It was a giveaway; but that did not matter.
The cab neared the gloomy elevated station well ahead of the pack. A quick look from the window; The Shadow saw a local train coming north. He called for a stop on the far side of the avenue. He fluttered a bill through the window and was out of the door before the cab had stopped.
A dash up the steps, through the turnstile, and The Shadow was across the station platform. He vaulted the gate to the rear open platform of the last car. There was a shout. Passengers leaving the train sprang aboard it just as the cars started. Through the door, The Shadow saw them making in his direction.
Some finger man had sent a call for reserves. A dozen thugs had boarded this train one station down the line. They had seen The Shadow make his leap aboard!
The train was rattling rapidly as the thugs came through. Guns were in fists; passengers were crouching along the seats. Crooks had the edge. They could fire at The Shadow. He could not respond without dealing death to helpless bystanders.
Swinging to the left of the open platform, The Shadow leaned half from the car. Guns barked. Bullets shattered the glass door and the rear window where The Shadow had been.
A gunman yanked open the door. He gave a shout as he saw The Shadow.
The cloaked fighter was completely revealed by an approaching glare, that was accompanied by a heavy roar. An elevated express was tearing northward along the center track, to overtake the local. Although the express was rising to a higher level, its headlight spread its beams upon The Shadow.
The thug sprang for The Shadow; two others were close behind that hoodlum.
The Shadow met them in a sudden grapple, before the first man could aim. The fellow's body made a barrier against the pair behind him. The Shadow's long arm came across the front man's head. His hand sledged a hard blow to the skull of a thug in back.
Then the headlight's glare ended. The express was passing the local, its wheels on a level with the windows of the lower train.
The front thug shifted. The remaining man in back came in upon The Shadow. Guns spoke in that darkness. One thug slumped; the other wavered. He staggered toward the open door.
THAT was the sign for a rush. More gunmen came through. As they did, The Shadow gripped the side rail of the platform. He made a quick spring to the gate top, poised a half second and did an outward dive, his extended arms speeding upward. Guns beneath his cloak, The Shadow was not ready for the new surge. He had other plans.
Three crooks who jostled to the platform saw The Shadow's outward dive. They saw his hands make a quick clamp on a platform rail six feet above. That rail belonged to the last car of the speeding express.
As he hooked, The Shadow let his feet swing clear.
The crooks fired. Their gunshots jabbed blankness. The Shadow was whisked from view before they could snap their triggers. The whizzing express had whipped him with it; his powerful hands had retained their hold. A fading roar marked The Shadow's departure.
As the local halted at the next stop, thugs piled to the station platform to make a hurried flight. On the upper level, far ahead, they saw the twinkling rear lights of the dwindling express. Its clatter was lost; instead, those thwarted thugs heard the trailing echoes of a mocking laugh.
The Shadow had eluded all pursuit. In the clear, he could evade the cordons of underworld men who sought him.
Speedily, The Shadow would reach his sanctum. From that base, he intended to prepare a counter-thrust against crime. Always, in the past, the sanctum had proven the perfect stronghold in emergency.
Tonight, the case would be exactly the opposite. A supercriminal had expected thugs to fail when they sought The Shadow in the open. That mastercrook had planned a trap that lay ahead.
The Shadow's sanctum, hitherto so hidden and unknown, was the very spot where Marvin Bradthaw wanted The Shadow to be!
CHAPTER XII. TRAP OF DEATH
STREETS were desolate and dark near the sanctum. A long circuit had brought The Shadow past areas where camouflaged crooks were still on the move. It had been many blocks since he had seen any of those thuggish patrollers.
Reaching an alleyway beside an old office building, The Shadow went through that gloomy route.
He passed an obscure side door that led into the ground floor of the building. That offered one route by which The Shadow could reach the sanctum; tonight, he preferred another. Rounding the rear of the building, he entered a blind passage on the other side. The Shadow stopped at a blank, brick wall.
There, in total darkness, the cloaked being felt for two bricks that were set about four feet apart. Each projected slightly; they could be discerned by touch. The Shadow pressed these bricks. The double action produced an immediate result.
A section of cement slid inward from The Shadow's feet. It moved under the building wall leaving an invisible space. With a quick slide The Shadow was through the gap. The chunk of cement paving slid outward to cover him. It did not even click when it fitted into place.
A turn through a short passage. The Shadow pressed a secret spring; a steel barrier slid aside. Black drapes were beyond it. The Shadow spread the portion where the curtains joined. He was in the sable darkness of the sanctum.
Through that gloom he saw a dot of light that shone like a luminous pin point.
Burbank's signal. The contact man was trying to call the sanctum. Reaching for the earphones The Shadow lifted them. The dot of light went out as The Shadow spoke in whispered tone.
Across the wire came the even-voiced response: "Burbank speaking."
Those two words told new disaster. The voice was not Burbank's. Though it was the same imitation that had fooled Harry Vincent, it was detected by The Shadow. He pictured immediately what had happened.
Burbank had actually talked over the line when The Shadow had spoken from the Cobalt Club. Crooks had allowed that under the orders given by their master, Bradthaw. However, once The Shadow had been pushed to speed and strategy among Manhattan streets, the fact had gone to Bradthaw.
The master-crook had called for Burbank's capture.
The contact man's station had been occupied. An impostor had promptly put in a standing call to the sanctum. There could be only one reason for that move. Crooks wanted to know when The Shadow reached there. A trap was due to close.
IN the next two minutes The Shadow made a rapid calculation. He figured what Bradthaw's policy would be. Scores of mobsters would arrive here without delay to surround the building that contained the hidden sanctum. Beyond those shock troops would be other cordons.
Instead of a place of security the sanctum had become a snare. Men of evil had guessed the location of The Shadow's stronghold.
Without delay, The Shadow retraced his course out to the rear entrance. He slid the cement inward; raised his head above its level and listened. He was too late. Already he could hear the low growls of searchers in the darkness.
Bradthaw must have ordered dozens of thugs to be quartered in empty buildings hereabouts. The Shadow's response to the faked Burbank call had been the touch-off. Word had flashed instantly for all hands to converge upon the old office building.
In those tense moments The Shadow foresaw exactly what Bradthaw's course would be. Crooks would plant explosives throughout the ground floor of the building and dynamite the whole structure from its moorings. That would be a sure way to finish The Shadow.
If The Shadow attempted to make a break before the blast came, lights would glare everywhere in this district. The Shadow would be in the center of a crook-manned area faced by odds that even he could not overcome.
A break would be as bad as a wait. Either meant sure death. There was one other course that seemed even worse; nevertheless it carried the unexpected. That, to The Shadow, offered a possible advantage.