The Red Menace

CHAPTER IX HOW VINCENT ESCAPED

HARRY VINCENT waited in darkness after the girl had gone. A multitude of thoughts overwhelmed his throbbing brain.

Who was the girl? Why had she saved him?

The first question was unanswerable. Harry felt that he could explain the second. He was sure that the girl had reciprocated the interest which he had felt for her. She had left him, alone, in a place that was virtually a prison; but he was positive that she had some plan for his escape.

A speck of light suddenly showed through the panel in front of him. Harry placed his eye to the spot.

Through a tiny hole in the revolving wall, he could see the large room of the Pink Rat, yet he was quite invisible in his compartment.

The lights had been turned on in the den, and the whole scene lay before him. The sudden attack had caused chaos.

The patrons of the Pink Rat were desperate crooks. The brief battle in the darkness had caused some to look for safety, while others had sought to participate in the fracas.

One man was sitting on a bench, rubbing the side of his face. He was the one whom Harry had punched in the dark.

Volovick was standing in the center of the room, uninjured. Evidently he had managed to ward off the bench which Harry had hurled upon him.

Broken bottles, and fragments of shattered glasses strewed the place. Two policemen were there. They had been attracted by the shots. But they seemed to be making a very halfhearted investigation.

A ruddy-faced, shrewd-nosed man was explaining matters to them. Harry decided that the fellow must be the proprietor of the Pink Rat. If so, the place was well-named. The man looked something like a pink rat himself.

Harry could not hear the discussion, but evidently the officers were satisfied that no one had been injured.

This upstairs den was protected through political influence. Nothing short of actual open murder could have brought on a raid.

Murder had been attempted, it was true. Harry shuddered as he realized that he had been the intended victim. But it had been planned as a quick, quiet murder, with no noise.

Thanks to the unknown girl, the scheme had been frustrated.

For a moment, Harry was tempted to beat against the revolving wall, to attract the attention of the policemen. But on second thought he decided to wait.

There were a dozen persons in that room who would testify that he was the cause of the trouble. He could be framed with ease.

After all, he was safe here for the time being. Why should he invite more trouble?

The girl had promised to return, Harry had confidence in that promise.

He scanned the lighted room. There was not a woman in the place, let alone the one he sought. The feminine patrons had evidently been escorted out; the girl had probably slipped away in the darkness.

Two rough-looking waiters began to clear up the debris, and the policemen left. Quiet was restored. The few patrons who remained took their places at the tables, and the waiters brought them drinks.

Volovick remained. So did the man who had drawn the knife. The others — Harry could see nearly a dozen of them — were fit companions for those men.

It would be suicide to attempt an escape now. There was only one thing to do — wait until the gang had gone. Then, Harry hoped, the girl would return to release him.

Some of the men were engaged in discussion. Harry fancied that they were talking about him. Two men came in from the entrance. They talked with Volovick. They had probably been stationed outside to prevent Harry’s escape.

This began to worry Harry. How long would it be before they began a search for his hiding place?

The proprietor must know of its existence. Would he suggest that they look behind the revolving panel?

These thoughts, and the constant throbbing of his wounded arm, made time pass slowly and feverishly for Harry Vincent.

The whole affair was unexplainable, with one exception. He knew that he had been tricked by Volovick.

The fellow had followed Stanley Berger openly; had called the address aloud to the cab driver — all so Harry would trail him to the Pink Rat.

Harry Vincent’s conjecture that the proprietor knew of the hiding place behind the wall was quite correct. The ruddy-faced little man had planned that secret compartment himself, and he did not know that any other person knew of its existence. Hence he had no idea that Harry was hiding there.

The attack started by Volovick had been done without the proprietor’s approval. He had not even seen the intended victim. He was satisfied because the police had gone.

New patrons began to enter the den. Harry could see them through the peephole. They were typical denizens of the underworld. One by one they strode in, gazing curiously about them, and making no comment.

They had heard of the fight. They were looking the place over. But they asked no questions.

The presence of these newcomers was not encouraging to Harry.

Some of them might be in league with Volovick. None of them were known to Harry. He did not see a single friendly face in the crowd.

One individual, in particular, was most ugly. He was dressed in a shabby, dirty sweater. An unlighted cigarette clung to his lower lip. His face was grimy, and marked with short scars.

The man attracted Harry’s attention because of his sharp, knowing eyes. As he looked about him, he seemed to be ferreting out the thoughts of the others in the den.

Once or twice the man’s eyes rested on the wall, and Harry instinctively drew away from the peephole.

Did this gangster know of the hiding place? His eyes were so penetrating that Harry imagined he could see through the panel itself.

Placing his ear to the hole in the wall, Harry tried to catch the mumbled conversation; but without success. So he abandoned the effort.

He knew that the fight was under discussion. The newcomers were listening in on the talk. Particularly the ugly brute in the dirty sweater.

Volovick had become the center of those about him. He was speaking, and gesticulating. He was telling what had happened, and he shook one fist in the air, as a threat of vengeance.

HALF an hour went by; a long, tense period. Thirty minutes of painful waiting for the man behind the revolving panel.

Harry felt that he could not wait much longer. His arm troubled him; his nerves were on edge. He seemed stifled in this cramped hole in the wall.

He thought of the girl. She must be thinking of him. Somewhere, outside this miserable place, she was planning a rescue. But could she help him?

Harry could not picture her as a woman of the underworld. Any friends whom she might bring could not hope to attack this crowd of gangsters. Yet the girl was his only hope.

It was while Harry’s thoughts were dwelling on this subject that the unexpected happened.

Shifting his position, Harry leaned against the wall in front of him, and stretched his hand to one side. A feeling of hope came over him as he saw Volovick rise to leave the Pink Rat, while those around him seemed ready to depart.

In a few minutes his real enemies would be gone. The time for his deliverance would be at hand!

But as his thoughts took this trend, Harry’s wrist struck against a small bar at the side of the wall.

The panel swung outward. Harry lost his balance.

Unknowingly, he had released the catch; now he was precipitated headlong into the room where the gangsters stood.

Harry’s appearance was so unexpected that it took the mobsmen by surprise. They stood gaping at this man who had plunged from the wall. But as Harry rose to his knees, and turned his face upward, Volovick recognized him.

“That’s the man!” exclaimed Volovick. “Get him! Now!”

The first gangster to spring forward was the one who had been looking at the wall — the ugly man with the dirty sweater. He leaped straight at Harry, with a fiendish look upon his face.

Two others were coming from the side. Harry swung away from them, but he was directly in the path of the man who was coming toward them.

He put up his hands to ward off the man’s attack. But the sweater-clad gangster ignored him.

Instead of falling upon Harry, he threw himself against the other two men. Harry saw his fists swing with short, murderous punches. The two men, taken by surprise, went down beneath his blows.

With a shout, Volovick hurled himself forward. The scar-faced gangster crouched low, and caught Volovick’s wrist, hurling the man over his shoulder.

With his free hand he whipped a revolver from the fold of his sweater, and the staccato reports of the automatic reechoed through the room.

His shots were made with amazing precision. One crippled the wrist of a gunman, who had just drawn an automatic. Another clipped the hand of a man who was pulling a knife from beneath his coat.

Then, almost drowned by the echoes of the revolver shots, came the popping of electric light bulbs, as the scar-faced gangster used his unerring aim to plunge the room in semidarkness.

“Get to the door. Lie low against the wall.”

Harry obeyed the terse command which his rescuer uttered in a low voice. Dodging behind a table, he escaped all notice. Crouching by the door, he watched the finish of the astounding conflict.

THE men in the Pink Rat were toughened fighters. Even those who were not with Volovick recognized an enemy in the scar-faced gangster.

They saw him as he shot the lights. They threw themselves into the fray. Six of them leaped to the same objective.

The man in the sweater no longer depended upon his automatic. Seizing one of the light benches, he used it as a mighty cudgel, striking out amid the gloom.

He handled his strange weapon as easily as if it had been a cane. He struck down one attacker at the side. Turning, he met the others head-on, and Harry could hear the thud of falling bodies.

Revolver shots flashed through the semidarkness. Men screamed as the bullets found their mark. But through it all, the solitary fighter seemed gifted with a charmed existence.

With a mighty effort, he flung the bench across the room, where it struck a man and deflected the aim of the fellow’s automatic. Then the lone fighter was gone.

Curses and groans pervaded the room. Volovick’s flashlight appeared, directed toward the spot where the scar-faced gangster had waged his terrific fight. But it revealed only the forms of wounded gangsters who had fallen in the attack.

A hand plucked Harry Vincent by the arm. It was the man who had rescued him. The sweater-clad gangster had slipped between the tables, and had reached the door.

Together, he and Harry reached the stairs and hurried downward. Their flight was just in time. Shots came from behind them, and they could hear the cries of the thwarted gangsters.

The battle had been short and rapid. The sound of the shots had not yet attracted people from the street. Harry’s companion uttered a shrill whistle; a taxicab rolled up from a short distance away.

“Get in. Hurry!” commanded the gangster, in a low, weird voice. Harry obeyed.

The driver slammed the door.

Astonished. Harry looked for his companion. The man had disappeared.

But at that instant, Volovick arrived. The man staggered from the entrance to the Pink Rat, his eyes wild with vengeance. He saw Harry’s face behind the open window of the cab.

With a cry of triumph, Volovick leveled an automatic. The driver was in his seat; but the cab had not yet started. Harry was staring into the muzzle of the revolver. He had no chance to drop behind the door of the cab.

But Volovick’s finger never pressed the trigger. A strange, tall black figure emerged from the shadows beside the entrance to the building. A long arm swept downward, and struck the gun from Volovick’s hand.

The cab shot forward. Harry looked back through the rear window. Volovick lay helpless upon the sidewalk. A policeman was running up the street from the corner.

The black-clad figure had disappeared in the night.

The true facts of his amazing rescue were now plain to Harry Vincent. The sweater-clad gangster had enveloped himself in a black cloak as Harry had entered the cab. It was he who had overpowered Volovick, when the latter had sought to fire the fatal shot.

Only one man could have performed these amazing deeds. Once again, Harry Vincent had been saved by The Shadow!