The truth dawned on the gaping proprietor. His newly hired bouncers were mobsters. Ping had signed them up to work against their employer. This time, the fear that Durmsted showed was real. Frightened, he began to stammer protests.
Ping silenced them with a jab of the gun.
“Snatch him,” ordered the mobleader. “We’re taking him out through that private exit of his. The mob’s waiting to give him the ride he’s going to get. He had his chance to come through and he didn’t take it.” As the bouncers seized Durmsted, Ping stepped over, placed his hand upon the knob of the private exit.
Turning it, he snarled new jeers as he looked back toward the night club owner. He began to draw the door open so his henchmen could lug Durmsted, helpless, through the passage that led to an outer street.
But as the door came ajar, the unexpected happened.
A terrific jolt came from the other side of the barrier. The door snapped inward; its sweeping edge cracked the side of Ping’s head and shoulder. The mobleader went sprawling to the floor.
As Ping uttered a surprised snarl, his two gorillas let go of Durmsted and yanked guns from their pockets.
Sensing an unexpected menace, they came up on the draw together.
They never had a chance to fire at the blackness that loomed in from the passage. As their startled eyes discerned a forming figure garbed in inky cloak and hat; as their forefingers sought to snap at gun triggers, two bursts of tonguing flame spat forward, accompanied by a roar that sounded thunderous in the passage.
The traitorous bouncers sprawled. As they toppled, their hands lost their useless guns. Durmsted stood petrified. His amazed eyes saw his would-be assassins fall. He had caught no more than a glimpse of the figure in the doorway.
Ping Gradley, in sprawling, had not lost his gun. Coming to hands and knees, the mobleader, close to the door, caught full view of the black-garbed avenger who had dropped the gorillas. In that swift instant, Ping recognized The Shadow.
Ominous in his guise of blackness, the grim avenger had acted with promptitude. He had timed his shots to the draw of the guns that the gorillas had produced, letting Durmsted back clear of them. Thus had he rescued the honest proprietor; but in that deed The Shadow had allowed a dangerous interval.
He had come to deal with one enemy. He had encountered three. His thrust of the door had been the necessary step to eliminate Ping Gradley, while he handled those who held Karl Durmsted. The bouncers disposed of, Ping was The Shadow’s quarry. Ping, in turn, was seeking to make the most of his opportunity to down The Shadow.
THE mobleader had the edge. His fall had come to a lucky ending; he was halfway to his feet as he saw The Shadow turn. Had Ping fired promptly, firmly, with his stub-nosed gun, he might have beaten his cloaked foe to the shot that counted.
But Ping, as he caught the glare of burning eyes; as he saw swinging automatics beneath those blazing optics, made a double move. He sprang for the shelter of the opened door as he pointed his revolver and pressed the trigger.
Like Ping, The Shadow performed a double move. He whirled backward into the doorway, sidewise against the door itself. Only his left hand swung into the room, coming from the very edge of the half-opened barrier.
Ping’s shot sizzled through the fold of The Shadow’s cloak. With the bark of the mobleader’s blunt revolver came the report of The Shadow’s left-hand automatic. A bullet winged Ping’s shoulder. The snarling crook rolled to the floor.
Durmsted, coming to life, had grabbed a bouncer’s gun. Hearing the new shots, the proprietor swung about to see Ping sprawling. Coming up on one knee, Ping saw Durmsted aiming. Forgetting The Shadow, he snapped his revolver upward toward this man whose death he had first sought.
An automatic roared! Ping wavered; his arm sagged. Then Durmsted loosed a volley of frantic shots.
Unrealizing that The Shadow had done the necessary job, the night club proprietor riddled Ping’s slipping frame with the entire contents of the gun that he had gained.
The Shadow had turned. He was sweeping out through the passage to the street. He knew that people would be coming from the night club itself. But he also knew that it was not that direction that had to be considered. Those in the club would bring aid. Outside were other foemen.
THE SHADOW was right. As he reached the street, he saw men leaping out of two parked cars. Ping’s waiting henchmen had heard tokens of the fray. They were coming to aid their dead leader. Like Ping, they encountered a surprise.
The Shadow’s guns swept into action. Withered by volleys from the exit, the mobsters scattered, expecting to attack from shelter. Then came new confusion. Automatics blazed strategic shots from across the street.
Hawkeye, Cliff Marsland, Harry Vincent — three agents of The Shadow — were posted there to serve their chief. Mobsters floundered and fled. The parked cars shot away, guided by frantic drivers mad with desire for escape.
As echoes died in the secluded street, a weird laugh sounded in muffled whisper. It reached no living ears save those of The Shadow himself. Killers close by were dead. Those who had scattered were too far away to hear.
A taxicab pulled out after the fleeing cars. The Shadow’s agents were departing. The Shadow, himself, needed no conveyance. Police whistles were shrilling; cries were coming from within the night club. The Shadow ignored these tokens of excitement about the Casino Rouge.
Swinging the folds of his cloak about his tall form, he glided forth with long, swift strides. His silent paces carried him along the vacated street, into darkness that gathered him into its own enshrouding folds.
Again the soft, taunting laugh that marked another victory against men of crime. The vague mirth faded.
From then on, The Shadow’s course was untraceable. Heading toward byways, the being of blackness was lost in blackness. The Shadow was master of the night.
Murder had been arranged, to put teeth in the racket run by Louie Caparani. Ping Gradley had come to the Casino Rouge to deliver death to Karl Durmsted. Ping had failed; death had boomeranged back to him.
Louie Caparani’s racket was broken. Ping Gradley’s failure and death would be cause for the rubout of the big shot, Rook Hollister. The Shadow had done more than conquer minions of crime. He had signed the death warrant for Rook Hollister!
Little men of crime came easy for the master fighter. It was the big shots The Shadow was after, those who attempted to rule the crime kingdom.
CHAPTER IV. THE BIG SHOT PLANS
TO The Shadow, the victory at the Casino Rouge had become a past event. To Rook Hollister, the big shot, news of the affray would be a future occurrence. For while The Shadow was departing from the field of battle, Rook was anxiously awaiting a report from Ping Gradley, the lieutenant whom he had delegated to take Karl Durmsted for “a ride.”
In his apartment at the Hotel Thurmont, Rook Hollister stood alone amid sumptuous surroundings. His quarters took up the entire rear portion of the third floor. Through a thick-paned window, bolted and equipped with bulletproof glass, Rook could look out over the roof of the back-street garage.
This was a corner room of the large apartment. One window opened toward the nearest avenue. The shade was drawn on that window; it cut off view of an elevated structure, a dozen feet below and thirty yards away. As Rook paced his living room, he wore the expression of an anxious candidate awaiting news of an election. As he paused at intervals, he could hear the grinding, clattering rumble of passing elevated trains.
In facial appearance, Rook Hollister was the superior of his crude-visaged lieutenants. Save for a certain coarseness of features, the big shot was a handsome man. His countenance was square and well-molded.