Tyrell, alone, was springing back toward the relic room. Slug, past the corner of the door, saw him in the light of Pug’s flashlight and grabbed him wildly.
“Stay back!” he shouted. “Stay back! He’s got the doorway covered!”
As Tyrell tried savagely to break away, the boom of the automatic sounded. A bullet zimmed through the open door and flattened against the wall of the hallway. A second shot followed. The Shadow, still on the floor, was loosing an intermittent barrage.
Tyrell stopped short. Shots in the dark were not to his liking. He had crippled The Shadow; but the wounded fighter was still dangerous.
“I clipped him!” he snarled as Harry Vincent used one arm to aid Slug Bracken drag Tyrell down the hallway. “I clipped him! Next time I’ll get him!”
A shout came from below. Pug Halfin answered it. He had reached the head of the stairs. Then came the sound of revolver shots. Tyrell, fuming, ordered the retreat. His command was none too soon.
Two servants armed with rifles had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Gangsters from outside had felled them with revolvers. One man lay wounded; the other was dead when Tyrell and his band arrived.
Then came shots from the street. Harry Vincent was side by side with the others who held the bags. Slug Bracken was herding them forward. A touring car was waiting in the street. Hurriedly, Harry ran with the two men beside them. All three threw their bags into the touring car. The driver leaped to the street as Slug Bracken arrived and jumped for the wheel. Pug Halfin sprang aboard. The touring car shot forward.
Two policemen were firing from the corner. Scattered mobsters were answering from moving sedans. Beckoning hands waved Harry and his companions aboard one car. Mark Tyrell gained the second sedan.
Barking revolvers dropped one bluecoat as the first sedan whizzed by. The other officer dropped for shelter behind a large hydrant. He fired futile shots at the tires of the cars. Sirens were whining. A patrol car was coming down the avenue. Another was heading along the side street. Its searchlights showed the sedans as they sped by the crossing.
Ugly-faced drivers were determined to make a getaway. It was apparent that they would do so. They had sufficient start. Cliff Marsland was not in Harry’s car; hence Harry assumed that the other agent of The Shadow was in the sedan with Tyrell. There was no other course than to stick with the mob and keep mum.
POLICE were arriving at Westbury Grolier’s mansion. They had found one wounded officer, a crippled servant and a dead one. They were entering the wing where the fight had taken place.
The door to the relic room was closed and barred. There was good reason. Within that rifled room. The Shadow was standing, with his flashlight sweeping to every corner. He had barred the door as soon as he had gained his feet.
The door of a closet was ajar. Unsteadily, The Shadow reached it. A faint laugh came from his lips as he spied a long ladder. With his right arm, The Shadow brought out the ladder and managed to raise it to the skylight. He paused, as though to steady himself.
He ascended the ladder and reached the skylight. He clung there as he kicked the ladder to the carpeted floor. On the roof, he shifted the barred trap over the opening; then made for the parapet.
A policeman had passed by the bottom of the wall. With an effort, The Shadow produced his suction cups. He began a perilous descent. At intervals, he nearly slipped, for one arm hung useless. Yet he managed to gain the ground.
Pausing by the wall, The Shadow could hear voices of police at the door. He caught the words. Apparently, the crooks had all escaped. Most of the arriving police had taken up the futile chase. Westbury Grolier was being summoned from his bedroom in the far wing of the house. He, alone, had the key that would unlock the master door to the chain of rooms in which he kept his collection of rarities.
As the policemen moved away, The Shadow stumbled toward the gate. He was lucky as he gained the passage at the rear of the outside wall. Faltering, he found an opening between two houses. Shifting from view just as a policeman appeared from the avenue, The Shadow merged with darkness and moved along to the next street.
Here, his course became an unsteady one. There were intervals of blackness between the splotches of light that came from street lamps. The Shadow chose the darkened sectors when he was forced to pause. He neared the avenue and clutched at the door knob of a parked limousine.
The door yielded. The Shadow sank into the cushions. With an effort, he managed to drag his cloak from his shoulders. It fell to the floor, with gloves and hat. His right hand found the speaking tube. His voice, steadying, sounded in the ear of the dozing chauffeur.
“Hurry, Stanley.” The Shadow spoke in the voice of Lamont Cranston. “Take me to Doctor Rupert Sayre’s. I have an important appointment with him.”
The limousine pulled from the curb as The Shadow sank exhausted. He was on his way to safety. His wound would gain prompt attention. The Shadow had escaped from other dilemmas as serious as this one.
But usually, in spite of wounds, The Shadow had managed to frustrate crime. To-night, he had been balked. Mark Tyrell, launched upon a new career of evil, had returned hot lead for the mockery which he had accepted on two previous meetings.
A million-dollar robbery had been accomplished. Mark Tyrell had recouped his losses in one stroke. Yet a faint laugh sounded from the interior of the rolling limousine.
The grim game was not yet ended. Recovered from his wound, The Shadow would be ready to force another encounter. A new task lay before him; already, The Shadow was planning a way by which he could reclaim the wealth that had been so recently purloined from the museum of Westbury Grolier!
Soft echoes wavered. The limousine was pulling up in front of the apartment office occupied by Doctor Rupert Sayre. A light showed in the windows. The physician was in his office.
One minute later, Lamont Cranston, pale-faced, but steady, stepped from his car to keep his supposed appointment with Doctor Rupert Sayre.
CHAPTER XV
STRATEGY
“THERE’S a phony in the outfit.”
Slug Bracken was the speaker. The listeners were Mark Tyrell, Pug Halfin and Foon Koo. They were assembled in the top room of the labyrinthic house. Around them, stacked in neat heaps, were the jeweled relics stolen from Westbury Grolier.
“You are sure of it, Slug?” questioned Tyrell.
“You bet,” affirmed the mobleader. “I’ve been thinking steady on it since that job at Grolier’s two nights ago. Look here, Tyrell. I didn’t hand out the word to the gorillas until we were all set to go.”
“What about it?”
“Well — how did The Shadow drop in?”
“Forget The Shadow. I crippled him, didn’t I?”
“Sure. But who wised him to the lay?”
Tyrell pondered. The question was natural, coming from Slug Bracken. That particular mobleader knew nothing about the contact that Tyrell had experienced with The Shadow. Tyrell’s first impulse was to discount the question.
“Why worry about The Shadow?” he demanded. “You saw me drop him, didn’t you? If your gorillas are troubled because he came into the picture, remind them that I proved my superiority. Tell them that the next time I meet The Shadow, I shall kill him. I beat him to one shot. I can beat him to another.”
“I told the mugs that,” asserted Slug. “They know what you can do, Tyrell. You clipped The Shadow, right enough. But the bulls didn’t find him at Grolier’s. That means he ain’t hurt any too had. He’ll muscle in again; and we can expect him pretty quick. If you’d killed him two nights ago—”