Louie Harger and his thinned ranks had scattered. Sniping shots were all that came toward the advancing detectives. Cardona and his men dashed into the bank. The Shadow waited, listening to muffled shots from within.
Shouts from the front street. There was activity there. Then came gangsters, creeping forward. Members of Louie’s crew were closing to block off Cardona’s retreat, should he and his detectives reappear.
The Shadow stepped from his niche. Still in the gloom, he opened sudden fire, with a pair of fully-loaded automatics. Shouts sounded as the mobsters again scattered for cover. Weaving swiftly toward the door, The Shadow followed the path taken by Joe Cardona.
The interior of the bank was filled with smoky fumes from the explosion. Stairs showed dimly; The Shadow knew that the detectives had taken that route. Springing forward, the master fighter descended. He stopped suddenly at the bottom turn.
Lights were on in a stone-walled strongroom. There, The Shadow, as he watched from the darkened steps, could see four cowering mobsmen, covered by the guns of Cardona’s detectives. Beyond was a gaping hole at the bottom of the wall.
The Shadow knew the answer. A squad of mobsters had been sent through the side door, to open the way and form contact with Harger’s crew. The robbers were to follow with the swag. But The Crime Master had been too clever to rely upon a single avenue to escape.
The repulsion of the vanguard had caused the bank crackers to depart by the way which they had come — through the gaping hole which they had blasted in this lower room. That piece of strategy, worked with design, was proof to The Shadow that something else was due to happen. The Shadow watched.
Cardona barked an order. Three detectives sprang toward the gaping hole. Their leader was dispatching them to follow the escaping robbers. The Shadow’s automatics came upward. The weapons were none too soon.
Shots burst from the gap in the wall. One detective staggered; the others dropped away. As Cardona swung to see the source of trouble, a pair of mobsters sprang from the hole with leveled guns. They were the first of a safety crew, here in ambush, to stop the police from following.
Cardona and his men were caught flat-footed. But for The Shadow’s presence, their doom would have come. The cornered mobsters, acting with the tribe from the broken wall, were yanking guns. The odds were all against the detectives. But they had The Shadow behind them!
Automatics blazed. Roars that echoed from the stairway were the markers of spraying shots with which The Shadow peppered The Crime Master’s men. The detectives, caught in the open, were firing to save their lives. Above them whistled The Shadow’s aiding shots.
One detective sprawled; then another. Joe Cardona staggered and fell. But for every one of these losses, three casualties resulted among the mobsmen. Scampering like rats, sprawling mobsmen dived for the hole that offered safety. The Shadow’s booming shots could not be answered.
One mobster, alone, fell crouching beyond two fallen forms that cluttered the gap. Snarling, he fired toward the stairway. His first bullet clipped the stone work at the corner. He aimed for a second shot. An automatic answered. The gangster slumped.
That was the end. A stillness followed barking echoes. Then came choking gasps within the smoke-filled room where the smell of powder had blended with the fumes. Detectives, still unscathed, were rising to aid their wounded comrades; among the latter was Joe Cardona.
THE SHADOW’S form faded. Pursuit was futile, now. The fight had allowed the robbers time to make a getaway. Outside — at the front of the bank — that was the spot where the crooks could be blocked. Had Cardona headed there, he might have gained a victory.
The Shadow, though alone, could have caused trouble at the front. But he had sensed the trap into which Cardona was descending. He had come to save the lives of the star sleuth and his men. He had deliberately passed up the chance to deal with the escaping robbers when they reached the open.
The Shadow gained the top of the stairs. There, he paused. He could hear the clumping tread of detectives at the bottom of the steps. He could hear distant shots, whistles and sirens from spots outside.
With a weird laugh that shuddered through the upper room, The Shadow strode toward the broken side door. This time, he was the force that came to clear the way. He knew that a new menace lay ahead.
Cardona and the detectives, saved from their trap, were coming, crippled, toward vengeful enemies who awaited them. Once again, The Shadow had a duty to perform!
CHAPTER VII
A FIEND DELIGHTS
LOUIE HARGER was crouched beside a bullet-riddled car in the parking lot. Before him, the remnants of his crew were ready, like entrenched fighters. They were grumbling as they heard the approach of sirens.
“How about it, Louie?” came a question, “What’re we waitin’ for? The bulls is comin’—”
“Yellow, eh?” snarled Louie. “Well, keep sittin’ tight. We can run for it in a couple of these buggies. What we’re waiting for is to plug any of those dicks that come crawlin’ out—”
The gangleader pressed the button of a powerful flashlight. He sent the beam straight toward the open door. Then, before his startled eyes could take in the form that the light revealed, a bursting shot came in response.
The Shadow had opened fire. Gangsters, their guns idle, were caught unaware. Louie Harger, as surprised as the rest, hurled his flashlight from him and dove back among the cars. Two of his men fired. Then came the crashes of the automatics. One shooter sprawled.
The mobsters were leaping for the safety of the cars which Louie had chosen for flight. Motors roared. The cars shot from the parking space. Louie, leading the way, was heading for an outlet at the far side of the space.
Gangsters were firing from the windows — still aiming at the door of the bank. The Shadow, however, was no longer there. His next shots came from darkness. They were aimed for the automobiles as the two vehicles shot forth, almost side by side.
Luck was with Louie Harger. His car was beyond the other. The Shadow’s firm hand loosed a shot that drilled the driver of the nearer car. The speeding auto wavered; it whirled across the street and smashed a wall. As it toppled on its side, gangsters came sprawling to the street.
Louie’s car, however, gained the corner, protected almost all the way by the erratic course of the second machine. Safe from The Shadow’s shots, the gangleader met with new danger, less than a block away. A police car was speeding toward him from a side thoroughfare.
Gangsters fired. The chase began. Louie Harger was in flight. Speeding through this vicinity, off on a mad getaway, the gangleader was racing to avoid the law.
The Shadow heard the firing. His laugh rippled in the darkness of the street beside one bank. Approaching police had been diverted by Louie’s flight. The Shadow stood alone. Turning, he made off through the darkness toward the front of the bank.
The Shadow’s work was ended. It was his part to leave this beleaguered vicinity before the police closed in. Distant shots showed that The Crime Master’s minions were scattering, now that their crime had been accomplished.
DETECTIVES were emerging from within the bank. Burdened by their wounded comrades, they would have been soft targets for Harger’s lurkers. But The Shadow had dispelled that menace. The only members of Louie’s crew that remained were the sprawled, groaning fellows who had hit the sidewalk from the overturning car.