Hawkeye eased back. The top of the rumble seat came downward without a sound. Circling away from the coupe, Hawkeye followed a stealthy course back to the street. Cutting wide, he came in to the rock pile on the vacant lot. He crept up to the hedge and whispered to Harry.
Guns ready, the agents waited tensely. They were to use their automatics only if revolvers barked beyond that hedge. As they listened, Harry and Hawkeye heard footsteps on woodwork. Then voices. Two men were coming out on the porch: Rutledge Mann and Basil Tellert.
Peering through the branches of the hedge, the watching men saw the stroke that followed. From both ends of the porch, attackers rose in pairs. Springing forward, they fell upon the two men and bore them to the soft ground off the porch.
Short choking gasps — no cries. Then growled warnings that noise would mean trouble. Neither Mann nor Tellert decided to fight. Swift workers tied them; the prisoners were gagged. The abductors raised their burdens.
Harry Vincent was quivering from fierce restraint. It was Hawkeye’s hand that held him back. Under those final orders, the agents could make no move unless a battle started. Huddled by the hedge, The Shadow’s agents watched the captors carry their victims across the street toward the vacant house.
Figures disappeared. Then came the faint sound of motors starting. Cars in gear. Crooks were on their way.
Hawkeye spoke to Harry, no longer in a complete whisper. Harry was to take The Shadow’s coupe. Hawkeye would get the car in which he and Harry had come here.
On the way to Manhattan, they were to flash Moe Shrevnitz. The jehu was waiting in his cab, only a few blocks away, ready to join any anticipated chase. But there would be no action from the taxi driver tonight. Like Harry and Hawkeye, Moe would have to wait further word through Burbank.
HARRY VINCENT, on his way to The Shadow’s car, was thinking of Rutledge Mann — and of the Shadow’s actions.
The Shadow, seeing that shrewd methods lay behind the work of criminals, had thrown unexpected bait before the master who controlled the game. By sending Rutledge Mann to Basil Tellert, by presenting startling news which had forced the promoter to lose no time in denouncing Jark, The Shadow had made it imperative that Mann be abducted.
The Shadow had watched Mann in Manhattan. There had been no followers there. Crooks had chosen to wait until Mann had met with Tellert, at the latter’s secluded home. They had bundled Tellert away along with Mann. That was the stroke by which they made it impossible for anyone to give new facts regarding Jark.
Harry knew that The Shadow had foreseen the move. He realized how cagily The Shadow had gambled. The Shadow had played on the fact that the chief of crime was crafty. Crooks could no longer be launched against Bruce Duncan, whose whereabouts were unknown. But Bruce — so the criminal brain reasoned — would not dare issue forth, once he knew that both Mann and Tellert had been kidnapped.
These were the thoughts that flashed through Harry’s brain as he realized that Mann still had a chance for safety. For Harry had learned, from Hawkeye, that The Shadow had found a berth in the rumble seat of the coupe that was covering up the sedan on its flight with newly taken prisoners.
The Shadow had watched for opportunity. When he saw it, he had not missed its knock. He had eased his agents out of sight, that he might seize the golden chance that only a lone trail offered.
Responding to the bidding of a supercrook, mobsmen had issued forth from Professor Jark’s new abode. Their crows had gained new prey. Another agent of The Shadow — as yet unidentified as such — would soon be on their grill.
But in effecting their swift capture, these henchmen had unwittingly gained a passenger for whom they had not bargained. Heading back to their secluded retreat, they were taking the very master whom they feared — The Shadow!
CHAPTER XXI
HANDS FROM THE DARK
CROOKS had moved circuitously following their coup at Basil Tellert’s home. First the two cars had headed northward, toward Long Island Sound; then they had shifted west, north again, and finally east. This had been a move to throw off trailers.
Nestled in the hollow compartment of the coupe’s rumble seat, The Shadow was riding with the crooks themselves. He had tricked the band into a feeling of complete security.
Along an open road, the cars were moving swiftly. Blinking a tiny flashlight in the folds of his cloak, The Shadow consulted a tiny compass on the top of his fountain pen. He could gauge the direction as east. By that he knew that Jark’s new abode lay somewhere on Long Island.
Mile followed mile. The coupe jolted along a stretch of dirt road. Its course was slow and twisting. At last the car’s wheels crunched on gravel. The coupe halted; The Shadow heard muffled sounds of sliding doors. The coupe rolled forward, hit smooth cement and came to a stop.
Footsteps clattered on stone. Voices growled. Doors banged shut.
As sounds moved away, The Shadow reached up and raised the top of the rumble seat. It was loose; but he had kept it clamped by gripping cross-ribs during the rough part of the journey.
Through a tiny slit, The Shadow saw the prisoners being carried through a doorway. The cars had arrived in a large, stone-walled garage. Parked here were other cars; two more sedans and a brightly painted truck. The crooks had dressed up the old, dilapidated-looking vehicle with which they had hauled away the swag from Reisert’s.
There were three lights in the garage. The mobsmen did not extinguish them after their departure.
Knowing that no one was about, The Shadow eased out from his cramped quarters. His figure stretched as he reached the floor. Then it moved swiftly toward the door through which the men had gone.
Testing the knob, The Shadow found the door bolted on the other side. Moving toward the sliding door of the garage, he saw that they had been clamped on the interior. If he left by one of them, anyone coming down from the house would find one catch undone.
Such problems as these did not trouble The Shadow, if he had time to handle them. But the fact that the garage had remained lighted was indication to The Shadow that someone was due. Looking back at the cars, The Shadow laughed softly as he studied the coupe.
It was the only small car in the place. The one most likely to be used if anyone was going out. Moreover, it offered The Shadow the best of hiding places. But before he returned to the rumble seat, The Shadow had work to do. A simple task.
Stepping into the coupe, he seized the knob at the rear of the seat and lowered the back window. Stepping out, he raised the top of the rumble seat.
At that instant, The Shadow caught the sound of a clicking bolt from the house door. Like a telescoping figure, he dropped into the rumble compartment. The top dropped with him; but it did not bang. The Shadow stopped it an inch before it hit.
KEEPING a tiny crevice through which he could peer, The Shadow saw two men approaching. One was Louie; the other was Pete, the mobster who had driven The Shadow to Lamont Cranston’s. The Shadow listened to their conversation.
“You know what the chief wants,” Louie was saying. “Matt and Luke ain’t interested in any of the old gangs no longer. It’ll be a cinch for you to frame things over the telephone. Nicky used to be a pal of yours.”
“He is yet,” returned Pete. “An’ nobody’s goin’ to figger him back on the job. Ownin’ them gas stations in Brooklyn is keepin’ him clear of the dragnet.”
“But he’s losin’ out on the bum gas, ain’t he?”
“Sure. Runnin’ that bootleg gas ain’t no cinch, since the Feds has been makin’ it hot. Nicky’s goin’ to be glad to hear from me.”
“All right. Hop along then. But don’t call him from too close to here. Head across the island. Ten miles, anyway.”
Pete chose the coupe. As he started the motor, Louie unlatched a sliding door. The lid of the rumble seat closed imperceptibly. The coupe backed out. Once again The Shadow was undergoing the inconvenience of a well-cramped ride.
Pete found a good road and traveled for about fifteen minutes. The coupe stopped; The Shadow heard the driver get out. Peering from his compartment, The Shadow saw Louie enter a fair-sized drug store that stood on the fringe of a lighted district. Further on, were the lights of a railway station.
Straight back was the road by which they had come. It paralleled the railway and came directly in from the darkened spaces of the countryside. The Shadow eased down into the compartment. Three minutes more and Pete was back in the car.
The mobster turned the coupe around. He headed along the road beside the railway. Pete was whistling to himself as he drove. Evidently he had made the required contact with Nicky. But Pete, as he watched the road, never realized what was happening in back.
The top of the rumble seat was coming up by inches. Long black hands were probing from the space provided. Pete could not see them in the mirror; for they were below the ledge of that opened rear window. The Shadow had particularly noted, back at the store, that Pete had not closed the glass panel.
One thing else. Coming in, The Shadow had noted a turn and a jounce where Pete had slowed almost to a standstill. He had learned its meaning. The coupe had gone over a railway crossing. That was the spot for which The Shadow was waiting.
It came. Pete applied the brakes and swung the car slowly to the right, shifting into second. It was then that The Shadow rose. The top of the rumble seat was heaved up by hoisting shoulders. The gloved hands shot through the opened window. Like claws of steel, they clutched Pete’s throat.
The mobster struggled, raising his hands from the wheel to fight off the attack. His body writhed, while the coupe, almost stopped, encountered the rise to the crossing and stalled. In gear, it did not coast back. The Shadow’s grip, meanwhile, never lessened. Pete’s body became limp.