The Four Signets

CHAPTER VIII. THE SHADOW DEPARTS

A WHISPERED laugh hissed through the room. Its echoes were sibilant responses that dwelt within the walls.

Gasps came from trembling lips. Stark terror gripped the crooks who faced The Shadow. They knew the repute of this unyielding master. No quarter to men who deserved to die.

The laugh died. Then came words, uttered in a sneering tone that sounded like notes of doom. There was stern justice in The Shadow’s statement; but it brought no hope as the trapped men listened.

“Creeper Trigg” — Ralder stared as The Shadow called him by his alias — “I have heard your plan. In your hand you hold the weapon that I shall use against you and these others. Rise. Do as I command.”

Ralder came up from the floor. The hand that held the hypodermic syringe was quivering. Dorry and Lefty trembled. They knew what was coming. One of them would be the first to receive the death-giving shot intended for Dopey Roogan.

Both knew that Ralder must have replenishment for the syringe. That would mean a second injection, so they thought. Ralder, as he trembled, could see further than that. He was sure that The Shadow would force him to jab the needle in his own arm after he had served the other two.

“Wait!” The Shadow had created the effect that he desired. “The contents of that syringe will do for three. Be sparing with it, Ralder. I may decide that sleep, not death, is suited to your needs.”

Sudden hope glowed on scared faces. Both crooks remembered what Ralder had said. Apportioned among them that dosage would mean only temporary oblivion. After that—

“The police,” hissed The Shadow, “have need of your testimonies. So I shall reserve you for their arrival. They will find you doped, here in this room. But on one condition only. Each of you must speak.”

That was the condition. Life or death. The three men sensed the firmness of The Shadow’s decision.

Stubbornly, they would have fought against a third degree; but this challenge offered no chance for bluff.

“I’LL talk!” blurted Dorry. “I ain’t done nothing! It was Hoot Shelling who pulled that job last night. I–I was only coming up to meet him. I jumped on the car. I–I got clipped. Honest — I don’t know nothing more!”

“Hoot pulled it,” added Lefty, eager to curry The Shadow’s favor. “I was in the outfit. Waiting in the car. He went back of the jewelry shop and got in. He planted the soup. Then he came out with us.”

“One man was murdered,” hissed The Shadow. “State the name of the killer who slew him.”

“I don’t know,” pleaded Dorry. “Honest—”

“We heard a shot,” broke in Lefty. “But it wasn’t Hoot who did it. He was in the car with us.”

The Shadow laughed. The mobsters trembled. The Shadow knew that they had spoken the truth. But he was not finished.

“Tell me where Hoot Shelling is at present,” came the sinister order of the hidden lips.

“I don’t know.”

Two men made the same reply, almost simultaneously. Dorry and Lefty were almost pitiful as they blurted the words. The Shadow’s gaze centered on Doc Ralder. The sawbones cringed.

“Speak!” ordered The Shadow.

“I–I heard Hoot on the phone,” gasped Ralder. “He — he was talking about a job tonight. But the gang’s not going with him. It’s — up on Eighty-eighth Street.”

“The address.”

“I didn’t hear it. The old house with the shutters. Third from the corner — but I don’t know the corner. Somewhere on the East Side—”

Ralder was trembling. He had given his jerky statements without need of further prompting. The Shadow knew that the sawbones was telling all that he had heard.

“He’s — he’s working for somebody,” added Ralder. “Some fellow with dough — that was who called him here. But — but he didn’t give the name. I’d tell if I knew. I’d tell!”

Silence. The Shadow’s eyes were glowing. The crooks were anxious to tell more. They were clutching at new straws of hope. But their wits were numbed. It took The Shadow’s order to bring words to their lips.

“You have been to Hoot Shelling’s hide-out,” sneered The Shadow. “Name its exact location.”

“I don’t know it,” pleaded Ralder, quaking before the burning eyes. “I don’t know it!”

The gaze turned toward Dorry. With trembling hands upraised, the cowered criminal spoke beggingly.

“I ain’t been there,” said Dorry. “I was going there last night for the first time. But Hoot — he brought me here. I–I got clipped.”

The eyes had turned toward Lefty. The second crook faded before the threat. His head, raised up from the pillows, began to nod.

“I know the place,” affirmed the cowed gorilla. “I was there — with Hoot. I’ll tell you — I’ll tell you where it is—”

As Lefty stared, he saw The Shadow make a sudden move. Hands before his face, the crook dropped to the pillows, fearing that the thrust was coming toward him. Ralder and Dorry sank back as they saw the black cloak swish. There was a flash of a crimson lining as The Shadow wheeled toward a door at the side of the room.

AT that instant, the barrier swung open. With it came a powerful figure, hurtling inward with a gun. A vicious face — that of Coney Laxter. The expected gorilla had arrived. Outside the door, he had heard the voice of The Shadow. He was charging in, to meet the menace.

Coney had gauged his entry by the sound of The Shadow’s voice. His gun was ready as he hurled himself through the door, then straight toward the window. His quick finger pressed the trigger of the revolver.

But The Shadow had acted as swiftly as had Coney.

With the fling of the door, The Shadow had whirled forward and downward. Half sprawling in the direction of Doc Ralder, he had taken the one measure that could save him from Coney’s aim. The mobster’s bullet whistled inches past The Shadow’s dropping head. It sped through window shade and shattered the pane beyond. As the glass clattered, an automatic barked.

The Shadow had fired from the floor. Coney’s hand, swinging downward for new aim, came to an instantaneous halt. But the revolver, loosed by quivering fingers, clattered to the floor. Coney’s hands went to his chest. With a groan, the invader sagged.

It was Doc Ralder who acted in his place. With a savage cry, the sawbones sprang upon the cloaked form that had come to the floor beside him. Had he sought to draw a gun, Ralder would have been doomed upon the instant. Had his purpose been to grapple only, he would have failed again.

But Ralder, as he leaped upon The Shadow, was quick to utilize a deadly weapon that he held in ready grasp. With left hand clawing for The Shadow’s throat, he brought his right fist downward, aiming the hypodermic needle straight for The Shadow’s back.

The Shadow lunged. Ralder’s arm shot forward. His fist went beyond its aim, as The Shadow, prostrate on the floor, knocked his knees from under him. Clutching with his left hand, the sawbones twisted and tried to make another jab at the body beneath him. Then came the muffled boom of an automatic.

The syringe clattered from Ralder’s grasp. The needle pricked the floor; then the instrument rolled away, useless. The Shadow, one gun shoved up against the crook’s stomach, had fired a second death shot.

Dorry and Lefty were wounded men. But, as The Shadow had discerned upon his arrival, they were by no means helpless. The pair of gorillas had not held the advantages possessed by Laxter and Ralder; but The Shadow’s dilemma had given them their chance.

The wounded crooks had gats beneath their pillows. Revolvers flashed as they yanked them into view.

As The Shadow freed one automatic from beneath Ralder’s body, the crooks were ready with their weapons.

The one automatic swung toward Dorry, in the inner corner of the room. Three guns, aiming simultaneously. Two to one against The Shadow. Even though he beat Dorry to the shot, he could not deal with Lefty.

The automatic barked; and with its boom came the report of a second automatic. It was not The Shadow’s other weapon, that was still clamped by Ralder’s body. The shot that had chimed with The Shadow’s had come from the door of the room.

Like puppets, Dorry and Lefty wabbled on their cots. Dorry’s right hand loosened. Lefty’s left fist unclenched. Both gorillas had been beaten to the shot. Dorry by The Shadow, Lefty by Cliff Marsland, standing grimly at the door.

THE SHADOW’S agent had heard Laxter enter by the side door. He had followed the thug up the stairs. Cliff had reached the top just as Laxter had broken through the door. Dashing forward, Cliff had arrived just in time for the final stroke.

Cliff’s shot had come with The Shadow’s. Bullets had sped upon a cross-fire flight. Dorry and Lefty were done. The former had sagged back upon the pillows. The latter, who had reached far in his aim, was toppling on the edge of his cot. As The Shadow came up from the floor, disentangling his cloak from Doc Ralder’s body, Lefty’s form rolled from the cot and sprawled motionless upon the floor.

With Lefty died the chance of learning more. The location of Hoot Shelling’s hide-out could not be gained. But The Shadow had work already scheduled for tonight. The house on East Eighty-eighth Street was his present goal.

Silence had followed the last echoes of the shots. From a distance came the shrill sound of a police whistle. The cop on the beat. The Shadow laughed softly as he swung toward the shattered window. He raised the sash; turning, he motioned to Cliff Marsland.

The agent nodded. He hurried forward and scrambled through the window. As Cliff dropped from the roof to the ground below, The Shadow followed, closing the sash behind him. Then he, like his agent, dropped noiselessly to the ground.

A hissed command in the darkness. Obeying it, Cliff took off through a space between houses at the rear. His job was to remain in the underworld. He had time to get away before the police arrived; to drop into some hangout and mingle with the mobsters there.

The whistle sounded from in front of the house. There were voices; other whistles; hammering on doors.

Men were coming to the back.

The Shadow’s cloak swished in darkness; his lips whispered an echoed laugh as he followed the course that his agent had taken.

TEN minutes later, Joe Cardona was standing in the room where death had struck. The ace had stationed himself in this vicinity, to be close at hand when word came from Dopey Roogan. Joe had heard the shots; he had joined the policeman who had headed here.

Dopey Roogan had come to his senses. Bewildered, the stool pigeon was staring about him. Doc Ralder — Coney Laxter — two gorillas — all lay sprawled in death. Dopey could not understand it.

For the stoolie, unscathed, had been out cold from the time that Ralder had dragged him in this room.

Senseless throughout the Shadow’s conquering fray, Dopey was as useless a witness as the corpses on the floor!