The Man From Shanghai

CHAPTER XII – CRIME’S PRISONER

Ku-Nuan was not the only listener who had heard the fall of the fourth barrier. While The Shadow was spending time in strategic attack upon the lookout, word of the closed trap had gone elsewhere.

In an alleyway a half block distant from the trap, Spark Ganza had received the reports of three pickets who had been stationed outside different passages. The trio had waited with their leader, counting upon word from a fourth. It had come at last. A hoarse-voiced rowdy, scudding into the alley, announced the final news:

“It clicked, Spark! The gate alongside of the hock shop! I was listenin’ for it -”

Spark gave a harsh command. Each of the four men with him was to assemble a crew from henchmen in the neighborhood, who were awaiting orders. Spark added final words:

“I’ll be coming in from the hockshop side! Have the typewriters set up; but don’t start gunning until I’m there to give the word! What’s more no glims, unless he starts trouble!”

Four thugs hurried away. Spark chuckled loudly; then listened for sounds of gathering henchmen. His band was already divided into four parts. Each crew would move like clockwork. Spark had assembled two dozen in all; each crew of six had its machine gun, in addition to the revolvers that the gorillas habitually carried.

Spark could hear his underlings moving to position. With the stride of a triumphant general, Spark headed for the pawnshop. He reached the passage and walked by the metal-sheathed door that was near its opening. Arriving at the short tunnel near the inner end, Spark found the crouching crew that was at this gate.

“Ready with the glims,” rasped Spark. “When they see ours, the other guys will shoot on their lights. All set -”

Spark stopped. He heard a clatter from the courtyard, that came with uncanny echo through the tunnel. Spark recognized the sound: the fall of a sprawling body. Then came a long, hissed snarl of triumph from a place somewhere above.

Spark knew the tone. It was Ku-Nuan’s, delivered from the little window on the pawnshop’s second floor.

That vicious utterance from the lookout post told Spark an entire story. He knew at once that The Shadow must have tried to scale the pawnshop wall, only to meet with fierce resistance from Ku-Nuan.

“Give the glims!” ordered Spark. “Hold the typewriter, though!”

LIGHTS flashed at the gate. The courtyard was illuminated. Other lights responded from the other passages. Every portion of the trap was in plain view. Spark heard yells of triumph from the crooks at other stations. Pressing close to the gate, he saw the reason.

Sprawled in the courtyard was a cloaked figure that showed the results of combat. Instead of The Shadow in challenging pose, crooks were greeted with the sight of a vanquished, crippled fighter. Pitched from the second-story window, the defeated battler had taken a heavy jolt.

He was crawling toward the center of the courtyard, slumping as he came into Spark’s view. Spark saw the slashed cloak draped over head and shoulders. Near by lay the slouch hat; it had scaled through the air from the second-story window.

Thugs uttered gleeful curses. Tuned with their epithets came the clank of the machine gun muzzle against the bars at Spark’s elbow. Spark snapped a halting order.

“Hold it!” he commanded. His tone carried through the courtyard, to the other crews. “Keep him covered; then wait!”

Spark was watching the cloaked prisoner as he spoke. He saw the shoulders sag. The crawl had ended. Spark decided that The Shadow’s plight was real. There was something pitiful in the huddled position of that cloak-enshrouded form.

“Wait till he makes a move,” snapped Spark to the men beside him. “Maybe he’s gotten his already. Stick here; I’ll be back.”

Striding out through the passage, Spark reached the metal door that led upstairs. He heard a scraping sound beyond it. As Spark waited, the door edged outward. Spark delivered commending words:

“Good work, Ku-Nuan! Say – did you knife him?”

There was a snarl from the opening door. It betokened malicious pleasure. Spark heard Ku-Nuan’s voice hiss in singsong fashion. He grimaced as he stepped aside to let the crouching victor pass. In Ku-Nuan’s lingo, Spark recognized a tone of elation.

“Hop back to Malfort’s,” suggested Spark. “Give him the news, Ku-Nuan. Tell him we got The Shadow! I’ll see how bad you knifed him. If he’s croaked we won’t have to bust loose with the typewriters. No use bringing the cops, if it ain’t needed.”

SPARK heard the creeper reach the street; he caught the last tones of a triumphant babble. Returning to the gate, he took another look at the flattened prisoner in the courtyard. Deciding against the “typewriters” and their loud clatter, Spark placed his fist upon the muzzle of the machine gun and shoved it back from the gate. Drawing a revolver, he barked an order:

“Hoist the gate, you guys! I’m going through to take a squint at the mug! He’s had his already!”

Warning mutters changed to admiration of Spark’s boldness. Some of the thugs thought that The Shadow was faking his condition. Not one would have chanced what Spark was about to do.

The thugs, however, knew nothing of Ku-Nuan. The Chinese assassin worked alone, entirely at Malfort’s bidding. Spark, knowing of Ku-Nuan’s presence and the Mongol’s skill with the knife, alone was positive that he was taking no chance. He saw an opportunity to impress his followers by boldly approaching the victim in the courtyard.

“Up with the gate!”

As Spark repeated the command, four powerful henchmen thrust their shoulders beneath the lowest cross-bar. They heaved; with all their combined strength, they were just able to raise the barrier. A fifth thug added his pressure: The gate went up and Spark stooped through.

Immediately, the mobster released the gate. They were ready with the machine gun, in case The Shadow showed life when Spark reached him. Those at the other barriers were as tense as the men whom Spark had left. They knew of others who had dealt unwarily with The Shadow. Not one of the two dozen henchmen would have cared to have taken Spark’s place.

In contemptuous fashion, Spark arrived beside the huddled form. Stooping, he used his left hand to pull aside The Shadow’s cloak, while he gripped his revolver in his right. One fact made Spark hesitate: There was no protruding knife handle beneath the cloak. Spark had supposed that Ku-Nuan had stabbed The Shadow in the back.

The cloak half away, Spark gripped the shoulder beneath; with a powerful wrench, he hauled the slumped form over on its back and whisked the cloak away. This time, Spark expected to see the dirk projecting from The Shadow’s chest. Observing no weapon, he looked quickly to the face above.

The oath that came from Spark’s lips was spontaneous, yet incoherent.

The cloak, fully away, revealed a deformed body that could not be The Shadow’s. The lights that glowed from barred gates showed a face that was certainly not that of the master sleuth. It was a countenance that Spark Ganza recognized: one that he could never mistake.

The sprawled man on the paving was Ku-Nuan!

VAGUELY, Spark grasped what had happened. He looked up toward the window on the second floor. The Shadow had scaled that wall; grappled with Ku-Nuan. Enveloping the Mongol in the folds of a knife-slashed cloak, The Shadow had finally hurled his adversary to the courtyard.

It was The Shadow – not Ku-Nuan – who had come down through the metal-sheathed door. Croaking words in Chinese, The Shadow had bluffed Spark. The Shadow was gone, with minutes between himself and Spark’s band of henchmen. In his place, he had left Ku-Nuan – alive, but too groggy to do more than crawl a dozen feet and fall motionless.

The Shadow had timed his departure to perfection. He had left a substitute prisoner, sufficiently cloaked to deceive Spark and the thugs. Had Spark chosen to pepper the prisoner with a hail of machine-gun slugs, he would have done The Shadow an added service by eliminating Kenneth Malfort’s most capable assassin.

The Shadow, himself, had not had time to finish Ku-Nuan. He had pitched the Mongol to the courtyard in the midst of the fray, in order to finally end the clutch of Ku-Nuan’s choking fingers.

To add a final touch, The Shadow had tossed his slouch hat to the courtyard. Lying beside the cloak-covered shape of Ku-Nuan, the headgear had convinced all observers that the prisoner was The Shadow.

Rising from beside Ku-Nuan, Spark Ganza growled savagely and waved his hands sidewise. His henchmen understood that something had gone wrong. Spark’s headshakes finally told them that their prisoner was not The Shadow. Ugly mutters passed among the members of the thwarted crew. Crooks swung about in their passages, each group fearing that it might suddenly become the object of an outside attack.

Then came a shout from one passage. Crooks flashed lights; halted their finger triggers just in time to recognize a member of their own band, an extra thug whom Spark had posted elsewhere. Cries came to Spark, with the announcement:

“It’s Mokler, Spark. He’s got somethin’ to spill!”

Mokler’s face appeared excitedly at a barred gate. In breathless words, the messenger gave the news.

“Barthow just called up, Spark!” he informed.”Slipped me the dope that Furbish has come into the Maribar Hotel! Goin’ up to the penthouse to see Rowden!”

Spark howled for thugs to raise a gate. They obliged; Spark leaped into the passage and shouted for all his henchmen to take to their cars. One thing alone had puzzled Spark: that was why The Shadow had departed without delivering a sudden fire upon at least one unsuspecting crew.

At last, Spark knew why. The Shadow had contact with George Furbish. From some place close by, he had telephoned the man, to tell him that the way was clear to Rowden’s penthouse. With cover-up men absent, Furbish could leave the Maribar as safely as he had come there.

That, at least, was The Shadow’s belief – but it would be correct for only the next fifteen minutes. Spark Ganza was ready to drive for the Maribar Hotel with more than a score of henchmen, there to challenge the new move that The Shadow had so suddenly introduced.