Maxwell Grant
The Cobra
CHAPTER I
THE CRIME TRAIL
FOGGY darkness swirled beneath the superstructure of the East Side elevated. Dim lights, glowing through the murk, showed the dingy fronts of dilapidated buildings. Shifty, skulking figures shambled along the street. A bluecoat, twirling his club, watched them idly from the corner; then resumed his beat.
This was a bad spot on the fringe of the underworld. The officers who patrolled this section of Manhattan were chosen members of the force. Always on the lookout for the paths of crooks, they kept a wary check of sullen faces and sly, stoop-shouldered prowlers.
Less than one minute after the patrolman had continued on his beat, a man stepped forward from the cover of the elevated steps. Well-dressed, but inconspicuous in his dark suit, he was of better appearance than the usual denizens of this district. Like the bluecoat, he watched with wary eye.
A taxicab rolled slowly by. The man by the steps noted it with a sidelong glance. He saw a gray-haired man of middle age peering keenly from the window, as though engaged in study of the district. The cab rolled on. The man by the steps lighted a cigarette.
The flicker of the match revealed his face. It was a hardened countenance, with curling, ugly lips. A long scar showed from chin to cheek. That scar was buried by the hand that held the match.
As he flicked the match away, the man by the elevated steps used his other hand to draw the collar of his coat across the telltale scar. His action showed further effort to hide the mark.
With head hunched slightly to the side, the man squinted up and down the street, then moved along by the curb with an easy, swinging gait.
There was method in his wariness. This man was known in the underworld. “Deek” Hundell, leader of the toughest hold-up crew in Manhattan, was a person whom any lurker in the badlands could have spotted instantly by his familiar scar.
THE strolling patrolman had missed an opportunity tonight. Standing openly at the corner, he had been spotted by Deek Hundell. The hold-up expert had waited for the policeman to depart; and there had been method in his waiting. Deek Hundell was wanted for murder.
A disdainful smile showed on Deek’s ugly lips as the crook passed the front of a lighted shop. Deek had dodged flatfeet before. Cops did not worry him. His caution now was for the benefit of chance passers.
Among the slouchers on this gloomy street, Deek knew that he might encounter enemies who would betray him. These were the stool pigeons, the spies of the police.
Deek Hundell turned to peer at a display of cheap suitcases in a pawn shop window. His hand, rising to pluck the cigarette from his lips, remained there, adding its hiding palm to cover the scar.
A ragged, stoop-shouldered prowler was shambling from the fog. Moving close to the window, Deek caught the reflection of a pasty face. The passing man was going straight ahead. Deek waited.
More footsteps. Two foreigners, jabbering in their own tongue, moved past the standing crook. Then came an old woman, carrying a basket on her arm. Footsteps died along the sidewalk. Deek turned and resumed his course.
Twenty paces brought the gang leader to the entrance of an alleyway. Here, with head still hunched, Deek gazed in both directions and flicked his cigarette to the gutter. Satisfied that no one was watching, he moved into the darkness. A muttered laugh came from his lips.
Deek Hundell had passed the crossroads of the underworld. From now on, his course would be untraceable. On this visit to the badlands, the notorious crook had taken no chances. His laugh was one of surety.
Silence dominated the street by the elevated. The swirling, chilly fog seemed to creep about the iron pillars like a living monster. A thickened spot of darkish mist spread slowly away from the shelter of a pillar directly opposite the alleyway that Deek Hundell had taken.
BLACKNESS remained, but in the blackness glowed two spots that shone like coals of fire. Metamorphosing from the mist, they showed as living eyes, poised in an inky background.
Then blackness moved; a tall, uncanny shape stepped forward from the elevated post. The owner of those glistening eyes had manifested himself.
A spectral being clad entirely in black — a form shrouded by the folds of a sable-hued cloak; above the eyes, the brim of a dark slouch hat.
The strange figure paused momentarily, while the piercing eyes studied the course that Deek Hundell had taken. Then, with a quick swish of the cloak, this watcher crossed the sidewalk and merged with the darkness of the alleyway.
Deek Hundell had congratulated himself too soon. Convinced that he had reached the alleyway unnoticed, the crook was continuing his course with no fear of pursuit. He did not know that his trail had been taken by the most vigilant tracker who had ever entered the badlands — The Shadow!
A creature of the darkness, a phantom being whose guise of black rendered him invisible to the sharpest eyes, The Shadow was on the trail of impending crime. He had picked up the course of Deek Hundell and he was following it to a certain objective.
There could be but one reason for Deek’s appearance in the underworld. Wanted for murder, the gang leader had chosen other spots until tonight. His arrival here was a sure indication of a rendezvous between Deek Hundell and his gangster henchmen.
Motion in darkness; such was the only indication of The Shadow’s presence. The swish of the black cloak sounded faintly as the master trailer moved through the alleyway and took a turn into a passage between two houses. He could not see his quarry up ahead, for Deek was moving cautiously through the gloom; yet The Shadow followed the slight sounds of the gang leader’s footsteps.
When the mobster trailer reached the end of the passage between the houses, his keen eyes peered across a narrow, gloomy street. They spied Deek Hundell entering the battered doorway of an old brick house, where only darkened windows showed.
A weird specter, The Shadow crossed the narrow street and reached the darkened doorway. The opening of the barrier seemed imperceptible. The black figure entered. The Shadow stood in a narrow, gloomy hallway which terminated in a fight of rickety stairs. A gas jet, its flame turned low, furnished the only illumination.
Slowly, The Shadow advanced. His gliding progress ended at a door on the right of the hall. A creeping hand, gloved in black came from the folds of The Shadow’s cloak. It turned the knob of the door. Keen eyes peered through the narrow crevice.
BEYOND was a small flight of stairs; then a stone-walled room where a few dozen men were seated about at tables; bottles and glasses were set before them.
The Shadow knew this place; it was a sordid dive of the underworld where lesser mobsters were wont to meet. The entrance was opposite the door through which The Shadow peered. It opened on a side alley that led from the front street.
Deek Hundell was not in the underground den. The door closed silently. A soft, whispered laugh sounded in the gloomy hall. Its echoes clung there as The Shadow turned to the stairs and ascended. The steps terminated in the center of a second-story hall.
Like the one below, this hall was lighted by a flickering gas jet. At the rear was another flight of stairs that led down to the back of the building. The front of the hall terminated in a door.
The Shadow turned in that direction. He passed two doors on the right; just beyond the second one, he paused to listen. A muffled, growling voice was sounding from the room beyond the barrier.
Swiftly, The Shadow continued to the end of the hallway. His hand turned the knob of the door at the end. The door was locked. Muffled clicks sounded as The Shadow applied an instrument of steel. The lock gave. The door opened and The Shadow entered the front room.