With surprising haste, the cloaked figure made retreat. Swinging about as he hurried toward the door, the attacked fighter loosed one round from each automatic. Derisive cries greeted this insufficient thrust. Footsteps clattered on the stairs.
Mobsmen were dashing down to open fire on their retreating foe. They thought they had The Shadow on the run.
But the agents at the outer door knew differently. Their chief’s retreat was their cue. They understood the orders that they had received, through Burbank, from The Shadow.
Up came automatics. As the cloaked figure sprang to the side of the hall, the entrenched agents opened a barrage from their darkened post. Guns crackled; bullets ripped the stairway. One mobster, clipped by Hawkeye, made a grab for the banister and clung there.
A second ruffian received a slug from Cliff. With a terrorized shout, the thug pitched forward and came whirling down the stairs. He struck head-first at the bottom, kept jouncing on and rolled over three times. He sprawled motionless in the center of the hall.
That was enough for the rest of the descending mob. As someone rasped an order from above, three gorillas turned and dashed upward. The ceiling of the ground floor took them beyond range of The Shadow’s agents. But the mobsters were not free from pursuit.
As the agents stopped their useless fire, they saw that cloaked figure spring out from the wall. Cliff chuckled as his chief swept forward. Big automatics thundered from thin-gloved fists. As two of the fleeing mobsmen reached the top of the stairs, the third floundered to hands and knees, wounded by a zipping bullet.
Half crawling, half diving, the fellow managed to reach the safety that the other two had gained. The retreat had become a stampede. Crooks were madly fleeing from terror of The Shadow. Not one remained, to fire at that dread figure on the ground floor.
FROM the outer door, Cliff watched the cloaked fighter step over the sprawled body of the mobster in the hall. The rogue on the steps was huddled against the banister, his gun arm sagging. He could put up no fight.
The Shadow’s figure stopped just short of the stairway. Fists came up; automatics roared a brief barrage toward the second floor. These shots were a preventive measure to keep the crooks cowering above. One pace ahead — one more — the cloaked fighter stood stock-still.
For some reason, Cliff decided, The Shadow chose to go no further. That, to Cliff, was puzzling. He could see the purpose of the false retreat. It had drawn the gang into a range of fire. But why was The Shadow pausing?
At that instant, the cloaked figure made a move. It looked like a feint on The Shadow’s part. A quick stride to the very bottom of the stairs; then a sudden whirl about for a new, deceptive retreat. It was at that instant that the unexpected happened.
Blue lights blazed with roaring crackle from both sides of the stairway. Hidden arcs shot ripping streaks of man-made lightning about the spot where the cloaked figure was turning. Dazzling, blinding glare made The Shadow’s agents throw their arms before their eyes.
Then, as blankness faded, they saw the figure of their chief rocketing toward the floor. Turned full about as the current was loosed, the cloaked fighter was hurtled outward by the shock that he had received. He had been caught just within the edge of the danger zone.
Cliff knew instinctively that the shock had been little more than staggering. He realized now why no advance had been made beyond the foot of the stairs. In one glimpse, he had seen leaping currents obscured by the cloaked figure of The Shadow. Closeness to the current had felled the turning fighter.
Someone above must have recognized the same. New footsteps were clattering. Rallied mobsmen were springing downward to aim shots for their crippled foe. Cliff snapped a command to Hawkeye and Tapper. Rising, the trio sprang forward, opening fire.
Mobsters faltered before they could deliver shots at the cloaked body on the floor of the hall. One man sagged; the others made another wild dash up the stairway. Cliff and the other agents barked slugs in plenty, up to that beleaguered second floor. Everyone above had dived away.
AS Hawkeye and Tapper still continued firing, Cliff leaped forward and caught the cloaked shoulders of the prone man on the floor. Dragging the victim to safety, he barked another order to Hawkeye and Tapper. They thrust away their guns to aid Cliff with The Shadow.
Carrying their cloaked burden, they reached the street. Again Cliff spoke as temporary leader. Pointing Hawkeye and Tapper toward the corner past the warehouse, he ordered them forward, while he hurried to a post across the street. Cliff’s move was an effective one.
Some sniper started fire from a darkened upstairs window. Cliff fired at the blackness where he had seen the flame spurt. The sniper dropped back, no longer anxious to aim for the men who were hurrying to the corner.
Then came police whistles, a block away. Scudding from his post, Cliff followed after Tapper and Hawkeye, who had turned the corner. Shots broke out behind him as he ran; Cliff swung about at the corner to fire at two men who had come from the front door of the beleaguered house.
Then, passing the corner, he saw a waiting cab. Cliff leaped aboard. Hawkeye and Tapper were already aboard, a slumped black shape between them. A crafty-faced driver saw Cliff enter. The cab shot away as shots sounded wildly from the corner. Cliff responded with a quick volley from the cab window, just as the taxi rounded a corner.
The belated move was Cliff’s one error. The cab had run into the path of a police car, coming from the street into which they had turned. Shots came from the police, as they sped in pursuit of the cab. The chase that followed was a mad one.
Luckily, this was no ordinary cab in which The Shadow’s agents rode. The driver was Moe Shrevnitz, an agent of The Shadow. The cab was The Shadow’s own, which Moe drove as an independent. Like other cabs, it was geared low for traffic; but it also had a fourth gear for speed.
No jehu in Manhattan could outdo Moe Shrevnitz. The twisting course that he took gave the patrol car no opportunity to deliver damaging fire. Moe was half a block ahead when he turned into the broad space of a clear avenue. There he took to a straight-away course.
The officers in the patrol car thought their opportunity had come when they reached the corner that Moe had turned. But to their surprise, they saw the cab a full block ahead, walking away from them with ease. After half a dozen blocks, the taxi was out of sight.
CLIFF MARSLAND breathed easily, five minutes later, when Moe threaded into a darkened street and brought the cab to a halt. Cliff knew that he had brought on the chase; not only had it caused temporary trouble for Moe, it had also allowed respite to those in the house on Delavar Street.
Cliff knew that mobsmen could easily have scurried back to safety; that the closed door of 18 Delavar would give no clue to the police. The law would put down this episode as a running mob fight. Thus had Cliff’s rescue of The Shadow developed into a mad flight.
But Cliff had another matter in mind. The figure in the cab was stirring. Cliff gave an order to Hawkeye and Tapper. The two slipped from the cab and moved away in the darkness. While Moe waited at the wheel, Cliff turned on the light to learn how fully The Shadow had recovered.
That action brought the final surprise. As Cliff looked at the cloaked figure, he saw shoulders move. The slouch hat slipped from the head that it covered. Bewildered, Cliff found himself staring into the face of Harry Vincent.
“Hello, Cliff.” Harry spoke with a weak grin. “Got me out of it, didn’t you? I should have kept further from those stairs.”
“You — you were The Shadow?” gasped Cliff.