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Cull had no reply to this sally. Terry Rukes stalked across the room and gave an impatient kick to a rickety chair. The gang leader, despite his fierce appearance, was plainly bundled with nerves.

“I’ll tell you what,” announced Terry suddenly. “I’m goin’ to talk turkey to The Black Falcon when he calls. I ain’t goin’ to be the fall guy. I ain’t no squealer, but it’s drivin’ me sappy here in this hideout. Maybe The Black Falcon thinks he can buck The Shadow, but—”

There was a rap on the door. Terry Rukes started nervously, then strode over and opened the barrier. One of his gorillas was standing there.

“Phone’s buzzin’ upstairs,” the man announced anxiously. “Figgered you’d want to answer it, Terry.”

“Sure thing. Scram, Cull. I ain’t needin’ you no more tonight. Come back tomorrow.”

HURRYING through a short corridor, Terry Rukes ascended a flight of rickety steps and came to a door. He opened it and turned on a light in a closed closet. A telephone showed on a shelf. A buzzer, formed from a discarded bell, was giving its insistent signal. Terry grabbed the instrument.

“Hello…” The gang leader’s gruff voice eased. “Yeah. Yeah…”

Gleaming, eager eyes. Terry Rukes knew the voice at the other end. The Black Falcon!

“Yeah… Yeah…” It came the gang leader’s turn to speak. “Sure, I knew that you’d count on me stayin’ here after Rowdy got the works. He musta been plugged just before the time we was startin’ out to get Carthers.

“What’s that?… Yeah… You figured out just what I been told. There was only one guy who could have got Rowdy Kirshing… Yeah, you guessed it… The Shadow.

“That’s why I’m leery… No — I ain’t told the mob… Sure, they’d turn yellow if they knew The Shadow might be in it… Say — this hideout may be a good one, but I’m tellin’ you that when we move out of it, we’re takin’ chances…”

A harsh look appeared upon Terry’s roughened face. For a moment, the gang leader appeared enraged as he heard the smooth voices over the wire. Then he laughed sheepishly.

“You guessed it. That’s why I’ve been layin’ low here. On account of The Shadow… I’m tellin’ you, I’m ready to give the gang the word to bust up… No, it ain’t the dough…”

A sudden gleam appeared upon Terry’s features. Eagerness again dominated the gang leader.

“You mean tonight?” he ejaculated. “An’ after that we can scram? Two grand apiece to the gorillas an’ five grand to me?… I getcha! Sure… I knowed Rowdy musta been gettin’ the real gravy. Nobody gets a cut this trip an’ we’re through… Sure thing… Say — will we risk it? Give me the lay…

“Yeah… Yeah… O.K. The fire-tower… I got that… No move, just lay easy, until we get the whistle… Say — this’ll be the berries. O.K., boss.”

Terry Rukes hung up the receiver. He opened the door and went down the stairs. In the dim light of the passage below — illumination that came from the room opposite the one where Terry Rukes had conferred with Cull Buzbee — four hard-fisted men were waiting. The gorillas had sensed that Terry had been talking with The Black Falcon. They wanted the news.

“Wot’s de woid, Terry?” came a question.

“It’s all set, boys,” returned the mob leader. “Listen — one more job for The Black Falcon an’ we quit. I’ll tell you what you’re gettin’ — two grand each from The Black Falcon himself. Then we scram.”

“Yeah, bo!” came from one of the gorillas. “When we startin’, Terry?”

“Right away. An’ it’s goin’ to be a snap. A swell apartment way uptown — the Garman Apartments — only two apartments on a floor. We hit the fourth floor, to grab another silk hat bimbo named Rowland Ransdale.”

“The Falcon?”

“He’ll be there — an’ he’s goin’ to give us the same signal. This bloke Ransdale will he easy. He’s got a valet workin’ for him — the other apartment on the floor is empty. Down the fire tower—”

“An’ the dough?”

“In the car. We’ll pick up a buggy on the way.”

Murmurs of approval. Terry Rukes ordered lights out.

WITH his mob at his heels, The Black Falcon’s aide opened the door toward the alley. Cull Buzbee had gone before. That was why Terry was venturing forth so promptly.

For the gang leader had used the insignificant creature of mobland with definite design. Cull Buzbee kept out of crime himself, but he was an observant individual. Coming and going, he watched the approaches of this hideout.

Had Cull suspected any watchers lurking in the night, he would have returned. Terry Rukes grinned at the thought. Cull was scary; that was why he would have returned. A bolder rat might flee; Cull would pile back for safety.

The mob moved along the alleyway. Terry Rukes paused to listen. He thought that he had detected a sound; but he heard it no longer. He did not know that eyes were watching vainly in the dark; that ears could hear the footsteps of himself and his tribe.

Slouched, bound and gagged in the pit that led to a cellar window of a house across the street was Cull Buzbee. Swift action had swept over the little rat the moment that he had left Terry’s hideout. Phantom hands from the dark had plucked him from the very doorway. Whirled into dizzy senselessness, Cull had regained his wits to find himself helpless.

Terry Rukes and his gorillas sneaked on toward the alleyway, totally unaware of Cull’s vain efforts to notify them of danger. Emerging from darkness, Terry looked about; then gave the word to start. The gang leader grinned as he glanced back from the end of the alleyway and convinced himself that all was clear.

Terry Rukes was thinking of The Shadow. But his thoughts were not of shadows. He saw nothing suspicious in the long black streaks of darkness that shrouded the sides of the dim alleyway.

Not until after the mobsters had moved further on their way did one long mass of blackness detach itself from the wall of a decadent building and transform itself into the shape of a tall and spectral being. The laugh that came from the phantom form was no more than a sinister whisper.

The Shadow, supersleuth, had spent this week within the underworld. He had traced Cull Buzbee to the hideout of Terry Rukes. Unseen, he was trailing the gang leader who served The Black Falcon!

Gasped words from Rowdy Kirshing; long search throughout the underworld for some insignificant character who might be connected with Terry Rukes, whom Rowdy had mentioned — thus had The Shadow gained the trail.

Through tracing The Black Falcon’s henchmen, The Shadow was taking a course to thwart the supercrook!

CHAPTER X

WESTON STRIKES LUCK

WHERE The Shadow, a lone wolf of the darkness, trailed through the underworld to place his finger on the spots where crime was fostered, Police Commissioner Ralph Weston was content to sit back and trust to the strength of the forces under his command.

Yet all the commissioner’s men, with their dragnets and their stool pigeons, had been unable to gain a single thread that would lead to The Black Falcon’s doings. Even Joe Cardona, the ace detective, had been helpless; and Commissioner Weston, seated in the office of his apartment near Lexington Avenue, was fuming at the futility which had possessed the law.

A rap sounded at the commissioner’s door. Weston looked in that direction and snapped a query:

“What is it, Kempton?”

“Detective Cardona is here, sir,” came the voice of Weston’s military servant.

“All right,” ordered the commissioner. “Have him enter.”

Joe Cardona came into the office. The ace detective shifted uneasily as he took his chair. He saw a glower on the commissioner’s face.