There were few cars passing along the avenue. The leading vehicle in Matt’s procession waited until the broad street was cleared; then it swung out with the other cars close behind. But while the three cars were turning, another vehicle swung into the avenue from three blocks below.
It was a trim coupe that had made haste in reaching this location. The driver, looking up the avenue, spied the three cars coming into the wide street. A whispered laugh came from blackness above the wheel of the coupe.
FROM the details of Cliff Marsland’s report, The Shadow had divined that robbery might be completed by the time that he reached the vicinity of the bank building. He had deliberately arranged his course so that he might spot any suspicious-looking cars that were about.
For even if crime had succeeded, The Shadow had a rare opportunity. He knew that crooks would not expect followers. This was his chance to pick up a trail that would lead him to the new headquarters of Professor Baldridge Jark.
The Shadow had reasoned that Matt and Digger would be the jobdoers; that Jark would still be at the unknown spot where Doctor Baird was held prisoner; that reserve gangsters would be there also. The Shadow also knew that traffic on the avenue would be running without interruption.
Coming in to skirt this district, he had seen the beginning of the get-away. His plan was to keep on the trail. Idling along in the coupe, he gave the three cars more leeway; then, when they were four blocks distant, The Shadow suddenly increased speed.
Well had The Shadow calculated. But chance, which had first favored him, was now ready with a bit of trickery. From a store front on the avenue, sharp eyes were watching The Shadow’s coupe. Those optics belonged to one of Loco Zorgin’s pickets.
The crouching mobster noted the coupe’s increase of speed. He watched the vehicle for a moment; then decided to look along the avenue. That was when the freak of chance occurred. Just as the picket spotted the swag-bearing cars, the leader of the procession swung off the avenue into another side street.
But for this fact, the picket would not have suspected the coupe. As it was, he reasoned backward. He thought that the driver of the coupe had seen the cars turn and on that account had increased acceleration. Leaping from his post, the mobster gave the alarm by opening fire on the coupe.
The Shadow was already fifty feet beyond the picket’s post. His increasing speed made his car an evasive target. The picket’s bullets whistled wide. But other gunmen bobbed into view; like the first, they sought to riddle the coupe.
INSTANTLY, The Shadow decided to run the gantlet. Whisking an automatic as he jammed the accelerator to the floor, he leaned from the window of the coupe and aimed ahead. Mobsters in the rear did not matter. They were firing at a car as it sped beyond them, adding to the range.
But those ahead must be eliminated before the coupe came alongside them. Responding to the picket’s fire, all mobsters on the avenue had swung from their hiding places. They thought it would be easy to stop this suspicious coupe. They had not reckoned on the fact that The Shadow was at the wheel.
An automatic spat flame at the nearest sniper. A searing bullet sent the rogue spinning to the sidewalk. This mobsman had been at The Shadow’s left; but The Shadow had fired in crisscross fashion with his right hand. Left fist still gripping the wheel, The Shadow shifted his form clear across to the window on the right. Out shot that automatic; again its muzzle jabbed a tongue of flame.
An aiming gorilla sank to the curb, his revolver rattling as it struck the gutter. Snarling, the mobsman was clutching his right arm. He was an open target; but The Shadow did not want him. Again shifting to the left, the cloaked driver aimed for a third mobster who was on the left side of the street.
Two guns barked simultaneously. The mobster’s slug cracked the little window just back of the coupe’s door. Shatterproof glass did not scatter. But the burst of The Shadow’s automatic was an effective one. As the coupe sped by, the third foe lay flattened. He, too, had taken a bullet from The Shadow’s .45.
Cutting straight across the avenue, The Shadow was heading for the street that the three cars had taken. The last picket was diving for the shelter of a fat fire-plug. The Shadow, his automatic regained, was ready to drop the mobsman if he tried to fire. But that moment, a new threat roared into view.
From the street which The Shadow had last passed, a mobster-manned touring car had whirled out into the avenue at the very moment of The Shadow’s veer. Whizzing up the right side of the avenue, it was bulging straight for the swinging coupe. Two mobsters were aiming a bulky machine gun from the left side of the touring car as the driver cut in to meet the path of the coupe.
AS he jammed the brakes of his car, The Shadow aimed a straight shot for the most vulnerable point among his foemen; the driver of the touring car. A zimming bullet jolted the fellow up from the wheel. Unguided at this important instant, the long car went into a half skid.
Its rear veered to the left. The man beside the driver uttered a cry as he grabbed the steering wheel to yank the car off the curb. The machine gun rattled; but its aim was hopeless. The sudden swerve of the rakish car caused the stream of bullets to zip in front of the halted coupe and clatter off the brick wall of a corner building.
Then, as the car swung zigzag fashion, The Shadow blazed away at the machine gunners. He nipped the man who was trying to change the heavy weapon’s aim. As the rattle broke off, the touring car took another side skid, squarely into the coupe.
The jar whacked the lighter car half around and sent its front wheels jouncing up upon the curb. But the touring car, with its combined weight and momentum, was due for a worse fate. Its rear wheels caught an oily section of the side street’s asphalt. The big car keeled over on its side as it hit the curb.
At this instant came the muffled roar of a subterranean blast. Digger’s charge in the tunnel between the old house and the bank. The ground shook; glass clattered from hundreds of windows in the surrounding blocks. Amid the reverberations of the explosion sounded the shrill notes of whistles. A siren whined from off the avenue.
The Shadow yanked the coupe into low gear and stepped hard on the accelerator. The car fairly leaped over the curb and out into the avenue. A sharp swing of the steering wheel, a quick shift into high speed second. Whizzing across the avenue, The Shadow sped away into the silence of the side street to the left.
As his car whirled toward the corner, The Shadow added aftermath to chaos. Above the roar of the motor came the chilling mockery of his strident laugh. Sweeping away from pursuing cars, balking the attack of enemies who had all but surrounded him, The Shadow was leaving his disorganized foemen to bear the brunt of a converging police drive.
Left at the post, the mobsters would be forced to scatter in flight. The Shadow had given them the slip; should they take up a chase, they would run risk of dashing squarely into the intervening approach of police cars. Their only choice was to flee up the avenue, leaving stragglers to be captured by the police.
The Shadow had made the most of belated opportunity. Unable to meet crime before it struck, he had sought to gain an important trail. Chance had robbed him of his mission. Outspread mobsters had sought to down The Shadow within their cordon.
Once again, The Shadow had conquered evil hordes. Yet his quest still lay blank against him. Though he had delivered telling blows to the minions who had covered crime, he had made no score against those villains whose game must yet be beaten.