The Chinese Disks

CHAPTER III. THE SECOND DISK

CLIFF MARSLAND had encountered many dangers in the service of The Shadow. He was not the man to fear new threats. Nevertheless, Cliff had learned that discretion could be a good ninety per cent of valor.

This was a time to be discreet. With Cliff, it was not simply the risk of an encounter in the dark. He had come to this house with the definite purpose of serving The Shadow. Whatever might occur, it would be his part to strive for the continuance of that duty.

Cliff Marsland knew what The Shadow wanted. Like Joe Cardona, The Shadow had learned of sinister movements in the underworld. Some big shot had been gathering cohorts. Slowly, secretly, but with positive results.

Duff Corley had suddenly become the link. Joe Cardona had been lucky enough to spot him. The Shadow wanted to profit by the discovery. He had decided to keep close on Duff’s trail. Cliff had been appointed to the task.

Why?

Because he had been close to the ground. Cliff recognized that fact. He had known it the moment that Burbank had given the instructions. If The Shadow had been close at hand, he would have taken up the trail in Cliff’s stead.

Where was The Shadow?

On his way here, Cliff supposed. Instructions from Burbank had been to trail Duff until further orders.

New orders would probably come from The Shadow in person. Hence Cliff, for the time, was acting in The Shadow’s place. He tried to picture matters as The Shadow would see them.

First: Duff Corley was certainly inside that house. The scrawny crook had shambled away with a good head start. He had probably entered by the front door. Some countersign — perhaps the same one that he had exchanged with the big mobsman at Red Mike’s — so Cliff pictured it.

Then why was some one lurking in this alleyway?

Cliff caught the answer as he waited. It was obvious. The man in the dark was a watcher, posted to make sure that no one was on Duff’s trail. The alleyway was an ambush. Cliff, like a dub, had walked into it.

He had probably been heard. Just as he had later heard the movement of the lurking guard. Cliff’s teeth gritted grimly. He knew that he should have waited across the street. That was too late now. He was in the mess.

Silence from the alleyway. Cliff sensed that his enemy was waiting for him to make a move. Cliff listened; he heard nothing, yet he fancied that his foe might be moving forward. More than that, Cliff began to consider a new menace — the entrance of the alley.

Had some one been posted outside? Perhaps. If so, Cliff might have been spotted back at the middle of the block. Others could be closing in. The spot was a bad one. Cliff resolved upon stealthy measures. He crouched low and began to edge toward the front of the house.

The plan was working. Each time he paused, Cliff heard no sound from the rear of the alley. Little by little, he was gaining the front corner. Six feet more — five feet — then came the unexpected.

CLIFF’S right heel kicked against a half brick that had been laid on the ledge of a cellar window. The object clattered to the cracked cement of the alleyway. Its click seemed magnified in the darkness. Cliff dropped. He was wise.

Tongues of flame stabbed the darkness; with them, the fierce bark of a revolver. The flashes came from the deep end of the alley. Leaden slugs nicked chunks from the brick wall a foot above Cliff’s head.

Swinging across the alleyway, Cliff returned the fire with the automatic. His target was the blackness from which the spurts had come; the region wherein the echoes of the shots still quivered.

New bursts replied; and Cliff delivered in like fashion. His enemy was on the move. So was Cliff. Pot shots failed in the dark; but the whine and spatter of bullets meant business. Cliff reached the sidewalk.

He had not forgotten the chance of enemies in the street. Safe beyond the front of the house, Cliff went hurtling for the opposite side of the narrow thoroughfare, where a blackened house front offered temporary security. He gained his goal; wheeling, he crouched by darkened steps and faced back toward the house with the green lights. He expected his enemy to appear. The man evidently preferred the security of the alleyway.

A shrill whistle cleaved the night. It was a block away; past Sobo’s pawn shop. An answer came from the opposite direction. Gazing quickly along the street; one way, then the other, Cliff saw figures approaching on the run.

Cardona’s men. The shots had drawn them. Cliff was in a tight spot. Thinking quickly, he remembered the man across the way. The fellow had an alleyway through which he could escape. Would he take a look at the street before he took to flight?

Cliff decided to find out. Regardless of the approaching detectives, he arose from his hiding spot and opened fire at the alleyway. The result was spontaneous. A gun flashed from the entrance. A bullet zimmed past Cliff’s head. The fellow was there; he had aimed back at Cliff’s gun flash.

Cliff fired again, shifting as he did.

A fork of flame responded; a bullet whanged the steps that Cliff had left. Instantly, Cliff fired again. He found his target this trip. A cry — the clatter of a gun on the sidewalk — then the sounds were drowned by new whistles.

Cliff turned. Police were heading down from the direction of Sobo’s. Half a dozen of them, in a squad. A quick look in the opposite direction showed that other officers had stopped at the corner. The purpose was plain. Crooks would flee from the raiding gang; straight into the ones who waited.

Cliff held his ground, ready to fling his gun before the police arrived. He could surrender and feign the part of a chance passer who had been trapped. But until the last moment, Cliff intended to remain on duty, watching the house with the green lights.

Then came shots from an unexpected quarter. Up by the corner, opposite the direction of Sobo’s. Cliff turned in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of policemen diving for cover. Then a huge touring car came jolting around the corner; its exhaust roared as the driver gave it the gas.

A searchlight gleamed. Cliff was caught in the glare. So were the detectives who were advancing up from Sobo’s. Cliff leaped for the protection of the steps. Dicks scurried for cover. Rapid flashes belched from both sides of the touring car. With those swift bursts came the rattle of machine guns.

Nothing could stop that car of death. Men had ducked for shelter; but when the car whirled by, the gunners would pick them out. Cliff’s steps protected him for the moment; but he knew that the shelter would be futile when the car rode by. He was ready to give the last few bullets of his automatic, in a puny effort to ward off death. Grimly, Cliff turned toward the street.

His gaze was transfixed. Straight across the street lay the body of the mobsman whom he had clipped.

But to Cliff, that figure meant nothing. What caught his eye was the apparition that had swept out from the alleyway. A new form had entered the scene.

The Shadow!

A FIGURE garbed in black. Tall, with flowing cloak; the brim of a slouch hat covering his features, the master fighter had arrived. Through the alleyway from the rear of the house with the green lights. Just in time to face the revealing glare of the death car’s headlights.

Machine guns were spraying their hail ahead; for the mobsmen in the car had spotted the approaching detectives. The Shadow, as he swept into view, picked a spot uncovered by the guns. The automobile was almost upon him when he appeared.

Then, amid the typewriter clatter of the machine guns came The Shadow’s thrusts. Massive automatics barked their message straight into the rear of the touring car. Oddly, The Shadow picked the gunner on the far side. Cliff, rising involuntarily, saw the man slump beside his gun. Cliff, for the moment, was safe.

A flame-belching barrel flashed as the other gunner tried to swing his gun toward The Shadow. It was a tough task, for the machine gun was pointed ahead and the speed of the car had brought it up to the spot where The Shadow stood firing. Then the attempt ended. The gunner slumped, half out of the car.

The Shadow had clipped him cleanly. Revolvers alone were barking as fuming crooks aimed wildly for their arch enemy. Moving, they failed to spot their standing target. But to The Shadow, standing, the whole car was open to his deadly aim.

Revolvers fell from nerveless hands. Men slumped beside the useless machine guns. The automatics were roaring their quick shots. Cliff joined as the car swept by and aided The Shadow by clipping a mobster who had risen.

Then came a final revolver shot from the car. The driver, alone unhurt, had yanked a gun to thrust it across the body of the man beside him. He was on Cliff’s side of the street. The Shadow’s agent delivered his last bullet, inches wide. But The Shadow’s shots did not fail.

The driver’s aim was faulty. One hand on the wheel, his foot jamming the accelerator to the floor, this ruffian had taken on too much. His bullet zimmed wide of The Shadow’s hat. The automatics thundered in unison. As the car leaped forward, the driver writhed in the agony of death.

Detectives leaped from spots of shelter as the car hopped the curb and bore down upon them. Steps that had afforded safety from the machine guns were useless in the path of this hurtling machine. The car swerved toward the front of an empty house. The right wheels climbed stone steps. Then the car went toppling, crashing, over on its side; on its top and over for another quarter turn.

Wheels spinning, it lay like a fighting monster. Gunmen were sprawled on the street beside it. The machine guns had clattered to the cobbles. Detectives were bounding up to stop the motor; to drag out the gangsters who were pinned within the wreckage.

Cliff was in blackness now. The glare had passed. The Shadow’s agent sprang across the street and reached the entrance to the alleyway. Detectives were hurrying up from the corner which the touring car had passed. Cliff’s one avenue of departure was the alleyway where The Shadow had been.

A hiss from darkness as Cliff gained the space between the houses. Cliff uttered a response. He caught The Shadow’s order to speed away through the alley. Cliff obeyed. He found a turn between two houses; a clear path after that, through to the street beyond.

A SWISH in the darkness. The Shadow had stopped at the rear of the house with the green lights.

Cloaked in blackness, he ascended four rickety steps and found an old door, locked. A pick probed the keyhole.

The Shadow entered. He passed through a kitchen; then to a hallway where a dull green pervaded. It was the reflection from the lights in the side room. A darkened doorway yawned at the left of the hall.

The Shadow’s flashlight cut a swath into a small room.

There, on the floor, lay Duff Corley. The scrawny mobster was stretched out, with evil face turned upward. Protruding from his body was the handle of a knife. The thrust had reached the mobster’s heart; a portion of the blade still showed. It glimmered slender in The Shadow’s light. The weapon was a stiletto.

Crash!

The front door was giving away. The Shadow’s light went out. Swiftly, the cloaked intruder swept back through the kitchen and out into the night. He passed the alleyway just before lights glimmered there.

Detectives were coming through the back of the house.

The Shadow was gone. The law was on the scene. The front door broke and detectives plunged into the house. They came face to face with the others who had found the back door open. Flashlights blinked.

Then came the discovery of Duff’s body.

A dick pressed a switch in the little room. Members of the squad clustered about the corpse. Then Joe Cardona entered. The leader of the raiders stood silent as he viewed the body of his new stool pigeon.

Detectives watched while Joe stooped beside the body and felt through pockets. They were empty. Joe looked at Duff’s right hand. It was clenched. Carefully, the ace pried fingers open. The hand was empty.

Joe Cardona grunted. He had expected to find the Chinese disk in the dead man’s clutch. Instead, he had found nothing. Had the murderer made off with the disk? Or had Duff’s story been a fake, so far as the disk was concerned? Cardona pondered.

A MAN arrived at the door of the room. Cardona stood up to face a panting detective. The fellow caught his breath; then delivered his message. It pertained to the gorillas in the death car.

“Just dragged another guy out,” informed the dick. “I knew his mug. It was Spider Mertz. Guess he was handling one of the typewriters. Anyway, he was dying when we got him loose.”

“Did he talk?” inquired Joe.

“No,” returned the detective. “He didn’t even try to. All he did was chuck something that he had in his hand. It didn’t go far. I picked it up off the cobbles. Here it is.”

Cardona shoved out his hand. The dick released a small object. It fell in Joe’s palm. This was silent proof of Duff Corley’s story; the absolute evidence that the reluctant stool pigeon had spoken true regarding his meeting with Spider Mertz.

For the object that Joe Cardona received from the detective was a grayish disk. Engraved in dull red on its surface was the same Chinese letter that had appeared upon the token carried by Duff Corley.

The murdered stoolie had been robbed after death. His killer had sought to keep this evidence from the hands of the law. But Spider Mertz, clipped by The Shadow’s bullets, had failed to rid himself of the incriminating token.

The first disk — Duff’s — was gone. Only Cardona’s penciled impression remained as proof of its existence. In its place, the ace detective had gained a second disk, thanks to The Shadow’s prowess in dealing with Spider Mertz.