CRIME'S STRONGHOLD
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," December 15, 1941.
"Crime is just getting ready to begin!" was the crooks' challenge to The
Shadow. Would The Shadow take up the dare?
CHAPTER I
ROAD TO CRIME
GABBY TARCOT swung his rattletrap car from the paved highway and nosed it
cautiously along the sand road. He knew the difficulties of Florida sand roads,
particularly at dusk, and he had good reason not to use his lights. But Gabby
soon found that this road didn't offer trouble.
A clearing revealed a low but widespread building of Spanish architecture.
Its grilled gates and walls of coquina rock gave it the appearance of a
fortress. The structure, however, was no relic of the period when Spain had
ruled Florida. It wasn't more than a dozen years old, and the fancy flowerbeds
around it dispelled the illusion of anything ancient.
There was a bronze plate above the grilled front door, and Gabby paused
long enough to try to read it; then gave a shrug and decided that he had found
the right place. The sign said:
ANTHROPOLOGICAL LABORATORY
The word "anthropological" had something to do with monkeys; that much,
Gabby could guess, because Griff Perrick had mentioned it. Gabby remembered,
too, that Griff had said to come in by the side door. So Gabby wheeled his
junky car around to the side of the extensive building, and alighted.
He saw a bell beside the door, with a sign above it that said "Ring," a
word within the limitations of Gabby's vocabulary. So Gabby pressed the button
and waited, a grin upon his sallow, peak-nosed face.
When the door opened, Gabby's smile left him. Instead, his lips voiced a
one-syllable ejaculation that wouldn't have looked nice on the bell sign. He'd
expected to see Griff Perrick; instead, Gabby, was confronted, by something
that wasn't human.
His ring had been answered by a five-foot chimpanzee, wearing an apron. At
sight of a stranger, the ape shoved its big jaw forward in a fashion that Gabby
mistook for challenge.
Gabby considered himself tough, but he wasn't going to parley with a
chimpanzee. At least, so Gabby thought as he started for his car; but the chimp
had a different idea. Before Gabby could drive away, the creature smacked a big
hand on his arm and brought him through the door in a headlong fling.
Coming up against a wall, Gabby wheeled, groping frantically for a gun, as
he heard the door slam and saw the aproned ape turn formidably in his direction.
Another hand stopped Gabby. Under its grip, he heard a raspy voice he
recognized, and turned to see Griff Perrick, who had just stepped from an inner
door. Cold of eye, blunt of nose, and with a jaw that matched the ape's in
hardness though not in size, Griff gave Gabby reassurance.
"Cissie won't hurt you," said Griff. "She's our regular doortender. She'll
get to know you, like the rest of them."
"You mean the rest of the guys?" queried Gabby anxiously. "Or the rest of
the monks?"
"Both," returned Griff, opening the inner door and beckoning Gabby
through. "Here. Take Loco for instance."
Gabby brought up short, facing a glary-eyed orangutan that was pouting
with its big lips. The room was a library, and the ape was brandishing a heavy
unabridged dictionary it had taken from the reading stand. Griff hooked Gabby's
arm.
"Don't duck," warned Griff. "If you do, he'll throw it sure. I'll show you
how to handle him. What he wants is to see pictures."
Taking the dictionary from Loco, Griff opened it to one of the colored
plates. The orangutan ended its grimace and made cooing sounds as it stalked
away, rubbing its fingers across the smooth color page. Griff moved Gabby along
a hallway and halted him before another door. There, Griff queried:
"You brought the layout with you?"
Speechless, Gabby could only nod, as he pulled a folded sheet of paper
from his pocket and handed it to Griff.
"What about Blink Halley?" continued Griff. "You said you could fix him.
Did you?"
Another nod from Gabby; then, finding his voice:
"It took half a grand."
"Not too heavy," said Griff. "Only, I don't like dealing with a guy like
Blink. Maybe he isn't a double-crosser, like I used to figure, but, anyway,
he's a squealer, even if he is a pal of yours."
Gabby was about to argue the point, but Griff silenced him with a short
rasp. Quite solemnly, Griff knocked at the door, and when a sharp voice called
to enter, Griff did, drawing Gabby with him. As they went through the doorway
Griff undertoned to Gabby:
"You're meeting Professor Morton Englemere. Show some class."
SO far, Gabby Tarcot had supposed that the roving apes, Cissie and Loco,
were the most curious creatures that he could expect to meet in the
Anthropological Laboratory. He dropped that notion when he saw Professor
Englemere.
The head of the institution was a great-shouldered man who's large; black
beard added to his bulk. He was taller than Griff and Gabby, but his stooped
posture brought his eyes to a level of theirs. Those eyes, dark and boring,
gave Gabby the same impression of sharpness as did Englemere's voice.
Despite his large size, Englemere was almost dwarfed by the creature that
hovered beside him, an ape far more formidable than the two that Gabby had
previously met. The bearded professor's companion was a great gorilla, that
probably spent most of its time here in his study, for the creature seemed very
much at home.
"Meet Mr. Tarcot," introduced Griff. "He's the new keeper I told you
about, professor. We call him Gabby for short."
A long laugh emerged from Englemere's beard.
"Our new keeper, eh?" queried Englemere. "And you call him Gabby? Good!
Gabby, meet Tongo."
The professor gestured to the big gorilla and Gabby gave a nod, which
brought another chuckle from Englemere, who tilted his head for another look at
the new keeper.
"Your nickname implies that you are talkative," said Englemere. "Well,
Gabby, you will be after you get used to our friendly pets, like Tongo. It
takes a little while." The professor suddenly shifted his eyes to Griff. "Take
Mr. Tarcot to his quarters; then join me in my workshop."
When Gabby reached his quarters, in the far corner of the building, he was
due for a more pleasant surprise. He found himself shaking hands with a dozen
other "keepers," all men he recognized, and rather envied. Tough guys, all, but
they knew how to carry it in a smooth way, like Griff.
Leaving Gabby in select company, Griff made his way to another corner of
the building, where he found Professor Englemere unlocking a heavily padlocked
door. They stepped into the room that the professor called his workshop; there,
closing the door, Englemere turned to Griff with an inquiring gaze.
Griff promptly handed him the folded paper that Gabby had brought.
Englemere spread it out; studied the diagrams that it displayed. His eyes
gleamed.
"You know what this means to us, Griff?"
"I have a general idea, professor."
"Of course," nodded Englemere: "I've shown you the effects of my medium
Vapor Gun."
HE turned to a corner, where a squatty machine stood on a metal stand. The
device was about three feet square, fitted with many tubes that connected to
glass containers filled with liquids. Most conspicuous, however, was a
chromium-plated nozzle that spread like a wide funnel from the center of the
machine.
"Like many biologists," mused Englemere, "I was simply a disappointed
chemist. I accepted my position here hoping that I would find spare time to
devote to chemical experiments."
Griff nodded. He had heard the preamble before.
"I developed my Vapor Gun," continued Englemere. "Calcium compounds,
vaporized with sulfuric or nitric acids, can produce astounding results. But I
have thought in greater terms, Perrick. If I could only find an explosive of a
milder acid content, I could add range to my Vapor Gun. I would have a weapon
unheard of in modern warfare."
Griff didn't nod. It wasn't necessary. Englemere's eyes were glittering in
a faraway stare.
"Such an explosive has been created," resumed Englemere. "It was
discovered here in Florida. It is being manufactured from the pulp of citrus
fruits. They call it Citrite, and its formula is closely guarded. Nor can we
obtain a specimen of the stuff.
"But we know where plenty is to be had. In the Citrite factory, only fifty
miles from here. So we shall go there to obtain it." Turning, Englemere clapped
his hand on Griff's back. "This very night, Perrick, now that you have supplied
the one thing we needed" - Englemere was waving the paper - "the complete chart
of the Citrite factory."
"I've done more than that, professor," assured Griff. "I've fixed things
so we can get right through to the storeroom where they keep the Citrite.
What's more, I've picked the proper men to take along with us."
Englemere's enthusiasm increased. He strode to the door and opened it,
waving to Griff to follow.
"Excellent!" exclaimed the professor. "We shall pack the machine and start
at once. Success will be ours, and this night's venture" - he gave Griff a
gleaming gaze - "will be but the first of our mutual endeavors, I assure you."
Griff grinned and nodded, but he warded off the shoulder clap that
Englemere was about to give him. Griff had just seen Tongo coming from the
professor's study.
"Lay off the friendly wallops," advised Griff, "whenever Tongo is around.
He copies whatever you do, professor, and a love pat from a gorilla is enough
to break a couple of ribs."
Englemere withheld his hand. He went one way and Griff the other. Griff's
destination was the room where Gabby was renewing his acquaintance with
companions of the days when mobs rode high, wide and handsome. As soon as Griff
entered, chatter ceased. Looking about, Gabby realized that these men were
expecting something that they had long waited to hear.
"It's jake," Griff told them. "I'd like to take you all along, but it
won't do. First off, the prof might worry if I let too many guys in on the
first job. Besides, there's the monkeys. He'd get the jitters if he started
thinking about them, with nobody looking after them."
The mobbies agreed with Griff's logic. He wrote their names on slips of
paper and dropped them into a hat, remarking that he was leaving Gabby's out
because the professor wouldn't want a new man on the venture. Then, from the
dozen wads of paper, Griff picked out four and read off the names. The chosen
men went along with him.
IT was pitch-dark outside the Anthropological Laboratory, or the Ape Lab,
as the mobbies chose to call it, when two cars set out along the sand road to
the highway. The first car was a coupe, containing Professor Englemere and his
lieutenant, Griff Perrick. Scientist and racketeer were faring forth upon the
road to crime, and in the back of their car they carried the contrivance which
the professor termed a "Vapor Gun."
The second car was a sedan, its occupants the four mobbies chosen by lot.
They were gleeful at this chance to cut loose in the good old fashion, and not
at all perturbed by any worry over any future consequences. From their
comments, they expected to baffle the local sheriffs, the State police, and
even the Feds, should the latter be called in.
A final touch came when one of the four had the temerity to mention a name
that all had so far avoided. A name that criminals would ordinarily have
dreaded, because it had so often spelled disaster to men of crime.
"This is one job," the hoodlum gloated, "that is going to be a cinch, even
if we meet up with The Shadow!"
For a moment, there was awed silence; then from the car came the combined
glee of the four. Men of crime were giving the laugh to The Shadow!
CHAPTER II
PATHS IN THE DARK
THE SHADOW was seated in the office of the Citrite factory, listening to
the talk of men about him. They were the officers of the Citrite Corp., and the
chief among them was Hubert Alden, president of the concern. Of course, neither
Alden nor his associates guessed that their silent companion was The Shadow.
They took him for Lamont Cranston, a wealthy New Yorker and a possible
purchaser of stock in the newly-formed Citrite Corp. Most of their talk was
high-pressure salesmanship, for Cranston's benefit. Hubert Alden was the
principal spokesman for the group. A chubby man, with a high, wrinkled
forehead, Alden was very earnest about the matter.
"I tell you, Cranston," he insisted, "whoever gets in on the ground floor
of this proposition will be in on something big. This corporation is going to
expand to ten times its present size!"
There were nods from the "yes men" who surrounded Alden. The nods didn't
seem to stir Cranston greatly. He was a very calm person; his face, hawklike in
profile, was practically immobile.
"The proposition would sound excellent," expressed Cranston, "if there
were not so many explosives already on the market."
"But Citrite draws upon a surplus product," argued Alden. "We use the pulp
of oranges and grapefruit in its manufacture. More of them are grown than are
needed."
"Except in off years."
"Those do not matter to us, Mr. Cranston. If a freeze spoils the fruit, we
can use it just the same. In fact, a bad year for other consumers will be a good
year for us. The more citrus fruit rejected, the more we can buy that much
cheaper."
The shrewd point seemed to impress Cranston, so Alden quickly followed it
with another.
"Of course, there are other compounds used with Citrite," explained Alden.
"The fruit pulp is simply the base. The product itself depends upon a secret
formula -"
"And how well do you guard that formula?"
Alden had an answer to Cranston's question. He brought out a large-scale
chart that showed the whole plan of the factory. Though he didn't realize it,
Alden was giving Cranston the very information that the visitor wanted.
Cranston, it so happened, had a secret formula of his own.
He was The Shadow. His secret formula was his method of battling crime. He
liked to get in on the ground floor of propositions where crime threatened; and
meet it when it came. This case was no exception.
The Shadow didn't have to be convinced that Citrite had merit as a new
form of explosive; he had already looked into the matter. He was here, as
Cranston, simply to make sure that proper methods had been taken to guard a
newly-invented substance that he considered far more valuable than the public,
or even the government, yet realized.
Sponsors of Citrite, like Alden and the others present, did not recognize
the vast trust that was theirs. They thought of Citrite as a money-maker. They
said they were protecting it; but were they?
Such was the question that concerned The Shadow.
THE ground plan showed that the Citrite factory was well fenced, and
consisted of several buildings. Only one building was vitally important: the
one wherein The Shadow was at present. It held the offices where this
conference was under way. They were on the second floor, and directly beneath
was the storeroom which contained the manufactured Citrite.
Alden realized that it wasn't a comforting thought to be seated over a few
tons of explosive that packed more wallop than dynamite, but he hastened to
assure Cranston that danger was almost nil. Citrite would not explode in an
atmosphere of low temperature, and the storage room was specially
air-conditioned to keep it in a state of safety. That point settled, Alden went
into other details.
He traced a pencil about the ground plan, indicating how each stage of
Citrite manufacture was carefully handled by trusted men, in separately located
buildings. By the time the stuff had gone through its entire process, no one
individual would hold the key to the whole.
Very important data for an investor like Cranston, who would naturally
want to make sure that no other manufacturer would be able to steal the secret
and produce a rival explosive. But The Shadow was noting other features on the
chart.
His concern was the main building. He observed that direct entrance to the
storage room could be gained only through a formidable steel gate; thence
through a passage to a strong steel door, that protected the storage room
proper. He had seen the gate in question, when he came here with Alden.
There was another way to reach the storage room. That was through the
office where The Shadow was at present. This route was also protected by a
steel door downstairs, and the office windows were barred. Across the office,
The Shadow could see a connecting door to the inner stairway leading down to
the storage room. Looking at it, The Shadow saw that it had no lock. Allen
observed his visitor's glance.
"That door bars from the other side," said Allen. "The storage room is one
hundred percent secure. It is just about time" - Allen was glancing at his watch
- "for our chief watchman to report. I should like you to meet him, Mr.
Cranston."
Allen had hardly folded the plan sheet before the chief watchman appeared.
His name was Dorset, and he was stocky, broad-shouldered, with sharp eyes and
bulldog chin. He had just made the rounds of the grounds, posting the six
watchmen who formed the night squad.
His gruff, blunt tone indicated that Dorset knew his business, and while
he spoke he kept one hand resting on a revolver he carried in a holster.
Having just come in from the darkness, Dorset was bothered by the strong
lights in the office. He squinted a few times and rubbed his eyes while he
talked to Allen, but the effect soon wore off.
There certainly was nothing wrong with Dorset's vision, as he proved when
he led the way downstairs. The chief watchman had the eyes of a cat, for he
picked out the dark stairs and warned the others when they reached the bottom.
Outside, while Dorset was locking the steel door to the office stairway,
Allen and the rest shook hands with Cranston. They walked to their cars and
Cranston entered a coupe of his own, for he was driving to Palm Beach, a trip
of considerable distance.
Promising to communicate with Allen later, Cranston let the other cars
start first, to guide him through the exit from the grounds.
With a last look back from his coupe, The Shadow saw Dorset starting on
his rounds. Then, as the cars ahead began to pick up speed along the highway,
The Shadow piloted his own toward a side road that cut off through the pine
woods.
He was Cranston no longer; a whispered laugh told that a transformation
was under way. The tone was the laugh of The Shadow.
To complete the change, The Shadow picked a flat space at the side of the
road and eased the coupe in among the pine trees, extinguishing the lights as
he did. In the darkness of the car, he drew garments from behind the seat;
there was a slight swish as he slid a black cloak over his shoulders. Settling
a slouch hat on his head, The Shadow emerged.
No longer could he have been mistaken for Cranston; indeed, he could have
been mistaken for no one.
IN the shrouding night, The Shadow's figure was both silent and invisible.
His course through the darkness was untraceable, as he strode back toward the
Citrite factory to begin a first-hand inspection of the premises.
However capable and trustworthy Dorset might be, one thing was certain:
Alden had imposed too great a task upon his chief watchman.
This business of Dorset posting the other watchmen, and then making his
rounds alone, did not make allowance for any weak links in the chain. One
treacherous watchman would be able to do a lot of mischief between the times
that Dorset checked on him. It was therefore The Shadow's intent to make the
rounds himself, unseen by the posted men, and do a little checking on his own.
As yet, The Shadow suspected no definite thrust against the Citrite
factory, which had been functioning for nearly a week without any signs of
trouble. It was simply a freak of chance that this particular night should be
the one when a crooked watchman named Blink Halley should have given the word
to Gabby Tarcot, who, in turn, had carried it to Griff Perrick.
Ill luck, too, that Griff had found Professor Englemere eager to start on
his first venture without delay, for though Griff himself was an expert at
crime, he couldn't make the first move on his own. Griff was definitely taking
orders from Englemere; and had merely paved the way for the professor's
long-planned raid upon the Citrite factory.
Another factor entered. It happened that the marauders, thanks to their
early start, had arrived while The Shadow was still in conference with Alden.
Having seen the parked cars, they were waiting in concealment when the
procession drove out.
Naturally, The Shadow hadn't been able to turn into the woods too soon; he
was nearly a quarter of a mile from the factory when he left the road. But
Englemere and the men with him were beginning their advance the moment the last
taillight twinkled from sight. Unwittingly, they were putting to use the very
minutes that The Shadow required to make his return!
Stealthily, in clustered fashion, the tribe crept toward the main
building. Professor Englemere formed the central figure in the group of
"keepers" that he had brought from his endowed home for apes. Only Griff
Perrick was able to restrain the ardent professor, with low-voiced warnings.
Griff was piloting the throng, for he knew the set-up that awaited.
They reached the heavy gate that afforded entry to the storeroom. Griff
tried it, found it unlocked, and pressed the others through, voicing his
satisfaction in an undertone.
"Blink did a quick job," Griff complimented. "I've got to hand that to
him. I kind of expected he wouldn't have time to open the gate so soon."
Holding the others back, Griff turned to clamp the gate from the inside,
remarking that it wouldn't do for some watchman to find it open while making
his rounds. Then, pressing ahead, Griff found the inner passage and entered it,
with Englemere.
The others had some difficulty squeezing through, and the reason for their
clustering was explained. They were huddled together because they were lugging
Englemere's curious Vapor Gun, mounted on its stand.
Hardly had the last crooks moved into the passage before The Shadow glided
into the grounds. The first place he made for was the gate that Englemere's band
had found unlocked. Trying the gate, The Shadow discovered it to be secure, as
he expected. The clamp on the inside gave it the effect of being locked.
Skirting the building, The Shadow reached the door that led up to the
office. It was tightly locked, as Dorset had left it. Looking upward, The
Shadow could see the barred windows of the office, which could be reached by
first scaling the door. Those bars had an inviting look, for they were
crosswise and formed a ladder, offering access to the roof above.
Deftly, The Shadow moved upward, the slight wavy motion of his cloak
giving the effect of oily smoke rising in a slow cloud. So vague, that shape,
against the gloom of the doorway and the window above, that the living smoke
seemed to dispel itself as it reached the roof edge. There, The Shadow had
flattened, and performed an inward roll that placed him upon the roof itself,
away from any chance of observation.
There was a soft laugh from The Shadow's hidden lips as he saw exactly
what he wanted: a trapdoor in the roof. It was fastened, of course, from the
inside, as The Shadow learned when he tried it; but its slight yield was proof
that he could pry it loose within a dozen minutes.
If nothing else made it profitable, a trip down into the office would at
least serve as a lesson for Alden and the others, when they arrived in the
morning to find that the place had been entered. So The Shadow began his work
in smooth but silent style.
It seemed a race against time, nothing more. Actually, it was a race
against crime. For, while The Shadow was forcing his entry from the roof, men
of evil were at work below under the guidance of Professor Englemere.
They, too, were seeking a goal, with a purpose that only The Shadow could
forestall, should he have the good fortune to encounter them!
CHAPTER III
DEADLY MEASURES
THROUGH the passage leading in from the gate, Professor Englemere and his
companions had come squarely upon the steel door that barred the way to the
storage room where the precious Citrite was kept.
Again, it was Griff Perrick who pressed forward to try the door, as he had
done with the gate. This time, Griff turned with a disappointed shrug, to face
the flashlights his men were cautiously using. With his left hand, Griff peeled
away a handkerchief that he had wrapped about his right in the fashion of a
bandage.
"Blink didn't get this far," declared Griff. "Maybe he was afraid he'd be
spotted. Anyway, the door is locked, solid."
Professor Englemere stretched forward to try the door for himself.
Savagely, Griff thrust Englemere's hand away before it could reach the knob.
Quickly, and in apologetic tone, Griff explained his action.
"We can't afford to leave fingerprints, prof," said Griff. "That's why I
used the handkerchief. But don't waste time wrapping your own hand for a try.
The door is locked; and the only way to settle it is with that Vapor Gun of
yours."
Englemere's eyes gleamed. He was pleased with Griff's foresight regarding
fingerprints; even more joyful over his opportunity to put his brain child to a
practical use. He had the men set up the device, with its wide nozzle directed
against the steel door, at a distance of about six feet.
The thugs exchanged glances that ended when Griff scowled. They thought
that the professor was crazy, but were willing to humor him, since Griff
insisted. Had any of them guessed that while they were trying silly experiments
with a steel door The Shadow was using very effective measures at entry from an
opposite direction, Griff would have had a stampede on his hands.
They let grins play on their toughened faces as Englemere pressed a small
lever beside the machine. When a cloud of white smoke issued forth and spread
itself against the door, their grins increased.
Then, as suddenly, the smirks vanished.
Something was happening amid that cloud of smoke, so incredible that it
passed belief. Silent fireworks were under way, producing darting sparks that
acted uncannily.
Professor Englemere was giving that steel door the heat, the works, and
everything else in the catalogue!
Sparks were biting, flames gnawing, and the smoke itself was working
through fissures that its silent allies produced. Literally, the door was
melting under the power of the acid-bearing calcium compound.
Griff had told his followers something of this process, explaining simply
by likening it to the formation of powerful acetylene gas from the admixture of
water with calcium carbide. But that was child's play, compared to this.
Englemere's vaporizing system was devouring the steel with an acid bath,
his calcium compound drilling, hammering, in soundless fashion, to give the
acids an amazing punch. Like ghostly lights, green flames had taken over the
scene, enveloping the entire door front. There was no more trace of smoke,
except as a vague gray beyond, for it was all filtering through the door.
As Englemere drew the lever back the flames subsided, and the observers,
all but Griff, stared in profound amazement.
The steel door was still there, but it had changed to a filigree. It
hadn't any more substance than a wire screen. Holding one hand up in warning,
Englemere held the crew in abeyance. He was waiting for the acids to evaporate,
which required about two minutes.
It was a weird scene, that of the bearded professor standing like some
alchemist of old before a throng of superstitious followers. But Englemere had
outdone the alchemists. His power stood proven.
Englemere's signal that the way was clear came when he thrust his own bulk
forward and drove the filigreed steel apart like tinsel. Others, following, saw
the professor stumble and thought that he had tripped over the lower edge of
the door, which was still a rim of solid steel. They realized their mistake as
they paused.
A man's body lay beyond the door, and it had tripped Englemere when he
shoved his way through.
RISING, the professor was staring at the dead man, when Griff came through
to join him. In a low, hollow tone, Englemere inquired:
"How did he come here?"
Griff told the others to turn the body over. They did, and shrank back at
the sight. Though hardened to death, and accustomed to delivering it, Griff's
murderous companions did not like the look of what they saw.
The body on the floor was horribly disfigured. Its chest had sagged, its
throat was gone, bringing a square-chinned face down to pitiful hands that were
raised to clutch it. The flesh of those hands was eaten, and from one set of
withered fingers hung a mass of misshapen metal that had once been a ring of
keys.
Griff stared at the distorted face and shook his head, signifying that he
didn't recognize it. Then an idea struck him.
"No wonder the gate was open so soon!" exclaimed Griff. "This fellow must
have come in here to inspect the storeroom. He left the gate unlocked, but he
was fool enough to lock this door - or unlucky enough. We thought Blink opened
the way for us. Instead, it was this guy."
There was a point to Griff's argument that he didn't know about. The man
on the floor had good reason to be in the storage room. He was Dorset, the head
watchman, whose business it was to inspect every part of the factory, inside and
out.
Professor Englemere nodded solemnly.
"You are right," he told Griff. "Even to approach the door while the Vapor
Gun was at work would mean death, once the compound began to penetrate." He gave
his head a shake. "It is unfortunate that this man should have died."
The thugs made allowance for Englemere's qualms. They had been worried
over such matters once. Crime was one thing; standing for a murder rap another.
It wasn't until after a second kill that a murderer felt easy about it. But they
could see that Griff looked pleased, and they knew why.
When Griff had told them that Englemere was going in for crime, he had
expressed the worry that the professor might balk. The stronger the job, the
better, Griff had put it, and this job was strong enough. A dead man, as a
result, put Englemere in the same outlawed class as the men Griff had hired to
act as keepers in the ape lab, with crime as the real issue.
Two of the thugs started to speak, to compliment the professor on his
work, now that it was all over. They interrupted each other, and before they
could resume Griff silenced them with a gesture. He turned to the professor.
"Just an accident," soothed Griff. "It couldn't be helped, prof. Charge it
off to science, like the rest of your tests. You've wondered, all along, about
the effect of the Vapor Gun on humans, particularly with steel protecting them."
Slowly, Englemere nodded.
"And besides," persisted Griff, "you had to get that Citrite. It's right
here, professor, in this storage room."
Englemere lifted his head, his eyes glittering avidly. His eyes met those
of his companions, and disturbed them, hardened as they were. To a man, they
felt a chill come over them and thought that Englemere's eyes accounted for it.
Then, when Griff's teeth chattered and he clapped his arms across his
chest, they realized that the chill was part of the room itself.
Looking about, Englemere saw the boxes that contained the precious
Citrite. He gave a laugh as he felt the coldness of the room. He recognized
what it meant: that this new explosive should be kept in a cool atmosphere.
He sprang to the nearest box, opened it and began to pick out short sticks
of the explosive, which had the color of burnt sienna.
The others wanted to help him, but Englemere waved them back, muttering
that he, alone, knew the quantity of Citrite that he would require. In his new
interest, Englemere had evidently forgotten Dorset's fate. He was thinking only
of his valuable find, the explosive that would step up his Vapor Gun to immense
proportions.
Observing the professor's intensity, Griff turned to the others."
"He's forgotten what else we came for," said Griff, "so we'll handle it
ourselves. Over this way."
Griff led them to a flight of stone stairs in a corner of the storage room.
"Up there," he said. "You'll find a door at the top. The bar is on this
side. Through it, you'll reach the office. Take a look at the safe. If it's
easy, smash it and take what's in it. If it's too tough, send word down to me
and I'll fix it. This job ought to net us ten grand, anyway."
THREE men went to the top of the stairs, leaving one at the bottom. They
unbolted the door and two went through, one staying to relay word down, if
necessary. With their flashlights, the pair found the safe. One turned to the
other and said:
"This box is tough. Tell Griff."
The other man turned. A crackling sound alarmed him, and brought his
companion up beside him. The first man was calling to the door: "Tell Griff -"
when he and the thug beside him located the crackle. It came from a corner of
the room, up by the ceiling. A trapdoor had broken loose from its moorings.
Together, the pair dived for the door that led below. Outside that door,
their pal was calling to the man at the bottom of the stairway: "Tell Griff the
box is tough!" The call, though low, could be heard back in the office. It came
as a warning to the figure that was dropping through from the roof.
A lucky warning; otherwise, the men diving for the stairway might have
been the first to get their guns into play. But before they could make out the
black-cloaked avenger who had dropped in from nowhere, he heard the echoing
shout and was ready.
Ready with a laugh that proclaimed his identity. This time, three
astonished crooks caught a chill that wasn't part of the normal atmosphere.
They knew that sinister mirth, with its peal of challenge, its promise of doom
to all of evil.
The laugh of The Shadow!
Bounding as he struck the floor, The Shadow went sideward. A gun tongued
from his fist as if actuated by a spring. The opening shot zimmed between the
startled men at the stairway door; their own guns barked wide as they tugged
triggers.
Blackness, nothing more, and somewhere amid it, The Shadow. It was too
much for them. Headlong, they took to the stairs as another bullet smashed into
the wall behind them. They were in mad flight, routed by The Shadow.
Had they gone singly, anyone of the trio would have tumbled down the
stairs. Huddled together, each was fortunate enough to blunder against the
other and so break his fall. Yet, all the way down, they could hear the shivery
sound that denoted a living pursuer: that weird laugh of The Shadow!
It didn't occur to them that the cloaked avenger was not in immediate
pursuit. Actually, The Shadow saw a better plan than putting himself in a trap.
He knew that his foemen would rally, once they arrived below. If he didn't
follow, they would flee by their only outlet: the way that they had come.
By that time through the trapdoor, The Shadow could reach the roof, drop
from its edge, and be ready to meet them when they made their exit.
With that plan in mind, The Shadow grabbed a desk and hauled it beneath
the trapdoor. He was on the desk, reaching both hands upward, when he heard a
sudden pound of footsteps from the inner stairway. Griff Perrick was at hand.
Griff had only half believed the wild yell about The Shadow. He believed
in it full when he struck the threshold.
Looking to the corner where the big office safe stood, Griff saw the
intervening desk and the cloaked form upon it. The light was very vague, but
there was just enough trickle from the trapdoor for Griff to catch the outline
that he knew must be The Shadow's.
The shape of blackness dropped suddenly, one hand sweeping from its cloak,
bringing a gun. Griff didn't wait to exchange shots with The Shadow. Instead, he
gave his hand a fling that sent an object scaling in the general direction of
the desk. Over his shoulder, as he dived for the stairs ahead of The Shadow's
first gun blast, Griff saw the cloaked figure fade.
Too bad for The Shadow that he had fired while on the move, to test Griff
out. The Shadow had missed, and Griff had used something better than a gun. A
drop to cover couldn't help The Shadow. The thing that Griff had tossed was a
stick of Citrite.
The Shadow was gone from the desk when the missile struck, but the desk
wasn't all that suffered. In this warmer atmosphere, the Citrite exploded with
its advertised effect. It blew all the wooden furniture throughout the room to
bits, and even brought down chunks of the ceiling.
Catching himself on the stairway, Griff heard the shattering echoes that
told of utter chaos in the office. As he reached the bottom step, Griff looked
upward and flung a rasping epitaph:
"Good-by, Shadow."
CHAPTER IV
THE SHORT CUT
IT might have been: "Good-by, Shadow!"
Certainly, Griff's choice of a weapon had proven phenomenal, more so than
Griff had expected. But The Shadow, in competition with the Citrite, had chosen
a refuge that also exceeded expectations.
Even in a battle of mere bullets, The Shadow preferred steel to woodwork
as a shield. Hence his drop from the desk was toward the big safe in the
corner. He'd seen the safe earlier and knew that one corner extended out from a
space in the wall, so The Shadow had naturally chosen the niche behind the safe.
When the room rocked, the only furnishing that didn't go to pieces was the
safe. It stood the concussion and diverted the battering deluge, of broken
chairs, desks, typewriters, and shattered filing cabinets. When everything
finally settled, The Shadow came from his refuge, the only secure spot in the
room, to pick his way through the scattered debris.
No need, now, for exit by the roof. The best plan was to stalk the thugs
below, for they believed him dead. So The Shadow found his way to the stairs
and began the descent. He was halfway down when he felt the aftereffects of the
explosion.
The stairs began to rock under an imaginary blast. His head swimming, The
Shadow realized that the explosion had jolted him more than he supposed. He
caught a new grip on himself, escaping a severe fall, but he couldn't avoid
stumbles as he neared the bottom of the stairs.
There, The Shadow saw Griff Perrick against the glow of flashlights.
Professor Englemere was beyond, out of sight, along with the men who carried
the Vapor Gun. They and their burden were indicated only by flashlights, giving
The Shadow the mere impression that Griff had companions.
As for Griff himself, his face didn't show. Hearing the Shadow's sudden
arrival, Griff focused a flashlight toward the stair bottom.
Swinging into the shelter of the stairway, The Shadow fired at Griff. His
shots missed, for his head was in a whirl. Griff didn't waste time with
gunfire, but tossed another stick of Citrite from a supply that he had grabbed.
It proved as useless as The Shadow's shots. Hitting the stone floor, the
explosive bounded harmlessly in the chilled atmosphere of the storage room.
Thinking that The Shadow was merely baiting him with bullets, Griff turned
tail and ran madly after the others. He reached them at the outer door of the
passage, and flung his weight upon them as they were trying to get the Vapor
Gun through. Everyone landed in a heap except Englemere, who caught his
footing, as did Griff.
Crime would have ended then and there, if those two hadn't luckily avoided
a fall. Both of them were loaded up with Citrite, and they were outdoors in the
warm air of a Florida night. Griff didn't waste time in apologies. He started
Englemere and the others toward the cars, and followed after them.
Lights were appearing everywhere. Watchmen had heard the gunfire and the
explosion. A searchlight threw its beam, and Griff hurled a stick of Citrite at
it. The searchlight vanished, along with several cubic yards of concrete.
Watchmen were coming up and Griff turned to throw some Citrite in their
direction. A laugh halted him; it came from the storage-room exit. The Shadow
deserved the Citrite more than did the watchmen, so Griff tossed it his way.
Hitting a doorway in a hurry was more difficult than landing a missile in
the open. The explosive missed its mark by a dozen feet. Out of the echoes that
followed the blast, Griff heard The Shadow's laugh again. By then, Griff was
fully on the run. He threw another stick behind him and knocked the big steel
gates from their hinges. Then Griff made a mad run for the coupe.
Mobbies had loaded the Vapor Gun in back. Grabbing the wheel, Griff found
Englemere beside him. The coupe roared away, and the sedan followed, carrying
its four-man quota. Passing the driveway, Griff flung a last bar of Citrite
that produced a yawning hole in the paving. He figured that the gap would block
pursuing cars, and it did.
Watchmen were scattered everywhere, and when they got to their cars, they
encountered the crater that Griff had put in their path. All they could do was
get to telephones and send out a general alarm to all high sheriffs in the
several adjacent counties.
IF Griff had hoped to eliminate The Shadow as a pursuer, he was hoping too
much.
Taking a short cut to the fence, The Shadow vaulted it. Though too late to
fire after the departing cars, he still had his own, parked in the woods just
off the side road. That side road, it so happened, was a short cut, one that
might enable The Shadow to reach the very highway into which the fugitives
would eventually turn.
Reaching his coupe, The Shadow set out to intercept the unknown crew. It
meant a trip of fifteen miles, compared with twenty that the other cars would
have to take. The fugitives had ignored the short cut because it was a
"one-way" highway, one of those roads that consisted of a single strip of
paving.
There were turnouts, of course, at frequent intervals, but they meant
delays if cars happened to be coming the other way. Besides, they were sandy
and a car might get stuck in them.
Certainly a route for fugitives to avoid, but one that suited a pursuer
who had nothing to lose. The Shadow was taking that road full speed. Under the
rhythmic wheels of his purring car, the grayish paving poured like a stream
reaching the brink of a waterfall.
A flat road, with long, easy curves among the patchy pine woods, and this
car could gobble up the mileage. The Shadow figured that he could make the
fifteen miles in a dozen minutes, without straining his car.
Provided, of course, that he met only a few cars along the way; so far, he
had encountered none. These roads weren't traveled much at night, and The
Shadow's pace seemed sure. In fact, he would soon have an alternate route, if
he needed it.
With ten miles to his credit, The Shadow neared an intersection where
another one-way road cut into this one. Both led to the main highway that he
sought, like the arms of a narrowed Y.
The Shadow took the bend just before the fork. He was doing seventy-five
as he cleared the curve, and his foot sped suddenly from accelerator to brake.
Ahead, a car was jamming to a sudden stop; it was coming from the opposite
direction and it was halting directly at the junction. Its driver had spotted
the gleam of The Shadow's lights coming through the trees.
Only the stability of The Shadow's car prevented a smash. He brought his
machine to a rapid stop, right in the glare of the other car's headlights: As
he did, The Shadow saw huddly figures springing from the car ahead.
Instead of whipping out an automatic and giving them a defiant laugh, The
Shadow flipped his hat back from his head and let his cloak drop from his
shoulders. He was Cranston, again, when guns bristled through the open windows
of his halted car.
Nothing to fear from those weapons. The Shadow had seen them in the hands
of the men when they sprang from their car. The guns weren't pistols, the sort
of weapons that mobsters would use. These were shotguns, clasped by deputy
sheriffs.
The alarm from the Citrite factory had reached a hamlet near this obscure
crossroad. Seeking to head off fleeing criminals, the hastily formed posse had
stopped The Shadow instead.
Stepping out into the light from the other car, The Shadow introduced
himself as Lamont Cranston, and expressed surprise at news of crime at the
Citrite factory. He himself had left the place with Alden and the other
executives, he said, and all had been quiet then.
The listeners did not doubt the calm Mr. Cranston; nevertheless, they
wouldn't let him proceed along his way. Orders were to stop all cars and bring
them back to the factory.
It was a real dilemma for The Shadow.
He had two choices: one, to make a break for it and lead these deputies
along a chase that might head off the crooks. The other, to return to the
factory with them and lose all chance of intercepting the criminals.
Usually, The Shadow preferred that a chase should go on, but this time he
decided otherwise. He had declared himself as Cranston, for one thing; for
another, there was a chance that the crooks might not take the particular
highway he expected.
WITH a deputy beside him, the calm-mannered Mr. Cranston paced the other
car back to the Citrite factory, driving rather moderately, to give the
impression that he had not been in much of a hurry when the deputies flagged
him. On the way, he asked his companion about the trouble at the factory, but
the shotgun bearer could supply few details.
The grounds were ablaze with many lights when they arrived there. Several
cars had arrived, and more were pulling up.
Among the arrivals was Hubert Alden, and he was quite indignant when he
learned that Lamont Cranston had been stopped by the deputies. Apologies were
in order, but Cranston sided with the men who had stopped him, saying that they
had performed their proper duty.
Garbled were the accounts of what had happened at the factory. Dorset, the
chief watchman, had died while seeking to protect the storage room; that much
was certain. But the other watchmen were very hazy in their accounts. They
talked of gunfire; of a big blast that wrecked the office; finally, they told
how unknown men had fled, tossing Citrite as a deterrent toward any followers.
Their reports did not include any mention of The Shadow. They hadn't seen
him in the darkness. Yet they had the impression that someone must have been in
pursuit of the criminals, considering the way the explosive had been thrown.
All the testifying watchmen came under The Shadow's scrutiny. They were a
rather stolid lot, but their stories tallied. If the group contained a traitor,
it was impossible to pick him out, for he was telling the same story as the rest.
Alden summed the situation when he turned to Cranston. Of one thing, Aden
was convinced.
"Those criminals won't go far," he declared. "They raided the factory,
grabbed some Citrite, and tried to get at the safe, but failed. But they're
boxed in completely! Word has gone ahead of them, and they will never get clear
of the Florida peninsula. Every main road will be blocked, and if they don't
show up, we'll have them hunted down. But they'll show up within the next few
hours. You'll see."
The Shadow didn't see. He had a firm idea that he wouldn't. During the
passage of those next two hours, reports came in from many points, but all were
negative. Sheriffs of every county were on the move, co-operating with the State
police, but they hadn't yet traced the missing criminals.
Yet Alden still felt confident. He was falling back on his argument that
crooks couldn't get out of the State. A convincing argument, considering that
there were only a few main roads leading to the north. Still, The Shadow did
not share Alden's surety.
The Shadow was strolling about in Cranston's leisurely fashion, when a
soft, low laugh came from his immobile lips. A grim tone, that mirth, for it
expressed The Shadow's own belief.
He was convinced of one thing, only: that he had, tonight, met up with a
strange event, one that promised crimes to come, with a long, long hunt before
the perpetrators could be brought to account.
CHAPTER V
CRIMINALS CONFER
GLIDING his coupe slowly along a winding course, Griff Perrick was
listening to the philosophical remarks of Professor Englemere and giving grunts
of agreement.
"Road making in Florida is a simple art," declared the professor. "You cut
a path through the palmettos, drive a car through, and, Eureka! - you have a
road!"
"A good road, too," accorded Griff, "if people don't try to use it. When
they do, they make ruts and the road is no good."
"Excellently put," approved the professor. "Which reminds me. I must have
our own road paved."
Griff gave Englemere a worried glance.
"What's the matter with it now, prof? We keep it dragged, don't we?"
"It's a matter of appropriations," said Englemere seriously. "You see, I
asked for funds to provide the laboratory with a proper roadway. I received the
money, and spent it on -"
"On your machine," interrupted Griff. "The same old story, isn't it, prof?"
"I guess so."
Griff laughed, sympathetically. He was about to speak, when he observed a
slight rise in the rutted road. It meant that they were coming to a main
highway. Griff extinguished the headlights, and the car behind them did the
same.
After listening a few moments, Griff eased his car ahead, picked the
highway by its feel and crossed it. The ruts of a sand road caught his wheels
again, and he turned on the lights. Dim headlights appeared from the following
car, and Griff took another look at Englemere, who was visible by the glow
through the rear window.
"Don't worry about the driveway, prof," said Griff. "We'll pave it for
you. We'll need some cash for the material, that's all."
The professor stroked his beard.
"Cash is low," he admitted. "Very low."
"The boys could raise some for you."
A headshake from Englemere.
"They have done enough," he asserted. "A loyal group of keepers, working
for half pay; I could ask no more. No, I wouldn't think of it, any more than I
would think of selling one of my anthropoid friends."
Swinging the car along the shore of a little lake, Griff took another look
at Englemere.
"I know how you feel, prof," he said. "I agree with you. I wouldn't sell
one of those apes for a million dollars! We think the world of them, like you
do."
Englemere gave a grateful sigh.
"Still," added Griff reflectively, "you could borrow on them -"
Sharp eyes burned Griff's way. To Englemere, borrowing was the next thing
to selling; at least, until Griff explained the rest of it.
"I mean borrow from the boys," said Griff, "with the monks as security.
Take Cissie and Loco, for instance. They're as good as ours, now, prof. Tongo
is your own particular pet. You can't deny it."
Englemere gave a reluctant grunt of admission. To Griff, it meant an
acceptance of the offer.
"Just leave it all to me," Griff told Englemere. "I'll talk with the bunch
after we get back to the lab. Maybe there will be a few details to settle. I'll
tell you later."
Another paved highway marked the final stretch. Here, Griff had to use his
lights, but he employed speed with them. A run of a few miles, without an
encounter, brought the cars to the sand road leading into the Ape Lab.
Griff rang the bell of the side door and Cissie admitted Englemere, who
moved carefully ahead, carrying his precious burden of Citrite. Griff and the
four mobbies followed, bringing the Vapor Gun.
REACHING their quarters, the participants in crime were immediately
bombarded by questions from their friends. Griff silenced the discussion and
asked if all the necessary work had been completed around the laboratory. He
reminded his hearers that Englemere was very fussy over that matter.
They simply grinned and nodded. It was Gabby Tarcot who spoke.
"I'll say the work is done!" exclaimed Gabby. "You should have seen the
way those monkeys went at it with brooms and mops. Say, Griff, did you train
them?"
"Give the credit to Englemere," returned Griff. "He started it, but we did
the rest. You see, Gabby, we're working on a half-pay basis. We couldn't afford
it if the monkeys didn't do a lot of the heavy work. It's one thing, though,
that we don't mention to the prof. He wouldn't want the apes to strain
themselves."
There were chuckles from the other keepers. Having put them in a pleasant
mood, Griff was ready to tell the worst.
"We picked up the Citrite," he announced, "but we didn't get the cash,
worse luck! You see" - Griff was very calm - "The Shadow was around."
Consternation showed on thuggish faces. Griff turned to the men who had
come back with him.
"I kept The Shadow off us," boasted Griff. "Didn't I?"
The four agreed that Griff had done it. Only Gabby showed alarm. Hoarsely
he put a question:
"What about Blink Halley? Why didn't you bring him back with you?"
"Blink is sitting pretty," Griff assured him. "We got into the place
without him helping us. He was with the bunch that tried to stop us. I know,
because I saw him."
Gabby settled back with a pleased grin. He had won his point regarding
Blink. Obviously, Blink was no double-crosser, nor even a squealer; otherwise,
Griff and his crew would not have returned.
"You were right about Blink," added Griff. "Anyway, he doesn't know where
this hide-out is, so we won't have to worry. Now, let's get down to other
facts. About the professor -"
Pausing, Griff waited until all were listening, which did not take long.
Intently, the crooks were anxious to know more about Englemere's reactions.
"It kind of jarred the prof when we croaked that one guy," admitted Griff,
"but he's gotten over it. He's willing to borrow dough from us, with the apes as
security. If he'll go that far, the rest is easy. Leave it to me."
He beckoned a few of his men along and led them to Englemere's study,
where he told them to wait outside. Griff was in conference with the professor
for nearly a quarter of an hour. When he rejoined his companions, they saw
satisfaction registered on his blunt features.
"It's a deal," Griff told them. "The prof is putting the Citrite on ice,
and tomorrow he'll start building a Vapor Gun of the supertype. One that will
work close up in a jiffy, and blast things a half mile away, if it has to."
One mobbie put a question:
"He's forgotten about the guy we croaked?"
"Never even mentioned him," replied Griff. "But here's the important part.
As soon as the prof gets the new Vapor Gun under way, the old one is ours."
"You mean to keep?"
"To look after, like we do the apes," returned Griff, "and you know what
that means. The prof is politely telling us to get dough, because he needs it.
We'll get it and give him his cut, without bothering over foolish questions.
"I'm figuring we ought to do the next few jobs on our own. The prof will
be busy with his experiments, and it isn't good to disturb him. What's more,
we'd better tell him about the next guy we croak, instead of letting him see it
happen."
TOUGHENED killers agreed. As they moved along with Griff, they threw eager
glances at the door of the professor's workshop, where they had stowed the
medium Vapor Gun.
Their work was of the close-range type, and the medium machine was all
they needed. Having seen it in operation, the crooks had no doubt as to its
merits. Griff, hearing their pleased mutters, summed up the story.
"With the prof backing us," he told them, "we'll go after more than
Citrite. It will be dough, next time, and nothing else! I've got it all
figured, right to the dot. Any night will do, and so we'll take the first one
that comes after the prof hands us his old Vapor Gun. I like old machines" -
Griff gave a chuckle - "because they're the kind you can hit the jackpot with
most often!"
They rejoined the rest, and Griff spread the big news. He could tell that
the mobbies had been talking about The Shadow during his absence; but, since
Griff had slipped the cloaked avenger once, they felt sure he could do it
again. Griff himself was careful to avoid mention of The Shadow.
"Nobody is going to stop us," he assured. "I'll tell you why. After
tonight, they'll all figure that we've cleared out of Florida completely. You
know how people are. They will say that crime is through. But we know that it
is just getting ready to begin."
Neither Griff nor his companions recognized the full import of that last
sentence. Unwittingly, Griff Perrick had voiced the exact opinion of The Shadow!
Crooks knew that crime was on the march.
So did The Shadow!
CHAPTER VI
ONE MOVE AHEAD
ON the map of Florida, the town of Center City formed a very small dot,
signifying that the term "city" was one of courtesy, only. Actually, Center
City had only half a dozen stores, a movie house, and a hotel. Squatty
buildings, those, with one exception: the hotel. It really made Center City.
Twelve stories high, of comparatively modern construction, the hotel was
the pride of Center City and the entire county, to boot. It was a relic of boom
days, when self-deluded prophets had declared that Center City would in ten
years become a metropolis rivaling even Miami.
Located near the center of the State, the town was to become the hub of
Florida, so its founders had constructed the hub cap, first. The hub cap was
the hotel, and its two hundred and fifty rooms seemed hardly enough to
accommodate all the real-estate buyers expected to stake out lots. But the
paint hadn't dried on the Center City hotel before the boom went bust.
Yet the hotel had managed to survive. This was good citrus country, and
the orange groves soon blossomed on the sites of forgotten subdivisions.
Sellers and buyers of the orange crop made their headquarters at the hotel,
which was now the focal point of a wealthy area.
This was the orange-picking season, when people who wanted to buy groves
came to Center City. One wealthy prospect was at present a guest at the hotel.
His name was Lamont Cranston, and he occupied a room on the twelfth floor.
From his corner windows, Cranston could see the territory for miles
around. It was late afternoon, and the sinking sun looked like a mammoth
orange, appropriately reflected by thousands of tiny golden dots that glistened
from the massed green of the orange groves, where the small fruit trees looked
like regiments of sentinels stationed in regular rows.
The elevation enabled Cranston to see houses among those groves: some the
homes of owners, others shacks inhabited by migratory orange pickers. There
were trailers, too, by the hundreds, in locations allotted to them. Many tents
were visible, with cars beside them. Some of those cars were of expensive
makes, their owners preferring to spend their earnings toward comfortable
travel, rather than better shelter.
It was come and go with these folk, and when they went the trees would be
green, like the linings of their pockets. For there was cash in picking oranges
for those who could do a complete and rapid job. Thousands of orange pickers
meant thousands of dollars going out to workers around Center City.
To go out, the cash would have to come in first, which was why Lamont
Cranston, otherwise The Shadow, had deemed it wise to visit Center City.
This was Friday, and pay was due. It came into Center City by armored
truck, for delivery at the huge packing house just past the outskirts of the
very compact town. There, after dusk, the pickers would line up, and receive
their pay. It was said that this week's pay roll would approach forty thousand
dollars, including many salaries to others beside the orange pickers.
Forty thousand dollars, in cash, would attract men of crime, if they were
about, and The Shadow believed that they were still about, despite a consensus
of opinion to the contrary. The excitement at the Citrite factory, nearly a
week ago, had simmered down to the opinion that crooks, forced to flight, had
somehow slipped the nets stretched for them and were far away from Florida's
sunny clime.
Only The Shadow had laid his finger on the truth, that criminals had found
a secure refuge within the State itself and intended to sally forth on further
foray.
All week, calls had come to Cranston's room, to amplify his own tours
through the terrain. The Shadow's own secret agents, competent men long in his
service, were on the job as orange pickers. Filtering everywhere, they had
phoned their chief to inform him of any suspicious moves by members of the
migratory population. So far, there had been no ripples of coming crime.
This was pay day. It was the time when crime would strike, if at all. The
negative reports from his agents convinced The Shadow that if mobsters
appeared, they would come from without, not within. Therefore, the packing
house itself was the place to be watched.
IT was under guard already. The great, long shed that stretched along the
near side of the railroad track, had half a dozen guards around its walls. They
sauntered idly, forming a cordon as loose as it was thin, but they were
experienced hands at stopping trouble when it came their way.
The Shadow could see them stop to chat with one another, and they had a
habit of letting their gun hands slide to the holsters at their hips.
A habit of Dorset's, that one. It hadn't helped the head watchman at the
Citrite factory when crime rolled his way and bowled him over.
There was still a great deal of speculation regarding the secret weapon
with which crooks had done away with a steel door and the man who guarded it.
Even The Shadow had no clue to the device used, but the fact that criminals
possessed some powerful machine, was part of his argument that they would
strike again.
Work was ending at the packing house. The last of many trucks had dumped
their loads of fruit under surveillance of the guards, who were making sure
that there were no human stowaways with the crop.
Ready for washing, drying, spraying, grading, waxing, polishing, coloring,
and all the rest that went with it, the oranges would soon be shipped. Already,
freight cars were being brought in line.
From his window, The Shadow saw a shifting engine shunt in from the main
track, backing three empty gondolas behind it. Passing the packing house, it
reached a switch, which was turned so the shifter could come forward on another
siding. The engine eased up to another empty box car and shoved it up to the
platform on the far side of the packing house.
The shed was so long that the engine and its four cars were lost from
view, but soon the engineer and fireman appeared, strolling around the corner,
waving to the guards as they went by. They were going out to supper and would
finish the shifting later, so that the full quota of empty cars would be ready
in the morning.
The Shadow's eyes moved back to a spot that they had watched before: a
stretch of road that came across a hill a few miles away. This time, his gaze
was rewarded.
Speeding over the slight summit was a vehicle that could only be the
armored truck bringing the pay roll. The last rays of sunlight glittered on the
armored car; it was showing speed in order to beat the dusk. It suited The
Shadow almost to the dot.
These men who preferred daylight were delivering over their charge at the
very time when The Shadow was equipped to take up vigil in their place: namely,
when dark settled.
In Cranston's calm-mannered style, The Shadow took a last look at the
scene below. The great shed of the shipping house was the symbol of security.
The guards were covering the near side, the only route from which they feared
marauders, for the officers, near the center of the shed, were cut off from the
railroad platform by solid walls and barred doors.
Carrying a brief case with him, Cranston went down in the elevator.
Outside the hotel, he strolled along the street that carried him from the
actual town in less than a hundred yards. Then, taking a short route among some
dilapidated sheds, he paused in the gathering darkness to bring out a black
cloak and a slouch hat from the brief case, which he stowed between the cinder
blocks that formed the wide-spaced foundations of a shed.
Putting on the cloak and hat, Cranston became The Shadow. He neared the
shipping house, then took a skirting course, for large lights were aglow,
illuminating the driveway on the near side of the great shed. The pacing guards
offered a temporary obstacle that was eliminated when the armored truck rolled
up, because guards promptly congregated to meet it.
While they were surrounding the truck, their drawn guns wangling in their
hands, The Shadow made a glide for the corner of the shed. He moved slowly
along, protected by the semigloom, while men from the truck, accompanied by a
pair of guards, took the bags of pay-roll money into the office.
THE SHADOW was half way to the office when the guards came out with the
truckmen, whose bags were dangling empty. Entering the armored car, the
delivery crew drove away, and the guards began to deploy. They were taking
their posts at the outskirts of the shed, and the one man who passed close to
The Shadow failed to notice him.
It wasn't that the guard was careless. No human eye could have detected
the black-cloaked figure that had merged with a patch of darkness so closely,
that he seemed a part of it.
On the move again, The Shadow reached the office entry. It was lighted,
but he kept to the fringe of the glow in a most uncanny fashion. Like a human
ghost, he eased through to a passage, and saw the door of the main office, just
ahead. Only The Shadow could have maneuvered to such a position; therefore, he
was confident that all was well.
He was anxious, though, to gain an inside position, in case the unusual
should happen. So he stepped to the inner door, squeezed its knob and opened
the barrier an inch, to study the scene beyond.
Should crime be due, The Shadow was one move ahead of it. So he thought,
until he peered through the crack of the inner door. Instantly, The Shadow's
lithe figure tightened, riveted by what he saw.
The pay roll had certainly been delivered. It was lying, in large stacks,
all over a broad table in the center of the room, where four men, trusted
clerks of the shipping house, were ready to count and sort the money.
At least, they had been ready to do so a few minutes ago. At present, they
were staring, with upraised hands, toward a crew of invaders beyond them.
Those men had come from a door in the far side of the room. How they had
entered was, so far, a mystery; for they had come by a route barred with big
steel doors. What they intended was no mystery.
Eight in number, including their leader; they wore masks made from
handkerchiefs. Four of them gripped guns, one for each of the clerks. The other
four were advancing to the table, to pick up the currency that teemed there.
The Shadow's gloved hand went to his cloak and drew an automatic.
Lone-handed, he would have to find a way to set this right. For a week, The
Shadow had been planning to be one move ahead of crime. The crux had come, and
crime was one move ahead of The Shadow!
Again, it was up to The Shadow to put himself one move ahead of crime!
CHAPTER VII
CRIME GOES RAMPANT
ONLY by finding a weakness in the opposition could The Shadow hope to
forestall a crime that was practically completed.
At first sight, the problem offered no solution, for the marauders were
under a competent leader, who happened to be Griff Perrick. He was moving his
men like pawns, with a precision that would have been admirable had the motive
been an honest one.
Four men with guns, holding as many victims helpless, meant that any
average attempt at rescue would produce the sacrifice of human life. Four
others, on their way to gather in the swag, promised that the job would be both
speedy and efficient.
It was a situation that showed strength, not weakness, and the strongest
figure in the picture was Griff, the masked leader of the criminal mob.
Strength, itself, could be weakness.
Such was The Shadow's quick decision as he eyed Griff's actions.
Originally, Griff had held a leveled gun. It was lowered, at present, because
Griff had detailed four men to hold the victims in abeyance. Thus, for the
moment, Griff belonged to the four who were hustling forward to scoop up the
cash; but he decided, on second thought, that he didn't belong with that group,
either.
Three men could gather in the profits, easily enough. It was better that
Griff should maintain his importance as the leader of this raid. With that
intention, Griff paused a few paces ahead of the gunners and gruffed orders to
the money takers.
His gun was up again; he was using it to gesture toward the cash, while he
suggested, in a voice that he purposely disguised, the ways and means of
carrying cash with greatest ease.
Griff's actions discommoded the gunners behind him. They shifted, to keep
their victims covered without having Griff in the way. Noting the stir, Griff
side-stepped. His shift carried him closer to The Shadow's door. With that,
Griff made himself the weak member of his tribe.
Whatever concerned Griff would concern the others. Should he yield to an
eccentric impulse, it would grip his followers as well. They looked to Griff
for orders, for he had trained them to do so, and he wouldn't have to give
those orders verbally. Griff's actions were as important as his words, and
thereupon did The Shadow's strategy depend.
Pressing his gun muzzle through the crack of the door, The Shadow inched
the barrier inward. His lips, close to the crack, began a whispered laugh, so
low that Griff did not hear it at first. But the laugh, creeping upward in
volume, was so designed that when it was heard, Griff's ears would catch it
ahead of others.
Weird, sinister, the taunt came to Griff like an echo from the past. He
forgot the crime in progress as he tried to locate the sound. His eyes, through
the slits of the handkerchief mask, were darting as they scanned the door.
Purposely, The Shadow let Griff see the inching motion; then the crime
leader's gaze centered on the muzzle of the automatic. It bored his way, that
gun, and the sight of a leveled .45 was too much, even for Griff Perrick.
With a sharp gasp, Griff let his hands ease upward, though he didn't drop
his own gun. His dilemma was real. In a sense, The Shadow was snatching crime's
leader right from amid his followers. For the loom of the automatic, the burn of
the eye that Griff could see above it, spelled coming death to Griff Perrick.
Like a bird hypnotized by a snake, Griff was rigid. Usually, the bird
would wait while the snake approached it; but Griff, appropriately, found the
snake's action assigned to himself. Slowly, he was moving toward the door,
recognizing that if he did not go there, bullets would remind him that he
should have.
It didn't occur to him that The Shadow could not well afford shots at this
moment. Griff's death would only drive his comrades berserk, causing them to
shoot down the victims whose lives The Shadow expressly wished to save.
Once in The Shadow's power, Griff would have to voice the orders that his
cloaked captor commanded. Then, perhaps, Griff would recognize his own folly,
too late. But The Shadow was taking a long chance in seeking such complete
triumph. He didn't expect to win out against such odds. It was worth a try;
that was all.
THE break came when one of the gunners looked toward Griff, wondering why
the leader had stopped giving orders. Seeing The Shadow beyond Griff's
shoulder, the crook gave a cry that brought the others full about. The spell
was broken, particularly for Griff.
Imbued with the belief that The Shadow was operating on a hair-trigger
basis, Griff expected immediate shots. Madly, Griff made a dive for safety.
The Shadow's gun did blast, but not at Griff. The cloaked marksman aimed
for the four gunners; flinging the door open as he fired, The Shadow lunged
straight for them.
Instinctively, they dodged while their guns were spurting, and their
hasty, self-jarred shots were wide. One man went sprawling, as an example to
the others, but the crooks still insisted on firing at The Shadow.
Actually, they fired at where The Shadow had been. That lunge of his was
tricky. It turned into a twist as rapid as Griff's dive, but not the sort
whereby The Shadow could lose his footing.
One instant he was a target; the next, he was nowhere. Mobsters heard the
resounding rise of his challenging laugh; wheeled to see him driving in again
from a corner where they couldn't believe he had gone.
Again, The Shadow's gun preceded the blast of others. He was gone, with
another crook falling under his fire. This time he was fading in Griff's
direction, and he took a passing swing at the leader of the masked mob. Griff
felt the glancing effects of the blow and came around, wondering where The
Shadow was.
It was all very swift, and it would have proven very sure, had the
packing-house clerks done as The Shadow wanted. It wouldn't have taken much
bravery for them to grab the three startled thugs who were interested only in
the money. Four to three, the clerks could have deprived those hoodlums of guns
and aided The Shadow with a prompt fire.
All the clerks needed was a little bravery. It happened that they had a
lot.
Instead of taking the money grabbers, they went after the gunners. Two of
that tribe were gone, but Griff had made up for one. Thus two of the clerks
each had a man, and the other two had Griff, who was the sort that really
needed a pair to handle him. Springing to the attack, the clerks were quick
enough to grab their foemen, but with such valor, they nullified The Shadow's
aid.
The Shadow was left without the very targets he wanted. He had to swing to
a new corner and take aim at the three thugs who were bundling the currency.
They weren't stooges, those fellows; they were gunners, too, and proved
it. Clutching the piles of cash with one hand, they were bringing out guns with
the other, aiming on the draw.
Three sharpshooters with a single target: The Shadow!
The dive The Shadow took was followed by the stabs of guns. A long dive,
and a hard one, through the door that he had flung open less than a minute
before. Crooks thought that they had clipped him and gave a triumphant shout
that inspired Griff Perrick.
Shaking himself from the two clerks who gripped him, Griff dashed for the
far door, roaring for the rest to come along. The other pair broke loose along
with Griff.
Leaving two wounded men upon the floor, Griff and the rest fled, bundles
of currency dropping behind them. No time to stop and gather up the lost cash.
Griff, at least, had sense enough to know that The Shadow could have dived
ahead of the barrage that came his way. In addition, Griff could hear the shouts
of guards from the front of the packing house. Armed men would be coming through
in half a minute.
The Shadow needed less than half a minute.
Like a bolt of blackness, he was coming through the office before the
amazed clerks could put their wits together. He was gone, on the trail of Griff
and the masked mobbies, when guards poured into the office.
Two wounded crooks, propped on their elbows, tried to stop the newcomers
with shots. Instead, they received a deluge of bullets that felled them
permanently. When The Shadow crippled crooks, he did it well enough to slow
down their future fighting ability.
Through a steel door, The Shadow reached the loading platform beside the
railway siding. A door that still was steel around the edges, though its center
looked as though rats had gnawed it. Another evidence of Professor Englemere's
Vapor Gun, but the secret weapon, itself, was not in sight. Crooks had put it
into the box car in front of the shifting engine.
The whole game was plain. Griff and his crew had arrived in one of the
empties brought in by the shifting engine. In flight, however, they were
choosing the odd car that the shifter had pushed ahead of it when it came
beside the loading platform.
Having waited until the engine crew left, the thugs had used their Vapor
Gun to cut through the steel door leading to the office. Nor had they neglected
the matter of a getaway.
Steam was up in the shifting engine, and two men were manning it. As The
Shadow sprang for the cab, one crook lunged out to meet him, hoping that the
other would back him with gunfire.
The Shadow prevented that assistance by wheeling his antagonist between
himself and the engine cab. The man in the cab promptly neglected his pal and
pulled the throttle wide.
Under the control of the amateur engineer, the shifter hopped ahead,
shoving a crook-laden car ahead of it, dragging three empties behind. As the
box cars clattered by, The Shadow struggled with a foeman gone mad.
Left to his fate, the odd member of Griff's band was desperate enough to
hold off The Shadow until pursuit would fail. The fellow didn't realize that he
was aiding the very men who had abandoned him.
The Shadow didn't intend to give up the chase. He settled his enemy
neatly. Instead of grabbing for the thug's throat, he gripped the handkerchief
mask and twisted it. Blinded as the solid cloth replaced the eye slits, the
mobster couldn't avoid the swinging blow of The Shadow's gun.
As his opponent settled limply, The Shadow turned and dashed along the
loading platform. Grabbing the ladder of the final box car, he clung to it and
rode away.
The guards arrived too late to copy The Shadow's example. They heard a
hoarse cry from the half-stunned thug, as he came to hands and knees and
stupidly tried to aim at them. His mask was off, but he could hardly see to
fire. Half a dozen guns spurted in his direction, withering him like the pair
who had fallen on the office floor.
From his perch on the rear of the rapidly-moving freight car, The Shadow
saw that sequel and knew that the guards had disposed of the last man who might
give evidence against the crooks who were making their escape.
Grimly, The Shadow laughed.
Again, he was confronted with a task that he must handle single-handed:
that of dealing with a thuggish band that he, alone, was in a position to
handle. For mobsters, in their getaway on board the stolen freight train, were
unwittingly carrying The Shadow as their passenger!
CHAPTER VIII
DOUBLE DEPARTURE
THE freight was out on the main track, thanks to a switch that was set the
way crooks wanted it. They must have dropped an odd man beforehand, to attend to
it. Whether he had sneaked away, or boarded the first car as it passed, The
Shadow did not care.
His job was to stop this roaring juggernaut that was carrying men of crime
to safety, and he set his mind upon that single task. Unless The Shadow stopped
them, no one else would. With nothing but empties to carry, and few of them, at
that, the shifting engine was showing some fancy speed, enough to thwart
pursuers who might come along the highway.
The Shadow knew the route of this branch-line railway. He had crossed it
often enough during his tours of the countryside. Ten miles from Center City,
at a place called Marsh Transfer, the branch line crossed a river. The highway
didn't do the same, for the simple reason that its new bridge hadn't been
completed. If the freight reached the river first, pursuers in cars wouldn't
have a chance to overtake it.
Climbing the ladder to the top of the box car, The Shadow started forward.
The short train was snaking along in a most annoying fashion. It was like an
alligator trying to shake off a captor, and The Shadow found it a slow process,
getting from car to car.
For no good reason, the branch line had a lot of curves, and when it did
take the straight way it dipped down into little depressions and over humps
that nearly jounced the cars from the track.
It was a long trek reaching the tender, and one of the wildest rides The
Shadow had ever experienced. Smoke pouring back from the straining locomotive
added to the hazards of the forward journey. The train was acting as though it
intended to cover ten miles before The Shadow could make his way along three
cars, but he won the race by a considerable margin.
Out of the black smoke that wreathed the front end of a box car, The
Shadow emerged like a solid chunk of inky cloud and landed with a leap upon the
coal that filled the tender. From there, he began a crawling trip to the engine
cab.
The Shadow could see the crook at the throttle. The fellow had tossed away
his handkerchief mask, but his face was turned in the other direction. Half a
minute more and The Shadow would be taking over the throttle himself.
Living blackness was stalking the thug in the cab. Blackness that seemed
to grow as it emerged from the pile of coal. The engine was swaying crazily,
with the crook at the throttle rolling, too. He'd roll right into The Shadow's
clutch, if he wasn't careful.
The mobster wasn't careful; he was lucky. He happened to turn as The
Shadow neared him, and the glow from the firebox revealed the Nemesis in black.
Hurling himself about, the fellow jabbed a revolver in The Shadow's direction
and tugged the trigger madly.
Above the clatter of the swaying locomotive, the frantic marksman heard
the answer of a strident laugh. No one could hope to clip The Shadow against a
background of black such as that provided by the coal tender. Each jerk of the
cab gave away the direction of the crook's aim, and The Shadow was coolly
dodging it.
Instead of responding with his own gun, he let his enemy exhaust his
bullets; then, with a surprising lunge, timed to a bouncing roll of the engine,
The Shadow landed squarely on his foe.
It was another grapple, and The Shadow made it a brief one. Half through
the window of the cab, with his opponent underneath, The Shadow could see the
glisten of the river far ahead, with a black line indicating the bridge. His
foeman saw it, too, and made a frantic effort. He couldn't find the throttle;
he gripped the brake lever, instead.
It was The Shadow who handled the throttle, chopping down the speed as the
brakes were applied. He was seeing to it that the fugitives in the box car just
ahead would never cross the river bridge.
They were going places, though, in their own way. As the shifting engine
jarred along the track, shivering itself to a stop that threatened to derail
it, the front car took a forward spurt. Crooks had loosed the coupling, giving
themselves a shunt.
Odd, that they should have foreseen that the engine was about to stop. It
gave The Shadow a new interpretation of his opponent's handling of the brake.
For some reason, the thug had deliberately tried to halt the locomotive.
He wasn't groggy, as his action had previously indicated. There was fight in
the fellow, plenty of it, as he demonstrated. He was grabbing for The Shadow's
throat, and the motion of the engine sent both fighters reeling to the rear of
the cab.
Then a sideward lurch was carrying them out through the space between the
cab and the tender, the crook doing his utmost to drag The Shadow to disaster.
THE SHADOW didn't try to halt it. Flung from the train, two figures spun
in air and landed hard beside the track, while freight cars gritted by. It was
a headfirst spin, with The Shadow landing topmost.
He heard a crunch as they struck; it came from just beneath him. It wasn't
a pleasant sound, that of a man's neck breaking under a telescoping jolt that
pushed his head hard between his shoulders.
One more member of an outlaw crew had met with sudden death, and this
fellow's end was of his own making. It was simply a sample of what the rest
deserved, for they were murderers by trade.
Rising from beside the body of his late antagonist, The Shadow hurried
along the track to reach the stalled engine, which was stopped a few hundred
feet ahead.
Above the panting of the engine, The Shadow heard the clatter of the
uncoupled box car that was rolling on ahead. The flooding light of the
locomotive showed the car as it swung a curve toward the bridge. It had to pass
a small station, on the near side, a freight stop that represented Marsh
Transfer. After that, it would be on the bridge, with just about enough speed
to carry it across.
Springing into the shifter's cab, The Shadow gave it the throttle. Wheels
took a quick spin on the rails, and the sturdy little locomotive was on its way
again, little burdened by the empties that trailed it. But The Shadow had hardly
gotten up speed before a new surprise occurred ahead.
The box car wasn't going to cross the bridge!
Men were atop it, braking it, and with its slackening pace, the car jerked
wildly to one side before it reached the dilapidated freight station. It was
taking to a siding, and another crook, awaiting its arrival, was flinging the
switch to keep the pursuing locomotive on the main track.
Moreover, mobsters knew that The Shadow was after them. The switchman
didn't wait when his work was done. He dashed after the rolling box car, which
was oddly disappearing from sight down a slope to the river's edge.
Two answers flashed to The Shadow.
He knew why this station was named Marsh Transfer. It had a siding where
cars could be shunted down to the river bank so their freight might be
transferred to little cargo steamers that plied the waterway.
As for guessing that The Shadow had taken over the shifting engine, the
crooks didn't have to think long over that one. Their own man wouldn't have
started the engine until receiving a signal that the track was clear.
Only one plan remained for The Shadow. He gave the shifter all it had. He
was tearing past the station, and he saw the box car down on the lower level of
the siding. It was jammed against a bumper, and half tilted from the rails. The
crooks were out of it, putting, something into a low-built speedboat. From the
cab window, The Shadow opened fire; but it was useless.
The thugs heard the engine coming and ducked as their craft spurted out
from shore. Still The Shadow kept up fire, for he had reached the bridge itself
and was keeping parallel to the boat, which was trapped, temporarily.
It was between the railway pilings and the new bridge that would some day
serve the highway. It couldn't get out of that groove until it reached the main
channel, where each bridge had a draw. The boat was low enough, however, to skim
beneath the wide space under a draw without the latter being opened.
His bullets ricocheting from the water like skimming pebbles, The Shadow
was trying to find the gas tank of the speedboat. In their turn, crooks were
shooting back, but they weren't poking into sight to take good aim. They had
tasted too much of The Shadow's marksmanship, hence they were simply picking
the locomotive as a target.
Bullets smashed harmlessly against the steel plates of the engine, none
coming anywhere near the cab. Then, as the chase reached midstream, the
speedboat swerved the other way and scooted beneath the draw of the highway
bridge, while the locomotive necessarily kept to its steel path.
TAKING a last glance back, The Shadow saw the rakish craft whiz to safety
around the river bend. In the same gaze, he saw cars pulling up at the Marsh
Transfer end of the highway bridge.
Guards from the packing house were on the trail, though temporarily
halted. It was hardly likely that they had spied the departing speedboat.
Hence, they would suppose that crooks were still in control of the fleeing
freight train.
They'd either get their cars across by the railway bridge, or phone ahead
to intercept the runaway freight. To defeat the first step, The Shadow had to
keep ahead; to frustrate the second, he would have to use good judgment about
how far he went. Explaining his own part wouldn't be easy, should he be
overtaken, or stopped.
Foreseeing those possibilities, The Shadow was quite sure that he could
avoid them.
It was a case of double departure. Crooks had gone one way; The Shadow
another. The unfortunate part was that The Shadow had to lead the law on the
wrong trail. It wouldn't matter in the final run, however, since mobsters had
definitely managed a getaway. Later, The Shadow could tip off the law regarding
the real state of things.
His real disappointment was the fact that his enemies had slipped him; but
that could be rectified, too. Having partly succeeded in crime, despite The
Shadow, they would try again. They'd lay their plans more carefully next time,
to avoid another meeting with The Shadow.
Therein, they would fail. Tonight's encounter could not be ascribed to
luck, no matter how much crooks might argue themselves into so believing.
Having picked the spot where crime was due, The Shadow could do it again.
Anywhere that crooks might try new deeds of evil, their black-cloaked
opponent would somehow find a way to be on hand, for he had thoroughly analyzed
the opportunities that would appeal to criminal minds.
The greater crime's present success, the larger its future surprise. The
Shadow knew!
CHAPTER IX
IN TWO CAMPS
FOR three days, Griff Perrick had been boasting about the success of his
thirty-thousand-dollar pay-roll robbery, tactfully avoiding mention of the fact
that it would have been closer to forty thousand if his men hadn't been forced
to drop large batches of the stolen currency.
Griff was trying to keep his followers in good spirits, and he didn't find
it easy. They were back on the old routine as keepers in a monkey house, but
every time they started counting noses - their own, not those of the apes -
they recalled that four were missing. It wasn't a pleasant thought; it brought
up recollections of The Shadow.
At least, the crooks were still secure, their hide-out unsuspected. Griff
brought back that news when he made lone trips to a neighboring town, where he
was known as the chief keeper in the employ of eccentric old Professor
Englemere.
Time and again, Griff assured his pals that they had nothing to worry
about. They had lost four men in battle, but none were able to blab.
The only flaw in such comment was its tendency to make the monkey keepers
apprehensive over their own futures; but matters changed when new recruits
rolled into camp. Three arrived, all hand-picked men that Griff had summoned to
replace the dead members of the band. The newcomers were highly enthusiastic
when they saw the set-up.
They gazed admiringly at the rows of monkey cages, and even liked the
looks of the occupants. Cissie, Loco, and a dozen other assorted apes were all
very tame and helpful. Gabby Tarcot, now a veteran, grinned when he saw the
amazement on the faces of the rookies. Griff and the "keepers" put the monks
through their paces for the benefit of the newcomers.
Professor Englemere had trained the apes to answer the door, serve meals,
and perform other useful stunts. Griff and the mobbies had carried it still
further, showing their charges how to wash dishes, sweep up the place, and do
all sorts of other work. The Ape Lab was on a self-operating basis. The main
trouble was inducing the helpful monkeys to stay in their cages at inspection
time.
Despite his interests in other matters, Professor Englemere was a stickler
for regulations, where the monkeys were concerned. It was inspection time and
Griff had just managed to get the apes where they belonged, when Englemere
arrived.
In very impersonal style, the professor studied the keepers, saw that
their uniforms were tidy. He made the rounds of the cages, shaking hands with
his friends, the apes, and finally turned to Griff.
"Very good," approved Englemere. Then, in a sterner tone: "Didn't you tell
me that four of the keepers had quit?"
Griff nodded. Englemere grunted through his beard.
"Evidently they found the work too hard," he said. "I hope we have no more
objections on that score."
He looked along the line of keepers, and they kept sober faces. They
relished Englemere's humor, for the work of looking after the trained apes was
certainly anything but taxing. At the same time, they saw a deeper meaning to
the remark. Where other work was concerned, that of crime, the men in question
had certainly found it hard. So hard, that they hadn't survived it.
"I've replaced three of the men, professor," reminded Griff. "I introduced
them to you when they arrived, but you were busy working on your new Vapor Gun."
"Ah, yes," recalled Englemere.
"And the fourth?"
"He should arrive any time. His name is Kedly. We call him Dunk because he
likes to soak doughnuts in his coffee."
"Have him avoid that habit. He might teach the apes bad manners."
With that sally, Englemere strode back to his workshop to resume labor on
his oversized Vapor Gun. Griff used the professor's visit as a wedge to give
his men new spirit.
"A great guy, the professor," Griff told them. "Has a swell sense of
humor. Kids you sometimes when you don't know it. You've got to watch his eyes
and catch their twinkle. You can't see when he grins, because his beard hides
it.
"Anyway, he isn't worried. He's leaving it all up to me and you fellows.
He's busy with that new Vapor Gun of his, so he's letting us use the old one.
What more could you ask? I know" - Griff raised his hand before questions came
- "you'd like to dodge The Shadow. Well, we'll manage that, next trip."
To emphasize the matter of security, Griff turned to the three new mobsmen.
"You fellows didn't have any trouble getting into Jacksonville?"
"Naw," replied one. "The coppers ain't checking on guys coming into Jax.
They're watching the dopes who are trying to go north. We're telling you,
Griff, this hide-away is perfect! The bulls won't get within fifty miles of it!"
WHAT the recruit told Griff was correct. Though the law now recognized
that crooks were hiding out in Florida, the search was going to remote places,
into the heart of hammock lands and cypress swamps among the myriad keys that
formed tiny islets along the Gulf Coast.
To The Shadow, registered as Lamont Cranston at a Jacksonville hotel, the
law's hunt approximated folly. He had done his best to set the searchers
straight. They'd gone wrong, first, after finding the train when The Shadow
deserted it. He had run it to a crossover of another railroad, used an old
switch to transfer it from one branch line to the other.
There were two main railroads in Florida, and finding a train from one on
the tracks of another was something of a mystery. One that The Shadow cleared
with a telephone tip-off, stating that crooks had really fled by water.
After that, the authorities should have laid out the most likely area
where crooks might be found. Instead, they had insisted on a wild-goose hunt
that would eventually lead them into the Everglades. It was up to The Shadow to
map out the proper method of search, and he was doing it.
On his table lay a map of Florida, many of its highways studded with
colored pins. He was picking the places where fugitives would have been cut
off, had they come along after either of the crimes they perpetrated. Consensus
was that the criminals had slipped the cordon on both occasions. The Shadow
deemed otherwise.
Reaching for a telephone, he called another room in the hotel and spoke to
one of his secret agents, a man named Harry Vincent. Briefly, The Shadow checked
the area, which he wanted searched as the likely place where the hide-out would
be. It was a rather large order, covering a rough circle some fifty miles
across.
But it happened that The Shadow's circle included the Anthropological
Laboratory. He, at least, was getting within fifty miles of the place where
mobsmen actually were.
Finished with his phone call, The Shadow checked the local newspapers.
They contained the names of the four men eliminated during the raid on the
packing house. All those crooks had been identified as former mobbies, who
would certainly have needed a hide-out. They came from different cities, had
many friends.
So The Shadow opened a package, newly arrived, and spread out cards that
bore large printed dots. Using a microscope, he enlarged the dots and they
became pictures of men's faces. These belonged to The Shadow's private rogues'
gallery, which he kept in microphotographic form for convenience sake.
The pictures had come from New York, the proper data with them. Soon, The
Shadow was checking on friends of the dead crooks, and - quite as important -
he was noting friends of their friends. Among these, The Shadow discovered the
name and picture of Gabby Tarcot.
He'd heard of Gabby as a criminal who "got around." In checking on Gabby,
The Shadow uncovered another name: Blink Halley. He found the fellow's
photograph, enlarged it, and saw a face that looked familiar. What was more,
The Shadow remembered where he had last seen Blink: at the Citrite factory.
Reaching for the telephone, The Shadow paused. No use to call the Citrite
plant. That case was closed. They'd put in a new crew of watchmen, and the rest
had scattered for parts unknown. At most, Blink couldn't have been any more than
an inside man, who wouldn't know where the invading crooks came from.
Any questioning of others formerly employed at the Citrite factory would
be useless. The real point was that Gabby might be among the criminals who
operated from some unusual headquarters where was kept a remarkable secret
weapon.
Gabby could therefore prove important, for The Shadow was of the opinion
that depleted numbers would mean new hirelings, and Gabby was the sort who
could provide them. Writing a brief note, The Shadow addressed it to Cliff
Marsland, another of his agents, in New York.
Cliff knew the badlands, and was reputed to be a very tough customer
himself. The Shadow was instructing him to look up Gabby's closest associates
and learn what they had heard from their talkative friend.
THE SHADOW'S own plans came next.
They involved the places where crime might strike. The Center City packing
house had been an almost obvious choice, but there were no others that offered a
similar target for robbery. It was more likely that crooks would try a bank job,
in a locality where money was plentiful.
The Shadow promptly rejected such cities as Miami and Tampa. Those places
were well policed, their banks heavily protected. One was on the Atlantic
coast, the other on the Gulf, which limited the directions in which criminals
might flee.
Moreover, those cities were remote from the area which The Shadow had
picked as containing crime's headquarters. Working his pencil outward from the
circle, The Shadow underscored towns of smaller size, that most persons would
have rejected. But The Shadow knew the wealth that each small city represented.
Some were tourist towns; others were where the citrus growers banked their
funds, plentifully at this season; while one represented a cattle center that
often teemed with cash. Those were the cities where The Shadow intended to go
and study the situation exactly as if he, instead of men of opposite ilk, were
calculating upon performing crime.
Already, The Shadow knew the places in question. His survey would be
rapid, straight to the point, based on data which would be the sort that his
enemies, too, could obtain.
If all went well, crime in the making would come to an abrupt finish, with
The Shadow's hand turning the balance against the cause of evil!
CHAPTER X
THE MONKEY BUSINESS
TWO days more, and Griff Perrick was the person who felt annoyed. The
other human inhabitants of the Ape Lab had laid aside their qualms, but Griff
had reasons for concern.
Dunk Kedly was overdue, and Griff couldn't move until he arrived. Even
worse, Dunk knew how to get to the headquarters, and it wouldn't be good at
all, should he be stopped en route as a suspicious character.
Gabby Tarcot knew what troubled Griff, and Gabby gloated. He found his
chance to buttonhole Griff and talk to him alone. That was, they were alone
except for the apes about them. The meeting took place in a courtyard where
three monkeys were whitewashing the walls, thus saving the keepers the trouble.
"So you were worried about Blink," chuckled Gabby, opening the parley.
"Afraid I couldn't get the right guys for you. Well, Blink went through with
what you wanted, didn't he?"
Griff gave a curt nod.
"Then, when you wanted some new torpedoes," continued Gabby, "why didn't
you come to me? I'll get them for you, Griff, and they won't be false alarms
like this guy Dunk Kedly."
"I've got to change the system," returned Griff in a worried tone. "No
more telling guys how to get here, until we know they're in Jacksonville, or
even closer. Dunk is driving down from Chicago, but he ought to be here by this
time."
"And if he don't show up?"
"I don't know what then, Gabby. I'll tell you this, however. Next time I
need replacements, I'll get them through you."
The monkeys were beginning to dab each other with whitewash. Griff gave an
odd clucking sound that stopped them. Gabby had heard that cluck before, a
signal which Professor Englemere had instituted. No matter what mischief the
apes began, they ended it when they heard the sound.
"If those monks plaster each other," Griff growled, "it would take as long
to clean them up as to whitewash the court ourselves. All right, boys" - he
waved his hand - "get back to work."
The apes complied, pausing only when another of their kind came ambling
across the courtyard, bound upon some mission. Griff gave a pleased exclamation.
"It's Cissie! She's heard the doorbell! Come on, Gabby. Maybe Dunk is
here."
Griff started away eagerly. Gabby paused long enough to try a cluck on the
apes. They immediately stopped their work with the whitewash brushes. Gabby
waved; they began the task again. Smiling at the simplicity of the thing, Gabby
hurried after Griff.
The arrival proved to be Dunk Kedly. He was a rangy chap, who didn't look
too much the criminal type, though his eyes had an ugly glower when Griff
demanded an explanation for his late arrival.
"So what?" snorted Dunk. "I came through Lake City, instead of Jax, that's
all. Finding this dump was no cinch, coming from the other direction. I took the
wrong road."
"But you didn't meet up with coppers?"
"I saw some," replied Dunk, "but they didn't stop me. Up the line, I
pulled into the wrong place, thinking I'd gotten here. There was a guy there -"
"You didn't tell him who you were looking for?"
"Of course not!" Dunk was annoyed by Griff's interruption. "I said I was
trying to find the monkey joint, so he steered me here.
"Say" - Dunk took a look at Cissie - "this monkey business is the real
stuff, after all!"
Griff decided to show Dunk how real it was. He took the new man all over
the premises, showing him the apes that were whitewashing; others, weeding
flowerbeds; finally, a group that were digging a drainage ditch under
supervision of keeper.
"The monks do the real work here," informed Griff. "Only, the real boss is
the Prof. I'm taking you in to see him, Dunk, but don't mention what you've
seen. He's playing ball one hundred percent. In the racket himself, and likes
it! But he'd tear out half his whiskers if he knew his pets were doing all the
heavy work. It's little points like those that bother Englemere."
SOON after introducing Dunk to the professor, Griff summoned all the
keepers. He had them bring in the apes and put them in their cages, though it
wasn't inspection time.
Among the anthropoid arrivals was Tongo, which was quite unusual, since
the huge gorilla was generally the professor's own companion. Tongo seemed
glad, however, to be back with the other apes. He hopped into a cage at Griff's
order.
A strange scene followed. Seated on stools and benches, twelve men who
represented human scum listened to the words of Griff Perrick. All the while,
from a row of barred cages, a gallery of anthropoids were drinking in the
scene. A witness to that ceremony would soon have preferred the tender mercies
of gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees to those of the human delegation.
Apes at their best, and men at their worst, made it seem as though the
problem of the missing link had been solved. But neither Griff nor his
associates - nor for that matter, the monkeys - were in any mood to speculate
upon such questions.
"I'd counted on Englemere being with us," declared Griff, with as much
regret as he could put into his raspy voice. "But he's busy; as usual, with
that new machine of his. He couldn't even be bothered with Tongo, so you know
how deep he's gone."
Crooks nodded. They'd discussed the Englemere question. Feeling that the
professor had fully identified himself with crime during the Citrite raid, they
were just as pleased to learn that he was busy, with his new invention. They
preferred Griff as their active leader, despite the near failure at the citrus
fruit packing house.
"You know how fussy the prof is," continued Griff. "He wants the place
kept spick and span. It means a lot of work -"
"Easy enough," inserted Gabby, "with the monkeys doing the mean jobs for
us."
Griff didn't like the interruption. He glared at Gabby, then eased his
expression, remembering that he was counting upon the fellow to produce new
keepers should they be needed.
"I'm coming to the point," assured Griff. "It's this. We're starting on
another job, most of us, and we could leave the regular work to the monkeys.
But this time, we've got to take a few of them along, too."
Crooks shrugged at first, until Griff amplified the problem. Some of the
apes were more needed in the place than keepers.
"There's Cissie, for instance," Griff said. "If the prof saw another chimp
answering the door, he'd wonder where Cissie was. His nibs is always asking me
what funny things Loco has been doing, and since I won't be here to tell him,
he may want to see Loco instead. We can't take old Gray Puss, either, because
he always carries Englemere's meals into the study."
One by one, Griff narrowed down the matter of the monkeys, until he
remembered Boola, the one misfit in the aggregation. Boola, happened to be a
baboon, which type didn't belong to the simian classification the professor
studied.
Englemere kept the baboon around to prove that the other types of apes
were smarter. Every new trick that the others learned was eventually shown to
Boola, who generally couldn't copy it.
The crooked keepers had a slogan: "Try it on Dog-face." They used it to
refer to any stunt too simple for the other apes to bother about. Boola, the
baboon, had a distinctly canine profile; hence his nickname, Dog-face.
Griff decided that Boola could go along, but he needed some brighter
monkeys, too. One of the keepers reminded him that a pair of gibbons had
climbed into an oak tree and were building a house there. Englemere had said
not to disturb them, but the gibbons were about finished with their job. They
could certainly be taken along without the professor knowing it.
Agreeing, Griff had another idea.
"I'll tell him that Tongo went and climbed a tree, too," Griff decided.
"That will please him, because he thinks that Tongo is getting too soft. Four
monks! That's great! Roll out a couple of trailers while we're coaxing those
gibbons down from their limb."
IT wasn't difficult to coax the gibbons from the tree, but they didn't
want to come farther. They were sizable apes, and threatened battle, until
Tongo, an interested spectator, sided with the keepers. The huge gorilla took a
gibbon under each arm and flung them into the rear of a trailer when Griff
opened the door.
Of his own accord, Tongo entered the other trailer, and wasn't annoyed
when Boola was shoved in with him. The gorilla simply regarded the baboon as
dumb. In his turn, Boola did have sense enough to try no pranks with Tongo, so
the two made good traveling companions.
The trailers were hitched to two old cars, and Griff took two men with him
in one, telling Gabby to bring two in the other. Gabby promptly spoke a piece
for the benefit of the other crooks.
"Say, Griff!" he exclaimed. "It's daylight - or don't you know? What if
the coppers stop us?"
"If they do," chuckled Griff, "I'll talk to them."
"About what?"
"About those cages." Griff gestured to the trailers, which had open sides,
with bars. "I'll let them see what's in them."
More than daylight dawned on Gabby.
"You mean you're using the apes as a front, Griff?"
"That's it," Griff replied. "We're in the monkey business. Get it? In it
in a big way. So big, we'll make monkeys out of the coppers, before we're
through with them!"
Griff started his car, and Gabby climbed behind the wheel of the other.
The two-car caravan rolled out through the sand road, to the highway, in the
full flood of the Florida noon. In the back of one car was the Vapor Gun, the
light model that Englemere had turned over to Griff. Even if police saw it,
they wouldn't know what it was.
Boldly, crooks were starting on a new expedition, ready to dare discovery
by the law despite the daylight. If they so succeeded - as Griff was sure they
would - no one, it seemed, would have a chance to detect their later actions,
after dark.
No one, not even The Shadow!
CHAPTER XI
FROM THE SKY
FIFTEEN miles from the Ape Lab, the two cars encountered the very
situation that Griff Perrick felt would imbue his followers with confidence,
once the strain of it had passed. The road was blocked and officious State
troopers, wearing Rough Rider hats, were questioning all cars that came along.
Griff doubted that this proximity to the Ape Lab meant that the State
police had any clue to crime's headquarters. The cars were on a through
highway, and there was heavy traffic from a crossroad. This was a likely place
where police would stop all cars that came along, for a routine quiz.
It meant, in substance, that the law's quest was petering out. Cypress
swamps and similar refuges hadn't yielded any discoveries. Evidently the police
were hoping that criminals were still on the rove, dodging here and there
throughout the State. They were looking for men who showed signs of sleepless
nights and the ill-kept attire of roadside campers.
Griff's tribe didn't fit the description. They were well dressed and
alert, even though they didn't climb out of their cars to chat with the
troopers. They left that to Griff, and he explained their presence on the road
by taking the troopers to the cage trailers and showing them the apes.
Some of the State cops did observe that Griff's hired hands were
hard-faced gentry, but that didn't need explaining after the police saw Tongo.
Griff remarked that one of his men was a trainer, the rest keepers. They'd have
to be hard-boiled, those keepers, to control Tongo. One of the troopers
suggested it, and Grief nodded, only to add:
"Tongo is gentle enough when you know him. I'll have the trainer show you."
The "trainer" was Gabby. He came from his car, and looked wise while Griff
opened the door of Tongo's cage. Boola started to come out, but Tongo, knowing
he was wanted, flung the baboon back to a corner. Then, catching a slight
oration from Griff, Tongo reached out and lightly clapped his great hands on
the shoulders of two State policemen.
Nearly collapsing under Tongo's idea of a light gesture, the troopers were
brought to their feet again by Tongo's powerful clutch. Their comrades laughed,
but then began to get worried, so Griff nodded to Gabby. The fake trainer gave
the clucking sound that restrained the ape, and Tongo let go of his new friends
so suddenly that they sprawled in the highway.
"Doesn't know his own strength," remarked Griff, referring to Tongo, "but
he has the spirit of a little kitten. As for these two" - he pointed to the
pair of gibbons - "they're liable to get quarrelsome."
Gabby was waving Tongo back into the cage, and Griff was getting ready to
lock it. One of the troopers asked where the caravan was from, and Griff dodged
the question by pretending to hear it wrongly.
"We're taking them to Sarasota," informed Griff. "I won't sell them to the
circus, though, unless they give the boys some jobs. Ought to be plenty, there
at winter quarters."
"And if you don't sell them?" came the query.
"We'll cut over to the East coast and try the jungle gardens. They have
lots of monkeys around those places. Only, they'll have to pay plenty for these
specimens, if they can't give us jobs, too. I've been in the menagerie business
for years, and I always take as good care of my men as I do my animals."
The troopers had nothing more to ask. Certainly no men concerned in crime
would be burdening themselves with a tribe of monkeys. Tongo looked big enough
and strong enough to be the secret weapon that had crashed through steel gates
at the Citrite factory and the Center City packing house, but no one had seen a
gorilla on those occasions.
More cars were coming along the highway, so the troopers waved the caravan
on its way.
Among the arriving cars was a new coupe driven by a keen-eyed young man
who had his license card ready the moment a State Policeman approached. The
card told his name: Harry Vincent. He was the agent that The Shadow had
appointed to cover this particular area.
One look at Harry convinced the State patrolman that no questions were
necessary, so Harry asked one instead.
"Was I seeing things, or was that a gorilla hopping back into the trailer
that just left?"
The trooper laughed.
"It was a gorilla," he laughed. "On its way to Sarasota, with some more
monkeys, to join up with the circus."
Harry's own conclusion promptly coincided with that of the State police.
Unfortunately, he had been too distant to identify the men with the gorilla. He
would certainly have recognized Gabby, for Harry had a copy of the fellow's
picture.
As it was, Harry did not regard the monkey trailers as important enough to
mention in a special report to The Shadow. Animals on their way to the winter
quarters of the circus were just about the same as oranges going North by truck.
LUCK had served Griff Perrick well. During the next few hours, he was
chuckling how he had outsmarted the State police, and Gabby was echoing the
same sentiments to the thugs in the other car.
Neither realized how close to discovery they had come. Had Harry arrived a
few minutes sooner, word of crime's move would be flashing to The Shadow.
Mobsters were lucky, too, in that they were clearing from their own area
and wouldn't run into Harry while he continued his search. Oddly, however, the
only thing that gave them qualms was the fact that Griff was taking them so far
afield.
The two cars covered more than a hundred miles, much of the distance in a
southerly direction, before Griff finally revealed their actual destination.
Taking a side road, he pointed to the hangar of an airport beyond a batch of
pine trees.
"The Lakedale airport," said Griff. "A lot of student planes use it.
There's a couple now."
Two tiny planes were circling low beyond the trees. Griff promptly forgot
them.
"They need a new bank in Lakedale," continued Griff. "The old First
National is doing plenty of business. But it ought to keep its dough in a
stronger vault. Somebody's going to crack that joint some night and walk away
with a coupla hundred grand."
The listeners were instantly agog. They could guess who "somebody" would
be. But Griff had another surprise for them; turning off from a paved road that
led into Lakedale, he entered a narrow drive and stopped in front of a locked
gate.
Leaving the car, Griff unlocked the gate; then, as an afterthought, he
walked back to a rural free delivery mailbox at the corner of the driveway.
Gabby hopped from the other car to join him. Eying the name painted on the
silver R. F. D. box, Gabby questioned -
"Who's L. K. Jamison?"
"I am," responded Griff blandly. "I own this orange grove." He pointed to
the squatty, thick-leaved trees to the left of the driveway. "At present, I'm
picking up my mail."
The mail consisted of a few weekly newspapers, that Griff poked under his
arm. He took a look at Gabby, then noticed the trailer from which Tongo peered.
The expressions of the man and gorilla were so alike in their curiosity, that
Griff gave a laugh.
"Follow me in," he told Gabby, "and I'll give you the low-down."
The two cars curved left at the end of the drive and pulled up beside a
little bungalow, with a garage beside it, both buildings deep in the orange
grove. As Griff alighted to unlock the house, he quizzed his companions:
"You've seen a lot of orange groves. Notice anything different about this
one?"
The listeners shook their heads.
"It's the most different grove in Florida," Griff declared. "The rest of
them have their trees in rows. Not this one. When you set trees in rows, you
can look right between, them from a lot of directions. So I planted these trees
hit and miss. I don't want anybody to notice the house from the highway."
He ushered the others into the bungalow, which was plainly furnished and
had several bedrooms opening into the living room. The place was a trifle
musty; so Griff crumpled the newspapers he carried and started a fire in the
fireplace. His lips formed a wise grin that his companions did not see.
Newspapers were taboo at the Ape Lab. The professor never read them; his
only current literature consisted of scientific journals - in one of which he
had first read about Citrite. Copying Englemere's example, Griff banned
newspapers, too, attributing the order to the professor.
Lack of news kept Griff's helpers from learning things that might bother
them. Hence, here at the bungalow, Griff was anxious to get rid of the journals
from the mailbox before anyone had a chance to look at them.
"I lost a lot of dough during the real-estate boom," informed Griff. "Good
dough, that I'd got from hard, honest work in the bootleg racket. All I had to
show for it was this hunk of land. I figured I could use it to get back at the
real-estate sharks who trimmed me. So ten years ago, I laid out the grove and
built this house for a hide-out.
"I was living here when I heard about old Englemere. I figured I could get
a job with him, and I did. That gave me two hide-outs; only, the Ape Lab was
better than this one. It was a safer place for you fellows. I kept this joint
for a hole card. Next thing I knew" - Griff gave a raspy chuckle - "I had the
prof seeing things the way I did, so the Ape Lab was perfect.
"I come down here, every now and then, to look over the place. I'm Mr.
Jamison to the crackers who pick the oranges for me, and do other odd jobs when
needed. That's all there is to it. And if a couple of you lugs will go out and
give the apes some exercise, Gabby and I will have some chow ready when you
come back."
TEN minutes later, a pair of crooks came dashing into the kitchen to
report that the apes were getting too much exercise. The gibbons had climbed a
magnolia tree and wouldn't come down. In going after them, the keepers forgot
Boola and Tongo, and now those two were missing.
"Find that baboon!" stormed Griff, turning over the cook's job to Gabby.
"The gorilla has sense, and he'll come back. We'll get the gibbons down from
the tree later, but that fool baboon will make plenty of trouble if we don't
round him up!"
Baboons preferred the ground to trees, and their favorite diet was fruit,
so it wasn't surprising that the crooks soon discovered Boola among the trees
of the haphazard grove, eating oranges that were lying on the turf.
They hauled him back to the bungalow, and found that Tongo had returned.
One-handed, the gorilla pushed the baboon into the proper trailer; then
followed along to help collect the gibbons.
Tired of the magnolia tree, the pair came down, and made for their cage at
Tongo's threat. He didn't grab them as he had before, and Griff suddenly noticed
that the gorilla had only one hand available. Under Tongo's other, arm was a
folded newspaper. He yielded it when Griff reached for it.
"Smart boy, Tongo," approved Griff. He gestured the ape into its cage.
Then, to the men, Griff remarked: "Tongo saw me take newspapers out of the R.
F. D. box. He must have gone along the road to find another box that had one.
He picks up tricks quick."
They went inside and Griff tossed the newspaper in the fire. Their lunch
finished, Griff told two of the crooks to take the trailers, apes and all, back
to Englemere's.
"If you meet up with any coppers," he told them, "say that the circus
hired your buddies, but didn't want the monkeys, so you're going to try the
jungle gardens. It's getting dark soon, and we won't need the apes as a front
any longer."
The two thugs left with the trailers. Griff motioned to Gabby and the pair
that remained. He led them to a door that connected with the garage. When Griff
opened it, they saw a sleek four-passenger coupe. Griff told them to load the
professor's Vapor Gun in the ample trunk compartment.
"We'll start in about twenty minutes," declared. Griff. "It's only about
eight miles to Lakedale, and we'll roll in right after dark. That bank job will
be a cinch, and if the going is good, we ought to be back at Englemere's soon
after the monkeys get there."
As Griff finished, he assumed a listening attitude. He heard the purr of a
motor somewhere outside, and mistook it for a car stopping on the highway. Then,
as the throbs suddenly returned, Griff relaxed.
"One of those student planes," he said. "They're always flying around
here. That one is probably the last. They have to quit when it gets dark. They
can't wise to anything, anyway."
There, Griff was wrong.
Overhead, the mosquito plane was banking, as it had been for half an hour,
its pilot more interested in the ground than in maneuvering his tiny craft. Keen
eyes observed an orange grove quite different from any that they had previously
seen. In fact, the pilot of the tiny plane was ready to class that grove as
unique.
He was studying Griff's grove. The disarrangement of the trees could pass
unnoticed from the highway, but not from the sky, should anyone take pains to
observe it. This flyer was taking such pains. He had come to Lakedale
particularly to check on anything curious in the topography of the outlying
terrain.
A low laugh came from the pilot's lips as he headed his plane toward the
airfield.
The laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER XII
THE LAW'S TURN
ATTENDANTS at the airport were apprehensive when the last of the little
planes came nosing to the ground. Its perfect landing convinced them, however,
that the man who had hired it was something more than a student pilot. Getting
out of the plane, he strolled to his car and drove away.
As he went, he obliterated his personality. He was no longer Lamont
Cranston, as he had identified himself at the flying field. He was The Shadow,
master of darkness. As such, he had found his proper element, for the dusk was
deepening along the road that The Shadow drove.
As he placed his hat upon his head and drew his cloak up over his
shoulders, The Shadow blended with the gloom that filled the interior of his
car.
Reaching the crossroad, The Shadow swung left to reach the orange grove.
As he did, a car from the other road took a sharp turn to avoid him. The Shadow
didn't get a good look at the occupants of the other car. In their turn, they
didn't see The Shadow at all.
It was Gabby who made comment as Griff spurted away.
"Say, that was funny." Gabby's tone was tense. "I looked right through
that other buggy and didn't see nobody!"
"How were you going to see anybody?" Griff demanded. "It's turned dark."
"I guess that's right," Gabby muttered. "Still -"
"Take a hold on yourself," Griff interjected. "We've got other things to
think about. Maybe the guy was just sitting low behind the wheel. Maybe he was
a midget."
"What would a midget be doing around here?"
"Going to Sarasota, maybe. To sign up with the circus, like we said we
were going to do when we had the monkeys with us."
Taking Griff somewhat seriously, Gabby silenced. Thinking in terms of
midgets, he forgot his first qualm: namely, that The Shadow might have been the
occupant of the passing car.
Meanwhile, The Shadow had found Griff's grove and was stowing his car
among its trees, which hid the automobile as neatly as they did the bungalow.
At least, the car was hidden from the road, but as he alighted The Shadow could
see the sky up through the trees. He was quite sure that no cars could have been
parked around the bungalow at the time he observed it, less than a half-hour ago.
A breeze was blowing along the driveway as The Shadow followed the
fringing orange trees. He reached the bungalow, noticed its darkness, and
peered through a window. There, he caught the faint glow of a few burning coals
in the fireplace.
There had been no smoke coming from the chimney when The Shadow viewed the
place from the air. Hence, the embers signified that people had been here
earlier, but might have left a few hours ago.
The Shadow formed a new opinion when he reached the rear of the house.
Under the whip of the wind, a garage door was flapping open. The doors had been
tightly closed when The Shadow saw them from a bird's-eye vantage. It was
possible, of course, that there hadn't been enough wind earlier to make the
door flap open; but it was better logic to presume that a car had left the
garage while The Shadow was making his round trip to and from the airport.
First, The Shadow had seen a likely car at the crossroad. Again, it was
probable that the men in the bungalow had been waiting for darkness to settle.
Without wasting further time, The Shadow returned to his car and drove it from
the grove, pausing only to turn the headlights on the R. F. D. box that bore
the name "Jamison."
Not having been in the air at the time when Griff's band arrived with the
trailers, The Shadow had learned nothing about the monkey deception; in fact,
he didn't know how long ago persons had come to the bungalow. His facts were
somewhat meager, but they fitted with well-formed conclusions that Lakedale was
the town where crime was due. Its bank was prosperous, particularly at this
season, and an easy target for smart crooks.
Lakedale was rather distant from the area where Harry was hunting for
crime's headquarters, but the temporary hide-out that the bungalow afforded was
an offsetting factor.
Indeed, The Shadow was getting a broader angle on the whole matter.
Whoever backed the crooked game knew Florida well, and had planned a long while
in advance, for the haphazard orange grove was certainly a matter of
prearrangement.
Nearing an isolated service station, The Shadow left his car and glided
into the place while the proprietor was servicing a car out front. Using the
telephone, The Shadow rang the Lakedale police headquarters and gave them a
terse, but emphatic, tip-off.
Listeners believed The Shadow's tip-offs. They came in a weird whisper
that burned into the hearer's mind. In this case, his information was specific.
Robbery was due at the First National Bank, planned by the perpetrators of
two recent and sensational crimes. To balk the coming robbery, the police should
not only close in on the bank. They would have to watch a clothing store next
door to it, a shop separated from the bank by a thick building wall.
The service-station owner was returning as The Shadow glided from the
doorway. The fellow blinked, wondering if his glasses needed changing. He'd
seen black spots before, but never any quite so large as this one. But it
disappeared amid his blinks, like an optical illusion.
Taking off his glasses, the man rubbed his eyes; then stared at a car that
came suddenly into sight. He decided that his eyes were worse than he supposed.
As the car passed the lights of the service station, the staring man couldn't
manage to even glimpse its driver.
FIVE miles away, matters were moving about as The Shadow expected. Crooks
had easily forced an entry into the store adjacent to the bank. The door barred
behind them, they were working on the wall between, using the secret weapon that
The Shadow had never seen but could visualize from the results that it
accomplished.
Englemere's Vapor Gun was eating a pathway through brick and mortar
reinforced with steel. The results were pleasing to Griff Perrick. He'd
estimated fifteen minutes for the job; the calcide spray was accomplishing it
in ten.
As soon as the rift was sufficient, Griff moved his men through. Using
flashlights, they found the vault. There, they set up their machine again and
watched its smoky spray dig into the steel door.
The vault was strong, but old-fashioned; its time-lock wasn't any
protection against the amazing weapon that Englemere had created. Another ten
minutes and the vault would look like mosquito netting.
Those minutes were bringing a threat to men of crime. Outside the bank,
the cream of the Lakedale police crop had assembled. The chief and five picked
men were debating the merits of the mysterious tip-off they had received.
Through the high windows of the banking room a plain-clothes man saw the faint
reflection of a sparky light. He pointed it out to the chief.
"I guess that settles it," the chief decided. "We haven't been hoaxed.
Unless those fellows are foxy and allowed we'd see them anyway. Say! I'll bet
that fellow who called up was fixing to draw us off by telling us to go in
through Drayman's Store! Suppose we do go in there? Where will we be when those
fellows come out? In the wrong place, that's all!"
It didn't occur to the police chief that he could station men outside the
bank while he investigated Drayman's. Pleased by his own masterful deduction,
he decided to have an immediate showdown with the criminals.
Opportunity came his way in the person of the bank's cashier, who had been
summoned from a restaurant across the street. The cashier had a key to the side
door; the chief promptly used it and led his whole squad into the bank, the
cashier with them.
Supposing that the robbers were making considerable noise, the chief
didn't think that the blundering entry would be heard. But the Vapor Gun was
silent in its operation, and Griff caught the clatter of footsteps on the tiled
floor. The vault door was almost eaten away; he cut off the Vapor Gun and
motioned to his pals to draw their revolvers.
Two tense minutes followed. Griff was allowing the proper time space, as
recommended by Professor Englemere, before shoving his weight against the
honeycombed vault door. The police were spread out, crouching among the tables
of the banking floor, wondering why the crooks didn't move. The sudden
cessation of colored sparks at the vault had warned the police that their
arrival was discovered.
No flashlights were in evidence. The whole scene of darkness carried an
uncanny stillness, as though awaiting a principal actor, who would stir the
drama from its frozen state.
Such a figure was already making his approach outside the bank - a shape
that glided from a parking lot close at hand. The Shadow had reached this spot
where crime was deadlocked with the law.
He saw the open bank door and recognized what had happened. He understood
the full blunder, when he arrived at the rear door of the clothing store and
found it unwatched by any police. The door seemed locked, but The Shadow knew
it must be otherwise.
It was a double door, used as a delivery entrance, and when The Shadow
urged his full weight against it, the sections yielded a full inch, enough for
The Shadow to thrust a gun muzzle through and pry the bar that crooks had fixed
within.
Hardly had he crossed the threshold before his ear caught a faint clatter.
Picking a course with his flashlight, The Shadow started in the direction of the
sound, knowing that it was but the prelude to a greater noise to come.
The sound The Shadow heard was Griff's sudden thrust against the remnants
of the vault door. The gnawed steel gave way, precipitating Griff into the
vault. Instantly, guns began blind spurts, to be answered by others. The police
were opening fire, and crooks followed suit.
MEN were dodging right and left, bringing flashlights into play. Passing
sweeps revealed the Vapor Gun, with the broken vault beyond it. From the vault
came hoarse shouts, representing Griff's raspy voice raised to a commanding
pitch.
His arms were bundled with all the currency that he could gather; he
wanted his men to follow him through the outlet to the other building before
the police discovered it. In following, they were to bring the precious Vapor
Gun.
The idea wasn't so wild as it seemed. Spreading their gunfire, robbers had
put the police at a disadvantage. In making for their chosen route, Griff and
his men would give the impression that they were boxing themselves in. Before
the police discovered the real situation, the crooks would be gone.
Lunging across the floor, Griff was already on his way. A flashlight
outlined him, then turned away as Gabby and the gunners fired toward the
telltale torch. Another light gleamed ahead of Griff. It revealed an irregular
patch of gaping blackness: the outlet that the robbers hoped to reach.
Griff rasped an order for his men to down the cop with the light, but the
command finished itself abruptly. It wasn't what Griff saw that stopped him,
for he saw nothing. It was the thing he heard.
It couldn't be human, that mocking laugh, amplified by the space from
which it came. Literally, the gap in the wall was delivering the taunt. It
seemed transformed into a giant's mouth, ready to swallow the malefactors who
had created it!
Perhaps the gape of blackness wouldn't have revealed its secret, had men
of the law taken prompt advantage of the bewilderment that gripped Griff and
his crew. That darkness was ready to disgorge stabs of deadly flame, once the
police turned their flashlights on the criminal tribe.
But the police were as startled as the crooks. They couldn't understand
the existence of the cavern, let alone its laugh.
Turning, Gabby and the thugs beside him aimed anew for the lights that
represented the police they hated. Fortunately, the aiming gunners were visible
in the fringe of the lights. The cavern laughed no longer; instead, it disgorged
the maker of the mirth.
As he came directly into the light, he pealed a taunt that made crooks
turn his way. He was handling a brace of automatics with consummate ease.
Though not yet aimed, the big guns spoke a reminder that foemen would first
have to deal with this new adversary before resuming their quarrel with others.
His very appearance marked him as a superfighter, even to those who had
never before witnessed his power in action. Cloaked in black, this challenger
was indeed a being to be feared, as those who faced his wrath well knew. The
Shadow had given the law its turn to capture men of crime and the strange
contrivance that aided their evil deeds.
Police had missed their chance, so The Shadow was taking over. Again, the
turn was his!
CHAPTER XIII
HALF AND HALF
SO suddenly did crooks go diving, that the police wondered if they had
vanished in the same amazing style with which The Shadow appeared from nowhere.
There wasn't even the bark of guns to answer The Shadow's fiery stabs, for
Griff's followers did not dare reveal their positions.
The Shadow was baiting them, as he drove toward the vault, ready to risk
the few shots that might come his way. He wanted to bring the police into
action.
The Shadow succeeded, too well. What the Lakedale force lacked in
efficiency, it possessed in courage. To a man, they were individualists. Sight
of The Shadow, heading toward the vault where crooks had been a moment before,
was enough to start the police in the same direction. Blindly, they reached
their goal as soon as The Shadow.
Foemen surged to meet them. Only through a grapple could Griff's crew hope
to protect themselves against The Shadow's fire. There was a tangle of
struggling figures; then, The Shadow was whirling into the melee, slugging at
his enemies. Crooks dodged and broke apart; yet, in their excitement, they
didn't forget their duties.
Gabby sprang in Griff's direction to protect the leader who carried the
spoils from the vault. The other thugs grabbed the Vapor Gun and tried to use
it as a shield while dragging it toward the outlet that The Shadow had
abandoned. The Shadow intoned orders that the police understood. The local
constabulary surged for the two men who were burdened by the heavy machine.
Griff was spilling bundles of cash as Gabby dragged him in the opposite
direction. Gabby wanted to scoop them up, but Griff shoved him ahead. Coming
upright, Gabby saw The Shadow right in front of him and tried to aim. The
Shadow took Gabby's gun hand and twisted it behind him. With his other fist,
The Shadow aimed a .45 at Griff, who now was holding only half of the loot,
bundled in one arm.
Griff was turned about, using his other hand to whip something from his
hip, and in a flash The Shadow knew that Griff wasn't going for a gun.
Sending Gabby sprawling across the floor, The Shadow suddenly reversed his
tactics. Instead of helping the police, he hindered them, and in a vehement
fashion. Like a streak of living blackness, he overtook them, flinging them
like scarecrows lashed by a gale.
The Shadow's drive began just as the police were grabbing the men who
lugged the Vapor Gun. When it ended, the officers were rolling toward the wall
and the crooks had regained their prize.
For some reason, The Shadow had suddenly decided to let the thug's
complete their getaway!
During those moments while The Shadow, like a black-clad thunderbolt, was
sending men in uniform headlong, Griff Perrick stood waiting, his hand fully
drawn from his pocket. Gabby saw what Griff held: a stick of Citrite.
After the affray at the packing house, Griff had decided to equip himself
with some of the high explosive that he had used with such success the night
when it was stolen.
Griff wanted to blast The Shadow, at any cost. At first, Griff was
planning to toss the stuff at the police; then, seeing The Shadow lurch into
the scene, he waited. At present, the police were gone and The Shadow was
Griff's target. Wheeling with his automatic, the cloaked avenger was
desperately trying to prevent the stick of Citrite from leaving Griff's hand.
The Shadow was too late.
Slithering from the fingers that clutched it, Griff's destructive
messenger was on its way. True, two of his own men were present, and they had
the much-prized Vapor Gun right in the path of Griff's toss. But Griff had
quickly calculated those factors. He was willing to sacrifice two henchmen, if
he could destroy The Shadow.
As for the Vapor Gun, Griff preferred to banish it into oblivion. The
chances of carrying it away were slim; if it fell into the hands of the police,
crime's secret weapon would be known. So Griff let the murderous explosive fly.
It didn't seem possible that The Shadow could avoid the missile. He was
full about, swinging his gun straight toward Griff, and therefore the best of
targets. What Griff did not reckon was the speed behind The Shadow's turnabout.
He wasn't halting, flat-footed; he was coming with a lunge, that he turned
into a long reach for the floor. Blackness actually seemed to swallow The
Shadow, as a dark pool of water would receive a diver. The chunk of Citrite
merely brushed the cloak that flowed above his shoulders, and the contact
wasn't sufficient to produce a blast.
The Shadow was striking the floor flat as the deadly stick completed its
arc, a dozen feet past him. The Citrite struck the floor tiles right beside the
Vapor Gun. Griff's two helpers tried to copy The Shadow's dive; too late. There
was a blast, a concussion that rocked the banking floor.
Two thugs were gone; with them, the Vapor Gun.
Gone permanently, those two. As for Griff, he was making for the door
which the police had entered. As he staggered for the exit, Griff encountered
Gabby and dragged him along, shoving a few bundles of currency Gabby's way.
Blundering, stumbling, the mobsters lost about half the swag they carried
before they reached their car.
MEANWHILE The Shadow, up from the floor uninjured, was beginning a
pursuit. Shaken somewhat by the explosion, forced to find his feet before he
could start the chase, the cloaked pursuer naturally lost several seconds.
Those were enough to bring the police back in the game. Dazed by the
blast, Lakedale's finest couldn't grasp the fact that The Shadow still was
friend, instead of foe. So they grasped The Shadow and tried to hold him.
The human thunderbolt behaved like living lightning. He zigzagged from the
clutches of his would-be captors. Holding him was impossible; following him
would have been the same, if he hadn't chosen to bring the police after him.
They'd muffed a perfectly good chance to spoil crime in the making; but,
though the police had failed, The Shadow was disposed to help them retrieve the
error.
Out through the door, The Shadow purposely cut into the swath of
flashlights, to draw attention his way. He reached his car and sprang behind
the wheel, waving back as he started away.
Some of the police took the gesture for derision; others thought it was a
beckon. The former started to shoot, while the latter shouted for them to stop.
Despite their confusion, the Lakedale contingent was agreed on one thing.
Whether the cloaked invader proved to be friend or foe, their job was to follow
him.
Taking to cars themselves, they spotted The Shadow within a few blocks,
because he was purposely waiting for them. His head start was necessary;
otherwise, he couldn't have noted what direction Griff and Gabby took.
Those two were well ahead, but The Shadow saw their route. They were going
back to the hide-away in the orange grove, not knowing that The Shadow had
located it. As soon as police cars appeared, The Shadow took the proper road
and showed the police what speed could be. He was hoping to corner the crooks
as soon as they turned into the grove.
Success looked certain when The Shadow spied the twinkle of taillights
near the crossroad that marked the last stretch to the road. He was far enough
behind so the fugitives would not notice him, and the police were closing in.
The Lakedale force was equipped with speedy cars, which was a help; but they
had sirens, too, and used them when they saw The Shadow's car.
Those shrieks, piercing the night air, couldn't be mistaken. The sound
carried to the crooks at the crossroad; they knew, on the instant, that their
destination had been learned. Instead of turning toward the grove, they took
another road. Grimly, The Shadow followed, hoping that the police would regain
their wits. They didn't.
When the chase reached a fork, the crooks went to the left and The Shadow
did the same, trusting the police would follow; or, at least, divide, if they
weren't certain. Instead, the mirror showed that the police cars were heading
to the right.
Only by slackening speed and firing a couple of gunshots, did The Shadow
manage to attract them. Griff's car was out of range when The Shadow fired;
hence the signal to the police merely spurred the crooks.
Twisty roads enabled Griff to press the advantage he had gained. Soon, The
Shadow's choice of turns was merely guesswork, so he decided to drop from the
chase and let the police continue it, while he studied whatever clues a road
map might offer.
As he eased his speed, a police car sighted him, so his only plan was to
travel hit or miss until he outdistanced the blundering pursuers.
The Shadow's road promptly veered to the south, which he realized must be
the wrong direction, but there was nothing to be done about it except to
display more speed, which he did.
A FEW, miles away, Griff and Gabby heard the fading of the sirens. Griff
eased at the wheel, but didn't slacken speed. Eyes fixed on the road, he said
to Gabby:
"Tough about those two guys."
"Yeah," agreed Gabby bluntly. "Tough!"
"I was chucking that stick at The Shadow. I didn't think he could duck it."
Gabby didn't answer. Knowing his companion's talkative way, Griff sensed
the reason for his silence.
"All right, Gabby," rasped Griff. "Out with it! You figure that even if
I'd hit The Shadow, I'd have got those other guys, too. Suppose I figured it,
too. What then?"
After short consideration, Gabby spoke: "I suppose it was all you could
do, Griff."
"You're talking sense," rejoined Griff. "It was half and half. Two of us
could get away, and two couldn't. The coppers would have croaked them, if I
hadn't. Maybe The Shadow would have got us."
More silence, while Griff concentrated on his driving to swing a sharp
curve. Then Griff reverted to his theme.
"Half and half on the dough, too," he grumped. "I had to get one mitt
loose to chuck the Citrite. So I dropped half of the cash. I guess I must have
scooped up about twenty grand. Maybe we still have ten."
Griff was going to add that there were two less men to share the money,
but he decided that it wouldn't be discreet. Ruthless measures didn't suit
criminals, when their own lives were at stake, and Gabby seemed to have taken
the deaths of his pals very much to heart. So Griff soothed his tone to one of
remorse.
"It was the prof's machine that worried me," he argued. "I had to get rid
of it. The coppers might have traced it back to Englemere, and that would put
all of us in a jam. I'd counted on the boys ducking when they saw me getting
ready to throw the explosive stuff. You understand, Gabby?"
Gabby grunted acquiescence.
"We'll have to tell the other fellows," continued Griff, in the same
rueful tone. "No need to worry them. We'll blame it on the coppers. Or on The
Shadow. You know, Gabby" - Griff's tone became confiding - "a couple of smart
guys could have gotten that machine away for us. I mean the kind of birds you
said you could bring into the outfit. We'll need a couple of new torpedoes.
Suppose you pick them for me."
With a sideward glance, Griff witnessed Gabby's reaction. Gabby was
pleased; his animosity had vanished. By bringing in new men, Gabby would
increase his importance, which, so far, had been very slight. He might even be
picturing himself on the way to equality with Griff, should the men he supplied
prove capable.
Such, indeed, were Gabby's notions. Today, Griff had given him special
rating, and would logically report the fact to Englemere. If the professor
decided that he needed two lieutenants, to offset difficulties of crime, Gabby
would be the man in line. Griff would have to recommend him, considering that
Gabby had witnessed Griff's sacrifice of two stout fighters, something that
Griff didn't want mentioned.
The deal was made, and Gabby's first step in the matter would be to bring
in new recruits. The prospect pleased him.
It pleased The Shadow, too.
Miles to the south, The Shadow had finally eluded the Lakedale police.
Wending his own way, the black-cloaked fighter was thinking of the two crooks
slain at the bank. Two crooks gone meant two more needed.
It would be excellent, if Gabby supplied them. Any of Gabby's friends that
might be chosen would certainly recommend Cliff Marsland as the other recruit.
For Cliff was on good terms with all of Gabby's New York pals, and shared none
of the petty jealousies that they held toward each other.
The Shadow was also thinking in terms of half and half. Of the next two
men who were chosen to join the horde of hidden crooks, only one would be
serving crime.
The other would be serving The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIV
THE TWO RECRUITS
PASSENGERS alighting from the streamline limited were surveyed closely
when they walked through the Jacksonville Union Terminal. Men were posted all
about the depot for that particular purpose. Some of the arriving passengers
were conscious that they were under scrutiny, and felt nervous. There were two
who accepted the situation unperturbed.
One of the pair was portly, jovial of expression. He had a Panama hat
tilted back over his forehead, and his eyes were half closed to conceal their
sharpness. He looked about curiously, much like a salesman who had come to a
new territory.
He was a salesman. Bullets were his merchandise, and he liked to deliver
them in half dozen lots, through the barrel of a .38 revolver. His portly
appearance was no sign of softness. Racketeers of the old school would have
recognized this softy as Spud Kiefert, once the highest-priced gunman in New
York.
The man with Spud was a firmer sort. His eye was steady, his face had a
chiseled profile. He carried himself with the manner of a gentleman, the only
passport that he needed. Such was Cliff Marsland, rated by crooks as a one-man
mob, but never suspected as an agent of The Shadow.
Spud and Cliff took a taxicab to a hotel, where they registered under
other names. They didn't say a word to each other until they reached their
room. There, Spud opened a suitcase, took out a bottle and poured a couple of
drinks. Finishing his with a single gulp, Spud looked at Cliff and queried:
"You saw them?"
Cliff gave a blunt nod.
"Feds," sneered Spud. "Casing the depot. Two-way stuff, watching guys
coming into Jax, the same as those going out. Gabby said they might be around."
By "said," Spud meant that Gabby had mentioned it in a letter. Spud was
the friend that Gabby picked to bolster the depleted quota of crooks. He'd been
told to bring another "right guy" to Florida, and Cliff proved the logical
choice.
"No chance of them spotting us, Cliff," assured Spud: "We were smart in
the old days, not so many years ago. We laid off when the Feds showed up in New
York. None of them know us. What's more, they haven't got hep to guys like us.
"Smoothies, that's what we are! They're looking for tough mugs, the old
gorilla type, the kind we used to boss around, and knock off if they belonged
to some other mob. We've got to be careful, though. The Feds are so much in the
dark, they might follow almost anybody."
In referring to "gorillas," Spud was using a term applied to mobsters. He
didn't know that real gorillas, like Tongo, figured indirectly in the affairs
of Gabby Tarcot. Nor did Cliff. So far, he hadn't learned anything from Spud
beyond the fact that they were going to join up with a crowd of criminals that
included Gabby.
Perhaps Spud didn't know much more. The bloated crook was pouring himself
another drink, but it didn't encourage Cliff. He'd seen Spud polish off a
bottle of Bourbon at a single sitting without getting talkative. The only way
to learn anything from Spud was to wait until he wanted to tell it.
"Getting dark," observed Spud, looking from the window. "Guess I'll go
down and buy a newspaper. These local blabbers may mention something we ought
to know. Didn't want to pick one up while the Feds were giving us the look-see."
As soon as Spud was gone, Cliff listened at the door. Spud had a clever
way of doubling back to places that he left. His bulky build didn't seem to
qualify him as an eavesdropper, but Spud was such, par excellence.
Elephantine in appearance, he had the ways of a mouse. He might suspect
that Cliff had friends in Jacksonville. If so, Spud would wait around to learn
if Cliff used the telephone.
Satisfied that Spud was gone, Cliff put in a quick call to another hotel.
Soon talking to the complacent Mr. Cranston, Cliff informed The Shadow of his
arrival and named the hotel where he was stopping. So far, Cliff reported, he
hadn't an idea as to how, where, or when, he and Spud were to contact Gabby
Tarcot.
CLIFF had just settled in a chair and poured his drink down a handy
washstand when Spud returned. He was carrying what looked like a bundle of
newspapers, which he flung upon a table.
"Hit the jackpot," laughed Spud, referring to the newspaper. "Saturday
night, so the Sunday paper is out. It's full of what's been going on. Maps and
everything. Feds blew into Pahokee and about took it apart, looking for guys
like Gabby."
Cliff knew of Pahokee, the vegetable center on the shore of Lake
Okeechobee. Well south in Florida, it attracted hordes of migratory workers who
picked the winter vegetable crops. Cliff had learned enough from The Shadow to
know that crooks must have their headquarters much farther north. Nevertheless,
it was good policy to appear apprehensive, so Cliff did.
"Don't worry," gruffed Spud. "We aren't going to Pahokee. The Feds
followed a bum steer, and their next one is going to be worse. They haven't
scoured the Everglades yet, so they're figuring on doing it in a big way. That
will take them about a year, Gabby tells me.
"I'm sure of one thing, Cliff" - Spud was becoming confidential: "we
haven't very far to go. Because, in his last letter, Gabby said that -"
The telephone bell interrupted. Spud answered it, put his hand over the
mouthpiece and informed Cliff: "It's Gabby!" Then Spud was back at the phone
again, and the rest of his conversation was mostly: "Yeah," and "I get it."
Spud dropped one point of information, only. He repeated the name of a
place that Gabby told him. The name was Yula Springs.
Cliff had been doing a lot of homework in between times, familiarizing
himself with the map of Florida. He could mentally locate Yula Springs, a
forgotten winter resort popular in the Gay Nineties. The place was about sixty
miles from Jacksonville, on the fringe of a lake region. But it was outside the
area that Harry Vincent was searching.
Very probably crooks planned a meeting at Yula Springs, in order that they
could double back to their base. Should Cliff and Spud be apprehended on the
way, police or Feds still wouldn't have a correct lead to the band that these
two newcomers intended to join.
Culling through the newspaper, Spud tore out some pages that interested
him and stuffed them in his pocket. He said that he and Cliff could leave their
suitcases, which were nothing but dummies, and let the hotel worry about the
bill.
They went downstairs, and in the lobby Spud paused to buy some cigarettes.
While Spud was at the newsstand, Cliff paused idly at the desk, where he caught
the clerk's friendly gaze.
"If anybody asks for me," remarked Cliff, "tell them I've gone up to Yula
Springs."
The clerk looked surprised. He hadn't even heard of Yula Springs, and
wondered where it was. Then his courtesy returned.
"Very well, sir," he said. "Your name, please, and the room number?"
Cliff gave the alias under which he was operating, for he had mentioned it
to The Shadow over the telephone. Coming over, Spud gave a suspicious glare,
directed more at the clerk than Cliff, who was starting to turn away. On the
way out, Spud growled:
"What was that all about?"
"Some sort of phonus balonus," replied Cliff. "The clerk asked my name and
room number. Said there was some mix-up on the hotel register."
"You gave him the moniker?"
"Of course. You saw how easy I passed it off. I don't think it meant much.
The Feds have got the hotel guys worried, making them check on all guests.
That's all."
Spud muttered something to himself, then told the doorman he wanted a cab.
He had a chance for a few words to Cliff, and put them.
"I don't like it," said Spud. "There's a car in a garage here that I could
pick up, but I'm going to use the other route instead."
THIS was Cliff's first inkling that Gabby had suggested two ways to reach
Yula Springs. Spud crowded into the cab first, and said something to the driver
that Cliff didn't hear. Then, as they were riding away, Spud pulled the
newspaper pages from his pocket, rustled them, and gave Cliff a nudge with his
elbow.
"Terrible, terrible," spoke Spud, in a tone that was his idea of something
aristocratic. "All this crime, I mean. What do you think of it, Pendexter?"
Cliff caught the cue. Spud had spoken loud enough for the cabby to
overhear, so Cliff did the same.
"I hope they apprehend the rogues," Cliff rejoined. "I scarcely feel safe,
even in this metropolis, Montague."
"We shall feel secure shortly," assured Spud, "when we have boarded the
steamship for New York. I am so glad that our luggage is already installed in
our staterooms. I trust that our voyage will prove a pleasant one."
"The vessel is an excellent one, I am informed. Ah, I see that we are
approaching the steamship piers."
So they were, but Cliff knew well that they were not returning to New
York. Spud's fancy talk was all for the cab driver's benefit; what it was
hiding, Cliff hoped soon to learn, and did.
After the cab departed, Spud motioned Cliff to a small dock, where a trim
speedboat was waiting. They boarded it, and under the darkness that overspread
the water front, Spud glided the craft out to the channel of the Saint Johns
River.
They were purring beneath a huge highway bridge, heading upstream, when
Spud remarked:
"This is the way I like to travel, Cliff. Gabby knows it; that's why he
had this speedboat planted for us, in case we didn't want to come by car."
"You mean Yula Springs is on the river?"
"Close to it. It has an old dock that hasn't been used for years. We'll
park this baby under the old pier where nobody will find it. Gabby will be
waiting for us."
Cliff wondered if The Shadow would be waiting, too. The boat was averaging
about twenty miles an hour against the slow current of the broad Saint Johns,
which meant about two hours to Yula Springs.
If The Shadow picked up Cliff's message within an hour, he could easily
reach the destination by car before the speedboat arrived there.
Knowing the ways of The Shadow, Cliff finally decided that his chief would
be on hand. He doubted, though, that The Shadow would declare himself. More
logically, he would trail the crooks and locate their headquarters; later, The
Shadow could contact Cliff, as inside man, and plan the undoing of the criminal
band.
Cliff could picture a future replete with surprises, that might even begin
to pop tonight. He was right: surprises were to happen, very soon. There was
just one flaw in the picture.
Those surprises were coming in reverse. The persons who would experience
them were Cliff Marsland and his chief, The Shadow!
CHAPTER XV
CRIME'S SNARE
GABBY was waiting at the forgotten dock. Spud introduced Cliff to him, and
the three hid away the speedboat. Gabby led the way to a car, where another man
was waiting.
Taking the wheel, Gabby drove the car along a narrow road of red brick,
sprouting with weeds that rivaled the Spanish moss that draped the boughs of
encroaching trees.
"They don't use that landing any more," informed Gabby, "because it's half
a mile from the town, which is pretty dead. You'll see when we get to it."
They saw, well enough. Yula Springs consisted of a sprawling old hotel
made of wood which hadn't been painted for years. The place was closed, and
Cliff could hear the wind banging the shutters.
Aside from the hotel, there were half a dozen smaller buildings, all
dilapidated, and the breeze seemed to sway them in the moonlight, though it
could have been an illusion caused by the trees that waved their mossy drapes.
The town had a traffic light, indicating the crossing of two side roads.
It happened to be red when Gabby's car approached, and during the short wait,
Cliff took another look at the hotel. He was almost sure that he saw a vague
automobile lurking in the forgotten driveway.
That car could mean The Shadow!
Odd that Gabby should mention The Shadow the moment that the car started
again, but Gabby did, and he addressed his remarks to Cliff. Gabby happened to
remember something.
"I've heard of you, Marsland," he said. "They say you were out gunning for
The Shadow, once."
"Yeah," returned Cliff. He'd started that rumor, a few years back, to
impress some crooks that he was tough. "But I never did find The Shadow."
"He didn't find you, though," complimented Gabby. "Like he does most guys
who look for him. Well, maybe you'll get your chance at The Shadow tonight."
Spud wangled into the conversation. His tone showed that he was nervous.
"You mean The Shadow has been around?"
"Sure he has," snapped Gabby. "You don't think the local tinstars have
been queering things for us, do you? We've run them sheriffs ragged!"
"But what about the Feds?" queried Spud. "They're in Jax -"
"And we aren't," interrupted Gabby. "The Feds are new on this job. They
haven't worried us. But this Shadow guy" - Gabby's tone was harsh - "he's met
up with us every time! So, tonight, we're going to get him!"
Cliff weighed Gabby's boast. For one thing, Cliff recognized that they
weren't bound for crime's headquarters just yet. They were outside the circle
that Cliff knew about, and Gabby was heading farther away. There was something
cocksure in Gabby's manner that didn't suit Cliff.
They'd gone at least a dozen miles, when Gabby revealed his hand a trifle
more. He turned his head from the wheel and gave a nudging motion across his
shoulder.
"Take a look out the back, Spud," Gabby ordered. "See if anybody is
tailing us."
Spud took a look, and a long one. His tone wasn't nervous, when he
announced:
"It's all jake, Gabby. Nobody tailing us."
"There should be," Gabby chuckled. "I'll tell you how we figured it, Griff
and me: We knew we couldn't spot The Shadow, if he spotted us. He's too smart;
he knows how to hang back. So we planted a car just outside of Yula Springs. I
told it to wait five minutes after I went past.
"Then it was to come, hell-bent, and catch up to us near here, unless" -
Gabby stressed the world heavily - "unless another car came along in the
meantime. In that case, the cover-up boys are supposed to tag it. That's what
they're doing right now, and I can tell you who they're tagging: The Shadow!"
GABBY spoke with a conviction that Cliff was forced to share, knowing that
The Shadow had probably picked up the message regarding Yula Springs.
Cliff was hoping, though, that The Shadow would spot the situation and
recognize that he was between two crook-manned cars. The Shadow had solved such
situation before, but this one, as Cliff soon learned, possessed unusual
features.
"Don't think those guys in back are dumb," chuckled Gabby. "They aren't
sticking close to The Shadow, so he can wise to what's what. They don't have to
stick close. I'll show you why."
They were rounding a curve. Ahead were the lights of a small roadhouse; as
they neared the place, Cliff heard the sound of raucous voices from within and
caught the music of a tinny orchestra. There were quite a few cars parked all
about, mostly rattletraps.
Gabby swerved toward the place, as though about to stop. Changing his
mind, he blinked his lights from bright to dim, then back again, and kept on
his way.
"We've got a guy named Dunk Kedly planted in that juke joint," said Gabby.
"What I just did was flash him the signal. He'll put in a phone call to another
juke joint, ten miles up the line, where Griff is waiting for it. The boys who
are laying back will pick up Dunk and bring him along.
"Meanwhile, Griff will be getting ready, because he'll be expecting us.
We're the decoy, get it? We'll pull The Shadow right to the spot where Griff is
waiting. Griff thinks he can handle The Shadow all on his own, but if he don't"
- Gabby spoke with eager anticipation - "it will be our job! You'll see."
That was just what Cliff was afraid of. Gabby was picking up speed to
cover the next ten miles, but he wouldn't be able to outrun Dunk's phone call,
which was meant to spell disaster for The Shadow.
The man beside Gabby was passing revolvers into the back seat, just in
case Cliff and Spud hadn't brought guns of their own. Tense though the
situation was, Cliff could only wait.
The lights of the next juke joint appeared, but Gabby sped straight past
them. When he reached a curve, he slackened, on the assumption that The Shadow,
close on the trail, would catch another glimpse of his taillights. Another mile,
at a fairly moderate pace, and Gabby swerved into a sand road, blinking his
lights as soon as he was among the trees.
"You won't see them," stated Gabby, "but they're here. Griff and his
bunch, with sawed-off shotguns. On both sides of the road, ready to give The
Shadow a blast he won't forget, if he lives through it!"
Gabby's lights, cleaving through the trees and palmettos, swept briefly on
the wave-chopped water of a lake. The road cut right, to follow the lake, and
Gabby swung it still farther, to park in a turnout on the right side of the
road. As he nosed into a low bank of palmettos, he blanked the lights entirely.
"Hop out," ordered Gabby, "and get back to the bend. If The Shadow pulls
through, we'll settle what's left of him -"
Cliff didn't hear the rest. He was already hopping out. He'd formed his
plan and was acting on it. He didn't care if those palmettos were full of
rattlers, or the ground swampy enough to harbor water moccasins, too. Dangerous
though such reptiles might be, they didn't carry half the sting of Cliff's
present associates.
The farther Cliff could get away, the better. When The Shadow's car
appeared at the beginning of the sand road, Cliff could fire away with his
revolver and thus supply a warning to his chief. Cliff wasn't going to waste
shots, either. When he fired them, they'd be in the general direction of the
spot where Griff and other killers lay in ambush.
It chanced that Cliff wasn't familiar with palmettos. They weren't simply
clumps of shrubs that stood straight up. They were things with long stems as
large as tree trunks, that lay along the ground under the low, thick foliage of
the plants themselves. Cliff hadn't gone a dozen feet before he tripped. His
drive among the palmettos changed to a forceful plunge.
Cliff could hear a motor purring as he fell, and thought that the sound
came from Gabby's car. He was wrong; another machine was wheeling in from the
highway, slithering as it struck the sand. Cliff poked his head from the
palmettos, to face the glare of headlights that didn't blink, as they would
have if they belonged to Gabby's cover-up car.
It was The Shadow, driving straight into the ambush!
THINGS happened all at once, so swiftly that they seemed timed to the
half-second that it took Cliff to find his gun trigger and pull it. The car
from the highway took a terrific forward hurl; as it did, its lights blotted
themselves entirely.
From the solid blackness came the rise of a challenging laugh,
unmistakably The Shadow's. But the mirth was drowned, almost instantly, by the
burst of guns that spouted from each side of the road, giving the effect of
fireworks in the darkness.
Griff and three others had let go with the sawed-off weapons. The roar of
the abbreviated shotguns drowned the warning bark of Cliff's revolver. Crooks
had sprung their ambush in spite of Cliff's endeavor. How The Shadow had fared,
was still a question.
If The Shadow had survived that fusillade, credit for the fact belonged to
one person only: The Shadow, himself!
CHAPTER XVI
VANISHED PREY
THE SHADOW'S laugh was absent when the roar of shotguns faded. The only
sound was a clatter accompanied by the crackle of palmettos, that ended in a
sharp crash as a car brought up against a pine tree. The car was The Shadow's.
Plunging through the ambuscade, it had rocketed from the sand road, to finish
with a smash.
Facts were popping through Cliff Marsland's brain so rapidly, that he
could hardly classify them.
The Shadow must have sensed a warning, and Cliff was realizing what it had
been. Closing in on Gabby's car, The Shadow had seen it across the palmettos as
it swerved to the turnout, for there the lights were trained toward the road.
The sudden disappearance of the lights gave proof that the sand road was a trap.
By then, The Shadow was actually on the road. With no chance to retrace
his course, he had done the only other thing. He'd watched for the first
tremble of the banking palmettos; spying the waver, he'd doused his lights and
given the accelerator a full shove. The car, at least, had lurched through so
speedily that shotgun slugs couldn't wreck it.
But what of The Shadow?
Had the shotguns finished him, hence the crash? Or was the smash-up the
natural result of a blind drive into pitch-blackness?
Cliff intended to be the first man to answer those questions. Tearing
through the palmettos, he kept stepping high to avoid the loglike roots. He
could hear other men making toward The Shadow's car. They were shouting, and
blinking flashlights, as they neared the goal. The flashlights worried Cliff.
They meant that something had happened to The Shadow. Otherwise; the
cloaked marksman would have begun to pick them off in customary style.
Certainly, The Shadow needed help, if he wasn't completely beyond it.
More shouts told that Griff and his crew were coming from their place of
ambush, but Marsland still intended to be the first man on the scene, and to
fight the rest single-handed, if necessary.
The Shadow's car was off the road, but it was resting upright. Cliff saw
the reason: one front wheel was bent beneath the car, but it was on the side
that had left the road and hence was supported by the thick palmetto stumps.
That side was toward Cliff and the door was open. A passing flashlight showed
blackness only, but Cliff saw the blackness move.
The Shadow was still alive!
Alive, but dazed from the hard impact that the car had taken. Cliff was
sure The Shadow hadn't received the blast from a sawed-off shotgun, for at
close range those weapons were deadly. Moreover, The Shadow couldn't have
rolled from a level car seat unless very much alive and active.
In fact, the door was slamming shut as the flashlight's gleam left it,
proof that The Shadow must have given it a shove. The slam was drowned by
shouts, which gave Cliff a chance to play the proper part.
Leaping in front of the wrecked car, he reached the door on the other side
and yelled for crooks to join him. From the way Cliff brandished his revolver in
the gleam of the flashlights, the other men were sure that he had found The
Shadow.
Two arrived at once. One was Gabby; the other, cold of eye and hard of
jaw, could only be Griff. He was carrying a shotgun, and was showing more
authority than Gabby. Regretfully, Cliff saw that the shotgun was
double-barreled.
Pushing Cliff, aside, Griff pushed his sawed-off weapon into the car
window, while Gabby flicked on a flashlight. Then, turning, Griff inquired with
a rasp:
"Well, where is he?"
Griff was used to having men back down when he applied the pressure. This
was his first test of Cliff's mettle, and Griff was due for a surprise.
"He was right in back of the wheel," said Cliff. "I saw him!"
"I don't see him," retorted Griff, gesturing toward the vacant car. "How
can you?"
"I said I saw him!" Cliff's tone was as hard as Griff's. "If you don't see
him now, it's because you hogged the show. You're dealing with The Shadow. Give
him a half a second and he'll melt right out of your mitts. You gave him a full
second."
"Yeah? I suppose he went through the other door."
Cliff shrugged as though he didn't know. Griff's response was an ugly
snort.
"You'll be telling me The Shadow can vanish," said Griff. "I'll believe it
when I see it. He couldn't have come out through this door, so he must have used
the other one. Get busy, all of you" - Griff was addressing new arrivals - "and
beat those palmettos until you find him!"
HENCHMEN were gingerly starting to the task, but they didn't find it
necessary to beat the brush. Sounds reached them and they swung their
flashlights, to see The Shadow stumbling through the palmettos toward the road
beyond the bend.
Griff and the others of the ambush crew raised their shotguns and blazed
away, but without result.
The range was long, for one thing. For another, The Shadow disappeared
ahead of the first gun blast. He was at the edge of the palmettos; in shaking
clear of their troublesome roots, he took a long fall to the road. While Griff
and the others were staring to see if they had gotten any results, Gabby
decided that they hadn't.
"The guy is groggy," insisted Gabby, "and that flop he took won't help him
any. Come on. We'll nail him!"
Gabby started by the road to avoid the tripping roots, and Cliff followed,
right at his elbow. So far, Cliff was free of any suspicion, thanks partly to
luck, but he was ready to toss away discretion as soon as necessary.
Rounding the bend, Gabby saw The Shadow stagger into a palmetto clump
toward the lake, and the killer raised his revolver. Cliff was just ready to
make a sideward grab and spoil Gabby's aim, when The Shadow took another
stumble and disappeared.
From then on, it was a slow-motion chase, the slowest that Cliff had ever
experienced, and equally harrowing. The Shadow was rising, falling, visible,
then gone. Gunmen were shooting from so many angles and distance that Cliff
couldn't prevent them; but they were stumbling, too.
The bark of guns spurred The Shadow - not only to find shelter but to
return the fire. His shots, however, were so wide that Cliff knew him to be
badly dazed.
Having solved the problem of getting through the palmettos, Cliff was the
closest pursuer when The Shadow neared the lake shore. By the sweep of a
flashlight, he saw his cloaked chief take a desperate lunge that ended with a
long spill across a gully. Head on, The Shadow smashed into a fair-sized tree,
much as his car had struck a larger one.
Cliff saw what followed: a sidelong roll that landed the dark-clad fighter
back amid clumps of matted grass from which saplings rose. The Shadow was beyond
the palmettos, lying on open turf, and definitely unconscious.
Cliff played a last, desperate stroke. He fired at an imaginary spot to
the right of where The Shadow lay. Flashlights swung Cliff's way, and he
beckoned. Gabby and others came along, to hunt the shore at the place where
Cliff pointed. Since they wouldn't find The Shadow for a while, Cliff started
back to give the others a wrong steer.
Running into Griff, Cliff found the fellow very doubtful regarding any
information that his new recruit supplied.
"Over that way?" queried Griff. "That means the other way, to me. You can
stay here and see who makes out best: Gabby or me."
At least, Griff was making a wide detour in the other direction, which
meant that his hunt would be as slow as Gabby's. Unfortunately, Cliff no longer
had a chance to move about, for Spud was with him, to see that he followed
Griff's orders. Headlights appeared along the road, bringing Dunk Kedly and the
reserves, which made matters even worse.
"You'd better hurry that hunt," said Dunk, when Spud informed him what had
happened. "Some guys with deputy badges saw us pull out of the juke joint.
They'll be coming along the highway, and if anybody heard the shooting, they'll
head in here, sure!"
Spud suggested that Dunk and the rest work toward the shore, where Griff
and Gabby were moving toward each other from two directions. Glumly, Cliff
helped scour the brush, wondering what next. He could hear the wind sighing
heavily among the pines, its whisper vaguely reminiscent of The Shadow's laugh.
The Shadow hadn't laughed when Cliff last saw him. He had been a
sprawling, helpless figure, his cloak flayed wide by that same wind that now
was mocking him. Cliff couldn't pick the exact spot where The Shadow had
fallen, for he had lost its location while steering other men away.
These searchers, however, were sure to find The Shadow, and Cliff's only
hope, a faint one, was that crooks might prefer to take The Shadow prisoner,
instead of killing him, in his helpless state. At that, The Shadow's plight
would be very bad.
Lights were converging upon the shore. Ten minutes of three-way hunting
had narrowed the area considerably. Each succeeding minute weighed heavier on
Cliff, until, to his amazement, he found that the group had joined. Yet the
matted grass was barren; their prey, The Shadow, had vanished from their midst!
GRIFF swept a powerful flashlight out into the lake. The glare made
something stir. From seemingly a floating log, it became a reptilian creature,
an alligator. They saw the 'gator slide ashore and take to brushy shelter.
Further out, Griff's flashlight revealed a small island amid the waves of the
sizable lake.
"He couldn't have swum that far," assured Griff. "If he tried to, the
'gator would have gotten him. Maybe it did get him, unless he crawled back into
the palmettos."
"Not a chance," returned Gabby. "It beats me, Griff. It's like it was up
at the car. The guy just faded out on us!"
Griff's eyes met Marsland's and stayed there. Griff hadn't forgotten what
he said before, and when his gaze shifted, it showed his acknowledgment of the
impossible. Griff couldn't deny what Marsland had previously intimated: that
The Shadow had ways of vanishing when occasion so demanded.
It was Dunk's voice that shook off the amazement that gripped Griff.
"The cops are coming," reminded Dunk. "We ought to lam, Griff."
With a blunt nod, Griff ordered his men back to their cars. The caravan
now numbered three, and they followed the sand road along the lake. Gabby's car
was last, because the others passed it before he could pull from the turnout.
In the rear seat, Cliff looked back through the window to see new lights
coming in from the highway.
Battle had been reported, and arriving deputy sheriffs were stopping to
survey the evidence - The Shadow's car - wrecked beside the road.
Too late to witness the departure of Griff's band, the deputies would
start their own search through the trampled palmettos. Whatever had happened to
The Shadow, Cliff was sure that the deputies would not find him.
For Cliff, himself, was inclined to accept the impossible in a situation
which offered nothing else. Though helpless and unconscious, hounded by foemen
who sought his doom, The Shadow had vanished without a trace!
CHAPTER XVII
CLIFF MEETS THE BRAIN
BY the time the caravan reached the Anthropological Laboratory, Cliff
Marsland had completely lost all sense of direction. Griff Perrick, leading the
procession, had traced a course through dozens of forgotten roads that crossed
paved highways like the strands of a spider's web.
The Spanish architecture of the Ape Lab was another puzzle to Cliff, and
when Cissie, the trained chimpanzee, politely admitted the returning crowd,
Cliff thought he was in the middle of a nightmare. Spud's impression was the
same, but it wasn't long before the newcomers became acquainted with their
surroundings.
Griff took them along with the rest, to the room where the cages were.
There, he told them what the place was, but did not mention its exact location,
so Cliff was still somewhat in the dark.
Though he knew Florida quite well, he had never heard of the
Anthropological Laboratory. Privately endowed, and conducted for scientific
purposes only, the institution was not listed in any guide books.
Explaining that the new men were to serve as keepers in the employ of
Professor Englemere, Griff decided to give them an idea of the usual routine.
He began by inspecting the row of cages, where most of the apes were quartered
for the night.
Griff stopped at a cage specially reserved for Tongo, and noted that the
prize simian was absent. Swinging to two men who had been on duty during his
absence, Griff demanded:
"Where's Tongo?"
Both keepers started to talk at once. From their remarks, Griff grasped
that matters had been hectic while he was away. The monkeys had been put to
work, as usual, on their various tasks, but some of them had gotten out of
hand. In the confusion, Tongo had gone out for a stroll. The two men hadn't
seen him since.
"He'll be back," decided Griff, at last. "Tongo knows how to ring the
bell."
"Somebody was ringing it before," said one of the keepers. "Cissie
answered it."
"Who was it?" Griff queried.
"We don't know," replied the other keeper, uneasily. "We got to the door
too late. We thought maybe it was Tongo - or you."
Griff overlooked the comparison of himself and the gorilla. He was more
worried about the bell. An idea struck him.
"It could have been Tongo," said Griff. "He might have gone in to see
Englemere." He turned to Cliff and Spud. "Come on, you two. I'll introduce you
to the big shot, and we'll see if Tongo did come back."
They went to Englemere's study and found Tongo there, exactly as Griff
hoped. The great gorilla was looming behind the desk where Englemere sat, and
Cliff thought that the professor was a dwarf, until he arose. Then, shaking
hands with the bearded man, Cliff found himself looking up at him and realized
that the professor had merely looked small in comparison with Tongo.
While Cliff was shaking hands with Professor Englemere, Griff happened to
observe the newspapers poking out from Spud's pocket. With a swoop, Griff took
them and thrust them beneath his arm. Turning around, Cliff heard Griff say:
"I'll take care of these, Spud. The boys waste too much time reading
newspapers. We don't allow them here. Step up. I want you to meet Professor
Englemere."
Cliff saw a smile appear amid Englemere's beard and took it as the
professor's approval of Griff's confiscatory methods. Tongo moved forward as
though interested, too, but Englemere noted the gorilla's approach and gestured
him back.
Introductions finished, Griff was starting from the study with his
companions, when Englemere called to him:
"I should like to confer with you, Perrick, after you have shown the new
men to their quarters."
From Englemere's tone, Cliff sensed that the conference might prove
important. He eyed Griff as they walked along, and wondered how soon the fellow
would be going back.
By the time they reached the bunk rooms, in another corner of the
building, Cliff was determined to listen in on the chat between Professor
Englemere and Griff Perrick.
In all his experience, Cliff had never before encountered a set-up so
tight as this one. It was like a game within a game, more formidable the deeper
it went.
ORIGINALLY, Cliff had expected to meet just Gabby Tarcot and a band of
roving mobsters who were thriving in the Florida climate and managing to stay
safe in their hide-away largely because the law's hunt had gone the other
direction. If Gabby & Co. had simply been hopping from juke joint to juke
joint, it wouldn't have surprised Cliff.
Then Griff Perrick had loomed into the picture. Griff made a decided
difference. He'd left New York some years ago; gone out West, so people
thought. Rated highly in crimedom during the days of the racket rings, Griff
had never let the law get too much on him.
Tonight, Griff's attempt to ambush The Shadow was typical of the
ex-racketeer's nerve, and when he led his band back to a pretentious
headquarters of Spanish stucco, it was simply new evidence that Griff did
things in a lavish way.
Then Griff and his importance had suddenly dwindled in Cliff's mind.
Griff's talk of a big shot had merely been the prelude to a meeting with a real
colossus, in the person of Professor Englemere. Anyone that Griff would concede
to be bigger than himself would have to be very big, indeed.
Englemere filled the specifications. In mental stature, he towered above
Griff, just as Tongo bulked physically above the professor, himself.
More than curiosity impelled Cliff's decision to look in on the conference
between Englemere and Griff. It might be that the brain would have some ideas
when his lieutenant reported the strange disappearance of The Shadow. So Cliff,
still worried about his chief, began to look for an opportunity to leave the
bunk room and follow after Griff, who had already gone.
The opportunity arrived. Gabby was the man who made it possible, along
with a couple of uniforms that he handed to Cliff and Spud.
"Get into these," ordered Gabby. "Half an hour until inspection. We must
all be spick and span. That's what the prof calls it."
Spud didn't like the idea of a uniform. He wanted to know why he had to
wear one.
"It's so we can tell you from the monkeys," bantered Gabby. "If you think
I'm kidding, keep your eyes open. Some of them apes can outsmart you twice in a
row! Wait'll you meet Loco, the orangutan. He's just learned to shoot craps, and
the way he handles the bones, the boys wish they hadn't taught him!"
Despite the banter, Spud was still growling when Gabby went. He glared at
the uniform and decided that half an hour would be time to "look around the
joint" before he put on the suit that would distinguish him from a monkey.
So Spud stalked from the bunk room, and as soon as his footsteps faded,
Cliff hurried out and went the other way. He felt he could use Spud as an
alibi, if the present quest brought trouble.
At the passage to Englemere's study, Cliff saw Griff up ahead. He waited
until the lieutenant entered the professor's room; then Cliff slid forward and
tried the door himself. The doorway was deep on the inside, much like a short
alcove. Finding the door unlocked, Cliff easily maneuvered into the listening
post.
He was employing The Shadow's tactics, but he doubted that he could
emulate his chief. Rather, Cliff was thinking in terms of Spud; remembering how
easily the clumsy-looking man could move about, Cliff was sure he could do the
same.
Sounds of voices drowned Cliff's entry. Englemere was talking, and his
tone had a sharp, sarcastic bite that Cliff had not noticed during the
interview. Its emphasis was stronger than the raspy voice with which Griff
replied.
Cliff risked a look around the corner of the doorway. He saw Englemere
holding a newspaper, a thick one, the same edition that Spud had bought in
Jacksonville.
"You've read this, Perrick?"
"Where did that come from, prof?" countered Griff. "I didn't bring it."
"I know you didn't," mouthed Englemere, "because you were out when it
arrived. Tongo brought it."
"Tongo!" Momentarily, Griff was taken aback. He looked from Englemere to
the gorilla, standing beside the desk. "Say, Tongo, you were supposed to be up
a tree!"
"Don't dodge the issue," inserted Englemere. "You've taken Tongo with you,
somewhere. Otherwise, he couldn't have learned this trick of taking newspapers
from rural mailboxes!"
On his feet as he finished, Englemere was giving Griff an eye-to-eye
glare. Cliff saw possibilities in the situation: an open break between the
brain and his lieutenant. Indeed, Englemere's next words showed signs of rage.
"I have given you leeway, Perrick! But always with one proviso: the apes
are never to be taken from their present habitat. Had I so chosen, I could have
used Tongo and others to assist me in the venture that I managed personally. If
you won't take orders -"
"I'LL take over!" interrupted Griff. His hand whipped from his pocket and
clamped a revolver against the professor's ribs, so swiftly that the gun might
have sprouted from Englemere's chest, instead of Griff's hand.
"I've been waiting, just in case this happened, prof! You've forgotten
that while you've been busy with your Vapor Gun; I've been giving the orders to
a dozen men. One word from me and they'll pile in here! They'll listen to me,
not to you!"
Though Englemere's arms were lifting, a great laugh came from his black
beard. He was tilting back his head when he uttered:
"So you can depend upon a dozen followers, Perrick! What are they compared
to one, when that one is - Tongo!"
The pause preceded a louder tone. Englemere's use of the gorilla's name
was like a summons. Before Griff could realize it, Tongo responded. The ape
came across the desk like a living tidal wave.
Evidently, Englemere had trained him to grab for guns, for he took
Griff's, and its owner with it. His revolver thumping the desk, Griff spun in
air, to come into Tonga's full embrace. Astounded, Cliff could only think of
Griff as a walnut in the jaws of a nutcracker.
Englemere intervened as he scooped up Griff's gun. He clucked from his
black beard; and made a gesture. Tongo's great grip relaxed into a toss that
landed Griff, limp and disheveled, in a chair. From across the desk, Englemere
laughed as he declared:
"I think we can now discuss matters on an equitable basis, Perrick! But,
first, there are some facts I wish to know."
Facts that Cliff Marsland wanted, too, for he knew they could prove useful
to The Shadow, if his chief still lived!
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NEW SCHEME
STEADILY, Professor Englemere eyed Griff Perrick, who, in turn, was
looking askance at Tongo. Quite obviously, Griff wasn't willing to risk a move,
nor even an argument, while the gorilla stood in readiness. The fact pleased
Englemere.
"Let us review a few points," suggested the professor. "I feel that we
have made a mistake in operating independently. We shall start with the night
we raided the Citrite factory."
Griff nodded, since there was nothing else to do. Englemere proceeded with
his theme.
"In back of that raid," declared Englemere, "I had, let us say, a
scientific purpose. I needed Citrite to improve my Vapor Gun, and there was
only one way to obtain it."
Griff gave another stiff nod. Englemere suggested that he relax, which
Griff did, by degrees. Tongo relaxed, too, so Griff became fully at ease.
"To put it bluntly," resumed Englemere, "I made my debut in crime.
Whatever my justification, the fact remains: I am a criminal like yourself,
Perrick."
"I guess that's about it, prof."
"Of course, I might have vindicated myself," said Englemere, stroking his
beard, "if we had not slain the watchman, Dorset. I learned his name from this
newspaper." The professor tapped the journal that Tongo had brought. "It
contains a complete review of the recent crime wave. But we did kill Dorset -
and that marked me, Perrick!"
Griff's eyes gleamed. He found his voice, in voluble style.
"Say, prof!" he exclaimed. "You mean this build-up I've been giving the
boys is really on the level?"
"What build-up, Perrick?"
"Telling them that you're the real brain, the guy behind this stuff that
we've been doing. I had to hand them that line, or they wouldn't have played
along, at first."
Teeth glistened white from Englemere's beard. A full grin from the
professor was rare. Its ugliness convinced Griff that Englemere had greater
possibilities than anyone would normally suppose.
"Once committed to a course," declared Englemere, "I follow it to the
full. Recognizing myself as an outlaw, I planned to conduct myself as such. Why
do you suppose I have been working so intensively on the supermodel of my Vapor
Gun?"
"You said once that you would give it to the government," reminded Griff,
"so it could be used toward the protection of humanity."
Englemere scoffed a laugh.
"Why should I protect humanity?" he queried. "I have wantonly destroyed
it, in the case of Dorset."
Griff gave an acknowledging nod.
"And now," added Englemere, relaxing into his chair and folding his arms
upon the desk, "I want every detail of your recent activities, Perrick.
Remember: there are points that I can check. I have read the newspaper
thoroughly."
IN his turn, Cliff eased. It was better to keep out of sight, and merely
listen, while Griff made his revelations.
During the next quarter hour, Cliff heard the complete story of every
recent crime, all from the inside viewpoint. There were occasional grunts from
Englemere, all denoting high approval. The only times the professor remained
silent were when Griff mentioned the trailer trip with the monkeys and the fate
of the original Vapor Gun.
Brief silence followed Griff's account. Then came the rolling tone of
Professor Englemere, announcing reactions that had some surprising angles.
"Inasmuch as you did not use the apes in actual crime," asserted
Englemere, "I can overlook your indiscretion, Perrick. Only human beings are
privileged to indulge in crime, for they have the ability to calculate the
consequences. Good or evil! Bah! What are they, other than individual
viewpoints?
"Ethics must prevail, however, in all forms of human endeavor, crime
included. Men far worse than criminals adhere stoutly to ethics. Lawyers, for
instance, when they defend known criminals. Doctors who engage in vivisection
upon poor creatures like my friendly apes. The worse a practice in which a man
indulges, the more important his ethical standards become."
"I guess you've hit it, prof," agreed Griff. "What we need is ethics!"
"You shall have them!" Cliff heard Englemere pound the desk. "As regards
the Vapor Gun, the old one, you did right in destroying it. I would have done
the same, in your case."
"And croaked the two guys with it?"
"Of course! They understood the hazard. As for inducing Gabby to support
your story that the police were responsible, I commend it heartily. I should
say that you already have an excellent comprehension of criminal ethics,
Perrick."
Much pleased, Griff switched the subject to the new Vapor Gun, only to
learn that the superdevice was not yet finished. Next, Griff learned, along
with Cliff, the hidden listener, that Englemere did not consider the Vapor Gun
an asset for the present.
"You have overworked it," Englemere told Griff. "I could put together a
small one, of the old type, but the newspapers are filled with talk of crime's
hidden weapon. Besides, any new raids on our part would bring searchers back
from the Everglades. I prefer to let them stay there."
"Maybe so," conceded Griff. "But what are we going to do, meanwhile?"
The professor supplied a long and ardent laugh.
"When this institution needs more funds," queried Englemere, "how do you
suppose I raise them?"
"I guess you invite the stuffed shirts in," replied Griff, "and show them
how smart the apes are. A guy that's got a couple of grand to spare ought to
cough it up, if he likes monkeys."
"They do," assured Englemere. "But the next man I invite will be worth one
hundred thousand dollars! A hundred grand, in your parlance, Perrick."
Cliff heard Griff whistle. Then:
"You're going into the snatch racket, prof?"
"If you mean kidnaping," chuckled Englemere, "I am. Or, rather, we are
entering the game together. I have already chosen the victim. His name is
Lamont Cranston."
Cliff nearly gave himself away, when he started at the name. Steadying
himself in the deep doorway, he heard why Englemere was making the choice. From
the newspaper, the professor had learned that Cranston was a prospective
investor in Citrite; had been present at the factory the night when it was
raided.
He had also read Cranston's name in scientific journals and learned that
the versatile man of wealth likewise dallied with jungle explorations.
Furthermore, Cranston was in Florida at present.
"A man with a mind like my own," decided Englemere. "I shall write him a
well-worded invitation to visit us, alone. I am sure that he will tell no one
of his excursion here, since any indiscretion would end his chances of
receiving further invitations.
"You may go, Perrick, and tell the men of our new scheme. If any have
questions, bring them here. You can prove to them that I am the brain you
represented me to be."
Griff rose to leave, and Cliff desperately sought to move ahead. The
interview was over so abruptly that Cliff would have been spotted had not
Englemere called Griff back. Out through the door, Cliff was just easing it
shut when he heard Englemere say:
"Your revolver, Perrick. You won't need it, but neither shall I. Ethics
compel me to return it, since we have reached a complete accord."
HALFWAY back to the bunk rooms, Cliff halted. He was thinking of The
Shadow, whose name had been mentioned throughout Griff's report to Englemere.
Always as The Shadow; never as Lamont Cranston.
Invariably, Griff had described crime's archfoe as a cloaked fighter up to
the finish, when The Shadow, alive or dead, had made his amazing disappearance.
Griff had an idea that the Shadow question was settled permanently; but did
Englemere?
Each mention of The Shadow had brought a meditative "Hm-m-m" from the
professor, as though he were analyzing Griff's story. To top it, Englemere had
produced the name of Cranston like something out of a hat. Odd, that Englemere
should pick a kidnap victim who happened to be The Shadow.
Or was it odd?
Reading about the Citrite factory, Englemere might have divined something
that Griff didn't: namely, that the one stranger present at that time must have
been The Shadow. The fact that he hadn't mentioned the thought to Griff was real
proof of Englemere's superior cunning. He intended to trap The Shadow first, and
let the mobsters know their prisoner's identity later.
Provided that Cranston answered Englemere's letter. If he didn't, the
professor would know that The Shadow had permanently disappeared. Therefore,
this was the time to balk Englemere.
Turning, Cliff hurried back to the study, boldly opened the door and
thrust himself into the room. Having witnessed Griff's misadventure, Cliff was
properly prepared.
He stopped just within the doorway, his gun drawn. He saw Englemere
staring up from the desk, gunless, since the professor had returned Griff's
revolver. But Cliff didn't aim at Englemere. He took a larger target: Tongo.
Far across the room, the big gorilla was too distant to pounce.
"One move, professor," announced Cliff, "and you'll be minus a prize ape!
Maybe one bullet won't stop the big fellow, but six will! Don't forget the
ethics you talked about. Tongo won't know what he's up against, if you start
him this way."
Professor Englemere shrugged.
"Your name?" he inquired absentmindedly. "Ah, yes. You're Marsland, aren't
you? Well, Marsland, what do you want?"
"That letter, to begin with," returned Cliff, noting that Englemere held a
pen above a half-inked sheet of paper. "After that, we can talk other terms."
Just what those terms would be, Cliff hadn't an idea. He was in a
difficult position, but he hoped to worm his way out by keeping Englemere under
control.
However, Cliff was to be spared the trouble of such problems. Before
Englemere could reach for the letter to hand it over, the door of the study
opened.
Cliff wheeled about, since he couldn't venture further into the room
because of Tongo. He was facing Griff, who was bringing two others: Gabby and
Dunk. None had guns in readiness; they could only raise their hands when Cliff
made his threat.
Then Cliff's own hand gave an instinctive jolt as something jabbed it
sharply. Three crooks lunged as one, hurling Cliff's hand farther upward as he
attempted to press his trigger finger.
The thing that jabbed Cliff's hand was Englemere's penholder. It was a
heavy holder, of the quill variety, and the professor had thrown it like a
feathered dart. Though trifling in itself, the improvised weapon furnished
enough jab to halt Cliff momentarily.
Crooks were doing the rest; under their slugging fists, Cliff lost his gun
and sagged to the floor. Feet were kicking him, but they stopped before Cliff
lay insensible.
Tongo was responsible. Bounding into the melee, the gorilla lifted Cliff
from the floor and held him in the nutcracker clutch, that relaxed when
Englemere gave the clucking sound.
As soon as Tongo dropped Cliff, the thugs surrounded their prey with drawn
guns; but Englemere ordered them to hold their fire. Griff couldn't understand
it. He began:
"This guy's a double-crosser -"
"From our viewpoint, yes," inserted Englemere. "But not from that of The
Shadow, the person who probably sent him."
"Say, that's why The Shadow slipped us!" exclaimed Griff. "Marsland here
was helping him! I thought it was funny, the way he kept spotting The Shadow,
then losing him. But it's all the more reason why we ought to croak him, prof."
"All the less," corrected Englemere. "We can keep Marsland as a hostage
until we have captured Cranston. Take him, and keep him in one of the extra
cages. He is an interesting specimen. Any human who serves a master blindly, as
he does The Shadow, belongs in the same category as the anthropoid apes."
Professor Englemere followed to the door while the crooks were carrying
Cliff out. Vaguely, Cliff heard voices and distinguished Griff's among them.
"You say to keep him," remarked Griff, "until after we get hold of that
guy Cranston. What then, prof?"
"When we have trapped Cranston," replied Englemere dryly, "I am sure that
we shall have no further trouble from The Shadow."
Crooks didn't understand the cryptic laugh that was cut short by the
closing of the door. Cliff did, while his captor's were lugging him to his
cage. Even to Cliff's whirling brain, it was a certainty that Professor
Englemere, new master mind of crime, had actually learned the dual identity of
The Shadow.
CHAPTER XIX
THE DOUBLE TRAIL
IT was daylight and the birds were chirping noisily from their nests. So
noisily, that they stirred The Shadow from the lethargy in which he had lain
for hours. Propping himself up on one elbow, The Shadow looked about and saw
the rippling water of a lake that stretched away into the morning haze.
Trying to reach his feet, The Shadow nearly slumped, but managed to grasp
the trunk of a maple tree beside him. He expected to see more trees, but except
for the twenty-five-foot maple, the others were merely saplings. The ground was
grassy, with clumps of varied vegetation, and the birds were all about.
All were water fowl. The Shadow saw herons, egrets, the ibis, and even the
rare anhinga. They seemed very much at home upon this shore, but The Shadow did
not share their enjoyment. He felt himself wavering, as though the ground,
itself, had become unsteady. Shakily, he turned about and started back in the
direction where he thought he would find a road.
After several paces, The Shadow discovered that he was on an island, and a
very small one. The thing was baffling, until he spied other islets, off in the
haze; they, too, were teeming with birds. It was difficult to gauge the spaces
between those little islands, because the distance seemed to alter with every
survey.
By then, The Shadow put his facts together. His low laugh, gathered by the
increasing breeze, disturbed the nesting birds. A silence lulled above. The
Shadow's island, the strangest shore upon which a human could have been
marooned.
Last night, The Shadow hadn't bothered to identify the lake where crooks
had laid their ambush. He recognized, today, that it must be Orange Lake,
famous for its floating islands. Solid though this island looked, it was
actually drifting on the water.
Remarkable phenomena, these islands. They formed themselves from decayed
vegetation that lined the lake bottom, and teemed with aquatic plants. Growing
large, those plants drew the soil to the lake's surface, where other plants
could grow from seeds scattered by the birds.
Enlarging, many of these islands had reached a size of several acres, and
were covered with many trees; elder and myrtle, as well as maple. Drifting at a
mile or more an hour, the floating jungles traveled from one shore to the other,
according to the wind.
Last night, The Shadow had stumbled upon this tiny island when it was
clamped against the lake shore. His fall had jarred it, and the wrenching wind
had done the rest. The island had drifted a hundred yards offshore by the time
crooks found the spot where Cliff had seen The Shadow sprawl.
No wonder The Shadow's vanish had amazed them. Floating away with a piece
of lake front property, The Shadow had accomplished the utterly impossible.
Except that it wasn't impossible on Orange Lake - something which the crooks,
quite fortunately, had never heard about.
During the night, the island had sailed several miles and was now
approaching the opposite shore. Taking off his cloak and hat, The Shadow
wrapped them in a bundle and waited, quite calmly, for his floating refuge to
complete its journey.
EARLY in the afternoon, Lamont Cranston arrived at his hotel in
Jacksonville, to find Harry Vincent waiting. He told his agent of his
adventures, and they discussed Cliff's probable reactions. Those being
indefinable, The Shadow came back to the question of Harry's search.
Posing as a salesman for an agricultural journal, Harry had narrowed his
territory down to one quarter of the original size, but without result. During
his report, Harry was interrupted by a knock at the door. Cranston answered it,
and received a letter, which he read and put into his pocket.
"Suppose I go along with you, Vincent," suggested The Shadow, when Harry
had finished his report. "There is a certain place I want to visit. You can
drop me off."
It was nearly sunset when Harry dropped Cranston at the entrance to a sand
road in the very area where Harry still had ground to cover. Noting that it was
late, The Shadow made another suggestion.
"Suppose you go back to Jacksonville," he said, "and come out here
tomorrow. If you don't find me waiting, drive into the place. It's the
Anthropological Laboratory directed by Professor Morton Englemere. He has
invited me to stay overnight and discuss the ways and means of increasing his
endowment."
Harry noticed that Cranston was carrying a suitcase when he walked in
through the sand road. But the term "anthropological" did not register its full
significance. So Harry drove away, thinking it a mere coincidence that his chief
had decided to visit someone in this area.
It struck him, as he went, that he might stop at a few houses and peddle
some farm journals before heading back to Jacksonville.
Less than a mile from the sand road, Harry saw a man working at some
beehives. He stopped the car and strolled in the man's direction. The man
turned; said testily:
"No, I haven't any monkeys!"
"Monkeys?" Harry laughed. "Why should I be looking for monkeys?"
The man nudged toward a sign on a tree beside his farmhouse. The sign bore
one word:
APIARY
"Do you know what that means?" asked the bee man.
"I sell farm journals," replied Harry. "I ought to know that an apiary is
a bee house."
"Shake hands, friend!" The bee man extended his. "I'll buy your farm
journal. I've been hoping to meet someone like you. Most of the people who stop
here think that an apiary is a place where apes live."
Harry began to write out a subscription blank. The bee man kept on talking.
"The last fellow who stopped," he said, "was as tough-looking as an ape,
himself. He wanted to argue about it. He said I was trying to cover something
up, until I finally told him about old Englemere's place."
"Englemere's place?"
"Yes. That's where the monkeys are. It's probably why people get mixed
when they see my sign. They're looking for apes, and the sign says apiary, so
it satisfies them."
Harry questioned the man further, and began to gain more facts. The
informant didn't realize that he was supplying bits of data that pieced
together to form something important. In his estimate, the Anthropological
Laboratory was something of a madhouse, ruled by the maddest of all men, a
bearded professor who relied on gorillas to do his bidding.
"I know people who have been there," said the bee man. "Trades people,
mostly. They say one monkey answers the door and another waits on the table,
where the professor sits with the biggest monkey of the lot."
"Do the monkeys ever get loose?"
"Once in a while. But I guess the keepers manage to control them. They say
the professor has a dozen keepers in the place, but we hardly ever see them. I
think the fellow that stopped here last was a new keeper."
The statement was correct. The bee man was referring to Dunk Kedly, the
crook who had arrived at the Ape Lab later than Griff expected. While Harry was
taking the subscription money, the beekeeper remembered something else.
"They took some of the monkeys out the other day," he said. "They went by
in a couple of trailers that looked like cages. Maybe they've got more monkeys
than they know what to do with. I didn't see them come back."
HOWEVER much Cliff Marsland had worried about The Shadow's fate, he
couldn't have outmatched Harry. Driving away into the dusk, Harry was gripped
with the mad desire to storm the Ape Lab lone-handed, in order to aid his
chief. For there wasn't a doubt in Harry's mind that Professor Englemere was
head of the notorious outlaw band that the law had been seeking far and wide.
Harry, himself, had seen the trailers that contained the apes, but hadn't
realized that they belonged in this vicinity. They were on the road the very
day when crime had struck in Lakedale. The bee man's talk of new keepers,
particularly the tough one who stopped at the apiary by mistake, was direct
evidence that the horde of crooks was being replenished.
The strongest fact, however, was Englemere's invitation to Cranston,
bringing him to the Ape Lab. It showed the full craft of a scheming mind.
Englemere had not only identified Cranston as The Shadow; he had lured his
archfoe right into the trap.
Clever of Englemere, to work such an open game. If only Harry had
mentioned those apes and their trailers to his chief! Only through such a clue
could Harry have recognized the deception; and The Shadow lacked the needed
clue!
Stopping his car by the darkened sand road, Harry debated the matter.
Then, seeing lights through the trees, he drove away. Another car swung out
into the highway, but Harry merely sped faster. Rescuing The Shadow was beyond
his own ability. He would have to leave it to the Feds.
Nearing a little settlement, Harry parked his car and went into a service
station, which was also a grocery store. He found a telephone in a rear corner
and put in a call to Jacksonville. Soon, he was asking for a man named Vic
Marquette, only to learn that he was out. The hotel clerk asked if there was
any message.
"Tell him Vincent called," said Harry. "He's to meet me at the
Anthropological Laboratory."
"The which?"
Harry repeated the name, but still the clerk didn't get it clearly. Harry
decided that he'd have to talk to Marquette personally, and when he learned
that his friend, the Fed, would be back in fifteen minutes, he said that he
would call again.
During those fifteen minutes, Harry strolled around outside, staying
rather close to the service station. No one was in the store when he entered it
again. Using the telephone, Harry called the Jacksonville hotel and again asked
for Vic Marquette. His mention of the name produced results, but not from the
other end.
From a door near Harry's corner, two men surged upon him and bowled him
hard against a shelf of groceries. Harry's head and shoulders deadened the fall
of the canned goods that poured down to the floor. Crooks didn't have to slug
him; the merchandise did it for them.
As the pair lifted their half-stunned victim, a third man hung the
telephone receiver back on its hook.
"Good work," said Griff to Gabby and Dunk. "You handled this guy as well
as you did Marsland. I thought there was something phony when I spotted his car
while I was coming out. I saw him come in here; that's why I went back to get
you."
"Think he put the call through?" queried Gabby.
"Not a chance!" replied Griff. "He was waiting around because he couldn't
get the guy he wanted."
"Who was that?" asked Dunk. "The Shadow?"
"No," decided Griff. "This bird is working with the Feds. He was calling
Vic Marquette. Well, take good care of him. You know the prof's motto: 'Bring
'em back alive.' Good stuff, hanging on to guys like this. They're never worth
anything after they're dead."
The mobsters carried Harry out through the door and dumped him into their
car. With Griff at the wheel, they were taking Harry along the same trail The
Shadow had voluntarily followed a little while before.
A trail from which men of crime believed there could be no return - not
even for The Shadow!
CHAPTER XX
RIVALS IN STRATEGY
WHEN Griff Perrick rang the bell at the Ape Lab, it was answered
instantly, but not by Cissie. The chimpanzee was caged, at present, and Spud
Kiefert was acting as doorman. Griff motioned for silence, then undertoned:
"Where's the prof?"
"Still in the study," informed Spud. "Talking with Cranston. Old Tongo is
standing right by."
"I kind of wish Cranston was The Shadow," said Griff. "Even The Shadow
couldn't try his funny stuff, with Tongo close."
"He's close to Cranston, all right. The prof was showing pictures of the
apes, and Tongo was handing them to Cranston, the last time I was in there."
Griff turned and beckoned to men outside. Gabby and Dunk entered, carrying
Harry. Griff pointed them to the cage room, then locked the door and left Dunk
in charge.
Harry's senses were back again when he reached the cage room. He saw a
line of apes staring through the bars, until he neared the end of the row.
There, Harry blinked. Peering from another cage was his fellow agent, Cliff
Marsland.
No recognition passed between them. Harry's surprise was natural enough,
since a human caged with a line of monkeys was an oddity in itself. A man
dressed as a keeper unlocked the cage past Cliff's, and Harry's captors shoved
him in through the door.
A clang, the turning of a big key, and Harry was another member of the
monkey family.
Griff gave the prisoners a final glance and left the cage room. He stopped
at Englemere's study, knocked and entered, to find the very situation that Dunk
had pictured.
Professor Englemere was facing the complacent Mr. Cranston across a desk
strewn with photographs, while Tongo sat close enough to embrace Cranston at an
instant's notice.
"I was expecting you, Perrick," said Englemere in a pleased tone. "How
soon can we visit the cage room?"
"Inspection will be in half an hour, professor."
"We still have time, then," said Englemere to Cranston. "Come. I shall
show you my workshop."
Tongo arose with the men and picked up Cranston's suitcase, as he always
did with luggage that visitors brought. When they reached the door, Englemere
pointed straight along the hall. Cranston hesitated, and Tongo promptly laid a
huge arm over his shoulders to draw him along.
"Tongo will show you the way," chuckled Englemere. "I think he likes you,
Mr. Cranston. I shall join you after I talk with Perrick."
Cranston and Tongo were scarcely out of earshot, before Griff spoke
hastily:
"If you take Cranston to the workshop, he'll see the new Vapor Gun,
professor!"
"No, no!" Englemere smiled. "I've put it away. I'm going to show him some
of my other inventions."
"How long will that take?"
"As long as you let it, Perrick. I want you to bring all the keepers and
station them outside the workshop. When you are ready, knock. I shall come out
first, and then -"
He smiled anew, and Griff understood the rest. Englemere's exit would
clear the path for action. The workshop was a perfect place to trap a man like
Cranston; much better than the study. With Tongo in the room, Cranston's chance
of putting up a fight would be absolutely nil. The gorilla would grab him when
the crooks gave the cue.
"Give me a few minutes;" added Englemere. "I want Cranston to think that I
have been captured, too. Then I can discuss the matter of ransom with him as
friend to friend."
"I get it," nodded Griff. "Mutiny stuff, on our part."
"Exactly! Lose no time about it. I am getting tired of the byplay. Bah! I
won Cranston's confidence in five minutes. You should have come sooner,
Perrick."
Griff explained the reason for the delay. Englemere's eyes gleamed when he
learned of Harry's capture, particularly when Griff added that the prisoner
might be a Fed. Griff showed the professor some cards that bore Harry's name,
which crooks had taken from the prisoner's pocket.
"I shall go to the cage room," decided Englemere, "and talk to both
prisoners. But not until after I have left Cranston. Remember, Perrick, have
every man available. The more men, the easier it will be to overpower Cranston
without injuring him. Anything worth one hundred thousand dollars is too
valuable to hurt."
ENGLEMERE moved along to the workshop, while Griff went to the cage room
and called the keepers together. He told them to scout up the rest and join him
in the passage.
A few of the keepers paused to toss a few remarks at Cliff and Harry. The
last man to go was Gabby.
Always talkative, Gabby was naturally the last man. He'd been baiting
Cliff, and getting sharp replies. Gabby couldn't forego the opportunity of
another wisecrack.
"We're going to pair you guys off," remarked Gabby. "Not together, though.
We've got the right cage for you, Cliff. In with Boola, the baboon. We've been
trying to find him a bunkmate dumber than he is!"
Cliff shoved his face close to the bars, gave a quick look at the
departing keepers, and undertoned.
"You should have brought in Blink Halley, while you had a chance. He's the
dumbest guy I ever heard of - except maybe you, Gabby."
Hearing what Cliff was saying, Harry became interested immediately, and
moved over to the corner of his cage, to add arguments if he could. Gabby was
still eying Cliff.
"No cracks about Blink," snapped Gabby. "He ain't dumb!"
"You mean he wasn't dumb," returned Cliff. "Only, that's your opinion, not
mine. Any guy that would let himself get knocked off, the way he did -"
"What do you mean?"
Cliff dug deep in his pocket and brought out some newspaper clippings. He
folded one that bore a small photograph, keeping the fold covered so that Gabby
couldn't read the name. Cliff queried:
"That's Blink, isn't it?"
Gabby nodded.
"Look at the name under the picture," suggested Cliff, "and tell me what
you think."
Gabby unfolded the paper. His eyes popped, his mouth opened in fishlike
fashion, as he exclaimed:
"Dorset, the watchman at the Citrite plant!"
Cliff nodded, slowly.
"That's all I wanted you to know, Gabby," he said. "Now, who's the
double-crosser? Am I - or is Griff Perrick?"
"Griff is," gritted Gabby. "He didn't tell me he knocked off Blink. I
didn't even know what moniker Blink was using at the Citrite plant. He said
he'd open the way, and be waiting for Griff -"
"Which he was," inserted Cliff, "behind a door that wasn't locked. All
Griff had to do was knock. Instead, he cut loose with that machine of his and
finished Dorset, along with the door."
Cliff didn't add that these facts came from The Shadow, who had recognized
Dorset's photograph in his rogues' gallery under the name of Blink Halley. In
fact, it was largely through Blink's connection with Gabby that The Shadow had
worked the scheme of getting Cliff into the crime ring. There was more, too,
that Cliff could have told, but he let Gabby voice it for himself.
"Griff was the only guy who knew Blink," muttered Gabby, "and he didn't
put the others wise. No wonder he didn't allow newspapers in this joint! But
there's something else!" Gabby's voice rose, but it didn't matter. All the
other crooks were gone. "Griff double-crossed the outfit! He made me keep mum
about what happened down in Lakedale! You know what happened there?"
Cliff knew, and produced another clipping to prove it. The clipping told
how the leader of a bank-robbing crew had blasted two of his own men into
oblivion, along with their secret weapon.
"That's why I went in to see the prof," said Cliff, while Gabby was
reading the clipping. "I wanted to put the heat on him and find out if he knew
that Griff was playing the rat. Let me out of this cage and I'll take it up
with Griff where I left off."
Hustling across the room, Gabby found the keys and brought them. As soon
as Cliff was out, he took the keys from Gabby and started to unlock Harry's
cage. Gabby began an objection:
"That guy's a Fed -"
"All the better," put in Cliff. "If he is, he can handle a rod. Get us a
couple, Gabby. Some of the dopes may stay on Griff's side."
WHILE Cliff was playing his piece of strategy, another was in progress.
Outside Englemere's workshop, Griff and ten keepers were in readiness.
Griff hadn't bothered to count noses, hence didn't notice that Gabby was
absent. His men were armed, but their guns were in their pockets. Ten against
one, they could take Cranston barehanded.
The door of the workshop opened. Englemere stepped out, speaking over his
shoulder.
"I am going to arrange the inspection, Mr. Cranston," said the professor.
"As soon as we are ready, Perrick will call you."
As though Griff and the crooks weren't there, Englemere walked blandly
past. Griff stepped toward the workshop door and gestured for his men to wait.
But before Englemere could open the door to the cage room, it swung his
way and three men sprang in sight. All had guns: Cliff, Harry and Gabby.
Frantically, Englemere flung himself upon them to drive them back. They
sent the professor spinning across the passage. Griff yanked a gun and at the
same time pulled the door of the workshop wide. It was steel-faced and gave him
a pill box in the corner behind it.
He yelled for men to stop the invaders, and they surged to the task,
drawing guns. But Griff wasn't forgetting Cranston.
"Into the workshop, some of you!" he roared. "Shove Cranston into a
corner, and Tongo will do the rest!"
Crooks nearest the workshop preferred its shelter while they were pulling
their guns. Three of them followed Griff's injunction and went that way, in
headlong fashion. The door was open, but they brought up as suddenly as if they
had hit a barrier of steel.
Reeling back, their guns half lifted, they recoiled from the sound of a
weird laugh that reverberated along the passage.
Lamont Cranston was gone, and in his place stood The Shadow. He was
wearing his black cloak and his slouch hat; behind him stood the helpful valet
who had taken those garments from the suitcase and helped him put them on. The
Shadow's valet was Tongo, the mighty ape.
Others had shown their ways of strategy. Now, it was to be The Shadow's
turn!
CHAPTER XXI
STROKES OF JUSTICE
ONLY the arrival of The Shadow could have saved his two agents, who had
started matters on their own. Neither Cliff nor Harry realized that they were
due to meet Griff and the entire batch of keepers, all with handy guns.
They'd heard Griff mention an inspection, but had supposed it mere
routine, for Griff hadn't given the later details until his men were gathered
in the passage.
Englemere's action of thrusting them back would have proven helpful, had
Cliff and Harry accepted it. Instead, they were flat-footed in the passage, two
men against ten, their only advantage their ability to fire the first few shots.
They had come as three, but now they were only two, for Gabby showed
himself a rat in the face of odds. Diving past The Shadow's agents, Gabby was
yelling: "I'm with you, Griff -" when The Shadow's laugh intervened.
Cliff and Harry fired with their borrowed guns. Griff was shooting from
behind the door, aiming for The Shadow's agents. Other crooks were turning as
they heard the laugh, only to dive at the first bursts from The Shadow's
automatics.
Caught between two fires, matters looked bad for the phony keepers. Only
Griff's sudden change of action saved them.
Hurling the door hard shut, Griff sent it right at The Shadow, who was
flung back into the workshop before he could damage the opposition seriously.
Seeing what happened, Harry and Cliff made a quick dive for the shelter of the
cage room. They would not have reached it but for Professor Englemere.
The bearded man had drawn a gun, too, and was firing point-blank at the
surging crew of thugs who were driving forward, not only to overtake Cliff and
Harry, but to get away from The Shadow before he could open the door again.
Englemere's surprise shots slowed the surge; then, as The Shadow's agents
reached the cage room, the bearded man took a long leap after them.
Guns were roaring from the passage, all too late to damage The Shadow's
agents or their new ally. Then, again, came the laugh of The Shadow. Once more,
he was flinging the door wide, and this time Griff was no longer behind it.
Wildly, Englemere was shoving Cliff and Harry beyond the cages. They
needed shelter, for gunmen were coming from the passage. The thunder of The
Shadow's guns had taken over; thugs were staggering as they reached the cage
room. But most of them came through, with Griff in their midst. Pointing some
across the room, Griff himself took charge of the door.
The battle became a sniping one. Two of Griff's men had fallen under The
Shadow's fire and were lying in the hall. From the edge of the door, Griff and
another crook were taking jabs at The Shadow, who zipped shots back. The rest
of the thuggish tribe, five in all, were nicking the far end of the cage row,
behind which The Shadow's agents crouched with Englemere.
In such a fray it was possible to reload, and both sides were at it. Griff
stepped in from the door, to let his fellow-marksman take a stab at The Shadow.
The man leaned out too far; the report from a .45 was accompanied by the
marksman's stagger. Filling the breach, Griff rasped for another sharpshooter
to join him.
From the passage, The Shadow laughed. His tone was one of confidence,
assuring his followers that they could win if they held their own. It worried
the crooks, that laugh, and they would have lost their caution if Griff hadn't
ordered them to be careful.
Englemere saw Gabby sliding up to Griff to speak with him, and the
professor gave an anxious look at his companions.
"If you'd only waited," said Englemere. "I was coming to release you. I
was pleased when I learned that there were two of you. So was The Shadow when I
told him."
Cliff stared, puzzled. Englemere reached out and blasted a shot at Gabby,
who dived for shelter, clutching his left ear. Then Englemere resumed:
"I was bluffing when I talked to Griff. The letter I sent to Cranston was
a ruse to bring him in here. I was sure that he must be The Shadow; that he
would help me -"
THE SHADOW was helping himself at that particular moment. The sudden blast
of his guns made Griff drop back, shouting for more men to join him.
Again, The Shadow laughed his contempt of all foemen, and with it,
Englemere caught something in his tone. He pointed in Gabby's direction, said
to Harry and Cliff:
"Get that man!"
Before they could stop him, Englemere was bounding in the open and Gabby
was aiming for him. The Shadow must have heard Gabby's shots, for his laugh
suddenly faded. He was retreating to the workshop, where he had left Tongo, and
Griff's men were pouring out into the passage, thinking they had their cloaked
adversary trapped.
Cliff clipped Gabby before the fellow's shots could find Englemere. For
the moment, the professor had the cage room to himself. Pulling a master key
from his pocket, he bounded along the row of cages, unlocking them. Cliff and
Harry were coming out to join him, when Englemere came bounding back.
All heard a distant slam of the workshop door. The Shadow had taken
refuge. Griff and four crooks came hurrying back into the cage room. Griff saw
Gabby crawling on the floor, pointing weakly at the cages. Before Gabby could
talk, Griff shouted him down.
"All right, so they clipped you!" Griff turned to the corner. "Well,
here's where we get them, now that The Shadow isn't bothering us. I'll show you
how it's done!"
Crouched low, Griff started along the front of the cages, his companions
following in Indian file. They intended to reach the corner and make a quick
surge upon men whose guns were almost empty. But Professor Englemere had a
better plan: a little idea that he had discussed with The Shadow.
Englemere throated a peculiar cry. Every cage door popped open. Gibbons,
orangutans and chimpanzees sprang from their cages, to take strangle holds upon
the crooks below them.
Frantically, Griff and his men gave the clucking sounds that should have
made the apes desist, but Englemere kept repeating his high-pitched call.
The apes tightened their grips on the captive crooks.
Guns were falling on the floor. Englemere scooped them up and passed one
to Harry, another to Cliff, reserving one for himself. He led the way to the
passage, and started a savage fire at two men down the passage.
Cliff and Harry were about to join him, when they heard sounds behind
them. Englemere had neglected to make the call the apes obeyed. Griff and the
half-strangled thugs were clucking their way to freedom.
The Shadow must have timed his stay in the workshop just long enough for
Englemere to spring his scheme. The Shadow was needed again, and he came at the
required moment.
Englemere and the agents were springing back to help the apes recapture
the crooks, when the door of the workshop hurled wide again. The two men
stationed there were turning to fire point-blank, but they had two fighters to
deal with, not one. The Shadow beat the first thug to the shot, and Tongo
handled the other.
As fast as the gun stab that darted from The Shadow's gun, Tongo's great
hands flew forward. One crook was dropping his gun and clamping his hands to
his chest, where the bullet had struck him; the other was trying to fight off a
pair of mammoth hands that completely circled his neck.
As The Shadow sprang across the sagging crook, Tongo flung the other along
the passage, clear beyond the door to the cage room. Then The Shadow and his
mighty ally were at the door of the cage room itself, witnessing events there.
Matters were going well, for, among the crooks, only Griff had a gun.
Harry and Cliff were locked with him, while the apes were handling the other
mobsters. But the situation didn't quite suit Tongo.
HOPPING forward, Tongo took three men in his embrace. He literally weeded
them, one by one. He handled Harry gently, for he considered him a stranger. He
gave Cliff a shove, for he remembered the scene where Cliff had threatened
Englemere from a distance.
But Griff, the man who had actually planted a gun against his master, was
a different case entirely. Tongo intended to take away his gun again and fling
Griff right through the wall.
Englemere sprang in to intervene. At his cluck, Tongo halted. Wrenching
loose, Griff showed the way he appreciated favors. Twisting past Englemere, he
came in from the other side, putting the professor between himself and Tongo.
Griff still had his gun, and he shoved it for Englemere's heart.
Griff thought he was safe from The Shadow, too, but the cloaked battler
was swooping in from the door. From the midst of a sideward fling, The Shadow
fired, picking the proper angle without an instant's hesitation. Griff's body
jolted; his hands sprang apart and the gun went flying from his fingers,
unfired. But Griff did not fall.
Two great arms had come around Englemere's shoulders. Their paws caught
Griff's throat and shook it. As Englemere dodged away, Tongo gave Griff's form
a whirl and hurled it toward a cage, where it drove halfway between the bars
before it stopped, too wedged to travel farther. If The Shadow's bullet hadn't
found Griff's heart, Tongo's fling had made up the deficiency.
The Shadow's keen ear detected distant sounds. He stepped out to the
passage and turned in the direction of Englemere's study. Harry and Cliff were
wondering where he had gone, when they heard the dash of footsteps.
Raising their guns, they were facing the passage, when they recognized the
men who entered. Vic Marquette had arrived with a squad of Feds.
When Englemere announced that he had barred trailers that could carry the
prisoners back to town, Marquette was pleased.
"I received your message, Vincent," he said. "We came out here, and heard
the shooting. We managed to get in through that big hole in the back room."
Harry was puzzled, but Englemere understood.
"The Shadow must have used the new Vapor Gun," he said. "I suppose it
opened the wall entirely."
"Just about," nodded Marsland. "I saw the machine when we came through. It
must have done quick work."
"It does quick work," nodded Englemere," and I am giving myself up with
it."
Marquette couldn't understand, until Englemere explained the matter of the
Citrite. He admitted that he had stolen it; knowing of no other way to acquire
it. He had felt that when he used the explosive to create an antitank machine,
his action would be vindicated.
"Dorset's death made a difference," concluded Englemere. "Still, it did
not change my purpose. The Vapor Gun is yours, Mr. Marquette. I am ready to
stand trial for murder. Of course, The Shadow did mention something about
Dorset that might change the complexion of the case -"
Both Harry and Cliff were interrupting, to tell Marquette who Dorset was.
They dragged Gabby over to give his testimony, and Marquette listened with a
smile.
In Vic's opinion - and he could cite similar cases - Dorset's death was
definitely the premeditated work of Griff Perrick only. Since Dorset was
actually Blink Halley, Gabby's testimony marked him as Griff's accomplice.
"I think your gift will nullify your error, professor," said Marquette.
"The government may consider you too useful to be put behind bars, even for a
few years. Though you wouldn't mind it, professor" - Vic was looking at the
windows, whimsically - "because you're living behind bars here. Maybe they're
to keep the monkeys in, but they certainly kept us out!"
THE apes were moving to their accustomed tasks. Some were getting brooms
and mops, others bringing pails of water, to clean up after the fray. They were
demonstrating the training to which Griff had put them without Englemere's
knowledge, so the fake keepers would find time for crime.
In their way, the anthropoids were adding evidence that would stand in the
professor's favor.
Cissie, the chimpanzee, was laying aside a broom. Her keen ears had heard
the tingle of the doorbell; she was putting on an apron, to answer it.
Harry looked at Cliff, who nodded. Cliff waved to Englemere; Harry to
Marquette. Together, they went out through the passage. When they reached the
front door, Cissie had opened it and was staring out into the darkness.
The Shadow's agents heard the purr of a motor; they saw the signal blinks
of a tiny flashlight. The Shadow was summoning his agents to join him in
departure.
Harry and Cliff walked off through the darkness; while Cissie, remaining
at the door, was joined by Loco, the orangutan.
The car was moving toward the sand road, when a third face loomed between
the other two. Tongo had joined his simian companions. The three apes heard the
strange laugh that quivered from the darkness, trailing off into night. Not one
of the three creatures stirred. Cissie, Tongo and Loco formed a tableau where
they stood.
They were three wise monkeys. They saw no evil, heard no evil, spoke no
evil. But they had done their part in curbing evil, under the guidance of a
strange master cloaked in black, who had visited them, and departed.
Like Professor Englemere, they were grateful to The Shadow for freeing
them from the control of crime.
THE END