The Golden Quest

CHAPTER VI. THE SHADOW’S THRUST

REX BRODFORD was enmeshed in a most singular snare. A clever plan had been devised for his elimination. James Jubal, unable by persuasion to prevent Rex’s departure for Michigan, had loosed a prearranged scheme that would have no comeback.

Chuck Haggart had stationed mobsmen here to get Bugs Barwold. Word had passed along the grapevine that such was Chuck’s purpose. Actually, the mobleader had accepted payment from Jubal.

His real purpose was to murder Rex Brodford.

Chuck’s gorillas did not know the game. They were instructed to shoot at sight if a man should remain in a car that stopped by the back way to the Club Renaldo. The idea — as Chuck had explained it — was to keep Bugs Barwold from drawing his own gat.

Thus the intention was to have Rex Brodford slain, apparently by mistake. Police, investigating, would learn the supposed reason for Chuck and his mob being here. They would figure that an innocent person had fallen victim to a crook feud.

Thus posted, gangsters had arisen promptly when Rex’s driver had cut through toward the Club Renaldo.

That driver, a hireling of James Jubal’s, was in the know. He had given a prompt signal. Attackers had sprung forward. The opening of the cab door by Rex Brodford was the cue for a barrage.

Rex saw the rising guns. Instinctively he dropped for safety, choosing the only refuge: namely, the interior of the cab. Dropping, he slammed the door behind him. Revolvers barked an answer. Opening shots zipped through the windows of the beleaguered cab.

The cards held death for Rex Brodford. A horde of a dozen ruffians sought to slay him. Men of crime were piling in from all directions. Murder seemed due.

But there were others beside mobsmen who had seen Rex when he started to step from the cab. Cliff Marsland and Hawkeye, posted apart, had spotted the man marked for death. Both knew Bugs Barwold by sight. They knew that this was not the missing mobleader. Emergency had arisen; The Shadow’s agents acted with promptitude.

HARD on the opening shots came the bursts of automatics, as Cliff and Hawkeye fired into the killers who were closing on the cab. One mobster issued a wild cry as he sprawled to the street. Others swung about. New flames stabbed from darkened doorways. A second gangster fell.

Forgetting the cab, gorillas dropped for cover. They fired at the spots from which the shots had come.

Huddling in shelter, Cliff and Hawkeye were separately boxed. Each could fire only intermittent shots; neither could longer cover all the area about the cab.

Killers from the sidewalk were out of range. One was leaping forward to thrust a revolver through a shattered cab window. Before the man could fire, an automatic barked from the darkness of the passage that led through to the Club Renaldo. The killer spilled.

Harry Vincent had fired that timely shot. But with it, he, like Cliff and Hawkeye, was thrown on the defensive. Other mobsters whirled in his direction. Bullets caromed from the wall where Harry was crouched. Firing, Harry dived back for deeper shelter.

Chuck Haggart’s men had deployed with swift precision. Spreading in all directions, they were starting a pitched battle against the three snipers. Throwing The Shadow’s agents at an instant disadvantage, half a dozen gorillas paved the way for the remainder to reopen the charge upon the cab.

“Get him!” came a harsh cry. Chuck Haggart’s voice. “Get him! The guy in the cab. Rub him out!”

A trio of mobsmen sprang from across the street. Leaping at an angle toward the front of the stopped taxi, they were too swift for the aim of Cliff and Hawkeye. These ruffians were coming in to kill.

Moreover, their method was double-fold. This was a one-way street, eastbound. They were coming in such fashion that they could meet any new cars that were heading down the street. Startled taximen had stopped above, blocking traffic. Rescue was cut off.

But as the killers sprang forward to deliver death, they heard a roar behind them. One man shot a glance over his shoulder. His startled cry made the others turn. Bearing squarely upon the murderous crew was a speeding taxi cab that was coming up against the traffic.

Mobsters turned to fire. The driver of the cab applied the brakes. The vehicle did a hard skid to the left, turning half around in the cleared section of the thoroughfare. As tires bent under, the right side of the cab dipped toward the street. Its door swung open. Plunging outward came a mass of blackness that caught its footing in the street.

“The Shadow!”

A MOBSTER roared recognition as he recognized the occupant of Moe’s cab. The hurtling shape had gained its footing. A blackened figure, The Shadow was swinging upward, a dozen paces from his cab.

Hard on the mobster’s cry came his own announcement of identity.

With a wild, outlandish laugh, The Shadow opened fire. Mingled with his gibe came the tongued flashes of two mammoth automatics. Swinging with a weaving twist, The Shadow loosed deadly slugs at aiming mobsmen.

Revolvers answered. But as they fired, killers sprawled. The Shadow’s shots were chosen. He picked the closest mobsters first. He caught them with their fingers trembling on triggers. He sprawled them while their fellows fired wild.

Chuck Haggart had sprung for shelter on the sidewalk. Dropping behind a thickset fire plug, the mobleader was trying potshots. But The Shadow was weaving in the opposite direction. The range was long; and Chuck’s precaution for his own safety did not aid his aim. Chuck’s shots went wide.

Other mobsters had whirled about to join the fray. They were hewing in from all sides. But in their desire to get The Shadow, they were opening themselves to other danger. Cliff and Hawkeye, springing from their respective doorways, were swift with a flank fire that raked these new disturbers.

Mobsters faltered. Others dived for shelter. Three dashed for the passage through to the Club Renaldo.

Harry Vincent leaped forward to stop them. He went sprawling with one mobster, while the other two dashed on.

Harry drove an automatic hard against his antagonist’s head. The gangster slumped. Harry arose against the wall. Bullets were whistling down that alleyway — for Cliff and Hawkeye had opened fire after the fleeing killers — but Harry, standing back, was immune.

Again The Shadow’s laugh. With purposeful objective, the master fighter had wheeled about to reach a wall on the inner side of the sidewalk, on the same side of the street as the cab wherein Rex Brodford still crouched.

Seeing The Shadow’s form against a whitened surface, Chuck Haggart came up above his fire plug.

From across the street, the vicious mobleader aimed to kill.

A shout. Cliff Marsland had spied the leader. With his cry, Cliff fired. A bullet plunked the fire plug. A second shot whistled close by Chuck’s ear. This bit of marksmanship was Hawkeye’s contribution.

Chuck forgot The Shadow.

It was well he did; for The Shadow had swerved to open fire with his agents. Cliff and Hawkeye had followed with second shots. One bullet ricocheted from the fire plug; another nicked the curb by Chuck’s feet. The mobleader was diving for shelter.

Chuck had chosen a doorway at the top of white stone steps. Beside it was a grilled banister, with an iron knob for newel post. The Shadow’s following aim ended with a trigger squeeze. Luck favored Chuck.

The Shadow’s shot was aimed directly for the mobleader just as Chuck hit the steps. The slug from the automatic bashed against that iron knob. A chance obstruction had saved the mobleader. Chuck dived through the doorway above the steps.

Despite the fierceness of the fray, the time element had been brief. Opening shots had brought response from The Shadow’s agents. Quick-spreading mobsters had followed with their rush; into it had come The Shadow to deliver doom.

Hard upon their chief’s arrival, The Shadow’s agents had made their sortie. Battle had come, whirled about, and gone with the swiftness of a twisting cyclone. Devastation in the shape of flattened mobsters lay in the wake of this gunfire storm.

TO Rex Brodford, crouched on the floor of the cab, death had seemed imminent. Guns had barked from everywhere. Suddenly they had lulled. With that moment, Rex saw chance for better safety. Opening the door of the cab, he sprang to the sidewalk.

He wanted to make that alleyway which the driver had entered. But as he hit the sidewalk, Rex realized that he had made a misstep. Two men came pouncing upon him. One grappled while the other aimed.

Two last minions of Chuck Haggart. The first, his bullets spent, had dropped into a doorway near the cab; the other, gun still loaded, had leaped behind the taxi itself. They were still out to kill; and The Shadow was no longer in view. For in his whirl toward Chuck Haggart, The Shadow had sprung out into the street.

Rex wrested free from his first antagonist. He thumped up against the cab and strove to regain the door that he had opened. The second man drove in upon him, aiming his revolver pointblank for Rex’s head.

Then came a shot from the street side of the cab.

The Shadow had reached that spot. Seeing the mobster bent on death, he had aimed straight through the shattered windows. The roar of his gun spelled doom. The aiming gunman sprawled with gun unfired.

Rex leaped away at the sound of the shot. The first thug drove in upon him and lashed a hard stroke with his bulletless gun. The blow clipped Rex on the side of the skull. The young man went staggering, seeking to regain his balance, half groggy from the smash.

The mobster leaped to deliver another blow. His opportunity never came. Two automatics spoke at once. One from the alleyway; the other through the cab. Harry Vincent had fired with The Shadow. Both aimers found their mark.

With fingers slipping from the fender of the cab, Rex Brodford was about to topple headlong into the gutter when Harry Vincent arrived to grab him. As he caught the man’s limp form, Harry heard shrill whistles from both ends of the street.

The police were coming. For a moment, the situation struck Harry with stunning force. Then, from beside him, Harry heard a hissed order. He looked up to see The Shadow.

Gripping Rex Brodford, the cloaked chief started toward Moe’s cab. Harry aided in the carrying.

They shoved Rex aboard. Harry clambered in. The Shadow whispered a sharp order to Moe. The wise-faced taximan came up behind his wheel, grinning. Moe shoved the cab into reverse.

Harry caught a glimpse of The Shadow swinging toward the bullet-riddled cab that Rex had left. He saw the tall form stop; then swing about, bringing a bag from the front seat. Then Moe’s cab shot suddenly forward. It climbed the curb on the right side of the thoroughfare.

The Shadow hurled the bag aboard as Moe shifted gear. Then Moe’s cab went roaring down that narrow alleyway, a space that was no more than a wide foot passage, heading for the lights of the Club Renaldo.

SWISHES from stone walls. The sides of the cab were skimming close against the buildings. To Harry, it was a mad flight as he stared forward, with Rex Brodford lying limp on the seat beside him.

Startled pedestrians dived for cover as Moe’s cab shot out across the sidewalk of the next street.

Swinging past the front of the Club Renaldo, Moe veered with all his strength. Wheels climbed the curb on the opposite side of the street. The cab was on the verge of toppling.

Then it righted. As police whistles shrilled, Moe kept on. Speeding westward, he was cutting away from the danger zone. He swung left into Tenth Avenue traffic. Twisting between two cars, he avoided notice of a police car coming in the opposite direction.

Back on the street behind the Club Renaldo, bluecoats had thronged in upon a scene of battle. They were viewing the sprawled figures of mobsters, killed and wounded, the remnants of the fierce fray that had been waged.

No others could be seen. Like Chuck Haggart, Cliff and Hawkeye had taken a path through the old building with the white steps. Too late to overtake the fleeing mobleader, they had at least gained the clear.

Only one participant. remained close by; and he was unseen. From a blackened doorway fifty feet away, The Shadow was standing, blotted and motionless — viewing the forces of the law.

Patrol cars were coming up, all converging at the same spot, close by the bullet-riddled cab. Excited talk was on; soon a search would begin. The Shadow found no need to linger further.

Gliding from his doorway, the cloaked victor kept close to building walls as he moved swiftly, fleetingly away from the scene where he and his aids had triumphed.