Carraza slackened slightly for a long turn. Then, as he pressed the accelerator for a straight stretch, he muttered angrily. An old sedan was backing crosswise to block the speedway. Its erratic motion, in the path of Carraza’s blinding lights, was a signal for immediate caution.
There was time to avoid a collision, even at the speed with which the roadster was traveling. Carraza stepped on the brake. His lunging car swerved, but held to the road as it came to a rapid stop. Intuitively, the South American turned the wheel so that the nose of his car pointed at an angle behind the balking sedan.
A TONGUE of flame spat from the sedan. A bullet zimmed against the windshield of Carraza’s roadster. The glass cracked, but did not shatter. Another flash of flame. Carraza flung open the door beside the driver’s seat and leaped to the speedway, on the side away from the stalled sedan. His eyes opened wide with fright.
Looming down from the direction which he had come was a rakish touring car. Its headlights showed Carraza plainly. From the side of the approaching automobile came an opening shot that missed its mark, but battered the side of the roadster.
Caught between two fires, Carraza leaped frantically to the front of his car. As his cowering form clutched the radiator, another shot came from the sedan. Certain doom awaited the attache. It would be but a matter of seconds.
Then came the interruption that neither Carraza nor his pursuers had expected. The roar of a powerful motor surged from the bend just ahead of the sedan. With terrific speed, a roadster of greater power than Carraza’s came hurtling down upon the sedan.
Gunmen, about to aim at their prey, turned to see this arriving car. The roadster, bearing down at ninety, seemed driverless! Behind its wheel loomed a spectral shape that seemed like a monstrous creature of the night!
Death was the driver of that car. Death, in the person of The Shadow! The bark of a huge automatic was the answer to the gunmen’s challenge. The puny spats of revolver fire, directed at a hurtling target were wild attempts to meet the power of the automatic.
Hot lead seared into the midst of crouching mobsters. Hoarse screams were the replies as useless revolvers clattered to the concrete of the speedway. As deadly as a crushing Juggernaut, The Shadow had hurled vengeance into the ranks of men who were here to murder.
As The Shadow’s car swerved past the front of the sedan, men in the touring car opened new and closer fire upon Lito Carraza. The attache screamed as a bullet clipped his shoulder. Blindly, he plunged forward, staggering directly toward the blocking sedan.
But for The Shadow’s quick and precise action, Carraza’s course would have led him to sure death. A few seconds before, the sedan had contained four men whose hands were ready with revolvers. That circumstance had changed. The Shadows perfect shots had done their work. Not a single hand could rise to shoot down the victim who came staggering into the death trap.
The touring car had stopped. Gangsters, leaping from its doors, were on Carraza’s trail. They swung as The Shadow’s car swerved past Carraza’s roadster. Blindly, they fired into the glare as jamming breaks brought the car of vengeance to a stop.
Revolver bullets spattered against the windshield. They might as well have driven against steel as that thick, bulletproof barrier with which The Shadow’s speedy car was equipped.
With left hand on the wheel, The Shadow answered with his right. His automatic, thrust from beside the windshield, picked out the ruffians who snarled before the brilliance of The Shadow’s headlights.
One ugly faced ruffian sprawled. A second, firing vain shots, staggered as a bullet reached him. Another gangster crumpled. Two who remained took to flight.
They were too late. A timely bullet clipped the first as he dodged beyond Carraza’s roadster. A second shot caught the second man as he sought to clamber back into the roadster. On the step, the gangster screamed, threw out his arms and toppled backward to the concrete of the speedway.
Only one of the would-be assassins found opportunity to escape. He was the leader of the two-car mob — the man at the wheel of the touring car. “Bugs” Ritler, trusted henchman of Darvin Rochelle, had sensed the presence of a mighty menace as he had seen his squirming minions fall.
Springing from the wheel, Bugs went through the door on the left as The Shadow was dropping the last pair of snarling rats. Without pausing to fire a single shot, Bugs took a flying leap over a fence at the side of the speedway and gained shelter amid a clump of trees.
To the ears of the terrified gang leader came the strident sound of a taunting laugh. It was a weird cry that sounded like a knell when it broke the silence which had followed the stilling of gunfire.
The laugh of The Shadow!
SINISTER, mocking mirth, it rang out as the token of swift triumph. In quick, emphatic seconds, The Shadow had spelled doom to men of crime. Single-handed, he had turned the odds in his own behalf.
From the wheel of his powerful roadster, The Shadow could see Lito Carraza. The attache whose life The Shadow had saved, was clutching his wounded shoulder as he stood, white-faced, close by the sedan where bullet-riddled mobsters lay.
Carraza was safe. No one remained to make a new attempt upon his life. The Shadow, turning his gaze along the speedway, spied the lights of a taxicab approaching from the direction in which Carraza had come.
The big roadster moved backward. Its rear wheels gripped the dirt that edged the far side of the speedway. The car roared forward. Swerving a foot from the rear of Carraza’s stalled car, it shot along the broad road, back toward Washington.
Above the roaring throb of the powerful motor came a final burst of mockery. The laugh was repeated, like a distant echo, as the big roadster took the bend. The tail-light twinkled from sight, just as the taxicab rolled up to the spot where three driverless cars were stretched across the speedway.
The Shadow’s hand had struck. His strident laugh had marked his victory. Triumphant, The Shadow had departed into the darkness from which he had emerged!
CHAPTER IX
MARQUETTE REPORTS
ON the evening following the affray on the Virginia speedway, Vic Marquette appeared in the lobby of the Hotel Starlett. The secret-service operative approached a room telephone and called Fulton Fourrier.
Vic Marquette had a habit of noticing people everywhere he went. He also possessed the peculiar ability of spotting those who seemed to be worthwhile watching. He had used this propensity at the Club Rivoli when he had observed Alvarez Menzone. He looked about him tonight, as he passed through the lobby of the Starlett.
On this occasion, however, Vic’s ability failed him. He saw no one in the lobby who impressed him as important. He stared squarely at a tall, thin-faced man whose hawklike nose and keen eyes gave him a dignified expression. But Vic saw nothing about that individual to make a second look necessary.
The personage whom Vic Marquette passed by, was the guest who had registered as Henry Arnaud. He was located in the lobby for one definite purpose: to await the appearance of Vic Marquette.
As soon as the secret-service operative had taken one elevator, Arnaud arose and entered another. Alighting at the eighth floor, he moved swiftly to his room. In the darkness, a black cloak swished. A weird, shrouded figure appeared upon the balcony and began its precipitous and sidewise ascent to the outside of Fourrier’s window.
Henry Arnaud had again become The Shadow. Crouched on Fourrier’s balcony, his gloved hands eased the trifling space that he needed between the doorlike halves of the French window. Peering keenly through the crevice, The Shadow again became a silent listener to what was passing between Vic Marquette and his chief.