“Tell me this, Cardona,” insisted Barth. “What clues have you found concerning the identity of the criminals?”
“None,” returned Joe.
“None?” echoed Barth, testily. “Then your investigation has revealed no more than the obvious.”
Cardona shrugged his shoulders. Barth prepared to leave and Joe nudged the reporters toward the door.
Soon after they had left, the commissioner and the detective descended the stairs. Barth seemed disgruntled. He walked to his car, which was parked close by, then noticed that Cardona had followed him.
“Just a minute, commissioner,” said the detective. “I’ve got something more to tell you. I didn’t want the reporters to hear it, that’s all.”
Barth’s eyes glistened.
“I’m going to work on what I learned last night,” said Cardona. “Hoot Shelling’s mob may be in back of this. Hoot’s tied up with Doc Ralder, the sawbones who had that hide-out.”
“Excellent!” exclaimed Barth. “The bullet from Lyken’s body can furnish the evidence when you find the gun that fired it. The bullet, Cardona!”
“One bullet?” returned the detective, with a smile. “Two bullets, commissioner. That’s what I’m counting on.”
“Two bullets? Was Lyken shot twice?”
“No. The bullet that got Lyken can wait. I’m thinking of other bullets, commissioner.”
“You mean—”
“The ones that wounded those escaping crooks.”
“But how—”
“Listen, commissioner.” Cardona leaned forward. “Hoot Shelling’s in with Doc Ralder. Two of Hoot’s mob got it tonight — with bullets— and the pair of them are wounded.”
“Yes,” agreed Barth, “but those men have escaped.”
“They can’t go far,” laughed Cardona. “They’ll have to travel to a sawbones, won’t they?”
“Doc Ralder?”
“Yes.”
“But he escaped last night.”
“I know it” — despite the statement, Cardona paused triumphantly— “and that’s what I’m counting on! It’s made to order, commissioner. Do you know why? I’ll tell you. I’ve got the bird who knows who Ralder is.”
“Knows who he is?”
“Yes. A stool pigeon named Dopey Roogan is wise to the fake get-up that Doc Ralder uses in the underworld. Ralder’s got a hide-out, but that won’t keep him off the streets. He’ll be around, disguised as a blind peddler called Creeper Trigg.”
BARTH’S eyes popped in astonishment. The commissioner saw the force of Joe Cardona’s reasoning.
Doc Ralder, still at large, was the asset that the police required. Sometime tonight — perhaps even at this present moment — two crippled mobsters would be placed in his charge.
Dopey Roogan had turned the trick before. He could do it again. Barth realized that last night’s raid, apparently directed against Luke Zarby, had probably deceived Doc Ralder. There was every reason why the sawbones should believe that Zarby — not himself — had been traced to the hide-out.
“When Dopey picks up Creeper’s trail,” concluded Cardona, in a confidential tone, “we’ll have another chance to nab Doc Ralder. And with him, we’ll get those two mugs from the mob that pulled this job at Lyken’s.”
Barth nodded. He stepped into his car. The automobile pulled away; Joe Cardona strolled back into the house.
The street was deserted, save for the patrolman who was stationed by the door. The officer did not see the shape of blackness that detached itself from a wall close by the spot where the commissioner’s car had been.
The Shadow had lingered near the scene of crime. He had heard Cardona’s statement to the police commissioner. A soft laugh whispered as The Shadow moved away into the darkness. The Shadow had expected that Cardona might plan to trail Doc Ralder through Dopey Roogan. He had learned the fact that he wanted; the identity of the person whom Dopey would trail; the disguise which Ralder used in the underworld.
The Shadow had not heard the details of the investigation held at Lyken’s. They, however, were to come later, at the sanctum.
WHEN he reached his hidden abode, The Shadow found the wall bulb burning. He obtained the earphones. Burbank’s voice spoke:
“Report from Burke—”
The Classic reporter was an agent of The Shadow. He had supplied Burbank with full details. The report included a statement of Cardona’s theory concerning the crime. Lurking crooks; too large a blast; a forced getaway.
The Shadow’s laugh sounded when the report was ended. Hands moved beneath the bluish glow of the sanctum light. For the Shadow was forming a theory of his own. His keen brain saw that Cardona had erred.
The Shadow was considering the time element. The crooks had made their getaway immediately after the explosion. They could not have gained the car so quickly if they had been in the house.
Another factor concerned The Shadow. The entry to the house had been a matter of skilled accomplishment. Why had it been followed by the blunder of an explosion great enough to rock the neighborhood?
If a crook had remained to murder Lyken, how had the man managed to escape? The fume-filled hall would not have permitted a prompt exit. The killer would have been trapped.
Lyken must have been slain before the blast. If the raiders had decided to flee after that deed, why had they let the charge go off? The facts did not jibe.
Again the whispered laugh. The Shadow could see the meaning behind the chaos at Lyken’s. Skilled crooks had made an entry. They had deliberately set an over-sized charge.
They had waited, as a cover-up squad, for a signal to send them on their way.
The signal? The blast itself. Some intruder had entered after all was ready. He had murdered Lyken in cold blood. That accomplished, he had departed, igniting the fuse on the way. Had he encountered trouble, the covering crooks could have remained to aid him.
Behind tonight’s crime. The Shadow saw the secret purpose of a hidden killer. He knew that the blown door was a blind. The Shadow, like Joe Cardona, would be relentless in his search for Hoot Shelling.
But The Shadow’s quest would not end with the capture of the crook leader.
For The Shadow was sure that behind Hoot Shelling lay the hand of an insidious murderer, whose purpose had been accomplished when Philip Lyken had died.
What had Philip Lyken known? Why had he been slain? These were questions for which The Shadow sought an answer. In them, he saw the approach of further crime.
Yet, for the present, The Shadow must follow the same quest that the law was seeking. Trails in the underworld afforded the best steps toward the solution of crime that might threaten outside of the realm of the underworld.
Earphones from the wall. Burbank’s voice across the wire. Then came the shuddering whisper of The Shadow, as the enemy of crime issued new instructions for Cliff Marsland.
CHAPTER VII. THE SHADOW’S SNARE
IT was early the next evening. Darkness had brought a sinister touch to the realm of the underworld.
Streets that had been merely unsightly in the daylight had become black-blotched lurking spots were crime seemed to linger.
Slouching men who, in sunlight, would have passed for harmless bums, had undergone a change as noticeable as that of the district. Grimy yellow lights made faces appear wolfish. Every straggler in the bad lands looked like a potential murderer.
Chance visitors might have shuddered at passing through this section of Manhattan. But sharp-eyed patrolmen, parading their beats, were undeceived by the change that gloom had wrought. They could analyze the faces that they saw. They knew the folk who needed watching.
Yet even the bluecoats, familiar with their routes, were not entirely infallible. One officer, standing at a secluded corner, let three passers go by without realizing that each was playing a hidden role.