Marty Lunk snarled. He shot a glance toward the room in back. For a moment, he was on the point of sending Hokey back there, to fight The Shadow. Then the front door offered more attraction.
“Come on!” snarled Marty.
He reached for the bolts of the inner door. He found them loosened. Angrily, the mob leader, yanked open the inner door and shoved Hokey into the vestibule. At that instant, the outer door swung inward.
Two policemen came surging through.
HOKEY swung. His gun hand struck one cop a glancing blow. The policeman staggered. The second man locked with the gorilla. Hokey, surging forward, sent him to the outer steps.
Other officers piled on them. A detective yanked away the gorilla’s gun while a policeman slugged him with the butt end of a revolver. The big gorilla was stretched upon the sidewalk.
The action was Marty Lunk’s opportunity. Springing across the form of the stunned officer who lay in the vestibule, Marty gained the steps. He leaped to the sidewalk, away from the crowd that had fallen upon Hokey.
“Get him!” A detective uttered the cry as he sprang forward with leveled gun. A shot; the bullet whizzed by Marty’s ear.
Viciously, the gangleader swung and delivered a return shot. The detective fell wounded. A uniformed officer blocked Marty’s path, ready to fire. The gangleader sprang upon the policeman. Staggering, the man delivered a wide shot. Marty Lunk dashed onward. One lone policeman sprang out to stop his flight.
Marty fired a pot shot; the bullet reached the officer’s arm. As the wounded man faltered, Marty sped onward.
Shots from behind. Half a dozen guns were loosed. Bullets ricocheted by Marty’s heels.
The gangleader was in luck tonight. A skimming bullet singed his shoulder; another grazed his hip.
Outside of these flesh wounds, the mob leader was unscathed as he turned the corner and dashed across an avenue toward a waiting car.
BACK in the house, a strange lull had fallen in the room where The Shadow stood. The black-garbed fighter had loosed the contents of four automatics. Emptied weapons alone remained in his hands. The last burst of gunfire had sounded from the front sidewalk, marking the futile police chase of Marty Lunk.
A few sporadic shots barked elsewhere. The Shadow laughed as he turned from the window.
Three steps forward; The Shadow stopped. His gaze went toward the wall. Jerry, propped against the baseboard, had pulled a revolver. Propped on one elbow, the mobster was taking aim.
The Shadow sprang forward. His automatic clattered from his right hand as his arm swept like a whip. A gloved hand snatched the revolver barrel, plucking the weapon from Jerry’s fumbling grasp. Continuing, The Shadow’s hand flung the gun through the window. With a weird, taunting laugh, The Shadow regained his emptied automatic.
Footsteps pounded in the front hall. The police were entering. Sweeping forward, The Shadow reached the back stairs. His tall form disappeared from view. Jerry, rising, staggered across the floor to snatch Beef’s gun from the unconscious man’s pocket.
Two policemen burst into the room. Jerry, dragging out the gun, tried to fire. He was too late. Revolvers delivered simultaneous shots. Jerry, the last who had seen The Shadow, dropped dead upon the floor.
Joe Cardona was in Brandley Croman’s library. With members of his squad beside him, the detective pointed to the drilled, but unopened safe. A grim smile showed upon Cardona’s lips. Then, with a sudden thought, Joe swung to his men.
“Upstairs!” he ordered. “Maybe some of the mob headed that way.”
Detectives responded to the order. But when they reached the second floor, they found vacancy. The Shadow had gone one story higher. A window on the third floor was closing. Rubber suction cups squidged as a figure merged with the darkness beneath the overhanging roof.
Detectives, peering upward, did not see the form of The Shadow against the clouded sky. Negotiating the edge of the roof, the cloaked warrior reached the top. The Shadow had played his part. The law had gained the credit. His work was finished for the night.
From roof to roof — The Shadow vanished half a block from the house where he had waged battle. From then on, his course was untraceable. Searching police were on the lookout for scattered gangsters; but they failed to glimpse The Shadow.
HALF an hour later, a light clicked in a darkened room. Hands appeared beneath a blue-rayed lamp — hands with long, white fingers. The Shadow was in his sanctum. Victory had been his lot. Mobsters — wounded, dead and prisoners — were all that remained of Marty Lunk’s band of burglars.
Yet in his masterful fight, The Shadow had allowed a single loop-hole. He had neglected the king-pin of the lot. Marty Lunk, The Shadow’s contribution to the hands of the law, had run into what should have been certain death or capture. That was why The Shadow had not followed him.
Luck had favored Marty Lunk. Luck, plus one bit of foresight. His escape had been purely good fortune; the waiting car, chauffeured by a mobster, had been good judgment. Though his band was shattered, Marty Lunk was still at large.
Quartered in a dilapidated hideout, his one lone mobsman listening and nodding, Marty Lunk was vowing vengeance. His lips framed oaths; his clenched fists made pugnacious gestures as Marty voiced his plans for future crime.
“I’m laying low,” he snarled. “Laying low — for a while. But after that, the racket starts again. Bigger and better. There’s nobody that can stop Marty Lunk. Nobody. Get me?”
The mobster nodded as Marty spat new oaths. Yet in his braggadocio, in his contempt for the law, in his bold defiance of all enemies, Marty Lunk was covering a secret fear.
For Marty Lunk had seen The Shadow. He knew the mettle of the foeman whom he again must face.
Crook and Shadow! Their courses, apparently, were due to cross again.
Marty Lunk was determined to persist in crime. To do so, he must face The Shadow. For The Shadow, like the law, never forgot a crook who reaped from his toils. Marty Lunk knew that fact.
He should have considered one fact more. The Shadow, unlike the law, never failed when he took up the trail of those who had eluded him.
CHAPTER V. THE GYPSY TRAIL
IT was early the next evening. Darkness had settled in the obscure side street along which The Shadow had trailed the gypsy. A young man, peering from the window of an empty house, was watching the old building across the street. Harry Vincent, agent of The Shadow, was on duty.
There were lights in the opposite house. Dimly discernible, they indicated that inner hallways were illuminated, beyond the darkness of the front rooms.
A limousine, rolling eastward, came to a stop in front of the house. Harry observed two women, recognized by their white fur wraps, as they stepped from the car.
These visitors ascended the front steps of the house. The door opened to admit them; then closed. The limousine waited. Moving away from his observation post, Harry gained the rear door of the empty building where he was located. He was on his way to report to Burbank.
The Shadow’s agent had been vigilant. It was Harry’s duty to report concerning all who left or entered that house across the street. Hence, haste seemed necessary in putting through a call to Burbank. Harry wanted to get back to his deserted post.
Yet there was no need for Harry’s speed. His eyes were not the only ones that had observed the arrival of the limousine. Shrouded in darkness, close by Harry’s empty house, another watcher was keeping vigil.