The Crime Master

CHAPTER VII A FIEND DELIGHTS

LOUIE HARGER was crouched beside a bullet-riddled car in the parking lot. Before him, the remnants of his crew were ready, like entrenched fighters. They were grumbling as they heard the approach of sirens.

“How about it, Louie?” came a question, “What’re we waitin’ for? The bulls is comin’—”

“Yellow, eh?” snarled Louie. “Well, keep sittin’ tight. We can run for it in a couple of these buggies. What we’re waiting for is to plug any of those dicks that come crawlin’ out—”

The gangleader pressed the button of a powerful flashlight. He sent the beam straight toward the open door. Then, before his startled eyes could take in the form that the light revealed, a bursting shot came in response.

The Shadow had opened fire. Gangsters, their guns idle, were caught unaware. Louie Harger, as surprised as the rest, hurled his flashlight from him and dove back among the cars. Two of his men fired. Then came the crashes of the automatics. One shooter sprawled.

The mobsters were leaping for the safety of the cars which Louie had chosen for flight. Motors roared. The cars shot from the parking space. Louie, leading the way, was heading for an outlet at the far side of the space.

Gangsters were firing from the windows — still aiming at the door of the bank. The Shadow, however, was no longer there. His next shots came from darkness. They were aimed for the automobiles as the two vehicles shot forth, almost side by side.

Luck was with Louie Harger. His car was beyond the other. The Shadow’s firm hand loosed a shot that drilled the driver of the nearer car. The speeding auto wavered; it whirled across the street and smashed a wall. As it toppled on its side, gangsters came sprawling to the street.

Louie’s car, however, gained the corner, protected almost all the way by the erratic course of the second machine. Safe from The Shadow’s shots, the gangleader met with new danger, less than a block away. A police car was speeding toward him from a side thoroughfare.

Gangsters fired. The chase began. Louie Harger was in flight. Speeding through this vicinity, off on a mad getaway, the gangleader was racing to avoid the law.

The Shadow heard the firing. His laugh rippled in the darkness of the street beside one bank. Approaching police had been diverted by Louie’s flight. The Shadow stood alone. Turning, he made off through the darkness toward the front of the bank.

The Shadow’s work was ended. It was his part to leave this beleaguered vicinity before the police closed in. Distant shots showed that The Crime Master’s minions were scattering, now that their crime had been accomplished.

DETECTIVES were emerging from within the bank. Burdened by their wounded comrades, they would have been soft targets for Harger’s lurkers. But The Shadow had dispelled that menace. The only members of Louie’s crew that remained were the sprawled, groaning fellows who had hit the sidewalk from the overturning car.

A detective blew a whistle. There was no reply. A second blast; an answer from the block along which Louie’s car had sped. A further signal, from a greater distance; then came a whining siren.

The detective persisted in his signal. A police car shot up beside the bank. Its searchlight revealed the detectives, who were supporting their crippled comrades. An officer leaped from the police car and dashed back toward the rear street. He shouted the word along.

Another siren. A car veered from the corner. It was an ambulance. Two interns piled out; stretchers were brought to carry the wounded men aboard. Flat on his back, Joe Cardona managed to form a grim smile as he stared into the glare of a flashlight.

“They — they plugged me,” gasped the sleuth. “But — but I’ll pull through. How — how are the rest of the bunch?”

“All right,” replied an intern. “Lay quiet. We’ll get you to the hospital.”

Cardona subsided as the ambulance backed from the narrow street. Whining its warning as it speeded toward the nearest hospital, the rescue car carried its quota of wounded detectives from the scene of battle.

IT was half past twelve when a big car pulled up in front of the ravaged Titan Trust Company. Commissioner Ralph Weston alighted. He was met by a police inspector.

The commissioner’s face was stormy. He followed the inspector to an old house across the street. There, in the basement, he was shown the tunnel which crooks had dug through the front wall of the bank.

“They had cars on the street,” informed the inspector. “They made a break out through the side; then doubled back through the tunnel into this house.”

“Where were our men?” demanded Weston.

“Cardona and his squad were waiting at the side,” stated the inspector. “They drove the burglars back into the bank; then they were outnumbered. Meanwhile, we were coming up with reinforcements. But we couldn’t get through.”

“Why not?”

“Every approach was covered. Snipers were firing from windows. Gangsters were there in cars. When they finally began to break, it was too late. The cars that held the swag shot through before we could form a cordon.”

Weston nodded. He realized that supercrime had taken place tonight. Scattered minions of evil had played their part. They had delayed the arrival of the police who had responded to the signal of Cardona’s firing squad.

“What about Cardona?” demanded Weston, suddenly. “I was informed that he was taken to the hospital—”

“Seriously wounded,” interposed the inspector, solemnly. “I just received a report that he is past danger. But he’ll be crippled for a while, commissioner. You won’t be able to use Joe Cardona for a couple of weeks, at least.”

The commissioner clenched his fists. The temporary loss of his ace detective was as great a blow as the success of the robbers. Weston had banked heavily on Cardona. He didn’t know how Joe could be replaced.

It was Cardona who had gained a clue to this night’s episode. Twice in two days, the ace had produced a counterthrust at crime. The police department was faced by organized gang warfare. Weston recalled his conversation with Cardona. Joe was right; crime was beginning, not ending.

When the commissioner returned to the street, he met officials of the robbed bank. Their losses, in cash and negotiable securities, was estimated at a quarter million. The first blast had been followed by minor explosions. The vault had been rifled while the advance squad had been advancing toward the side door to open combat with Cardona’s men.

The majority of the attackers had eluded the grasp of the law. While there was proof of this in the neighborhood of the Titan Trust, there was greater evidence in another section of Manhattan.

The underworld was seething with suppressed excitement. In every dive where gangsters gathered, the news of the successful raid was going the rounds. None present in any joint admitted their connection with the crime. Yet these denizens of scumland were remarkably well informed.

While bottles clattered and glasses clinked about the tables of the Pink Rat, raucous voices rose in jeering elation. Gangdom was enjoying a prompt celebration. Crime had risen in open defiance of order. Snatches of unguarded conversation were audible in the smoke-filled room.

Squawky Sugler was not here to listen. The stool had ducked for a hideout after the affray at Trigger Maddock’s. But there was one who heard — a quiet, solemn listener who sat alone in a corner of the dive.

This was the sweatered mobster with the hawklike nose. The Shadow, having played his part against hopeless odds, was back at the spot where he had gained his first inkling of coming crime. In all the buzz of conversation, he heard no mention of himself.

Thin lips wore a slight smile. The Shadow knew why his part had not been discovered. He had fought from darkness. Those with whom he had waged battle were not here to tell the tale. Louie Harger had escaped; the gangleader had been forced to flight. Harger, alone, could have seen The Shadow. The gangleader was not showing himself to tell the tale.

USUALLY, the buzzings of gangland were not heard beyond the confines of the underworld. But such was not the case on this occasion. Elsewhere, the details of the robbery were under close discussion.

Seated in his paneled room, The Crime Master was grinning gleefully as he read a report which Henley had brought to him. Details, passed along by prompt informants, had come to the headquarters of evil.

“The profits are here, Master,” Henley was saying. “They were left at cache C, in accordance with your instructions. Woodling has just brought them here.”

“Count them up, Henley,” ordered The Crime Master. “Bring me a full accounting. Place the spoils in the strongroom.”

“Yes, Master.”

As Henley departed, the old man surveyed his board. The colored pieces were as he had left them prior to the advent of the crime. With the detailed report beside him, The Crime Master began to move the wooden objects like pawns on a chess board.

He started with the reds. Square by square, he converged them to the spot that indicated the Titan Trust Company. He followed with shifts of blues. Then he brought a large green, indicating Louie Harger and his mob, from the edge of the board toward the center.

The Crime Master shifted the whites. He paused. His white eyebrows bulked as he scowled. He was looking at an unoccupied square the spot where Louie Harger and his crew should have been stationed in the parking lot.

With an angry gesture, The Crime Master picked up the white piece that bore the letter C. He set it emphatically upon that open square. He had learned, through the report beside him, that Joe Cardona had occupied the strategic post before the arrival of Louie Harger.

A hissing, venomous snarl came from the old man’s lips as he shifted the white piece toward the square that indicated the side of the bank building. His scrawny hand moved reds in retreat. It brought back the white; then started the green piece moving away along the squares.

In miniature, The Crime Master was reconstructing the fight as he had heard of it. His reds were away; his green was gone; for a final detail, he moved odd blues and small greens from other points. The board cleared. All that remained was that damaging cone of white, with its cubical top — the piece that represented Detective Joe Cardona.

Crime had succeeded; yet the law had remained upon the field. The Crime Master’s hands were clenching in a fury. Then his eyes turned to the report. A scrawny finger ran along the final line. It bore the statement that Joe Cardona was lying, seriously wounded, in the hospital. The detective was incapacitated for active duty.

A chortle from the snarling lips. The old man seized the white piece with the letter C. With a gesture of triumph, he seized the bit of wood and snapped it into two pieces. He flung the portions to the floor.

With a new gesture of impatience, The Crime Master raised the glass sheet that covered the table. His hands were sinewy as they lowered the heavy plate and rested it beside the table. His claws pulled away the large scale map and threw it to the floor.

From beneath the table, the old man drew forth another spreading sheet. He flattened it on the table — a new map that showed another section of Manhattan. He raised the glass and set it in position. Its griddled lines formed their checkered pattern upon the new chart that lay beneath.

From his box of pieces, The Crime Master began to draw forth reds, blues and greens. Like a general mapping a field of battle, he was planning a new campaign of crime. One by one, he massed his forces, in contemplation of a new raid against the law.

THE CRIME MASTER paused. He chuckled as he surveyed the beginnings of a coming battle field. Colored pieces, splotched upon the board, brought joy to this creature of evil. The Crime Master settled back in his chair. His gaze lowered as he shifted from the table. His eyes stared to the floor; his lips spread as he emitted a wild, maddened cackle of elation.

The Crime Master was looking at the broken cone and the cube that bore the letter C. White upon a maroon-hued rug, they made a tiny, pitiable sight. That broken piece was out of the coming game.

Joe Cardona, the only instrument of the law whom The Crime Master had considered worthy of individual distinction, would not be present at the next affray. The ace detective could make no thrust against The Crime Master’s well laid plans.

That fact was the cause of the fiend’s delight. Confident because of success, the plotter could see no block to trouble him. His hands went back to the pieces on the board. Among them, he scattered cones of white — pieces which he regarded with sneering contempt.

To The Crime Master, all was clear ahead. He trusted in the reliability of the report. What if gangsters had been slain? What did it matter that Louie Harger was in flight? More minions could be had. Louie Harger would return. Again, the old man chuckled with contemptuous delight.

The Crime Master thrust the scanned report away. He had digested all its contents. He thought that he knew all. In that supposition, however, he was incorrect. Neither The Crime Master nor his informants had learned the truth concerning the counterthrust that had come from the law.

No report had been made about The Shadow. Nothing told of the weird presence that hovered in the background. Nothing had been said of a mysterious, hawk-nosed stranger who had appeared among the denizens of the underworld.

Exhaustive though The Crime Master’s plans might be they were lacking in one vital point. Those colored pieces on the board; the white ones that opposed them — were of little consequence.

For The Crime Master had neglected the greatest factor in the game. Until he took cognizance of it, his schemes would be open to disaster that he could not foresee.

Among those blocks that rested upon checkered squares was none to represent the king piece of them all. The Crime Master had made no provision to meet the power of The Shadow!