The Crime Master

CHAPTER VI THE ZERO HOUR

TWENTY-FIVE minutes past eleven. Men were already huddled together within the confines of the parking space opposite the side of the darkened Titan Trust building.

These watchers, however, were not the ones indicated on the checkered board. Whites, instead of green, had arrived at the appointed spot. Detective Joe Cardona, with a squad of efficient workers beside him, had moved into the position originally designed for Trigger Maddock.

Louie Harger and his crew were on their way. Cardona did not know that they would figure in the coming crime. At the same time, Harger and his outfit were approaching in total ignorance of the fact that a stealthy faction of the law had moved in before them.

“Easy, men.” Cardona’s growled whisper came from beside a parked sedan. “Remember — we’re filling in where a cover-up crew was due. We don’t know who may be watching us. Hold everything until I give the word.”

“Ps-st!” The warning whisper came from a detective at Cardona’s side. In the gloom, Joe could see the man pointing toward the whitened wall of the bank building.

“See somebody, Murph?” questioned Cardona.

“Looked like it,” whispered the other detective. “Kind of a streak of black. Moved along in front of the white wall.”

“Where is it now?”

“Can’t see it. Out of sight — up there in the shadows.”

Cardona stared. He could see a glistening portion of the white wall; past that, darkness. But there was no sign of either life or motion.

“Guess I was seeing things,” admitted Murph. “Anyway, it couldn’t have been more than just one guy.”

“All right,” growled Cardona. “Keep watching — that’s all.”

Murph continued to stare. His eyes discerned nothing. Yet the detective had been right in his observation. He had seen the flitting form of a living being.

In the darkness close beside the Titan Trust building, The Shadow was crouched, on watch. He had expected Joe Cardona’s maneuver. He had detected the presence of the star detective’s squad. Trouble was due — within a scant few minutes. The Shadow, like the law, was prepared.

HALF past eleven. The zero hour had arrived. The detectives were waiting, tensely. Then came the sign of crime — a sudden boom that marked The Crime Master’s attack.

From deep within the walls of the Titan Trust Company came a muffled explosion. Some crew of sappers had let loose a charge. Entering from underground, they had blown their way into the bank building.

“Hold it!” ordered Joe Cardona. “Be ready. They’ll be coming out this way! We’re here to block them!”

One minute — two — alarms were ringing merrily within the whitened walls. Then came a clang. The side door of the bank swung outward. A pair of mobsmen, revolvers in hand, came into view.

“Let’s go!”

Cardona was on his feet. His revolver blazed the opening shot. A zipping bullet smashed from his weapon and plastered itself against the wall beside the mobsmen. Other detectives opened fire. With a round dozen at his heels, Joe Cardona sprang from the hiding place.

Shots came in return. One mobster fell. Others were firing from within the bank. The odds were with the police. Pounding across the sidewalk, Cardona and his detectives were bound for what seemed positive victory.

Then came sudden shots from the right. Bullets whined past the advancing detectives. Two men wheeled. They cried to their chief as they saw the approaching menace. Louie Harger and his underlings had arrived. They had opened a flank attack!

In a trice, detectives broke. Dropping for cover, retreating toward the parking space, they were trying to avoid this murderous fire that was coming in enfilade. With mobsters ahead, with mobsters at their right, Cardona and his men were trapped.

The darkness at the wall of the bank was formed by a flat, projecting pillar. Beside that spot, to the left of the door where mobsters were massed, the depression of the wall formed a natural shelter. It was from this unexpected nest that a sharp counter attack came to aid the foiled detectives.

Louie Harger and his men were shouting in triumph as they came dashing up the street. They were counting on a hand to hand fight with the retreating detectives. A hidden power, however, was to stay them.

Barks came from the niche beside the pillar. Tongues of flame spat in quick succession from a mammoth automatic. A mobster staggered and sprawled. Another toppled beside him. The Shadow, sniping with machinelike speed, was withering the ranks of Louie Harger’s horde!

Louie’s crew broke for cover. Their leader dived for safety with them. Two mobsmen, caught flat-footed, sent chipping shots that cracked the marble pillar. Deflected, these bullets failed to reach The Shadow.

The response, however, did not cease. A second automatic had replaced the first. Two quick shots accounted for the firing gangsters. One gunman slumped in the middle of the street; the other, hand pressed to shoulder, staggered away and stumbled flat as he reached the curb.

“Let’s go!”

Again, Cardona’s leadership prevailed. The flanking fire ended, the detectives sprang forward en masse. Blistering shots came from their revolvers. The defending gangsters ducked inward from the door.

DISTANT sirens were whining. Shots came from other streets. The Shadow, watching from his post, knew what was happening. This battle at the side door was but a portion of the entire scheme. Agents of crime, scattered throughout the vicinity, were blocking the approach of the police from all directions.

Louie Harger and his thinned ranks had scattered. Sniping shots were all that came toward the advancing detectives. Cardona and his men dashed into the bank. The Shadow waited, listening to muffled shots from within.

Shouts from the front street. There was activity there. Then came gangsters, creeping forward. Members of Louie’s crew were closing to block off Cardona’s retreat, should he and his detectives reappear.

The Shadow stepped from his niche. Still in the gloom, he opened sudden fire, with a pair of fully-loaded automatics. Shouts sounded as the mobsters again scattered for cover. Weaving swiftly toward the door, The Shadow followed the path taken by Joe Cardona.

The interior of the bank was filled with smoky fumes from the explosion. Stairs showed dimly; The Shadow knew that the detectives had taken that route. Springing forward, the master fighter descended. He stopped suddenly at the bottom turn.

Lights were on in a stone-walled strongroom. There, The Shadow, as he watched from the darkened steps, could see four cowering mobsmen, covered by the guns of Cardona’s detectives. Beyond was a gaping hole at the bottom of the wall.

The Shadow knew the answer. A squad of mobsters had been sent through the side door, to open the way and form contact with Harger’s crew. The robbers were to follow with the swag. But The Crime Master had been too clever to rely upon a single avenue to escape.

The repulsion of the vanguard had caused the bank crackers to depart by the way which they had come — through the gaping hole which they had blasted in this lower room. That piece of strategy, worked with design, was proof to The Shadow that something else was due to happen. The Shadow watched.

Cardona barked an order. Three detectives sprang toward the gaping hole. Their leader was dispatching them to follow the escaping robbers. The Shadow’s automatics came upward. The weapons were none too soon.

Shots burst from the gap in the wall. One detective staggered; the others dropped away. As Cardona swung to see the source of trouble, a pair of mobsters sprang from the hole with leveled guns. They were the first of a safety crew, here in ambush, to stop the police from following.

Cardona and his men were caught flat-footed. But for The Shadow’s presence, their doom would have come. The cornered mobsters, acting with the tribe from the broken wall, were yanking guns. The odds were all against the detectives. But they had The Shadow behind them!

Automatics blazed. Roars that echoed from the stairway were the markers of spraying shots with which The Shadow peppered The Crime Master’s men. The detectives, caught in the open, were firing to save their lives. Above them whistled The Shadow’s aiding shots.

One detective sprawled; then another. Joe Cardona staggered and fell. But for every one of these losses, three casualties resulted among the mobsmen. Scampering like rats, sprawling mobsmen dived for the hole that offered safety. The Shadow’s booming shots could not be answered.

One mobster, alone, fell crouching beyond two fallen forms that cluttered the gap. Snarling, he fired toward the stairway. His first bullet clipped the stone work at the corner. He aimed for a second shot. An automatic answered. The gangster slumped.

That was the end. A stillness followed barking echoes. Then came choking gasps within the smoke-filled room where the smell of powder had blended with the fumes. Detectives, still unscathed, were rising to aid their wounded comrades; among the latter was Joe Cardona.

THE SHADOW’S form faded. Pursuit was futile, now. The fight had allowed the robbers time to make a getaway. Outside — at the front of the bank — that was the spot where the crooks could be blocked. Had Cardona headed there, he might have gained a victory.

The Shadow, though alone, could have caused trouble at the front. But he had sensed the trap into which Cardona was descending. He had come to save the lives of the star sleuth and his men. He had deliberately passed up the chance to deal with the escaping robbers when they reached the open.

The Shadow gained the top of the stairs. There, he paused. He could hear the clumping tread of detectives at the bottom of the steps. He could hear distant shots, whistles and sirens from spots outside.

With a weird laugh that shuddered through the upper room, The Shadow strode toward the broken side door. This time, he was the force that came to clear the way. He knew that a new menace lay ahead.

Cardona and the detectives, saved from their trap, were coming, crippled, toward vengeful enemies who awaited them. Once again, The Shadow had a duty to perform!