REACHING a darkened alley, Brodie uttered a low, hissing whistle. Whispers came from the darkness.
Members of the mob had assembled. Brodie drew Cliff over toward the wall; a confab began between the gang leader, Cliff and the other lieutenant, “Bozo” Griffin.
“I’ll take these gorillas,” decided Brodie. “You take the car out in the side street, Bozo. What about the bunch over by the Pink Rat? Did you tell them to wait for Cliff Marsland?”
“Yeah,” answered Bozo. “I told them he’d be along. I’ll be driving past there and they can follow. Hunky Wikell is driving Cliff’s car. He’ll know me when I go by.”
“Give me a few minutes to get there, Bozo,” interposed Cliff. “I’m not going on the run, you know. Some smart copper might ask me why the hurry.”
“Give him ten minutes,” decided Brodie. “That’ll make it sure. All right, Cliff. Get started.”
Cliff sauntered from the alley. He was smiling to himself as he reached the side street. He made a turn into an alley beyond; then quickened his pace.
Ten minutes! That was a lucky break. He could make the Pink Rat locality in five.
On the next street, Cliff spied a small store. He entered and picked a telephone in the corner. The place was deserted except for an old man behind a counter. Cliff called Burbank’s number. He heard the voice of The Shadow’s contact man.
“Marsland.”
Cliff’s lips were close to the mouthpiece.
“Report.”
In brief terms, Cliff fulfilled Burbank’s order. He told the contact man all that he had learned. Under ordinary conditions, Burbank would have instructed Cliff to stand by and await a return call. This was impossible under the circumstances. Cliff was due at the Pink Rat in five minutes.
However, both Cliff and Burbank saw the situation. That was the way with The Shadow’s agents.
Trained to obey their master, they were also capable in dealing with emergencies. Cliff, as he explained matters to Burbank, saw that tonight’s episode could offer but one of two possibilities.
Either The Shadow would seek to enter the home of Tyler Bogart, or he would require Cliff for some definite duty outside. Perhaps both. Cliff could prepare for either circumstance. Keenly, he visualized a back door that he had never seen.
“I’ll post my squad thirty feet to the right,” he informed Burbank. “I’ll have them far enough from the house. I’ll be ten feet to the left of the back door — and as close to the house as possible.”
“Report received,” returned Burbank.
Cliff hung up the receiver. He glanced to note that the old man at the counter had heard nothing. He hurried from the store and dodged through alleys to gain time on his way to the Pink Rat.
A CAR was waiting near the spot designated. Cliff approached and gave a low whistle as he observed dim forms within the car. Before any of the gangsters could reply, he announced himself in a single word:
“Marsland.”
“O.K.” The voice belonged to “Hunky” Wikell, the man at the wheel. “Climb in with me.”
Cliff joined the driver. They waited for a full minute. Then a car rolled into the narrow street and passed the sedan in which Cliff and Hunky were waiting, with gangsters in the rear. Hunky started the motor and followed. He was taking the way that Bozo Griffin showed.
The cars headed for an East River bridge. They crossed and moved rapidly along a highway. Cliff, silently watching from Hunky’s side, felt qualms at the speed that they were making.
Brodie Brodan had moved sooner than Cliff had anticipated. That meant that the raid on Bogart’s home would begin shortly after the mob arrived. Brodie had said that men would enter. Did that mean some of Brodie’s crew, from the side? Or were others on the job?
If the latter case existed, the men appointed to enter — whoever they might be — would probably be outside of Bogart’s house at present. The Shadow, swift though he was, would have to travel at unusual speed to anticipate this raid, unless some fortunate delay occurred.
Cliff began to see another possibility that he had not suggested to Burbank. If The Shadow needed time, a fracas outside of Bogart’s could produce it. Perhaps that would be necessary. Cliff decided to be ready — even to the point of spoiling the raid — should The Shadow not appear.
Half an hour after the start from Manhattan, Bozo’s leading car turned into a side road. Cliff fancied that Brodie Brodan must be up ahead of the lieutenant. A mile of side road; then Brodie swung into the deserted driveway of an abandoned house. Wikell followed.
Lights went out; but just before the glow failed, Cliff noted a third car up ahead. With his mobsters close beside him, Cliff alighted from the sedan. He heard the voice of Brodie Brodan.
“All right, Cliff,” said the mob leader in a low tone. “There’s Bogart’s house — through that hedge. We’re at the back of the place. Bozo’s going around to the front. I’m going through to the side. You come along last and cover the back.”
Men shuffled through the darkness. Cliff held his squad in readiness. When all was silent, he led the way through the hedge. He could see the home of Tyler Bogart — a looming mansion of gray stone. There were lights in upstairs windows; a glow from a broad veranda on the side toward the Sound showed that people were at home.
There was no light at the back, except a shaft that came from a curtained room on the second floor. This gave a faint glow above the back door. Cliff drew his men thirty feet to the right and posted them.
“Lay here,” he whispered. “I’m casing over by the back door to see what’s what. No shots — until I give the order.”
Mumbles of understanding came from the gorillas. Cliff moved to the left. His plan was working. It was natural that he should circle in aiming for the back door. Cautiously Cliff crept through the darkness until he found a spot not more than ten feet from the back door. There Cliff waited.
LONG minutes passed. Cliff was not nervous, but he could feel the tension. His eyes were glued to the whiteness of the back door. He felt that the time for trouble was imminent. He feared that The Shadow had been unable to arrive in the brief time allowed.
Then, as Cliff blinked, he fancied that he saw the back door moving inward. The motion itself was imperceptible. It seemed that a vertical strip of blackness was working its way from the side of the door.
The strange phenomenon continued; then stopped. Gradually, the widened strip of black began to fade.
Cliff suppressed a gasp. He realized the amazing truth. The Shadow, with ample space between the gangsters and the house, had approached the back door. With stealthy, unseen hand, he had picked the lock. He had opened the door inch by inch; the blackness had been from the interior of the house.
Through the crevice, The Shadow had passed. The narrowing shaft of blackness was all that marked the silent closing of the door. Cliff — not more than a dozen feet away — had seen no sign of a living form!
The gangsters, farther from the house, could not have seen a single token of The Shadow’s arrival — not even that moving strip of black. Subtle had been The Shadow’s entrance; yet Cliff realized that it could have been made even less visibly. He saw that The Shadow had deliberately left his trace that Cliff, himself, might know that his chief had entered!
There had been no signal; no whispered words from the dark. Cliff knew the answer. He was to play the role to which Brodie Brodan had assigned him. The Shadow could take care of his own departure as effectively as he had attended to his arrival.
Cliff smiled grimly, as he drew his revolver from his pocket. The climax of this episode was on the way.
Silent and placid, the home of Tyler Bogart was due for a startling eruption. Crime was ready to break loose.