“You’re sure your traps will snag The Shadow?” questioned Tyrell.
“Foon Koo trapee anyblody,” returned the Chinaman, with an evil grin. “Catchee you, Mister Tyrell; catchee Mister Shadow allee samee. Foon Koo know all best trickee. Learnee plenty when he livee in Shanghai.”
Tyrell nodded as he followed his companions through the anteroom. His shrewd lips wore a satisfied smile beneath the stubby mustache. Tyrell was confident that The Shadow, and his agents also, would soon be at the mercy of their enemies.
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE TRAP
“STAY around the house, Cranston. Your shoulder needs the rest.”
Doctor Rupert Sayre was speaking. The physician — a keen-eyed, brisk practitioner — was talking to his patient in the living room of Cranston’s New Jersey home. It was the third night after the affray at Grolier’s.
“You were fortunate,” added Sayre, “that the wound was not more serious. You seem to bear a charmed life, Cranston. A bullet from a .38 is not a pleasing sort of souvenir.”
“Perhaps not,” came Cranston’s smiling response. “However, Rupert, you are second to none in the extraction of such troublesome objects.”
“Thank you for the compliment. At the same time, consider yourself lucky that the slug did not come from a .45.”
There was a rap at the door. Cranston issued a summons to enter. A servant appeared.
“What is it, Richards?” asked the wounded man.
“Mr. Burbank is on the wire, sir,” explained the servant. “He insists that he must talk to you.”
“More chatter about my sending station,” came Cranston’s chuckle. “That chap Burbank is a wireless expert. I’ve had him out here working on the apparatus that I have in the third floor. Burbank is always calling up when he knows that I am at home.”
Cranston reached for an extension telephone. Doctor Sayre sat quietly by while his patient talked to Burbank.
“Hello…” Cranston’s tone was calm. “Yes…Yes… I have a guest, Burbank, but I can talk a short while…Go ahead…
“I understand… Certainly,… They should both go along with the arrangements… I shall attend to the other matter… What’s that, Burbank? To-night? Of course. That will be all right…”
“You do not intend to go out this evening?” questioned Doctor Sayre, as Lamont Cranston hung up the receiver. “Remember my instructions.”
“Burbank may be coming here,” was the quiet rejoinder. “He has been getting advice on trouble that we have had with my sending station. He thinks that he can fix it.”
“Watch him while he works, then,” remarked Sayre, as he arose to leave. “No heavy exercise, Cranston. You might throw too much strain on that left shoulder.”
“I shall remember.”
The physician departed. Lamont Cranston returned to the living room. He sat down beside a table and picked up a book. Though apparently reading, he was listening to the throb of Sayre’s motor. He heard the physician’s car roll from the driveway. He summoned Richards.
“Tell Stanley to have the limousine ready,” was Cranston’s quiet order. “I am going into New York, Richards. Should any one call, tell them I am in the radio room and cannot be disturbed.”
“Very well, sir.”
Lamont Cranston strolled upstairs. Richards ordered the car. The servant went about his duties, expecting to hear his master come down to the ground floor. As he stood in the living room, fifteen minutes later, Richards did not observe the phantom, black-cloaked shape that emerged from the gloom of the stairway and crossed the hall to the front door.
The Shadow had chosen to don his sable-fitted garb before he departed from the house. Hence Richards was astonished when he ascended to the second floor to find Lamont Cranston missing from his room. An opened door was all that the servant encountered.
Stanley, at the wheel of the limousine, was also puzzled when he heard Lamont Cranston’s voice through the speaking tube. His master was ordering him to drive into New York. Usually, Cranston stepped openly into the car when he left his home. This time, Stanley had not heard him enter.
HALF an hour later, Lamont Cranston’s limousine was completing a speedy journey along the New Jersey skyway, rolling toward the entrance of the Holland Tunnel. Stanley was at the wheel; his master was resting easily in the back seat, his right shoulder bearing his weight against the side of the car.
Word had been received from Harry Vincent and Cliff Marsland. Both reports to Burbank had told a coinciding story. The agents were going to an old garage in the neighborhood of Tenth Avenue. From there, they were to travel to an old house that was to serve Mark Tyrell no longer.
Neither Cliff nor Harry had voiced any suspicion regarding the facts that they had received. Hence Burbank’s report had been quite methodical. It had carried no indication of danger to either of The Shadow’s workers. Hence The Shadow was doing exactly as Mark Tyrell had hoped. He was traveling to the old house of Foon Koo.
The limousine reached the seclusion of a street on the upper East Side. Stanley nodded as he heard Cranston’s voice — through the speaking tube — instructing him to wait at this parking spot. The chauffeur did not see the black-cloaked form that emerged from the back of the car. He merely heard the closing of the door that announced the departure of his master.
FIVE minutes later, the Shadow had reached the side of the old house where Foon Koo guarded the swag. His gloved right hand unscrewed the knob of the door. A finger pressed the hidden bell five times. The Shadow replaced the knob.
The door opened this time. The Shadow arrived in total darkness. The door closed behind him. He ascended the little steps to the first floor. A brilliant flashlight, its ray no larger than a silver dollar, revealed the path along the floor.
The Shadow’s light uncovered a door that led into a hall. The barrier yielded to pressure. But The Shadow did not step forward. Instead, he pressed the door completely open and let his flashlight glimmer downward.
The floor had opened also. Silently, a trap had dropped. The glimmer showed a tube of polished metal, curving downward, like a chute. The Shadow’s hidden lips emitted a soft laugh. The Shadow had uncovered the first of Foon Koo’s snares.
The eerie visitant proceeded in another direction. He found a door that led into another room. His light showed smudges on the woodwork. Again, a trap opened with the door; this time, The Shadow gave a forward spring and cleared it. From the next room he found his way into the hall.
A spot of light moved up the stairs. It was the only indication of The Shadow’s presence. It uncovered each step to the hidden eyes above it. Suddenly, The Shadow stopped. His keen gaze had noted a tiny crack at the bottom of a step. Swinging the light upward, The Shadow observed a corresponding mark above.
Three steps were ready to give should he tread upon any one of them. The Shadow’s light swung toward the banister. His hand reached forward and pressed the rail. A section dropped with his touch. Had he used it to support him while crossing the steps, he would have fallen.
The Shadow let the rail rise automatically as he released it. The posts had sunk into the floor under pressure. The flashlight clicked out. The Shadow’s cloak swished as its wearer made a long, upward dive, twisting so that his right shoulder struck an upper step.
The trick steps opened beneath The Shadow’s weight; but their action was useless. The gloved right hand had caught a post past the loose section of the rail. The steps moved upward into place as The Shadow drew himself to the safety above.