Working from below, The Shadow inserted a small steel instrument into the lock of the old, battered door.
The slight clicking of the sharp device escaped all hearers. Even the specially made master key of thin steel was painted black.
The lock responded. The hand sought the knob and turned it with painful slowness. The door was loose on its hinges.
It opened gradually, inward. The space widened to a foot. Had there been any glow from within the house, the opening of that door might have been discerned by keen, observing eyes. But the door opened into blackness.
And blackness it was that entered there, as The Shadow crept a serpentine course into the old house, turning his body sidewise as he progressed.
The door closed gradually behind him.
Even the tiny searchlight was absent as The Shadow groped his noiseless way to the stairs of the old house. He ascended silently to the second floor; then went up to the third.
By intuition, as much as by actual search, he discovered a trapdoor that led to the roof.
THE SHADOW had chosen this house cleverly. Fronting away from the block, well removed from the scene of action, no gangsters had stationed themselves within its portals.
Now, emerging on the roof, The Shadow crouched, alone and obscure. His sharp eyes glowed beneath his slouch hat as he picked his way along the housetops.
Every waiting gangster would have been perplexed if some one had told him that the very center of the danger zone had been left unguarded. Yet that fact was literally true. The housetops were devoid of mobsters.
The explanation was simple. The entrance to Glutz’s old strong room was on the ground. It could be approached only from that quarter.
The Shadow took no chances. If there should be gunmen here, he would be prepared for them. But he encountered none.
The Shadow, all believed, was coming into a trap unknown to him. That had been true when The Shadow had approached this area.
He had passed the most distant cordon, purely by his natural method of approaching places unnoticed. He had picked the alley through which he had come.
Seeing a gangster at one end, he had slipped by, along the wall of the building. Alert from then on, The Shadow had arrived and listened to the conversation of the watchers.
Divining the significance of their words, he had chosen the roofs for his method of approach.
The old pawnshop was in the bad lands, and The Shadow was traveling toward familiar terrain. Well did he know all the important spots of this undesirable district.
Continuing his course, he reached the flat roof of the building next to the old pawnshop. There, his body formed a human bridge as it moved over a narrow, yawning gap below. Groping his way with amazing deftness, The Shadow, lying prone, peered from the roof above the cul-de-sac.
The blackness of the alley was a veritable mass of solidity. To many, it would have been a fearful, forbidding sight.
To The Shadow, it was luring. Thirty feet of brick offered a scant, impossible footing — even for a skilled human fly.
Now, at night, a fall would be inevitable for any one who might undertake the descent.
But not for The Shadow! The man of the dark was busy. From his cloak he was drawing certain objects which he fitted to his hands and feet.
Feet foremost, he let his body over the edge of the roof. Unseen in the darkness, he clung to the side of the building.
As one hand drew away, there was a slight squash. As the hand pressed the wall, again, the sound was slightly different.
His hands and feet garbed with his special suction cups, The Shadow was creeping safely downward into the blackness of the alley.
He was entering the heart of the trap, but he was arriving unseen!
Foot by foot, he made the precarious descent. He reached the bottom. He again crouched low as he removed the suction cups that had served him well. They went beneath the cloak — round black disks that fitted in a special holder.
Now, working with consummate care, The Shadow toyed with the lock. It was a formidable obstacle, yet his efforts were noiseless.
His body scarcely moved, as it covered the black-clad hands. Even had it swayed in that darkness, it could not have been seen by the waiting men stationed in the street.
The Shadow took no unnecessary chances. Daring though he was, he risked only what was demanded.
The lock yielded; but The Shadow was cautious as he opened the door. A single ray of light, coming from within that barrier, would have meant betrayal.
There was no light beyond the door. The Shadow edged his way into darkness and let the door close noiselessly behind him.
He was standing on stone steps that led downward, but his descending feet made no sound.
THE SHADOW came to a closed door. It was the only door here. Behind that door was the hiding man — Homer Briggs.
Presumably, he was alone; and The Shadow had business with him tonight. But The Shadow had divined the nature of this hunted creature.
Homer was not alone in the center of this trap, he knew.
The door was not locked. It yielded by the fraction of an inch as The Shadow pressed. That was a sure indication that Homer was not alone.
To meet his quarry, The Shadow must first dispose of a more formidable opponent.
The black-clad hands were busy. They worked at the back of the cloak. They slipped from the sleeves of the garment, but the cloak remained, attached to the hat.
The hands held a rod of steel, no larger than a pencil. They drew it out to the length of four feet.
The slender shaft was pushed up into the hat, which tilted forward to the collar of the cloak. A body slipped low, beneath the cloak.
One hand held the rod; the other an automatic, while the man crouched low. The muzzle of the gun pressed against the door. It swung inward.
The answer was a revolver shot; then another. In quick succession, Hank Farley had fired from the opposite side of the room, shooting the instant that the door had swung.
His shots were aimed at the body of the form he saw. They whistled through the folds of the black cloak. Then came an answering shot.
Farley’s right arm dropped. A second bullet struck his left shoulder. The man lost his grip upon his automatics. He crumpled to the floor.
Homer Briggs, revolver in hand, was standing at the end of the room. He saw the flashes of flame come from the lower border of the black cloak.
He aimed in that direction, but before he could fire, a bullet caught him in the hand. The gun he was holding clattered from his grasp and lay on the floor.
The black form swayed at the door, then gained substance as The Shadow rose within it. Through the door stepped the dread man in black, his two automatics covering the surprised gangsters.
He turned toward the cringing, moaning form of Homer Briggs.
Before The Shadow could move another pace, a startling sound was heard from without. The muffled gunfire had reached the ears of the waiting gangsters.
They did not know that The Shadow had arrived, yet they had realized that something was amiss within the stonewalled den.
They were storming the heavy door that The Shadow had barred behind him. Soon it would give beneath their blows.
The Shadow turned. There was no time to question Homer now. The sounds of the shots had carried farther than he had anticipated.
The Shadow was trapped, doomed. He was virtually at the mercy of the attacking enemy. In a few minutes, he would be fighting a hopeless battle for life.
He moved stealthily toward the breaking door — where a losing cause awaited.
Yet, from beneath the black hat came a long peal of gibing, taunting mirth — The Shadow’s challenge to the mobsmen who sought his death.
The weird sound reechoed amid the stone walls, as though a thousand imps had taken up the cry.