From the hollow interior of the vault came a sound that no man of the underworld could fail to recognize.
It was a laugh that broke with rising echoes — a sinister burst of derisive mirth that seemed to shatter the spell of the black hush.
The laugh of The Shadow!
Cognizant of the plans to raid the New City Bank, knowing the hour for which the attack had been arranged, The Shadow had entered this building long before — while the bank had still been open.
Keeping in seclusion, he had managed to elude discovery by the watchman. Familiar with every ingenious contrivance of vault protection, The Shadow had worked upon that massive door, and had opened it without detection. He had chosen it as the vital spot from which he could strike against the crooks when they appeared.
The Shadow’s method had proven its worth. He was here to meet the enemy. He had caught Ping Slatterly and his gangsters flat-footed.
The opening of the door; the appearance of the powerful light; the mighty laugh of The Shadow — these acts of gangdom’s greatest enemy had been timed to exactitude.
MEANWHILE, unknown to Ping Slatterly and his henchmen, forces of the law were coming to this beleaguered spot. The Shadow’s purpose was to meet the crooks with a surprise attack, and drive them in flight into the toils of Joe Cardona!
An amazing scene — this meeting between The Shadow and the hosts of crime. While that ringing laugh hurtled from the vault, the gang leader and his men stood like petrified figures, unmoving characters in a sordid tableau.
So had The Shadow planned; now, he acted with full precision. A shot burst from the vault. Like the first stroke which The Shadow had delivered at Thaddeus Harmon’s penthouse, this one was again directed at the acetylene lantern in Slatterly’s hand.
The bullet reached its gleaming target. Ping’s lantern was shattered. The gang leader dropped back, unwounded by the deflected bullet.
Revolver in hand, he cried to his men to reply in kind. The Shadow’s lantern made a shining bull’s-eye.
Behind it was The Shadow himself!
So Ping Slatterly had reasoned. The gang leader, however, had not reckoned with the wisdom of The Shadow.
That lantern was not in The Shadow’s hand. It was propped upon a stack of boxes in the vault. Below it, prone upon the floor, lay The Shadow. His form was protected by a raised ledge of steel that ran along the bottom of the vault at the very front!
As Ping Slatterly pressed finger to revolver trigger, The Shadow’s automatic roared. Loosing his powerful .45s, The Shadow directed one squarely toward Ping Slatterly, while the other began a sweeping motion about the semicircle of mobsmen.
Ping Slatterly fell, an oath upon his lips. The sight of their leader dropping, the spatter of bullets aimed in their direction — these were tokens that threw the mobsmen into confusion. One gangster paused to fire at the lantern in the vault. His shot went wide. He never dispatched another. Like Ping Slatterly, he crumpled as an automatic roared. The other mobsmen were scrambling to shelter. They dashed for the protection of marble walls, seeking to avoid the glare that outlined them. The Shadow’s shots, quick as a warning, were intermittent as the gunmen fled.
The Shadow knew where they would go — out through the broken door — into the forces of the law that awaited them there. His task was to deal first with those who attempted resistance to his might.
Ping Slatterly — a second mobster — these had fallen. A third, turning to crouch on the verge of the area of light, fell wounded as a bullet from an automatic shattered his revolver arm. The man screamed as he dived after his companions. His hoarse cry was strangely suppressed by the blanketing hush.
Again came the laugh of The Shadow! This master fighter who struck from darkness, had beaten back the invaders by his irresistible might. Not one shot had reached that glowing lantern which gave The Shadow his advantage over his enemies. He had beaten a dozen and more men of crime to the first shots.
As the last of the defeated invaders fled from the room where Ping Slatterly lay before the opened vault, The Shadow arose from his place of protection. The light moved forward as he gripped it. The door of the vault swung shut.
The Shadow’s ambush had succeeded. Now, with one automatic in his hidden right hand — a fresh weapon which had come from beneath his cloak — The Shadow moved forward in steady pursuit of the fleeing mobsmen.
The glaring acetylene headlight cut a misty swath through the smudgy gloom. Its penetrating rays, reaching every cranny, were seen by the last of the fleeing mobsmen, now well ahead in the darkness.
The moving threat impelled every departing rat to scurry to the only exit that seemed to offer safety — that opened door which Ping Slatterly had so boldly blasted from its mighty hinges.
Watchmen, saved from destruction, still cowered in spots of safety. They did not know what had happened; they, like the fleeing mobsmen, also avoided the acetylene glare. Then, with the same suddenness with which it had appeared, The Shadow’s light went out.
A triumphant laugh stirred up feeble echoes amid the awesome atmosphere of the black hush. The final whispers died away. The Shadow, lurking in the gloom, was planning his secret departure, timing it with the confusion which was due to break outside of the bank when the mobsters met the police.
Single-handed, The Shadow had brought disaster to these fiends of crime amid the pall which they had sought. Once again, the perpetrators of the black hush had been foiled!
CHAPTER XVII. THE POWER OF THE RAY
FROM the window high in the Judruth Tower, Hector Fawcett was again viewing the awesome ray that symbolized the hidden power of the black hush.
Bathed in darkness, the front of the New City Bank was a blank space among a mass of looming buildings. It was toward that single spot that Hector Fawcett was looking. In his intentness, the bespectacled man did not notice that the elevated trains were stopped.
“Time’s nearly up,” informed Fawcett.
“Good,” came the voice of Hobbs.
“Why?” questioned Fawcett.
“Because of the elevated,” was the reply. “The trains are stopped. It couldn’t be helped.”
Hector Fawcett laughed. He was sure that this phenomenon would add nothing to police investigations.
He was thinking only of what was going on within the bank.
“Time’s up,” exclaimed Fawcett, glancing at his watch. “Turn off the ray.”
Hobbs responded. His hand pressed the switch, Released from black bondage, the front of the New City Bank gleamed anew. Tiny trains began to move along the elevated.
IN the dwarfed cross section of Manhattan, which was suddenly restored to light, Hector Fawcett beheld odd signs of activity. He caught glimpses of tiny figures beside the bank building; he saw automobiles spurt forward. A sudden connection came to his mind.
“The police are there!” he exclaimed to Hobbs. “Those men who fled were our workers! Up the avenue — beyond the bank building—”
The man at the black-ray machine made no comment. Clicks indicated work that he was doing. The dark-faced projector was turning. It’s front surface was undergoing adjustment.
“There they are!” cried Fawcett.
In the gloom of the room, the bespectacled man tried to point out a car that was speeding along the avenue. He saw it at one cross street; immediately in back of it were pursuing vehicles that flashed into view. Fawcett thought that he could glimpse tiny figures about to wage battle.
The car turned; it took a side street, and suddenly swung into an avenue that led almost beneath the Judruth Tower.