“That’s bad, Joe.”
“Sure it’s bad. That’s why I’m keeping tabs on Goldy. They may take another shot at him; if they do, we’ll find out who they are. At the same time, Markham, I’m letting the newspapers hold the old idea. It may help fool these smart crooks.”
“Listen, Joe,” said Markham suddenly, “you’ve given me a thought there. I was over by Goldy’s apartment house last night. I saw a reporter coming out of the place. Maybe—”
“Who was he?” questioned Cardona sharply.
“Burke, the fellow on the Classic,” returned Markham.
“Clyde Burke, eh?” Cardona’s tone was analytical. “Say, Markham, he’s been on both of these cases. Maybe he’s been trying to get Goldy Tancred to talk.”
“Not much chance,” said the detective sergeant. “You quizzed Goldy. He claimed he told you all he knew — which wasn’t much.”
“Yeah, but Burke may have something.”
With his final statement, Cardona reached for the telephone. He called the Classic office. He was connected with Clyde Burke. The detective requested the reporter to come to headquarters.
CLYDE BURKE arrived in Cardona’s office with the air of a man who expected information. He expressed surprise when the detective began to question him.
“Sure, I was up to see Goldy,” asserted Clyde. “I thought the same as you, Joe. Maybe Goldy would know who was trying to get him, and would spill it. But he was like a clam.”
“All right, Burke,” returned the detective. “If you run into something, let me know. It would help if I could find out who was after Goldy.”
Clyde Burke departed. Detective Sergeant Markham followed a minute later. When the reporter reached the street, the sleuth was on his trail.
Off duty, with nothing more important than a quiet evening at the Classic office, Clyde Burke strolled along the street, totally unconscious of the fact that he was being trailed by the detective.
There was also another incident that Clyde failed to notice. A prowling figure was moving up the street ahead him. He had been followed from the Classic office to headquarters; now, the lurker who had trailed him was preceding him.
Detective Sergeant Markham, keeping well in back of the reporter, had no suspicion that a creature of the underworld was moving ahead of the reporter. Yet this odd condition of affairs was due to bring unexpected consequences.
The prowler neared a corner; there he stopped to greet a man who was idly waiting. Quick words passed between the two. Then, as Clyde Burke approached, the pair began a conversation. The reporter did not hear it until he had passed. He hesitated as he caught the louder words.
“He’s going to get Goldy, eh?”
“Yeah — I’m meeting him down at Jerry’s—”
A buzz; then, as Clyde paused to light a cigarette, he heard the mention of a street address in a disreputable neighborhood. As he flicked the match away, Clyde turned slightly and saw the backs of the men as they moved along the street.
Clyde Burke’s decision was a prompt one. Like all of The Shadow’s agents, the reporter was expected to use his own wits in a time of opportunity. He thought no more of the two men, he simply decided to head for the spot that they had mentioned, and see what was happening there.
As Clyde quickened his pace toward a subway entrance, Markham also increased speed. The detective sergeant was some distance behind the reporter; he had not observed that Clyde had overheard the conversation between the two idlers.
Markham simply decided that Burke must have an important destination. Tailing a newspaper reporter was a new experience for the sleuth, but under the present circumstances, Markham felt that the trail might lead somewhere.
That had been Joe Cardona’s idea, and the ace detective still held to it. Back at his desk in headquarters, Cardona was smoking a cigar while he continued to pore over the accumulated data in hope of a new hunch.
Methodically, Cardona placed papers aside when the phone rang. He growled a hello into the mouthpiece. A quiet voice replied. Cardona listened.
That voice brought back recollections. Cardona was sure that he had heard it before. It was not the voice of The Shadow — a strange, sinister tone that Cardona had sometimes heard — but the calmness of this voice brought up strange connections that concerned the master of the night.
There was a reason for Cardona’s impression. The ace detective was listening to the voice of Burbank, The Shadow’s hidden agent. In accordance with special instructions, Burbank was telephoning detective headquarters at an exact time appointed by The Shadow.
The call finished, Cardona slammed the receiver on the hook and leaped to his feet. He bellowed to men who were in another office. They responded to his summons.
“Everybody on this job!” exclaimed Cardona, in a quick but steady voice. “We’re making up a raiding squad. We start inside of five minutes. We’re going to stop a robbery at the New City Bank!”
CHAPTER XV. ON THE ELEVATED
CLYDE BURKE stopped in front of a dilapidated building. He glanced at his watch, illuminating the dial with a lighted match. It was not quite half an hour since he had left Cardona’s office.
This was the destination which he had heard the men give on the street corner. Nevertheless, Clyde was not sure that he had heard aright when he had listened to the naming of the location. He had expected
“Jerry’s” to be some meeting spot of the underworld. Instead, he was viewing the end house of a quiet row — a structure which was bounded on one side by an alleyway.
As he glanced across the street, Clyde thought that he saw another man on the opposite side of the thoroughfare.
His eyes were right; they had glimpsed the form of Detective Sergeant Markham. But, like all quick glances, this one faded under direct surveillance. As Clyde watched closely, he could see no further trace of anyone.
Clyde moved toward the entrance of the alley way. It was darker there, he decided; less chance of being seen when the men who had talked kept their rendezvous.
It never occurred to the reporter that he had been lured to this spot; that Goldy Tancred had given instructions for henchmen to seize him, should he pay a visit to detective headquarters.
Joe Cardona’s telephone call had actually been an unwitting death warrant for Clyde Burke. The reporter, in turn, had made two serious blunders. The first had been his folly in believing that two gangsters would talk over plans so close to detective headquarters. The second had been his failure to call Burbank.
Had Clyde been on duty for The Shadow, he would have communicated with the contact man. But since he was a free agent for the night, Clyde had gone out on his own. In so doing, he had deliberately placed himself beyond the sphere of The Shadow’s protection — a mistake which no agent of The Shadow should have committed.
Just as Clyde moved slowly into the darkness at the side of the building, he caught a sound ahead of him.
He stepped back as he raised his hands.
A MAN sprang forward from the darkness. A swift arm came downward as it swung a blackjack. Clyde did not see the blow, but he anticipated it. Swinging his own arm upward, the reporter deflected the stroke. The man’s form fell upon him, and Clyde shot out to the sidewalk as he locked in a quick struggle.
This was just the beginning. Three more men scrambled from the darkness and leaped forward to the fray. Fully engaged with his one antagonist, Clyde Burke would have fared ill but for the presence of Detective Sergeant Markham across the street.
The sound of the attack, the sight of dim forms hurtling to the sidewalk — these told Markham that Burke had met with unexpected foemen. The sleuth pulled his revolver, and fired at the front of the building above the heads of the men who had emerged from the alleyway.