The Crime Master

CHAPTER XII TUESDAY NIGHT

ON the following evening, Commissioner Ralph Weston left his office after working late. His austere features were firmly set as he reached the street and looked about for signs of a signal. A hand was raised from the window of a light coupe.

Weston crossed the street. He stepped into the car. At the wheel was Grady, the commissioner’s confidential man. Grady shoved the car into gear. They rolled along the street and turned a corner northward.

“A good car, Grady,” observed the commissioner. “I am playing a cautious game tonight. I should not like to be seen — where we are going — either in my regular car or with my usual chauffeur at the wheel.”

“I understand, sir.”

The car rolled along. It finally made a westward turn. Weston pressed Grady’s arm — a signal to slacken speed. The coupe was in the block where the Fergis Building was located. All was quiet.

Weston nodded to himself. His orders had been followed. No officer was in sight along this block. He knew that detectives had long since stationed themselves in buildings opposite. They would be on watch. Open signs of police protection were absent.

The coupe took the next corner. It went one block, then veered left. Here, Weston, shrewdly peering, saw the signs that he wanted. A few extra officers were on duty. As the car turned right, continued a few squares and kept on skirting the vicinity of the Fergis Building, the commissioner became more satisfied than before.

Everywhere — added men. Scattered detectives. Patrol cars a few blocks further away. At no one spot was their indication of police activity. Nevertheless, a powerful array of the law could close in at short order. All was ready for the formation of a cordon.

The coupe rolled past the Fergis Building for a second time. Weston noted a trio of parked cabs; a fourth came up behind them as the coupe passed. These meant nothing to the commissioner, however. He ordered Grady to leave the vicinity.

NOT long after the coupe had departed from the block, a figure appeared a few doors below the main entrance to the Fergis Building. Its form was hazy; its motions swift and shifty. Stopping by the closed entrance of a ground floor shop, the figure merged with blackness. A pick clicked in the lock.

A minute later, The Shadow was inside the deserted shop. Here he found a more formidable barrier; an entrance to the building itself. In the darkness of the store, concealment was an easy task. The Shadow worked with precision. He forced the barrier. He reached the deserted lobby of the building. His form moved up the stairway.

The big building was empty. Moreover, its doors were firmly closed. Only The Shadow could have made an unseen entry. So far, the place seemed immune from attack. The Shadow knew well that a search must have been made — in routine fashion — at the time the building closed.

Reaching the third floor, The Shadow made his way to the front. Here he found the dim panel in a glass door; the name showed by dull light that came through the street windows:

The pick began to work. The door opened. The Shadow entered the office and closed the door behind him. Beyond, at the side, he saw a heavy door of steel that bore the statement:

This was obviously the way to the strongroom. Again, The Shadow set to work. The locks of this heavy door were formidable; yet it required only a few minutes for The Shadow to unloose them. The black-garbed investigator entered a room that was windowless. Its furnishings consisted only of table and two chairs. In the far wall was the door of a heavy, built-in vault.

After a brief inspection, The Shadow returned to the outer office. He left the door of the strongroom ajar. He reached the windows and peered to the street below. There, he observed the taxicabs that Weston’s coupe had passed. The row now numbered five.

A soft laugh came from The Shadow’s hidden lips. He saw significance in those cabs. He watched while another drove up and joined the line. Softly, The Shadow raised a window and peered directly below.

He could not see the sidewalk. This office was directly above the entrance to the Fergis Building. A marquee extended over the sidewalk just above the door. It was thirty odd feet to the street; the projecting surface of the marquee was more than half way down.

Like a slightly sloping roof, the marquee consisted of a heavy metal frame in which were set a grillwork of thinner metal, filled with panes of glass. The Shadow’s inspection ended. The black form moved into the office.

Apparently, the Fergis Building had entrances only in the front. Old, but well-built, it was set between a smaller and more ancient office building on the left; a low garage on the right. The strongroom was built against the left wall. Narrow and with open stairway from ground floor to the top — the tenth — the Fergis Building was the type of structure in which any sound could be heard.

Could The Crime Master’s workers enter from the front? The Shadow had done so; but crews of marauders would surely encounter trouble. The Shadow, as he waited, sensed that the unusual was due to occur. Then came evidence — sounds from outside the office.

MUFFLED clicks. The noise of chipping stones. Softly, The Shadow stole to the outer door. He peered through a crack; he saw the results of what he had heard.

At the end of the hallway — from the side where the other office building was located — pieces of plaster were breaking from the wall.

A gaping hole was coming. Workers from the other side were finding an easy way into the Fergis Building. The Shadow closed the door of the office. He moved back to the strongroom. He worked upon the locks of the metal door. He entered and closed the barrier behind him.

There was not long to wait. Lurking in total darkness, The Shadow heard slight clicks from the other side. The Crime Master’s men were here. They were trying to break in. They were going to succeed without much difficulty, thanks to The Shadow.

He had loosened the locks to make their progress easy. The Shadow was anxious to lose no time in meeting The Crime Master’s horde. He was ready with a surprise that they could not anticipate.

The door swung open. Creeping men moved forward. Then came a weird sound that chilled them to immobility. With eerie mockery, The Shadow’s laugh burst from the strongroom. Members of the advancing mob halted. A flashlight gleamed from a gangster’s hand. The answer was the thunder of an automatic.

The Shadow had chosen a danger spot. He was opposed to criminals — potential murderers — the flower of The Crime Master’s cohorts. This was no time for parley. Bullets were the arguments that counted. Tongues of flame spat from The Shadow’s guns, squarely into the ranks of the massed raiders.

Gangsters broke for cover. Leaving their companions sprawling, those in the rear dashed for the outer door of the office. Reaching the hall, they turned to give battle. Until then, they had not fired a shot.

But The Shadow was still prepared. Firing with one hand at the fleeting mobsters, he had yanked the metal door almost shut. A gun wedged in the crack between door and frame, he was ready for those who turned to fire back.

Gangster bullets smashed against the metal door. The Shadow answered, directing each shot toward spots where revolver flashes had shown. Gangsters fell, groaning. The remainder turned in final flight. It was then that The Shadow issued forth. He headed for the outer door to take up the chase.

As he reached his goal, The Shadow paused. He was allowing one short interval before he resumed the pursuit. It was in that space that an event occurred which totally changed The Shadow’s plans.

AN explosion came with a mighty roar, back in the strongroom! The entire building seemed to shake. The Shadow caught his footing, as he wheeled. Smoke was pouring from the strongroom. The Shadow realized what had happened.

New marauders had blown through the wall from the garage! The first attack had been no more than a preliminary sortie. Here were the real raiders, coming through into the strongroom itself!

The Shadow pounced to the open door. Defying the stifling fumes, he peered toward the corner where the blast had shattered a jagged opening. His automatics dropped beneath his cloak. His gloved hands swept out a second brace of weapons.

A light glimmered from the broken wall. The Shadow loosed a shot. The light fell. Then came the responses of revolvers. Men from the opening were aiming to give battle. The sides of the hole were their cover; The Shadow was again using the metal door as his barricade.

Bursts of a single automatic thrust past the edge of the door. These timely shots were keeping the new forces at bay. The Shadow was expecting a mad rush. He was equipped to handle it. All was going well for the time; then, while the expected attack still held back, a new onslaught opened from another quarter.

A whistling bullet flattened itself against the metal door, a scant inch from The Shadow’s head. The cloaked warrior whirled. The shot had come from the outer door. A new mob, held in reserve to replace the outfit which The Shadow had put to flight, was on hand to battle with the lone fighter!

The opening shot, had it been less hasty, would have settled The Shadow once for all. Swinging from his narrow escape, The Shadow aimed toward the outer door and opened fire as a deluge of mobsmen sallied into the room.

Amid the smoke that still hovered from the explosion, swift fight was waged. The Shadow, had he remained at the door of the strongroom, would have been quick prey for his opponents. But he shifted as he fired. He headed toward the window, intent upon meeting his foemen as they advanced.

Amazingly, The Shadow seemed to precede the enemy’s aim. Spattering bullets followed him while the men who fired were diving away to avoid return shots. It was the swiftness of the struggle that aided The Shadow during his course to the opened window.

A mobleader — Harger — was at the heels of the crowd that had sallied through the door. More deliberate than his hurried henchmen, Louie aimed for the blackened target that he could barely see. He fired. The Shadow wavered.

Wounded, the superfighter staggered at the window sill. A single automatic loosed flame toward the door, A mobster, his body protecting Louie, began to sink as his leader was aiming above his shoulder. Harger dived away toward the safety of the hall.

THE door of the strongroom swung open. A light glimmered full upon the window. The Shadow, barely freed from the menacing mob which had attacked from the hall, was forced to turn and fire single-handed at the light.

The Shadow’s right arm was limp; his left, however, loosed a pair of final shots with deadly precision. The light went out; a staggering mobster screamed. A gunman’s hand yanked the metal door shut.

The Shadow’s triumph was brief. Before the cloaked fighter could make another move, three men surged inward from the hall. Louie Harger, behind another pair of underlings, was coming back to fight.

One mobster fired. His bullet singed The Shadow’s wounded arm. The second man was aiming; The Shadow flung an empty automatic squarely in the fellow’s face. Louie Harger loosed a shot. The Shadow toppled. Backed against the window, his only refuge, the trapped warrior sprawled sidewise on the sill. Louie fired again, as The Shadow’s form went outward. His bullet clipped The Shadow’s thigh.

Then the form was gone; the window clear — save for a clutching hand of black. A dozen feet away, Louie aimed point blank for those clinging fingers, which he could see upon the white surface of the woodwork. Before the mobleader could pull the trigger, the fingers loosened. The Shadow’s form was plunging toward the rooflike marquee, nearly twenty feet below!

Louie heard the crash as he sprang for the window. The shattering of glass — the snapping of metal — these were the sounds that had marked The Shadow’s vertical plunge. Reaching the window, the mobleader looked downward. Spread upon the broken surface of the marquee lay the cloaked figure. The Shadow seemed to be writhing in agony.

Louie Harger aimed. The Shadow was helpless. Here was his chance to finish the archenemy of crime. Despite his belief that The Shadow must have already suffered mortal wounds, Louie was determined to gain the privilege of pumping lead into the black-garbed form.

As Louie’s hand steadied on the trigger, The Shadow seemed to hunch together. Then, to the gangleader’s amazement, the blackened form dropped. In his fall, The Shadow had shattered the center of the marquee. He still possessed sufficient strength to wriggle himself through the gap!

The Shadow had chosen the hard sidewalk a dozen feet further down in preference to the lead which he knew was coming from above. From his angle of vision, Louie could see but the fringes of the black cloak as The Shadow thumped, sprawling, on the sidewalk.

Viciously, the gangleader fired through the gap that showed in shattered glass and twisted metal. His zipping bullets smashed against the cement sidewalk. Changing his aim, Louie shattered another pane of glass, in maddened effort to uncover The Shadow’s dragging form.

Bursts of flame — whining bullets — crackles from below — then the click of Louie’s emptied weapon. The Shadow, wounded by gun shots, crippled by two successive plunges, had crawled toward the protecting entrance of the building.

The Crime Master’s moves had been well planned. The Shadow had been trapped within the central square. Eliminated from the fray, he had taken a desperate measure to avoid certain death in the face of overwhelming odds.

Even yet, he was not clear. Louie Harger knew that fact as he stood snarling by the window. Guns were echoing in the street below.

The Shadow had moved from one square to another. Unarmed, incapable of fight, he was still within the range of The Crime Master’s minions!