Without loosing the weapons from his grasp, The Shadow clicked the catch and raised the sash. He peered out toward the roof. His keen eyes spied a lurking shape pressed close to the garage side of an air shaft.
Whirling about, The Shadow listened. His ears caught a creeping sound from somewhere in the hall. His fists tightened on the automatics. The Shadow had the answer that he wanted.
Beak Latzo had not been ordered here for robbery. That had already been accomplished. The big-nosed mobleader was coming for another purpose: one that required a surrounding crew, larger than Cliff Marsland had supposed.
With crime completed, this secluded office had become a trap. Murder had been planned as a follow-up to coming theft. And death’s victim — if the crooks prevailed — would be The Shadow!
CHAPTER XVII. GUNS IN THE DARK
UNTIL the moment of his final deduction, The Shadow had not foreseen the imminence of the danger that now threatened him. He had come to Dokeby’s office knowing that he must beat Beak Latzo and a crew of mobsters to the swag. But he had expected to cope with a raid like that in the Luftus penthouse; not with a mass attack from every quarter.
The Shadow had realized suddenly that his agents had sent him incomplete information. He had learned that a trap was ready to be sprung. He had discovered the existence of unusual cunning in this plot that involved Steve Zurk.
Had The Shadow lingered longer at the door of Dokeby’s safe, entering enemies would have surprised him. The only outlet — the way to the garage roof — would have proved itself a second snare.
But The Shadow, as quick in action as in thought, had gained a last-minute edge upon approaching enemies.
Dokeby’s inner office was a veritable death trap. A spot in which the odds, as they now stood against The Shadow, would prove disastrous. One course alone was feasible: to meet advancing thugs before they could seal the exit to the hall.
Sweeping forward through the outer office, The Shadow gained the door to the hall. His move, though swift, was noiseless. The Shadow’s left hand crept to the knob. Carefully, it avoided a click of the automatic against the metal of the knob.
Then with a suddenness that was astounding, The Shadow yanked the door open and whirled out into the hallway, his big guns coming-up to aim. He was face to face with the approaching foe.
THE stairway, to both lower and upper floors, was less than a dozen paces away. It was from that spot that the enemy had advanced. One man had almost reached the door; another had sidled along the opposite wall, revolver drawn, ready to protect the entrant.
Others were at the head of the steps, waiting. For Beak Latzo and Lucky Ortz had sent their torpedo twins — Sherry and Pete — ahead to test the trap.
It was for Sherry, by the far wall, that The Shadow aimed his ready right-hand gun. He pressed the trigger of the automatic just as Sherry, recognizing the cloaked warrior, prepared to deliver a revolver bullet.
One gun roared alone. The Shadow’s. A hot slug seared Sherry before the thug could press trigger.
Sherry began to sag, snarling, unable to retain the gat that was slipping from his loosened fingers. The Shadow had delivered a mortal wound.
Pete hurled himself upon The Shadow. The space between this second gangster and The Shadow was but a half dozen paces. As he leaped, Pete came up with a revolver clenched tight in his right fist.
He wanted to burn The Shadow with a bullet — a shot that could not fail — at a target within a foot’s range. Pete had a chance to gain that objective, for The Shadow’s left hand, lowered to swing the door, had not yet come to aim.
But The Shadow’s arm swung with Pete’s; swiftly, with terrific upward drive. The Shadow did not try to beat the torpedo to the shot. That would have been impossible. His piston arm followed through with its upward drive; The Shadow’s automatic cracked Pete’s wrist just as the man fired.
Flame from Pete’s gun burned The Shadow’s hat brim. The bullet, speeding through, missed The Shadow’s head by half an inch. The slug ricocheted from the ceiling. It was Pete’s only shot.
For The Shadow’s swing, carrying Pete’s arm up with it, kept on to the springing mobster’s jaw. Metal crashed bone. Pete’s head bobbed back as if his neck had been made of rubber.
Side-stepping, The Shadow let the crook go sprawling forward on the floor.
Thus did The Shadow deal with the cream of Beak Latzo’s outfit. One would-be killer lay dying; the other hopelessly unconscious.
And as The Shadow swung across the hall, he loosed new fire upon the stairway where Beak Latzo and Lucky Ortz was stationed.
DIVING for safety, the two returned fire. Beak leaped for the stairway to the upper floors; Lucky for the one that led below. Sherry and Pete had blocked them from immediate aim; the sight of the falling torpedoes had instilled the two leaders with desire for safety as well as fight.
Their shots were wild as they made their quick retreat. Each killer ducked again, as The Shadow, reaching the stairs, loosed shots along each flight of steps. Left hand pointing downward; right hand pointing up, the bullets from The Shadow’s automatics came with the quick succession of a barrage.
Safe on their respective landings, Beak and Lucky kept under cover. Each was ready for The Shadow, whichever way he might come. Both had the same thing in mind: to block that terrible fighter until reinforcements came from the garage roof.
Rats had been driven to their holes. The Shadow’s laugh rang out in mockery.
Automatics emptied, the cloaked fighter whirled and headed back toward Dokeby’s offices. He dropped his bulletless guns beneath his cloak. A second brace of loaded automatics came forth in his gloved hands.
Beak and Lucky waited. They thought the game was theirs. They could picture The Shadow, scudding for the roof, going straight into the fire of the recruited dock wallopers. But neither Beak nor Lucky knew that The Shadow had detected the existence of an outside trap.
Well did The Shadow gauge the actions of the foe. Had the fight begun in Dokeby’s office, the outside men might have kept under cover. But shots in the hall, muffled by intervening walls, would spell an indication that the fight was going inward, not outward. The Shadow knew that the men from the garage roof would be coming through.
They were. As The Shadow whirled through Dokeby’s outer office, a window crashed as some one hurled a big gasoline can from the roof. The missile had been heaved at the center of the window. It carried the sash along with the glass.
A man, leaping across the air shaft, had caught the window ledge. Clinging there with his left hand, he was aiming a revolver with his right as he raised his knee to the sill, preparatory for entrance.
A weird laugh from the gloom. Straight ahead, the first of the dock wallopers saw the shrouded shape of The Shadow, sweeping from the dim light that pervaded the outer office. The fellow fired wildly at a fading target. As he did, the burst of an automatic answered.
The Shadow, dropping suddenly, had escaped the ruffian’s fire. But The Shadow’s own aim was true.
The man on the ledge gave a gargling shriek. Backward, he plunged down into concrete-walled shaft.
NEW shots burst from those quick-pointed automatics. A second foe staggered upon the further brink of the shaft. Wounded, this enemy would have followed his companion into the pit but for the presence of the third dock walloper, who yanked his falling pal to the safety of the roof.
Leaving his wounded companion, the third fighter dived behind a stack of emptied gasoline cans and fired fast and furious at the shattered window.