The Isle of Doubt

CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW’S WAY

A HUGE grandfather’s clock was chiming the half hour in an upstairs front room of Caleb Wilcox’s home. The room was gloomy. Only a thin shaft of light entered from the half-closed door that led to the second-floor hallway.

Blackness flitted across the beam of light. That passing patch of darkness signified the presence of The Shadow. He, the mysterious stranger of the night, had entered here ahead of Punch Baxton, and his evil crew.

The clock was slow. The Shadow knew that fact. The Baxton mob was due at any time; the call from Burbank was late. The Shadow’s passage through the room had been to gain observation of the hallway; now, his form was back again at its first station — a table near a window of the empty room.

A buzzing sound occurred beside the window. There was a click as The Shadow lifted a French telephone from its hook. His voice was no more than a sinister whisper, yet it brought a prompt reply from the other end of the wire.

“Burbank speaking,” came the words.

“Report,” whispered The Shadow.

“Report from Vincent,” announced Burbank. “Possum Quill, Lefty Hotz, and another man left at eleven thirty-five.”

“Tip-off to Cardona.”

With this terse instruction to Burbank, The Shadow replaced the telephone upon its hook. The keen ears of the phantom visitant had detected sounds other than Burbank’s voice.

Swiftly, The Shadow glided to the door. Burning eyes peered from darkness to see stealthy forms that were ascending the stairs.

Eight men in all — thus The Shadow counted them. They were men of a type, common gangsters, all but two. This pair moved toward the front room to hold a short conversation. The Shadow’s ears could detect the whispers.

“I’ll show you the old man’s vault, Punch” — the speaker was a solemn, middle-aged man — “and when you begin to load the swag, I’ll slide up to my room. Don’t forget to make that downstairs door look like a jimmied job.”

The other man, a squat fellow with an iron jaw, grinned in response.

“Leave it to me, Topper,” he replied. “You lay low and holler along with those other mugs that work for old Wilcox. We’ll make a little noise when we scram.”

The two men joined the others.

THEIR conversation had revealed the situation. The man called “Topper” was acting as a servant in the Wilcox home. He had let in the gangsters. Once he had pointed out the location of the millionaire’s small but well-stocked vault, Topper would take to cover.

Punch Baxton and his henchmen moved along the hallway, and disappeared into a darkened room. Faint indications of a flashlight were visible. One gangster reappeared. He stood at the top of the stairs. From his actions, there was evidently another man below.

While the fellow was looking down the stairs, the streak of light that entered the front room disappeared completely. A mass of blackness had blotted it from view. The obscuring darkness disappeared. A tall figure blended with the side wall of the hallway. The Shadow had stealthily left the front room and was approaching the spot where the watcher stood.

Easily and steadily, The Shadow moved toward his goal. The watcher was alert now, looking along the hallway, suspiciously eyeing the door of the front room. Yet the gangster did not see that gliding shape that came so uncannily toward him. The light of the hall was vague, the walls were paneled. The Shadow was merged with darkness.

Slowly, the advancing phantom edged past the man who stood at the stairway. Behind the watcher, The Shadow quickly gained the door of the room where Baxton, Topper, and the others had gone.

His keen eyes spied from the corner of the doorway. They saw Baxton, in the sheltered circle of a flashlight’s rays, working upon a steel door in the farther wall. Topper had revealed a special panel that made the vault accessible.

Topper was moving away from the wall. The man stopped near the door of the room, still watching Punch Baxton. It was evident that he intended to remain until the vault was actually opened. The Shadow, too, was awaiting that moment.

A lone enemy of crime, in between two groups of potential enemies, The Shadow had chosen a most dangerous position. That, however, was befitting The Shadow’s strategy.

His plans were made. Possum Quill and Lefty Hotz had left their hotel. Cardona was on his way to the rendezvous. The stroke could come at any moment. The Shadow preferred the time when eagerness would lay the marauders most open to surprise.

Punch Baxton was working at the door of the vault. Any second would spell his success in opening it.

In the midst of this crucial situation, something intervened to disturb The Shadow’s strategy.

A footstep sounded at the rear of the hallway. It could not be heard by any of the men within the room — not even by Topper, who was near the door. The Shadow heard it, however; so did the man at the front stairs.

The guarding gangster turned. His quick gaze saw a man in shirt sleeves. The arrival was approaching cautiously, a gun in his right hand.

A flight of stairs that led upward showed whence the man had come. One of Wilcox’s trusted servants, this fellow had heard the noise on the second floor, and had come down to investigate.

THE door of the vault was opening. The Shadow was not thinking of it now. He had turned swiftly toward the spot where the guarding gangster stood. This crook had seen the servant. His arm was coming up to fire. Quick action was the watchword of all Punch Baxton’s men.

The gangster’s revolver was coolly leveled. The ruffian’s finger was about to press the trigger. At the very top of the front stairs, this gunman had not been observed by the approaching servant. Murder was in the making. One shot from that threatening revolver would mean death.

The shot was never fired. A mass of blackness broke from the wall and shot forward with incredible swiftness. The servant saw only a shadowy form; the gangster saw nothing until The Shadow was upon him.

A forearm that swung upward with the driving power of a piston smashed against the mobster’s wrist.

The revolver flew from a numbed hand as the gangster staggered backward. Then, as a startled cry escaped the gunman’s lips, a black-gloved fist smashed squarely to his jaw.

The terrific blow caught the gangster completely off balance. The watcher was tough, but a bantam in size. His lack of weight was responsible for a most remarkable result.

The Shadow’s smash lifted the astounded gangster completely in the air, and sent him hurtling, backward and head-foremost, clear over the uppermost step of the flight. The would-be assassin whirled through space. He struck the steps halfway down the flight. His body bounced with two long thumps clear to the foot of the stairs.

While the overpowered mobster was on his way to this unobstructed plunge, The Shadow, swinging completely with the power of his mighty blow, regained the edge of the hallway, and faced the door of the room where Punch Baxton was at work.

The gloved hands, as nimble as they were powerful, disappeared beneath the folds of the black cloak which The Shadow wore. Burning eyes peered from beneath the brim of a slouch hat. An instant later, those luminous orbs were sighting a brace of automatics — one gun looming from each of The Shadow’s hands.

No gangster shot had warned Punch Baxton and his men, but the crash of the body upon the stairs caused them to leap to their feet. Topper, nearest the door, leaped into the hallway. A shot resounded from the end. The servant, seeing a living man in view, fired without delay. The frenzied shot was wide.

Topper had whipped out a gun. Knowing that he was discovered, he raised his hand to fire in return. The blast of an automatic came from the head of the stairs. Topper sprawled forward, downed by The Shadow’s first shot.

Punch Baxton’s henchmen were surging toward the doorway. Roaring shots greeted them. One man went down, a second staggered. A third, close behind his fellows, fired at the blackened shape which he could barely see.

His shot, however, was too late. The Shadow, after his first quick volley, was in motion, heading along the hallway toward the front room.

He roared one departing shot. It stopped the lone gangster who had fired. The watcher from downstairs was shooting blindly. He, too, had caught a momentary glimpse of what appeared to be a human form.

His shots spattered the head of the stairway — the spot where The Shadow no longer lingered.

Now came the swarming gangsters. They reached the hall with Punch Baxton in their midst. The first arrival turned toward the front of the hallway. He caught the glint of The Shadow’s burning eyes, and fired as a taunting laugh announced The Shadow’s glide into the front room. The gunman was an easy target for The Shadow’s fire, but the black-garbed master was reserving his bullets.

Punch Baxton and his unscathed men were in the hallway. One saw the servant at the rear end of the hallway, but the frightened fellow gained the safety of the back stairs before the gangster could aim a shot in his direction. The man who had fired at The Shadow dashed toward the front room, the others following behind him.

One thought gripped the gangsters. A lone fighter had fled in that direction. They would trap him — slay him by force of numbers — wherever he might be hiding. The gunman who led the mad attack did not realize that he was after The Shadow; that his enemy was not in hiding, but was standing amid the darkness straight ahead.

As the mobsters reached close range, The Shadow roared his greeting. Long flashes of flame seared from the barrels of the formidable .45s.

Terrific and unexpected, the barrage caught Punch Baxton and his henchmen flat-footed. The first man toppled; the second sprawled. In the face of this scathing fire, Punch made a dive for the stairway.

One wounded man staggered after him. The laugh of The Shadow echoed through the hallway. It brought despair to dying mobsmen who lay where they had fallen. They had gained the fate which they deserved; the fate of criminals who offered battle to The Shadow.

Shrouded in darkness, The Shadow was standing at the side window of the front room. Deliberately, he had allowed Punch Baxton and one wounded mobster to escape. The two came clattering from the side door as The Shadow watched. With them was another pair of rogues — downstairs watchers — who were also in frenzied flight.

Two cars were parked outside a wall. The mobsters dashed through a gate and gained one vehicle. They started toward the street.

The Shadow made no effort to stop them. Instead, he sought to speed their wild escape. He fired three shots from the upstairs window, as the car spun on two wheels into the thoroughfare.

As if in echo to The Shadow’s volley, another automatic barked from far across the street. Cliff Marsland, seated in a parked coupe, was obeying his instructions. His shots, fired to the paving behind the fleeing car, added impetus to Baxton’s maddened driving.

Cliff Marsland’s coupe shot away. A police whistle sounded far down the street. Baxton’s henchmen, believing that they were being pursued, were firing back along the thoroughfare — at nothing.

The Shadow’s laugh sounded from the window. An ominous tone of mockery, it betokened doom for those who had fled. The cringing servant at the back of the hallway, joined now by others from above, paused before daring to advance toward the front room.

Blackness blotted the window where The Shadow stood. The blackness faded as a figure descended the outer wall. A bat-like phantom clinging to surface of stone, The Shadow paused, then made his weird departure into the blackness of the night.

When the frightened servants entered the front room a few minutes later, they found no one. One man grabbed the telephone to call the police; another peered everywhere, in search of a hidden person. The alarm was out for Punch Baxton and his handful of defeated raiders. Police were being summoned to this house, where dead and wounded gangsters lay. Yet no trace remained of the lone fighter who had waged the victorious battle. The Shadow had gained a victory over the most desperate crew of mobsters in all Manhattan. That conquest accomplished, The Shadow had departed, fading like a wreathe of smoke into the outer darkness! But in the ears of those who had heard it, still lingered the gibing merriment of The Shadow’s laugh!