CHAPTER IX. GUNS BARK
TYLER BOGART, standing by the doorway of the lighted room, had every opportunity in his favor. The millionaire had come with loaded revolver. He had aimed at the safe as the logical objective. He had Croaker Mannick covered.
Fingers Keefel, though close to the millionaire, was handicapped by the burden of the panel which he carried. He had no revolver ready, although one hand was free. Counting on Croaker’s protection, Fingers had left his gat in his pocket.
Circumstances, however, had caught The Shadow in an unfortunate position. The master from the darkness had moved into the room; but he was not beyond that projecting door of the safe. Fingers Keefel, his first target, was in plain view. Croaker Mannick, crouching behind a steel barrier, was not within The Shadow’s range!
Tyler Bogart had his chance. He fired. The millionaire’s own excitement was his undoing. His shot went wide. Even while the revolver roared, an answering bark came from the safe. Croaker Mannick, replying with a single shot, found the millionaire’s body as a target. Tyler Bogart crumpled.
The Shadow, had not been inactive. With the shots, his tall form was sweeping toward the wall away from the safe. The black cloak whirled as The Shadow swung to aim at Croaker Mannick. The killer’s gloating eyes became transfixed. A gasp came from Croaker’s lips as the murderer saw the weird shape that had arrived to cover him with deadly automatic.
Too late to save Tyler Bogart’s life, The Shadow was ready to avenge the murder. Gun to gun, he was facing Croaker Mannick. The quick-fingered crook was aiming instinctively to meet The Shadow’s swinging weapon.
Then came an unexpected break. Fingers Keefel had not seen The Shadow. His eyes had been on Tyler Bogart. As the millionaire crumpled from Croaker’s bullet, his hand dropped away from the light switch.
At that instant, Fingers acted with clawing clutch.
Just as The Shadow and Croaker swung gun to gun, Fingers yanked the switch and plunged out through the door of the room, carrying the stolen panel with him!
DARKNESS — as fingers were pressed to triggers! The Shadow and Croaker Mannick, each seeking to beat the other to the shot, were blotted from view by pitch-black gloom. Instinctive fighters, the terror of the underworld and the famous marksman of the badlands, both adapted themselves to the unexpected change.
Each shifted as he fired. Automatic and revolver blazed simultaneously, each at a target that had dropped away. Those bursts were but the first of a succession. Through the strongroom where Tyler Bogart’s body lay came flash after flash, each from a new and unexpected quarter.
The Shadow was fighting it out with Croaker Mannick. The master battler was weaving through the darkness to meet an enemy whose craft was worthy of his own. Flashes were targets; but each marksman was on the move as he fired.
A burst of flame came from near the door. It brought a quick response from the other side of the room.
Croaker’s revolver had spoken from the exit. The Shadow, with keen strategy, had fired in reply toward the side of the target that was inward from the door.
A sharp cry from the darkness. Croaker had dodged inward, expecting to deceive The Shadow. He had failed. A zimming bullet from the automatic had found its mark in human flesh. Croaker was wounded — on the left side, and not seriously — for he fired again, almost instantly after he had cried out aloud.
Another bark from the automatic. Then a pause, while roaring echoes resounded through the room. The Shadow was shifting for the cover of the safe door — the barrier which had previously protected Croaker.
His enemy was somewhere in the darkness toward the door.
Then came Croaker’s final shot. The smart killer had suspected The Shadow’s move. He had taken advantage of two short seconds to gain the door. His revolver delivered a winging bullet that thudded like a warning against the steel door of the safe.
The automatic responded. Once — twice — it hurled its lead toward the far door where Croaker, firing, had sprung for safety. Croaker, wounded in the fray, had sought safety in flight. Those two quick shots from The Shadow’s gun were the master’s last effort to stay the plunging murderer.
The gunfray, despite its varied action, had been short in duration. The few seconds that followed the final echoes of the shots were tense ones. The Shadow, playing his strategic game, was waiting for any answer that might come.
All was silent by the door. Croaker Mannick — he had recognized The Shadow — had chosen flight as his final goal. There would be no more from Croaker — that The Shadow knew. Fingers Keefel had gained a start. Outside were mobsters ready to cause trouble.
The Shadow moved forward. His flashlight glimmered. It showed the body of Tyler Bogart, crumpled within the doorway. The light flickered toward the hallway. Suddenly, its rays went out. A soft, sinister laugh whispered through the room.
What was The Shadow’s thought? As if in answer came a signal from the outside of the house. Three quick shots — a belated token from Brodie Brodan. That meant invasion — from the back.
FOOTSTEPS were clattering. Tyler Bogart’s friends and servants, alarmed by the shots from the strongroom, were coming to investigate. The sounds were from the direction of the veranda. Sweeping back into the strongroom, The Shadow reached the little hallway.
He was in time. Cliff Marsland, in order to play the part assigned to him, had been forced to launch his cohorts. A snarling mobster arrived in the passage. The Shadow saw the fiendish look on the man’s face as the fellow aimed a revolver down the straight hall, where he spotted one of Bogart’s frightened friends.
The Shadow’s automatic boomed from the side passage. The mobster dropped. With a forward leap, The Shadow gained the junction of the passages. His blazing automatics — a second had come forth in his other hand — delivered fierce fire toward the doorway where two other mobsters had appeared.
One man fell. The other fled. The Shadow caught a glimpse of Cliff Marsland. The agent, playing his part, also took to flight. He could tell Brodie Brodan that he and his men had encountered an unexpected ambush.
Back through the strongroom. The Shadow reached the way to the side door. Again, he was just in time.
Brodie Brodan, alarmed by unexpected firing within the house, had launched a new drive. Mobsters were piling into the darkened side passage. Once again, The Shadow’s automatics broke loose.
Snarling mobsters staggered. Guns clattered to the floor as the repulsed horde took to flight. The fury of The Shadow’s fire brought belief that several armed men were here to meet the invasion.
The effect on the mobsters, however, was matched by that which came to the startled guests of Tyler Bogart. The two men coming in from the veranda ran back the way that they had come, followed by a pair of bewildered servants.
Flinging open the veranda windows, they leaped to the lawn and fled in the only direction that seemed to afford safety — toward the sloping vista that led to the Sound. Scattered shots — too distant to cause harm — came from Bozo Griffin’s few men at the front of the big mansion.
Shouted orders followed. Brodie Brodan was urging his men to scatter. The admonition was a wise one.
The Shadow had reached a window that covered both front and side. His automatics belched in both directions. Scurrying mobsters ran for shelter.
The Shadow knew that Cliff would lead the mobsters at the back into a swift retreat. His aim was to scatter Brodie’s hordes and send them flocking back to Manhattan. He succeeded swiftly; and as token of The Shadow’s might, a few stray gangsters lay flattened on the turf.
Tyler Bogart’s home was emptied of all living beings save one: The Shadow. Stalking ghostlike through the darkness, the master battler returned to the strongroom where Tyler Bogart had met his unfortunate death.