The Living Joss

CHAPTER XII. THE MIGHT OF KOY SHAN

OUT upon a lonely New Jersey road, not far from the town of Hopewell, Blaine Goodall was following a well-paved path to Trenton. The road which the corporation president had taken was excellent, despite its moderate width.

A light drizzle was beginning. The road was slippery, and Goodall dropped the gait of his sedan to forty-five miles an hour. Up to now, the man had been traveling between fifty and fifty-five.

Blaine Goodall was grumbling to himself. He could not understand why his friend Beecham had changed his mind about this trip to Trenton. Goodall had been angry ever since he had received the telephone message at the Union Club.

Because of the message from Beecham, Goodall was now riding alone. Had his friend been thoughtful enough to have informed him earlier, he would have been able to start at eight o’clock, and would now be enjoying a comfortable bed in a Trenton hotel.

The drizzle, foggy in parts, had made driving uncomfortable. Goodall could not understand the lack of consideration which Beecham had displayed.

Little did Goodall suppose that his chance conversation with Hugo Urvin had been the real cause of the present state of affairs! A chain of remarkable events had occurred immediately after that talk, and at this very moment, Goodall was riding into unexpected difficulties.

One driving hazard that annoyed Blaine Goodall was the frequency of crossing signs. Every time that he slowed the coupe in response to a shining warning, the driver discovered that the crossroad was nothing more than a third-class highway. Nevertheless, Goodall instinctively obeyed each caution as he approached it.

He was on a long, curving stretch of deserted roadway. Somewhere, in the distance, the whirling beacon of an airway marker played elusively across the horizon. Those flashes of light were always the same space away. Goodall decided that the road must be circling the beacon.

Something thrummed from far behind. The sound increased to a distant roar.

An airplane? It sounded more like a powerful motor that was following along the road, yet the swiftness of its approach convinced Goodall that it must be an air rider rather than an automobile, for the sound was gaining constantly.

A curve. Another crossing sign. Goodall applied the brakes and grunted as he rolled across a dirt-road intersection. He pressed the accelerator as he rose over a sloping bridge. Then, in the midst of this barren stretch, events began to happen.

THE roar behind became a terrific sound as a high-powered follower swept past the bend which Goodall had just taken. Powerful headlights glimmered in the mirror in front of Goodall’s face.

Something else loomed ahead — across the highway, Goodall saw a touring car. The vehicle was parked at a slight angle, heading the same way that he was driving; but Goodall realized that if he kept on, a crash could not be avoided.

Powerful lights, accompanied by a terrific roar. That was the sign from the rear. A black, rakish automobile, like a pirate ship of the road, barring the way ahead. This sight was the real menace that startled Blaine Goodall.

The man applied the brakes with more than usual pressure.

Goodall’s coupe began to skid. Still sticking to the brakes, Goodall controlled it to some degree as it swung sidewise in the road. In the midst of this dizzy whirl that was bringing him close to the touring car, Goodall was overtaken by a huge speedster that took to the side to avoid him.

Under the control of a driver who possessed amazing skill, the passing car began to slow its pace to avoid two crashes — the first with Goodall; the second with the touring car ahead.

His own car stopping, its nose turned back along the road which he had taken here, Goodall thrust his head through the opened window. He could see the touring car that blocked the way. Goodall gave a cry of fright. The glare of the stopping speedster’s headlights revealed armed men in the touring car!

Threatening revolvers pointed.

Even as he watched, the corporation president saw a flash of flame. A bullet whistled by the open window of Goodall’s coupe.

Bandits of the road! They were opening fire. Their first shots were wide; but Goodall, helpless at the wheel of the sedan, would soon have been an easy target. Strange, yellow faces were behind those guns.

Terror gripped Blaine Goodall. Death lay before him — death which would have occurred within a minute, but for unexpected aid.

It was the driver of the huge speedster who intervened. With a swing of the steering wheel, the handler of that great car swept his motored Jagannath directly between the doomed car and the touring car that threatened it.

Startled yellow faces were no longer visible as the headlights of the speedster turned; but when an automatic roared its message from the helm of the arriving car, the fiends ahead realized that they had met their match. The Shadow had reached the end of his trail. He had arrived just in time to offset the ambush arranged for Blaine Goodall. Hurling his swift speedster to the gap between coupe and touring car, he was opening fire upon the murderous ruffians who blocked the highway!

The cannonade of the automatic was silencing in its power. Before it, the revolvers of the would-be assassins were no more than playthings. Metal messengers pronounced the power of The Shadow.

Each bark of the master’s .45 found a living target. A mocking laugh pealed forth as The Shadow delivered his close-ranged broadside. Chinese mobsters crumpled. Each trigger finger faltered. Wild, hopeless shots were futile in response.

The driver of the touring car had alone escaped The Shadow’s wrath. While the being in the speedster directed his shots toward the armed men whom he faced, the Chinaman who controlled the blocking touring car jammed his vehicle into low gear. With a wide swing that nearly wrecked it against a fence beside the road, the blocking automobile shot away and down the highway, fleeing from the power of The Shadow. The driver, alone, remained unwounded.

AGAIN, the laugh of The Shadow came as an uncanny cry through the drizzling haze that surrounded the lonely spot. His automatic emptied, The Shadow had another weapon in readiness. He had saved Blaine Goodall’s life; he was prepared for further foemen.

Yet The Shadow’s able work was destined to fail; not through the ability of the enemy, but because of a sudden lack of judgment which Blaine Goodall displayed at this moment of salvation.

The skid of his car had pointed Goodall back along the road. Despite the fact that the rescuer in the speedster was certainly a friend, Goodall took to frenzied flight. Before The Shadow could stop him, the frightened man shoved his car into low, and changed gears as he headed back toward the obscure crossroad on the other side of the bridge.

The Shadow responded as quickly as was possible. He made no effort to pursue his vanquished foemen; instead, he manipulated the speedster so that he could follow the same course that Goodall was now taking. The long, powerful car, however, required more time to turn than had the skidded coupe.

Just as The Shadow managed to gain the course, Blaine Goodall reached the approach of the bridge.

The hunted man shouted aloud in new terror. A second touring car — almost identical with the first — had come out from the dirt road, and was parked across the highway to block retreat!

In the glare of his focused headlights, Goodall could see yellow faces as fierce as those which he had just escaped. A shot blazed in his direction.

It missed the coupe, but fear did the work. With a wild cry, Goodall pressed his foot against the brake of the coupe. Again the car skidded. The scared driver lost control completely.

The coupe crashed into the rail of the bridge, broke through, and plunged headlong into a deep ravine.

The roar of The Shadow’s speedster drowned the long, wailing cry that Goodall uttered. With powerful vengeance, The Shadow was speeding to the new attack. The foreign car had a right-hand drive. With his left hand upon the wheel, The Shadow leaned from the right of the car, and let his right hand loose its steel.

The muzzle of the big automatic sent its deadly projectiles into the midst of the enemy. Flashing revolvers tried to meet the fusillade. They failed. Yellow-faced men sprawled upon the seats of the second touring car. The driver responded by shooting the automobile straight down the dirt road that lay ahead.

His action was none too soon. The heavy speedster was bearing down upon the car that held the bewildered Chinese gunmen. The yellow-peopled automobile sped away just in time to avoid a devastating crash.

THE speedster came to a grinding stop. Far down the dirt road, the fleeing raiders were driving for safety. A figure emerged from behind the wheel of the big speedster. The Shadow moved through darkness toward the bridge.

A flashlight glimmered through the broken rail. It showed the shattered bulk of Blaine Goodall’s coupe.

Amid the misty drizzle, The Shadow lowered himself from the side of the bridge, and dropped to the craggy side of the ravine. He reached the smashed car.

The flashlight revealed a battered, dying form. Blaine Goodall, in a mad effort to escape death, had opened the door of the failing coupe.

The action had been an untimely one. Caught beneath the rolling body of the car, Goodall had met his doom. As the flashlight flickered on the terror-stricken face, the president of the Huxley Corporation breathed his final gasp.

The Shadow stood in silence. Again, fate had contrived against his surpassing skill. He had arrived in time to shoot down one squad of blocking enemies. He had turned and driven back to deliver death to another corps of skulking assassins. But in the midst of conflict, the man whom he had come to save had hurtled to his own destruction.

The might of Koy Shan had gained its evil purpose. Blaine Goodall was dead.

Long minutes followed The Shadow’s sad discovery; then a figure clambered into the speedster, and the powerful motor roared as it started along the road that led back to New York.

The Shadow had performed mighty deeds tonight. Here, on a lonely road in New Jersey, he had acted with sufficient power to thwart an evil killing. Blaine Goodall had died through his own frightened efforts to escape while protected by The Shadow. The slippery road, too, had been a factor in the man’s death.

The craft of Chun Shi; that, The Shadow had been too late to thwart. The might of Koy Shan; with it, The Shadow had deserved success. Yet this second minion of Kwa had gained his objective, although doom had come to the majority of his evil underlings.

The Shadow had another score to settle. Koy Shan belonged with Chun Shi. Like the crafty one, the mighty killer had gained his end. But never again would Koy Shan slay. Death would strike him before he had the new opportunity.

The Shadow knew!