The Shadow's Shadow

CHAPTER XXIV SMOKE WAGONS

THE door of the United Diamond Syndicate office fell inward as a powerful drive hurled it from its hinges. A group of gangsters surged into the room. The place was flooded with light as the glare of three powerful torches threw their rays toward the safe.

“That’s it!” screamed the voice of Gats Hackett. “Out of the way, you men—”

His voice stopped suddenly. From the center of the room came a sinister, mocking laugh. A rising figure was revealed by the glare of the torches.

Directly within the path of light, a perfect target for the guns of the furious mob, stood the spectral figure of The Shadow!

There was no time for delay to-night. Trapped by the premature attack that Gats had launched, The Shadow was moving straight into danger.

A new mission lay ahead of him. His presence was needed elsewhere than in this place. Stealth, surprise — both were discarded by the being in black as he deliberately met his enemies.

The gangsters saw The Shadow, but he was ready for them. His form was visible; theirs were not. But while the gangsters held revolvers that they could raise, The Shadow’s automatics were already up.

There were no echoes to his sardonic laugh. The reverberations of The Shadow’s mirth were drowned in the roar of his .45s as the controlling fingers loosed a stream of lead into the midst of the startled mobsters.

Bodies thudded to the floor. Gasping oaths spattered from snarling lips that closed to speak no more. Shattered flashlights fell useless. With one fierce volley from his recoiling automatics, The Shadow cleared the way. Upon the floor lay the piled-up bodies of Gats Hackett’s new band of killers — men who would never slay for their black-hearted chief.

One shot alone responded to The Shadow’s fusillade. It was Squint Freston who fired it. Downed with the others, the wolf-faced gangster had managed to discharge an answering bullet. But the hand that held the revolver was wavering. The single shot went wide.

Squint rolled sidewise upon the form of another gangster. A ratlike squeal came from his fanged lips. That squeal was Squint Freston’s death cry. He had been mortally wounded by a bullet from The Shadow’s volley.

The automatics disappeared beneath The Shadow’s cloak. He had used every cartridge. The hands emerged, bringing forth another pair of pistols. With a forward spring, the black-clad figure swept over the mass of bodies that cluttered the doorway to the hall.

GANGSTERS were running to escape The Shadow’s wrath. The few reserves who had been behind were heading for the stairs, around the turn in the corridor.

With them was the only man who had escaped the volley — the one who had been so anxious to go ahead, but who was now most eager to rush in the opposite direction.

Gats Hackett, dropping away when he had glimpsed The Shadow, was scurrying to the safety of the street.

The Shadow was behind them; yet Gats, despite his terror, regained an instinctive courage when he reached the head of the stairs. He shouted to his mobsters. At the commanding tone of his voice, they stopped at intervals along the stairs below.

“Lie low!” cried Gats. “He’s coming down this way! Get him! Get The Shadow!”

The revelation of the enemy’s name filled the fleeing gangsters with mingled rage and fear. Some fled on; but they were few. The others recognized the wisdom of their leader’s command and prepared to attack.

All the hordes of the bad lands hated The Shadow. Every member of that evil crew longed for the day when he might gain the glory of killing the terror of the underworld. A few seconds after Gats had given his order, men lay waiting on the stairs, each in readiness for the approach of a strange phantom shape.

“Stay here” — Gats was whispering to a man beside him — “and cover while I take a look. Maybe he’s back there where I left him.”

Gripping his smoke wagons, Gats crept forward with determination. Hate was dominating his dread. His boastful pride was coming to the fore. He would be the avenger whom all gangdom would acclaim. Gats Hackett — slayer of The Shadow!

Peering from the edge of the stairs, Gats spied The Shadow! He caught only a fleeting glimpse of the man in black; then The Shadow was gone.

In that split second, Gats had seen the head and shoulders of the phantomlike being disappearing over the edge of a window sill at the end of the corridor. He knew now how The Shadow had arrived here. He knew that the master of the night was leaving by the same route, thinking himself unperceived.

Springing forward, Gats reached the window. He leaned outward. Below was a courtyard, its bottom a white mass of paving. Between the window and the court, Gats saw a blurred splotch of blackness.

The Shadow was moving downward, his hands and feet finding purchase in the rough stone surface of the building’s walls.

This would mark the end of The Shadow! Leaning far out, Gats Hackett aimed both his revolvers straight downward. His famous aim could not fail. The Shadow, helpless upon the wall, could not fire in return!

Gats sought the triggers with his fingers. Staring downward, he saw a slight motion; then, from the blotch of black, two shining eyes burned upward.

The eyes of The Shadow! They would be Gats Hackett’s targets!

The fingers were resting on the triggers. Within the fraction of a second, Gats Hackett’s smoke wagons would end the life of the man whom all gangdom dreaded.

The Shadow’s form was still. Gats was laughing. This was like picking a tin bird off the rack of a shooting gallery.

Resting batlike on the side of the wall, The Shadow made a motion which Gats Hackett did not see. As his eyes stared upward, The Shadow had released the hold of his right hand. Beneath the black cloak, that hand was moving upward. It stretched upon the wall just as Gats aimed his smoke wagon toward the eyes that he saw below.

Thirty feet apart — a duel upon the vertical wall of a building — The Shadow against the greatest shot in the underworld! That was the scene. Gats, with two revolvers, aiming downward; The Shadow, with a single automatic stealing upward along the wall to which he clung.

A LOUD report reverberated throughout the depths of the courtyard. It was the sequel to a brilliant flash that burst upward along the rough stone wall. The whole figure of The Shadow trembled and wavered from the force of the recoil as he fired from his automatic.

Gats Hackett was pressing the triggers of his smoke wagons when The Shadow fired. Instantaneously, the gang leader’s arms shot outward, like the limbs of a string-pulled marionette. The revolvers thundered, but their bullets sped wide of their intended mark. The leaden missiles flattened themselves upon the courtyard paving.

The Shadow did not fire again. His form swayed; then caught itself to retain its hold upon the wall.

Gats Hackett’s body, projecting from the window, behaved in an odd manner. First, the arms dropped. The hands lost their hold upon the big revolvers, and the weapons fell — one on each side of The Shadow’s form.

As the .45s clattered and bounced on the paving, Gats Hackett’s twisting body poised with drooping head. Mortally wounded by The Shadow’s bullet, the gang leader could not save himself. He plunged head-forward from the window, a dying cry of terror coming from his swollen lips.

The Shadow made a complete turn as Gats Hackett fell. Instead of remaining face toward the wall, the black shape swung as on a pivot. The long left arm caught the ledge of a window. Back to the wall, The Shadow hung precariously while the sprawling, revolving body of Gats Hackett hurtled by.

One of the gang leader’s helpless hands dragged against the flowing folds of The Shadow’s cloak. The nerveless fingers gained no clutch. Down to his doom went the evil killer who had fought his last fight with The Shadow, invincible master of the night!

Into the now silent courtyard, the tall shape moved downward, its black-clad form merging with the lower gloom. New sounds broke through the night — the strident siren of a police car, followed by shrill blasts from warning whistles.

The outside gangsters were fleeing. Cliff Marsland, stationed at a corner of the building, alone had seen the grim struggle on the wall, his eyes attracted there by the sound of The Shadow’s automatic.The Shadow was safe, Cliff knew. His own duty demanded that he leave the danger zone so as to avoid trouble at the hands of the police.

A black-clad figure glided from the entrance to the courtyard. A moment later a policeman dashed into the vacated area. The officer stopped short as his flashlight revealed the figure of what had once been a man.

It was the body of Gats Hackett — a shattered hulk that lay in a twisted heap. Close beside the gang leader’s corpse were two shining objects that glittered as the flashlight spotted them.

They were the smoke wagons with which Gats Hackett had sought to slay The Shadow.