“Same here,” affirmed Cliff.
“All right,” decided Konk. “I’ve got an idea — just to figure if the guy’s a plant. We’re going out tonight. You two” — he pointed to Tinker and Cliff — “and myself. We’ll use the back route, by the freight elevator. I’ve got it fixed.
“The rest of you stick here, all except Dopey. I’ll let him go down and stall Mushmug. Some phony talk about Drury. Tinker, you and Marsland go out by the back and make sure it’s clear. You other fellows go downstairs a while, until I’ve finished talking with Dopey. When he shows up, it means I’m out and you’re to come back here. Start your poker game. I won’t be gone long.”
The men nodded and strolled from the room. Cliff and Tinker followed, leaving Dopey alone with Konk Zitz. Tinker led the way to the freight elevator. A wise-looking operator took them aboard. Konk had fixed this hotel employee.
OUT in the darkness of an alleyway behind the Phoenix Hotel, Cliff and Tinker waited for a full fifteen minutes before Konk Zitz joined them. He beckoned them off to a parking lot. They entered a sedan. Konk took the wheel and drove without comment.
Reaching an isolated part of town, Konk told the pair to wait. They saw him stroll down a side street and stop by a coupe that was obscured beyond a hedge. When Konk returned, he was carrying a suitcase. Cliff and Tinker were in the back seat of the sedan, so Konk dropped the bag beside him in the front.
He drove a few blocks and pulled up by a deserted house. Alighting with the suitcase, he whispered to the others to follow him. They went past the empty house and came to the back door of another home where a dim light showed from an upstairs window. Konk tried a key in the back door. He found no difficulty in entering.
Using a flashlight, Konk found a room near the center of the ground floor. He brought the others in with him and ordered them to lower the blinds. This done, Konk flashed his light upon a safe in the corner. With a chuckle, he ordered Tinker to close the door.
Konk turned on a light and revealed a desk close by the safe. He placed the suitcase there.
“Do you know whose house this is?” he questioned, in a low tone.
Headshakes from Cliff and Tinker. They had stayed close to the Phoenix Hotel since their arrival in Latuna.
“This,” chuckled Konk, “is where the smart aleck editor lives. You know the mug I mean. Harrison Knode.”
Cliff and Tinker were genuinely surprised.
“Knode is up at that hearing,” resumed Konk. “There’s a housekeeper here; but she’s upstairs and won’t hear us — if we’re quiet. Listen, now, while I tell you the lay.
“Maybe Knode’s got something on us.” Cliff detected a peculiar wariness in Konk’s tone. “Maybe that’s why he’s had Drury hanging around the Phoenix. Whatever Knode’s got, will be in this safe. So I’m going to take a look in it.”
“Why the suitcase, Konk?” questioned Tinker.
“Well,” replied the leader. “I wanted to make sure, that’s all. Maybe I won’t be able to tap this box. If I fail, I’ll use drills. They’re in that bag. I didn’t want to have them around the hotel. I had a guy plant them in a car near here.”
As Konk paused, Cliff felt positive that he was holding back something. That, however, was a habit of Konk’s. Of one thing, Cliff was sure. This visit to Knode’s was not the blow-off. That was still set for tomorrow night.
“I brought you fellows,” stated Konk, “so you could keep an eye on the doors. It may take me some time, to do this job. I don’t want to use the drills if I can help it. Say, Tinker, it’s too bad you didn’t bring that bird Tapper along to Latuna.”
“To open that box for you, Konk?”
“Sure. I could have used a guy like him.”
“What about Cliff here?”
“Can he crack a safe?”
“Better than Tapper.”
“Say — what’ve you been holding back?”
Tinker shifted uneasily as he caught Konk’s beady glare. Then the pock-faced fellow gave a weak grin.
“IT was this way, Konk,” he explained. “When I couldn’t get Tapper, I heard about Cliff. I wanted to see if he had the goods. So he and I slid into an old hock shop I knew about and he took a hand at the box. That’s right, ain’t it, Cliff?”
Cliff nodded. He knew that Tinker did not want to admit planning a job of his own without Konk’s knowledge. It was best to stick with Tinker, Cliff decided.
“Yeah?” quizzed Konk. “Well — how’d you make out?”
“Cliff opened the box,” explained Tinker, slowly. “But then The Shadow showed up.”
“The Shadow?”
“Yeah. Nearly rubbed me out, too! Only Cliff plugged him and we made a getaway.”
“Wait a minute. Marsland here plugged The Shadow?”
“I just clipped him,” put in Cliff. “We had to scram without the swag.”
“It wasn’t worth much,” added Tinker. “We was just practicing on that box.”
“So you came to Latuna,” growled Konk, “when you had The Shadow on your trail!”
“He wasn’t on our trail,” said Tinker, quickly. “Honest, Konk. He had to duck the bulls himself. He ain’t been around here, The Shadow hasn’t.”
“No telling where that guy may be.”
“Well, anyway” — Tinker sought to change the subject — “Cliff here can tap that box in no time. If you let him crack it, Konk, you’ll have more time to go through the safe while Cliff and I are watching the doors.”
Konk Zitz nodded. He eyed Cliff carefully, then pointed to the safe.
“Go to it, Marsland,” he ordered. “Let’s see you work.”
“Got the microscope, Cliff?” quizzed Tinker.
Cliff shook his head as he stepped toward the safe. He heard Zitz speak to Tinker.
“A microscope?” Konk was asking. “What for?”
“To look for finger prints,” replied Tinker. “If he finds them, he leaves them, instead of polishing the knob. Great gag, ain’t it, Konk?”
“Get going, Marsland,” said Konk, to Cliff.
COLD sweat crept to Cliff’s forehead as The Shadow’s agent crouched in front of the safe. Luck alone could save him now. Cliff had some knowledge of cracksmanship; if the safe proved easy, he would appear to be living up to Tinker’s claims. If not — The thought of consequences was one that Cliff tried to forget.
Under other circumstances, Cliff could have taken sudden action. He could hear Tinker buzzing a whisper to Konk Zitz, adding new details of that episode in Cobleton’s hock shop. It would be a cinch, Cliff knew, to pull his automatic and cover these two rogues.
That, however, would ruin The Shadow’s plans. It would mean a fight, a break-up of Konk Zitz’s crew. Behind this little crook was some supercrook whom The Shadow sought. That crime dealer could be trapped only if his plans were allowed to reach their climax. Cliff’s only course was to bluff Konk Zitz.
Steadily, despite his tenseness, Cliff worked on the combination. He recognized that this safe was not a difficult one for a cracksman; but it was beyond his ability to open it. Cliff had no microscopic instructions awaiting him tonight.
Minutes passed; still Cliff toiled. He could hear Konk buzzing to Tinker. The tone was ominous. Cliff decided that the time had arrived for verbal bluff.
“It ought to be a cinch, Konk,” he said, in a low, steady voice. “It isn’t, though. One of these tricky boxes that looks easy but gets tougher the longer you work on it.”
“I know,” responded Konk, in an assuring tone. “Let me take a stab at it, Marsland.
Cliff arose and turned about. He thought that his bluff was working until he faced his companions. Then Cliff became rigid, his arms half extended, his hands and fingers motionless.
The Shadow’s agent was staring into the muzzles of two revolvers.