The Silent Death

CHAPTER XX. CARDONA ENTERS

WHILE strange events were occurring on Long Island, Larry Ricordo was making all haste toward Manhattan. The gang lord, fleeing town at Professor Urlich’s request, had neared his destination. He was mounting the steps from the East Side subway at Forty-second Street.

As a natural procedure, Larry Ricordo turned up Lexington Avenue to enter the Grand Central Station from the east. It was scarcely later than half past twelve. Plenty of time remained to catch the Chicago Limited.

Larry Ricordo seldom liked haste when it was unnecessary. As he moved leisurely through the midnight crowd along the avenue, his lips twisted scornfully. Even if the police were out to capture him, they stood little chance of getting him now.

Nevertheless, Larry Ricordo fondled the revolver in his coat pocket. One challenging word: the challenger would get the works. This was the attitude that the gang leader held as he entered the wide passage from the street.

Larry’s eyes were keen and cautious. Even in this thronged entrance, the gang lord did not trust entirely to his inconspicuous appearance. He prided himself upon his watchfulness. His boast to Professor Urlich was still strongly in mind.

The crowd spread as it reached the huge central concourse. Larry Ricordo, as he walked across the great expanse of floor toward a ticket window, was no longer one of a large throng. He was in the open — a single figure that could easily be spotted by watching eyes.

A man swung from the wall and walked swiftly after the gang leader. Larry Ricordo was not aware of the man’s approach until the stranger was close beside him. It was then that Larry turned to recognize a face that seemed familiar.

The man made a sudden leap upon the gang lord. That action meant more than recognition. Larry Ricordo knew his assailant for a detective. Wresting free, Ricordo whipped his big revolver from his pocket.

Another man had sprung up behind the gang leader. The second detective made a quick grab for Ricordo’s arm. Larry fired once, his shot aimed upward as a hand seized his wrist. The detectives were flashing their own guns. Two more men were springing to their rescue.

Shouts of men; screams of women — these were heard as people scattered for shelter.

LARRY RICORDO’S revolver roared again. A detective went down with a bullet in his shoulder. The others struggled ferociously. They were trying to get their man alive, to prevent gunfire in this open space, where hundreds of people stood in danger of stray shots.

But Larry Ricordo was a fiend who balked all capture. He sent one detective sprawling on the floor; another after him. One of the downed men fired upward and missed. Larry, an evil snarl on his lips, dropped the fourth, who still struggled with him.

Spinning across the floor of the concourse, the murderous gang leader leaped to meet a fifth, who blocked his path. He swung his huge revolver to deliver a death shot. This time the gang lord failed.

The last antagonist did not falter. His revolver was in his hand, and before Larry could shoot to kill, this detective fired point-blank into Ricordo’s body.

The gang leader staggered on; a second shot, delivered coolly at close range, sent him sprawling to the floor.

Rolling upon his back, clutching at his wounded side, Larry Ricordo saw the face of Joe Cardona above him. The ace detective had stepped in where the others had failed. It was the swarthy sleuth who had finally felled Larry Ricordo.

With futile clutch, Ricordo grasped for his revolver, which had fallen beside him. True to his boast, the gang leader intended to go out fighting. His weakening fingers fumbled; a moment later, Cardona had kicked the weapon out of reach.

Detectives came to aid Cardona. Other persons rushed up to help the wounded men whom Ricordo had dropped. Through it all, Joe Cardona never desisted from a purpose which had steadfastly filled his mind for the past half hour.

There was a reason why he had sought to capture Larry Ricordo alive, rather than dead.

“Ricordo!” Cardona was staring squarely into the gang lord’s face. “Ricordo! Who’s the guy in back of this!”

Ricordo coughed. Blood appeared upon his lips. An evil leer followed the crimson. Coughing, gasping, Larry Ricordo spat defiant words at his questioner.

“Try — try to find out!” he challenged, in a broken snarl. “Try to — to make me squeal. You — you got me — but that’s all!”

Cardona pressed back those who were crowding around. He knew that Ricordo was dying. In the last minutes of life, the gang lord would have to talk. Cardona, acting on a hunch, played his final trump.

“You know why we got you?” he demanded. “I’ll tell you why! We were tipped off that you were taking the Chicago Limited. Tipped off half an hour ago. We want the bird who gave the tip-off. Do you know him?”

Ricordo’s eyes were glassy. Now they opened wide.

On the verge of death, the gang lord forgot his wounds, forgot his enmity toward the police. All that he could sense was the tone of Joe Cardona’s words — cold utterances that sounded plainly amid the muffled murmur of the concourse.

LARRY RICORDO forgot the excited cries about him. He could hear only Cardona’s voice, repeating the same theme in steady demand:

“We were tipped off. We want to know just where the tip-off came from.”

“I’ll tell you where!” coughed Ricordo. “I’ll tell you where! It came from the guy in back of this game!”

In a spasm of dying fury, the gang leader had gained a tremendous hatred for the man who had betrayed him. Bewildering thoughts were racking Ricordo’s brain. Only one man could have played the traitor.

That man was Professor Folcroft Urlich.

Why not? The scientist had brutally disposed of Thomas Jocelyn. Similarly, he had decided to get rid of Larry Ricordo. To go out fighting — all because of a double-crosser! With failing strength, Ricordo gave the answer that Joe Cardona wanted.

“Urlich!” gasped the gang leader. “Professor — Folcroft Urlich! Place — on Long Island. Go — there. He — he is — the one—”

“He tipped us off?” questioned Cardona.

“He — he must have,” blurted Ricordo. “He — he told me to scram. Get him— out on Long Island — place called Philbrook—”

Cardona was nodding. He saw Larry Ricordo close his eyes. The gang leader gasped no longer. But his dying brain responded suddenly to a wild thought. A tremor shook Ricordo’s frame as he remembered the death trap which Urlich had prepared for all comers.

“Cardona” — Larry’s lips snarled as his eyes opened for the final effort. “Look out — when — you get — when — you get—”

The effort was too great. Ricordo’s twisted lips spat out a dying sigh. The gang leader’s body nearly rolled from Cardona’s grasp. The detective could feel it go limp. He knew that the final spasm had arrived. Larry Ricordo was dead!

Cardona let others hold the body. He arose to see Mayhew close beside him. Quickly, Cardona ordered the other detective to take charge of Ricordo’s removal. A dozen sleuths were here. Cardona growled orders.

Two minutes later, the ace detective was striding from the terminal with a squad of men at his heels. They piled into a waiting car, and Cardona gave the driver quick, tense orders. The car shot from the curb.

Shrieking along Lexington Avenue, it turned eastward toward a mammoth bridge that led to Long Island.

Detective Joe Cardona had worked speedily tonight. Less than an hour after Thomas Jocelyn’s death, he had received the tip-off concerning Larry Ricordo. Half an hour later, the gang lord had spoken before he died from Cardona’s shots. Half an hour from now, Cardona and his men would be at their new objective.

Joe Cardona was on the trail of silent death. He did not know that one had gone before him — that The Shadow was already at the spot where such death lurked.

The ace detective was pleased because he had forced those words from Larry Ricordo’s dying lips. He did not know that the gang lord had tried to give a warning also, but had failed!

Cardona and his men were heading for a fiendish trap. Soon they were to know the power of silent death that Folcroft Urlich wielded!