take to hunt him down.

“The Shadow’s power has been ended. The myth has been exploded. Those who feared The Shadow are now the keenest to take up his trail. Death to The Shadow! That is the cry upon the lips of every mobster in the underworld. Soon it will be more than a shout. It will become a cold reality.”

Cliff was rising from the wall. He thought that he could see Gray Fist’s features; then the long arm raised again, and the face was hidden by the open, gray-gloved hand that the master crook extended.

“The Shadow!” Gloating venom sounded in Gray Fist’s voice. “The Shadow cannot escape my clutch. My gray fist is closing about him. It will squeeze him in a grasp from which no one can escape. The Shadow is doomed. Doomed by Gray Fist!”

As he spat these words, the man in gray clenched his hand with significant gesture. The gray fist looked to Cliff like a hand of burnished steel. The forward thrust that Gray Fist gave caused the tightened hand to loom with evil threat.

A wild, hilarious cry came from the man in gray. Gray Fist was a monster conjured from the realms of nightmare, an evil creature whose fiendish threats seemed real. Cliff could not repress the convulsive shudder that came over him.

The door was opening. Gray Fist had thrust his left hand behind him to turn the knob. The muffled fiend was backing out of sight. His shaking fist still projected into the room. Its clutch tightened; then, with a sweeping gesture, the clenched hand followed its owner through the doorway.

The door closed. Locks clanked. Cliff Marsland and Harry Vincent remained as prisoners. To The Shadow’s agents, this visit from their captor had been a fantastic dream. It fitted into the daze which held them, but its spell persisted to the point where they knew that it could not have been unreality.

Gray Fist had come to tell The Shadow’s agents of their plight. Gray Fist had departed, leaving the echoes of his spoken threat. Where Gray Fist had gone, neither Cliff nor Harry could conjecture.

The fiend’s purpose, however, was a certainty. While The Shadow lived, Gray Fist could have but one plan. He — the superfiend — had fared forth to loose new minions on a common quest.

Death to The Shadow! Merciless death to the only being who could block his plans for crime!

That was the purpose of Gray Fist!