The Shadow had laughed. That laugh meant death — for others!
CHAPTER XIII
HOMER SPEAKS
THE stout door was yielding as The Shadow approached it. The tall man moved swiftly.
He laughed softly as he pressed his form against the door, and reached for the knob of the strong latch. The knob turned beneath his fingers.
The door gave inward. A mass of surging men plunged down the steps. Two of them sprawled headforemost in the glare of flashlights.
Others piled over them. The lights were turned directly on the inner door ahead, at the end of the short, wide entry.
That door was closed. Guns in hand, mobsmen scrambled for it.
As the door opened, a shot came — not from the inner room — but from the entrance at the alley. One gangster fell at the door of the inner room.
Another turned angrily, and his light glared back toward the faces of those who still stood at the top of the steps.
Crash! A bullet shattered the glass of the flashlight. Another shot followed. Cries came from the men who had dashed to the inner room.
All they knew was that the shots were coming from the top of the steps. Were they trapped by other mobsmen? Was this a phony scheme perpetrated by double-crossers of the underworld?
Gangsters all, they did not wait to ask. Sharp barks responded, and the men at the top of the steps scattered away from the danger spot.
Those who had gone before were returning the fire. They had not seen that the first shots had come from behind the door — not from the open doorway.
There, The Shadow had swung, with the opening of the door. Hidden in the niche of the wall, he had dealt the initial stroke.
Now his automatics raked the cursing mobsters who were at the inner room. Quick, staccato shots came from behind the door.
Each bullet found a living target. Outside, wounded gangsters were being tended by their fellows. Others were waiting, away from the door of death.
They did not know what was happening within, they were waiting until some one tried to come out.
Of ten men who had entered that pit of death, only two staggered forth. The trap that had been laid for The Shadow had proven a trap for those who entered.
Some had been laid low by shots from excited gangsters at the outer doorway, but The Shadow himself had accounted for a full half dozen.
The odds that were against The Shadow had proven in his favor. Not one bullet had been aimed toward his place of safety.
The number of men that he had encountered was better than a mere two or three. He had thrown consternation into the midst of his enemies; and with that consternation had come disaster.
Not a light glowed into the death trap, for no one dared approach. Friends could be mistaken for enemies, there.
Only now, since the last echo of the final shot had died away, two grim-faced gunmen were cautiously approaching to peer within.
The Shadow worked more rapidly than they. From his place behind the door, he sprang forward and stopped beside the dead body of a gangster that lay at the foot of the stone steps.
His cloak was tumbling from his shoulders. His hat came also. His automatics were empty; they dropped to the floor.
His gloved fingers clutched the loaded revolver that had fallen from the limp hands of the slain man.
Before the slow-approaching gangsters had shown their lights, a call came from within the stonewalled entry.
It spurred on the advancing men; for it indicated that there was no menace there — no hidden form about to fire from the dark.
“Come in! Come in! We’ve got him!”
That was the burden of the shout. It brought an eager throng.
Flashlights showed the scene. The dead and wounded were lying about. At the far door, one man was resting on his knees, clutching an injured arm. But in the foreground, face downward, lay a form covered by a black cloak.
Half upon the head was a slouch hat. Stooping beside the victim was a man garbed in a thin, dark sweater.
This man was capless; in his hand he held a gleaming revolver.
Five gunmen scrambled in, uttering shouts in unison. The Shadow had fallen in the fray!
The man in the dark sweater drew aside and hunched himself backward up the steps, to make room for the eager throng. Flashlights shown in the hands of those who crouched around the black-clad form.
The body was heaved over. Rays of light revealed its face. Then came a cry of rage from one of the peering mobsters.
This was not The Shadow! It was a gangster known as “Jigger” Jarvis. He had been one of the first to rush into the entry when the door had yielded.
“The Shadow! Grab him! He’s outside! Don’t let him get away!”
These were the cries that came from those who were beside the lifeless form of Jigger Jarvis.
One quick-witted gangster recalled the man in the sweater, who had come up the steps, and who had been mistaken for a gangster.
“Get him!” shouted this informant. “Get him! The guy in the dark sweater!”
THE description answered more than one in that mob. As lights showed everywhere, quick attacks were made; but one keen gangster spotted the true quarry.
Off at the edge of the sidewalk, leaping toward the street, was a tall man, heading for the darkness of an alley beyond!
The man who had spied the sweatered figured fired. His shot missed.
Others saw the direction of his aim. More shots rang out as the running man reached the alley.
Mobsters sprang in pursuit. They had found The Shadow! He was in flight! He would never reach the other end of the alley alive!
As the first pursuer reached the spot where The Shadow had disappeared, a shot came from the corner of the building.
The chasing gangster pitched headlong. A second shot brought down another mobster.
Two leaped forward together. One fell as a bullet struck him at close range. The other dived for the shelter of the wall, along the street.
The pursuers stopped. Dropping to places of safety, they edged along to cover the entrance of the alley.
Others, organizing, hurried around the block, to cut off The Shadow’s retreat.
As tense seconds passed, and no more shots were fired, three gangsters arose and dashed forward in a mass.
One turned on a flashlight. It revealed a momentary glimpse of a tall figure clambering to the roof of a low porch that adjoined a house on the alley.
Shots rang out. The figure was gone. It reappeared again, springing upward to the roof of the two-story building.
A bullet struck close beside the clambering form. From the sound, it seemed to graze the man as he swung himself to the top of the house.
One pursuer hoisted himself to the roof of the porch. A shot rang out from the edge of the housetop. The mobster fell.
Then The Shadow was gone; he had taken to the housetops of another block, and gangsters were scattering wildly in hope of preventing his escape.
From far above, they heard the wild echoes of a mocking laugh. The Shadow, with the distance he had gained, was ready now to foil all pursuit with his elusive skill.
The frenzied gangsters were spreading and calling to their fellows. There was still a chance to trap the man they hated; and they were determined to use it.
A sudden end came to their last opportunity. A police siren sounded. A patrol rolled up, and uniformed men leaped from it.
Harry Vincent’s rescuer had sent in word that trouble was brewing near the old pawnshop. A detail of police had been dispatched to that locality. The officers opened fire upon the scattered gangsters.
Mobsmen were fleeing from the scene. Disorganized, they sought to escape this menace. And The Shadow was forgotten.
The main drive was directed toward the blind alleyway beside the old pawnshop. Some of the gangsters who were there fled in the face of gunfire. A few, trapped, opened a determined attack upon the police. They were quickly overpowered.