Clyde was looking vainly for the trucks that had come for the swag. He saw no signs of them. He could not understand how they had been loaded for so quick a getaway. Then a thought occurred to him. He turned to speak to The Shadow. A hiss commanded silence.
Swiftly, The Shadow swung toward the far corner of the museum, his agents close behind him. Pausing near the front, The Shadow, weird in the moonlight, pointed off toward a clump of trees. Cliff and Clyde headed in that direction.
A shout from the front of the museum. Shots blazed toward the running men. The Shadow’s agents kept on. From behind them, they heard the sudden burst of a strident, gibing laugh that rose like a mighty challenge through the clear night air.
CROOKS heard it, too. They wheeled to see The Shadow standing in the moonlight. Viciously, they opened fire, just as The Shadow began to weave a circling course away from the museum. He was drawing the fire from the foe.
Automatics loomed in gloved fists. Those weapons barked their sharp response to enemy guns. Crooks were shooting wild, at long range. Not so The Shadow. Using the white face of the museum, he picked out his living targets against that perfect background. Thugs staggered, firing vainly at the figure which seemed to fade and appear again between the moonlight and the blackness of the trees. Again that mocking laugh came ringing to their ears. Men dived for the open doorway of the museum. A gas-masked figure appeared there.
The Shadow fired.
The masked crook staggered back into the building. The others followed, ready to brave the last fumes of the tear gas rather than meet The Shadow. Then new foemen came into view, rounding the corner at the rear of the museum.
Like The Shadow and his agents, this group had dropped through the hole in the floor of the Sphinx Room and made an exit through the break that crooks had blasted at the rear of the vault. But these new enemies, arriving, could find no target at which to open distant fire.
The Shadow had glided to the trees. There, he reached his hidden coupe, where his two agents were already aboard. His hiss came from the darkness, questioning in tone. It brought a quick response from Clyde, for it concerned the very matter that was on the reporter’s mind.
“Drury was with them,” informed Clyde. “They’d have to take the road to Larkton. The only shortcut without hitting Latuna. Drury was acting as their leader. It was Drury who brought me here, by a phone call.”
A hissed order from The Shadow. Cliff Marsland, at the wheel, pressed the starter. The motor roared. Clyde, breathless, added one more comment:
“About Drury — he acted as if he wanted to kill me. But I saw his revolver when he threatened. No bullets in it—”
Shouts from near the museum. The crooks had heard the car.
A hiss of understanding from The Shadow. A reply from Cliff. The coupe shot away, clearing for the road before Konk and his outfit could intercept it.
Three minutes later, a lone gorilla, an outpost, guarding a parked sedan, was conscious of a slight swish beside him. Turning, with gun in hand, he faced the blazing eyes of The Shadow. Before the gorilla could fire, a gloved hand swept upward and clipped the crook just beneath his square-set chin.
The gorilla gave an odd gargle as he slumped to the ground.
A figure entered the car. The motor roared. The sedan shot out from the trees. Foemen heard it and turned from their chase of the coupe. Konk Zitz’s yell ordered them to open fire. The cry came too late. The sedan was jouncing off along a rocky road.
Then, as raging desperadoes came running toward the trees, the air reverberated with the sound of a parting taunt. The laugh of The Shadow rang out with all its mockery. The Shadow, like his agents, was departing.
Konk Zitz laughed hoarsely. Though half his crew had been crippled, he had put The Shadow on the run. So thought the big shot as he ordered his scattered henchmen to the remaining cars.
But Konk’s shreds of triumph were ill-founded. He was wrong when he thought The Shadow was in flight. By that swift departure, The Shadow was planning to ruin schemes that Konk thought were beyond the master fighter’s reach.
CHAPTER XXI
BY THE BRIDGE
THE Latuna Museum was located just south of a main highway. Between the museum and the town, a paved road cut off from the through highway and led cross-country to the village of Larkton.
Clyde Burke was familiar with that fact. That was why he had told The Shadow that the supposed trucks must have gone by the Larkton road. Little traveled, the cross thoroughfare offered a perfect route for the crooks who had gone with Bart Drury.
By choosing that course, they avoided traffic and also escaped passing through Latuna itself. Moreover, they could gain the Larkton road by means of the dirt lane that curved around the hillside at the back of the museum. This eliminated all contact with the highway.
Three miles out, the Larkton road crossed the rocky ravine of a trickling creek. The bridge was reached by a sloping grade. It bore two warnings one, not to exceed twelve miles an hour in crossing; the other, barring all trucks of more than five tons capacity.
A bulky, antiquated truck was standing on the slope fifty feet from the near side of the trestle. Its dim lights revealed the bridge. Its wheezing motor was idling, accompanied by the clatter of a loose fan belt. Two men were standing by the big vehicle. Their growled conversation marked them as members of Konk Zitz’s gorilla crew.
“I don’t get the lay, Soupy,” one was saying. “First we blow the back of that museum. Then we scram without goin’ in there. Say — I t’ink Konk’s gone screwy.”
“Yeah?” returned “Soupy.” “Wid all de dough he’s been flashin’? Say, if Konk’s gone bugs, crack me on the dome an’ make me de same way.”
“Like I socked the mug that’s layin’ in the truck, eh?”
“Say — you hit dat guy hard, Marty. You oughta been careful about dat. Remember what Konk said.”
“The guy’s comin’ to already, Soupy. I’m keepin’ an eye on him. That’s somethin’ else I can’t figure. There’s Nick an’ Lefty up ahead pullin’ the props out from under that bridge. So we can ditch this junker” — a nudge toward the truck — “an’ all the stuff that’s in it. What’s the idea?”
“Say, Marty. You must be dumb. I got de idea as soon as Konk spilled it.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“Dis old truck is supposed to be de last of a whole bunch. See? Rollin’ off wid a lot of swag from dat museum. But all its got in it is de bum stuff from upstairs. When dis truck bumps trough de bridge, de bulls’ll find it here. Dey’ll t’ink de real swag went out dis way.”
“But where’s the real swag? We didn’t go in that hole we blew.”
“Dat’s Konk’s job. Leave dat to him. We’re de blind, dat’s all. Dat’s de way I figure it, Marty.”
“Sounds likely, Soupy.”
MUFFLED pounding from beneath the bridge. A timber gave way with a splintering sound. Then came a crash, seconds later, as the falling beam reached the depths of the ravine.
“Dat job oughta have been done ahead o’ time,” objected Soupy. “No use stickin’ around here de way we is.”
“No?” retorted Marty. “Well, you’re the bozo that’s talkin’ dumb now. They don’t use this road much, but supposin’ somebody had come through after the bridge was fixed. That would’ve queered it for us, wouldn’t it.”
“Yeah. I neveh figured it dat way. Say, you gotta hand it to Konk Zitz. He knows his onions, dat guy does!”
A moan from the front seat of the wheezing truck. Marty leaned in to make an inspection by the glow from the dash light.
“Comin’ to,” he said. “Maybe I’d better hand him another haymaker.”