Legira — Cody — nine o’clock — these words stood out among the others. The Shadow glanced at the clock on the desk. It registered twenty-two minutes after nine.
Now came a bursting crash from the distant end of the hall. It was followed by a terrific thud and the excited shouts of half a dozen men.
Swiftly, The Shadow reached the wall and extinguished the light. Scarcely had the room been plunged in darkness before footsteps came pounding down the hall.
The black cloak swished as The Shadow strode to the window. The light of a bull’s-eye lantern threw its beams upon the floor as the first of the rescuers entered. The light turned toward the wall. Had its sweep continued, it would have shown The Shadow at the window.
But at that instant, a shot rang out. From beneath his cloak, The Shadow had drawn an automatic. The position of the man who held the lantern was such that the light extended before him. The Shadow, firing, had taken its glare as a target.
With the crack of the gun, the lantern was shattered. Confused cries sounded in the darkened room. Some one pressed the wall switch. By the door stood a group of uniformed men — police and attendants connected with the apartment building. Near the wall was a man in plain clothes.
It was Joe Cardona, the detective. He had arrived to direct the smashing of the door. It was Cardona who had held the lantern. Now he was fuming at the man who had pressed the wall switch. The action had made targets of these rescuers.
Cardona was noted for his quick response in time of danger. Even while he uttered his wrath because of the folly of a subordinate, he was turning toward the window from which the unexpected shot had come.
He caught only a fleeting glimpse of a form that was swinging out through the window. Cardona pointed his revolver and fired — a fifth of a second too late.
“Come on! Get him!”
Cardona was leading the pursuit. Outside the window, The Shadow, swinging invisibly through the darkness, gained the rail of the fire tower. He was out of sight when Cardona reached the window.
“Below there!”
Cardona’s shout was answered. A light gleamed upward to show the detective’s face. Cardona, upon arriving with his squad, had ordered men to surround the apartment house.
“See any one?” called Cardona.
“No!” came the reply.
“He’s going down the fire tower,” shouted the detective.
“We’ll get him then” — the call was filled with confidence — “two men are on their way up.”
“I’m coming along,” called Cardona, grimly.
The detective swung from the window. He pulled himself along the cornice and clambered over the rail. He remembered then that he had no flashlight. Nevertheless, he boldly followed the path that he knew the fleeing man had taken.
DASHING down the steps, the detective saw the glow of a light as he neared a corner. Cardona stopped abruptly, realizing that this must indicate the presence of the police coming from below.
As he lingered, Cardona was startled by the roar of a revolver shot that sounded with cannonlike intensity. There was the sound of a scuffle on the steps. Cardona rushed to the fray. He saw a flashlight glimmering on the steps. He picked it up and the beams showed two men sprawled on the stairway. Their revolvers lay useless beside them. Both men appeared half stunned.
More shots came crashing from below. Cardona hurried to the bottom of the steps. He encountered a policeman there. The officer recognized Cardona by the light that hung from the top of the fire-tower exit.
“They’re after him, chief,” exclaimed the policeman. “He busted out of here before we could stop him. Didn’t know he was on us till he cracked Hickey over there—”
The officer indicated another uniformed man who was seated, half dazed, against the wall opposite the fire tower. Cardona, his face red with anger, heard distant shots that indicated the pursuit was continuing.
He knew that at least half a dozen men must be on the trail of the fugitive. He motioned to the policeman to follow him and started back up the stairway of the fire tower.
Not for one moment did Cardona suspect that this amazing adversary had been The Shadow. The detective had been astonished to find a man still on the ground where three murders had been executed. Nevertheless, his mind ran to the obvious explanation: that the fugitive, whom he had scarcely seen, must be none other than the murderer.
The men on the steps sheepishly gave their story. Sweeping like an avalanche from above, the man had dashed upon them from a corner of the stairway. They had fired in hope of hitting him, but had been unable to stop his savage attack.
In all his experience with killers, Cardona had never encountered a man who had exhibited such successful daring. He had smashed his way through a cordon of police without firing a single shot. The only hope of capturing him now lay in the vigilance of those who had traveled in pursuit.
The detective was disgruntled as he reached the floor upon which the death apartment was located. He was positive that the murderer had been within his clutches, only to elude him by a mad dash for safety.
Blocks away, a trim coupe was whirling through traffic. Behind it came a siren-blowing car, with police hanging from the running board. The distance was too great for revolver fire.
The coupe suddenly turned a corner. The police car reached the spot and swung after it. Down a narrow street the pursuers whirled; then swung left at a dead end.
Hardly had the tail light disappeared before the coupe backed out from a narrow alley that ran between two high walls. Its lights had been turned out; now they came on and the coupe headed back the way it had come.
The man at the wheel was invisible in the darkness of the car. As he drove leisurely along, he laughed softly and his mocking tones awoke strange echoes. The Shadow had eluded his pursuers. He was bound on new adventure.
Tonight, The Shadow had accomplished much since his arrival and departure from the apartment of John Hendrix. He had learned facts from the dying lips of Martin Powell. He had taken away documents that linked Alvarez Legira with John Hendrix. He had created the impression that the murderer was still on the premises when the police had arrived.
What was the purpose of these actions? Was The Shadow protecting the man who had done the triple killing or was he subtly thwarting some scheme of evil? Had he, by his uncanny intuition, already discovered the identity of the murderer?
Only one man in all the world could have answered those questions. That man was The Shadow himself.
Cross-purposes had caused the death of three men. Crime was rampant, and tonight marked but the beginning of a series of evil deeds. Wealth and lives were at stake. Schemes were veiled by secrecy. What the future held was something that only The Shadow knew.
The Shadow alone could avenge these deaths and prevent the dire results which crafty minds had planned!
CHAPTER XIV
LEGIRA PROCEEDS
“MR. LEGIRA to see you, sir.”
The speaker was a watchman at the Baltham Trust Company.
Roger Cody, the quiet-faced representative of John Hendrix, nodded and told the watchman to bring the visitor into the office. Cody sat back quietly in his chair and waited for Legira to appear.
The suave South American entered and bowed, smilingly. Behind him was the stalwart form of his manservant, Francisco.
Legira took a chair at Cody’s invitation and Francisco stood silently in the corner of the little office.
Cody and Legira had met before, so that introductions were unnecessary. To Cody, this evening’s negotiation was no more than a matter of routine. Often, before, he had handled large affairs as representative for John Hendrix.