This place had been stocked with more than a few hoodlums passing as attendants. Even the "guests"
were fakes; members of a full-sized mob, ready to prevent the removal of Dick Remingwood!
ANY fighter but The Shadow would have been slated for instant death. His quick choice, his amazing speed, were all that saved him. Forgetting Quill and the latter's thugs, The Shadow flung himself squarely into the human deluge that came from the front half of the corridor.
Guns ripped; The Shadow's automatics thundered amid that rapid fire. He was the center of a milling mass, and men were sprawling from that whirl. Despite the odds against him, The Shadow was giving those crooks a battle from such close quarters that he held the edge.
The Shadow had left Quill's outfit to Harry and Dick. That was where the counter-thrust went wrong.
Realizing The Shadow's dilemma, Harry instinctively opened fire to clip the crowd from the big room; and Dick did the same. There were others, unfortunately, who reasoned that The Shadow was in too tough a spot to survive without aid. Those others were Quill and his gunners. They thought they were clear to carry out their original plan. Quill, quickest thinker of the lot, rasped an order to that effect. The others followed it.
En masse, they piled upon Harry and Dick, bowled them to the floor. Arlene had no chance of escape; leaping thugs trapped her in the little room. They hauled her, struggling, to the corridor, where they had disarmed their first two prisoners.
At another command from Quill, they started through the rear door, expecting that The Shadow could never follow.
They would have made a bad mistake, if Quill had not stopped to take a look along the corridor.
There, Quill saw a thinning of the fray. The inside crooks were groveling on the floor, except for a pair that still grappled with The Shadow. Even those two were due to be finished; they were fighting hopelessly, realizing that The Shadow had crippled so many of their pals.
Quill hesitated; he was caught between two desires: The first, to carry away the prisoners; the other, to make sure that The Shadow died. Quill chose a middle course.
Letting the rest go through the rear door, he grabbed two of his masked squad. Shoving them around, Quill ordered them to get The Shadow.
One of the pair was Bosco Treff. The other was a long-limbed thug, a new addition to the crew. He was Bosco's present teammate; that was apparent from the gloating shout that Bosco gave.
"Come on, Pike!" Bosco's bellow was louder than the last barks of gunfire. "The job's ours! Croak The Shadow!"
The two drove along the corridor, ready to fire the moment that the last strugglers slumped. They saw two men half-locked together; the pair tumbled. Bosco and his pal blazed shots. A taunting laugh answered them.
The Shadow wasn't where the pair had fallen!
He had left those two mixed in their grapple. Dealing hard strokes with an automatic, The Shadow had whisked away before the two could sag. He was out of the path of gunfire that Bosco and Pike delivered. The two halted alongside the big room. They sighted The Shadow finishing a fade. He was silhouetted at the front door of that long hallway.
"There he is, Pike!"
WITH that shout, Bosco sprang forward, aiming for the whitish door. His shots splintered the woodwork. The Shadow had twisted back along his route. Pike saw that reversal; he paused to fire. But he never managed to loose a shot.
A last tongue of flame came from an automatic; it was the only cartridge that remained to The Shadow.
The bullet sprawled Pike to the center of the corridor. Bosco never saw what happened to his pal. For Bosco was at the front door, staring about bewildered.
Quill saw Pike fall. He spied the wounded crook coming to hands and knees. Pike was crawling for the big room, snarling viciously as he went. He wanted cover before he took new aim. Forgetting Pike, Quill tried to get a bead of his own.
Finding The Shadow was no cinch, in that semi-gloom. All that saved Quill was the emptiness of The Shadow's guns. While Quill stared, puzzled, The Shadow performed a surprising move. Driving up from darkness, he fell upon Bosco.
The scuffle caught Quill's gaze. He saw a sledging gun take a glancing stroke from Bosco's skull. As Bosco sidled to the floor, The Shadow plucked away the revolver that was loosening in the thug's grip.
Wheeling about, ready with that weapon, The Shadow was prepared for a duel with Quill Baxton.
Those swift tactics should have meant Quill's doom.
Quill Baxton was the only fighter who remained intact. He was stunned by the suddenness with which the entire burden had been thrown upon him. His gun was lowered; even when he realized his predicament he was too late to beat The Shadow's turnabout.
Baxton was saved by the act of a forgotten battler: one of the white-jacketed attendants.
That fellow had crawled through the doorway of a darkened room. His white sleeve was visible as his hand reached upward to the wall. At the moment when The Shadow and Quill were aiming their guns, the wounded man pressed a panel and found a switch. He tugged it.
The roar that followed made gunfire sound puny.
That switch had touched off a hidden charge of dynamite. The whole center of the building lifted in a titanic explosion. In the midst of a fiery, rocketing background, Quill saw The Shadow, a tiny form in contrast.
The blast had struck outside the corridor, but The Shadow was close enough to feel its heavy effect. The door beside him came bursting inward. The Shadow was flung headlong to the corridor. Quill staggered against the rear door; rallying, he fired shots from his revolver. They were useless.
The central floor was shattered. Blinking from the effects of the explosion's blast, Quill saw The Shadow plunge into an engulfing pit. Guns gone, The Shadow grabbed for any object that could hold him. All that he clutched was the sprawled form of Bosco Treff. Together, they took the drop into the lower darkness.
Walls and floors were buckling more. Flames were catching dried wood as it collapsed. More of the old building was crumpling; wounded men were being carried to an awful doom. Quill saw them struggling, crawling toward him. As he stared, he watched them take the slide into oblivion.
Even the man who had pulled the switch was doomed. Fire was bursting everywhere, as the fellow made a stagger in Quill's direction. Rising flames showed terror on a whitened face, made ruddy by the spurts of fire. The fellow made a frantic grimace, thrust his hands forward, hoping that Quill would grasp them.
Then, with a sagging of the floor below him, the attendant went sliding into the same inferno that had swallowed The Shadow.
THERE were men, perhaps, who could be saved; those like Pike, who had gained the big room. But Quill didn't care to help them. Sheets of flame were sweeping upward as a barrier. He'd risk his own life, if he went to help them. Maybe they'd crawl clear, if they weren't too badly wounded. Quill didn't care.
This inside crew wasn't his. Bosco was his man; but Bosco was dead, gone with The Shadow. Pike didn't matter much; he was a newcomer, introduced through Bosco. Things were getting too hot for Quill.
The sheets of flame that were scorching toward him would soon engulf the outer walls. What did it matter if nearly a dozen crooks had gone to doom, since The Shadow had perished with them?
Quill yanked open the rear door. The wall was swaying beside him, as he dashed through. Whipping flame lashed after him, but Quill was clear. Skirting the crazy old house, giving it a wide margin, Quill saw two cars, plainly revealed by the rising blaze.
He reached the first one. It was filled. Three prisoners were lying upon the floor, with captors clustered over them. Quill gave the word to go. As that car started, he flagged the next one. Hopping into it, he told the driver to follow.
There were queries; mention of Bosco.