Uniformed men hurried in through the open door. They stumbled over dead and wounded gangsters.
Shots came from the inner room. A policeman staggered. Another officer approached the door, and blazed straight at a propped-up man who lay against the wall. It was Hank Farley, resisting to the last.
He had fired his final shots with his left hand. The policeman’s bullet finished his career of crime.
AWAY from the scene of battle, skulking gangsters reported the carnage that had taken place with the advent of the police.
Few dared to risk a conflict, but there were those of the underworld who, by practiced caution, were not afraid to continue a stealthy search for the man who had eluded them.
The Shadow, it was said, would probably be headed away from the danger zone.
Watching gangsters lurked about decaying buildings. Each hoped that he might catch a glimpse of the mysterious man in black.
It was the safety of numbers that so inspired them. With remnants of gangdom’s horde at large, each searcher was keyed to his task.
Each man knew that if he should fire a warning shot others would come to his aid. All were willing to risk an encounter with the police, since The Shadow was the stake in the desperate game.
But they reckoned without their foe. The Shadow had not fled. He had simply retreated in the face of massed numbers.
With The Shadow, an attack was the best defense. But he chose his own ground for the onslaught.
Creeping along the housetops, swinging himself miraculously across wide spaces, The Shadow was grimly seeking a suitable spot from which to begin his next operation.
A full block from the old pawnshop stood a crumbling building that had a small courtyard in back. This spot was reached through a narrow cranny between two projecting walls.
Here, two toughened gunmen had sought a breathing space. Sheltered below the two-story building, they were planning secret action.
One pointed to the dim, projecting roof above. There were windows in the walls. A supple man could reach the roof by that route.
“Sneak out to the street,” said one. “See that it’s all O.K. Then back here again. We’re going up.”
The man’s companion growled in assent.
While the first man waited, the other crowded his way between the walls and made a brief inspection. The gangster in the little court was peering through the crevice, and his shape was dimly visible in the light that filtered from the street.
A head peered downward from the room above. A lithe form slipped softly over the projecting edge. Sure feet found the ledge of a window.
The Shadow clung to the walls of the second floor. Doubling his body, he prepared to continue the descent. His hidden eyes watched the man below.
Something prompted the gangster to gaze upward. His startled eyes spotted the form crouched by the window. Before an exclamation could escape the gangster’s lips, the clinging, batlike form had loosened from its hold.
It shot through the air — a flight of almost ten feet downward and landed squarely upon the surprised gangster. The waiting man could not avoid the precipitated attack.
It was the gangster who bore the brunt of The Shadow’s leap. He was flattened beneath the swift-moving body.
He collapsed as his head beat against the stone paving of the court. He lay insensible.
One trickling ray of light showed The Shadow, in his grimy sweater, leaning over the unconscious gangster.
The thud of the impact was the only noise that had occurred. It was not heard by the man who was returning through the crevice.
Arriving at the courtyard, the second gangster spoke to the vague shape that he saw there.
“O.K.,” were his words. “Let’s get goin’ up. We’ll get—”
At that instant, the man’s feet stumbled against the form of his laid-out companion. Instinctively, the gangster looked downward.
“What’s this—”
His head came up in sudden understanding. Before his gun hand could rise, The Shadow’s revolver gleamed in the trickle of light.
The handle of the weapon landed flat against the gangster’s head, behind the ear. The crook collapsed beside the form of his insensible companion.
SOFTLY, The Shadow wedged his way toward the street. He stopped as he neared the sidewalk and waited. Faltering footsteps were echoing on the paving beside the curb.
A man, staggering, was trying to run away. His strength was giving out. Ten feet from the opening where the gangster stood, the man tumbled headlong.
His body lay in a patch of darkness. Only his head, face downward, was near the glimmer of light.
Some denizen of the underworld, this fellow; a wounded mobster, fleeing from the minions of the law.
Noiselessly, The Shadow emerged and glided along the wall. A moment later, he was crouched above the helpless man.
Prying hands discovered a revolver. This The Shadow needed. He drew it from the man’s pocket. Then, a sweatered arm crept into the fringe of light.
A black-clad hand turned up the head of the prostrate man. The flickering illumination showed the bloodstained features of Homer Briggs!
The yellow, cringing crook had crawled from his hideout when he had heard the cry that The Shadow had been captured.
He was one of those who had still been in the trap when the police had made their attack. He had been among the first to flee.
He had been winged by bullets as he reached the nearest alley. Staggering, gasping, he had been rising and falling, seeking to clamber away to a place of safety.
The last of his spasmodic flights had brought him to this spot.
The Shadow’s hands slid Homer’s face into the patch of darkness. The man’s head was lifted by those hands.
A low voice was whispering into an unhearing ear. Homer’s eyes half opened.
His lips tried to form a response to the question he had heard.
The words were repeated. Homer vaguely caught the name of Harshaw. Some one was asking him about the old man.
Automatically, inspired more by instinctive reflex action than by fear, Homer’s voice came in a low, choking gasp. His words were barely coherent as he responded to The Shadow’s question.
Then came another quizzing remark. Homer’s lips trembled. He did not know why he was being questioned. He only knew that he could not move his body.
Dying, he tried to form a name. It quivered on his lips. Articulated, it ended with a gasp.
The body of Homer Briggs slipped to the sidewalk. The cowardly crook was dead.
The sweatered form arose. Even without cloak and hat, The Shadow was a man of darkness. His tall form flitted eerily across the street.
A policeman came rushing from the alley. He spied the body of Homer as he turned an electric lantern in that direction.
But the officer did not see the slender, swiftly moving form that had departed.
The policeman was viewing the body of the slain crook. There was blood upon the sidewalk where Homer lay.
There was a tiny drop of blood a foot toward the curb; another beyond it.
This meant nothing to the policeman, for he thought it had come from the wounds of the dead man.
But those drops of blood were the beginning of a trail. They were a trail which wild hordes of gangsters would have followed in exultation, had they seen the drops and had they known what they meant.
The Shadow had been wounded. Gliding through the darkness, he was leaving a traceable path behind him!
But no one knew of that trail. Onward, forgetful of the clips he had received from gangsters’ bullets, The Shadow swept toward a new destination.
Homer Briggs had spoken. What the man had known, The Shadow knew now!