“And you might need a sawbones.”
“That’s it. I’m giving you the new joint that you need. You’d be a sap to stick here with the bulls hot to get Zarby and his outfit. Well, the new place is yours. It’s a hundred-to-one shot that none of my outfit will get into a jam. But if any of them do—”
“I’m to patch them up?”
“That’s it.”
Doc Ralder considered. Hoot Shelling eyed the man’s keen face. At last, Ralder turned to the front door of the room. For a moment Hoot thought the deal was off. Then Ralder spoke.
“I’m going up to see the gorillas,” he told his visitor. “Just to tell them I’m going out and won’t be back. They can tell Zarby when he gets here. The four of them can leave together.”
“You’re not going to wait for Zarby?”
“Why should I? He knows the way in. I’ll leave the doors unlocked and he’ll go straight upstairs when he doesn’t find me here.”
“What about your equipment?”
Ralder laughed as he turned the knob of the door. This question amused him.
“What do you think this is?” he questioned. “A hospital? A punk could lug the bag I carry. I’m always ready for a quick getaway. Where’s your car?”
“Out back. First street down, away from the avenue.”
“Good! Pull that bag out from under the desk. Open the drawers and throw in towels and anything else you see. I’ll be back by the time you’re ready.”
DOC RALDER went through the front door. He lived up to his word. By the time that Hoot Shelling had accumulated towels and other odd items, Ralder reappeared. He was carrying a square shaped suitcase.
Hoot picked up the other bag. Ralder went to the corner and lifted the cane that belonged with the disguise of Creeper Trigg.
“Let’s go,” said the sawbones. “Out through the back way. I’ll lock that door behind me; but I’ll leave the light burning for Zarby.”
The ex-peddler and his visitor departed. A click sounded as the door was locked from the other side.
The dilapidated office remained silent. Doc Ralder, sawbones for whom police were searching, had flown the nest that Dopey Roogan had spotted.
CHAPTER II. GANGLAND’S MENACE
DOPEY ROOGAN was at his post. Huddled against the wall, his pasty face registering anxiety, the little stoolie was looking across the thoroughfare beneath the elevated. Dopey was playing a game to which he had been accustomed. He was feigning that he was on the lookout for an imaginary dope peddler.
All the while, Dopey was taking in the faces of the passers. He watched shambling bums and bearded peddlers as they shifted along the street. But he did not, as yet, spy the persons whom he expected: Detective Joe Cardona and a squad of raiders.
Dopey knew well that Joe Cardona would be artful. No bluecoats would approach this spot, although some might be near at hand, ready for a call. Moreover, Dopey was sure that the plainclothes men who accompanied Cardona would be few in number and that they would form a chosen crew. Other sleuths might herald a trip to the underworld by the tramp of ponderous flat feet; but Joe Cardona was too wise for that.
Intent upon his view across the street, Dopey Roogan did not observe a man who was coming up from the lighted corner below. This fellow was on the same side of the street as Dopey. Broad shoulders bulked beneath his heavy overcoat. His face was bent downward toward the sidewalk. With derby hat tilted over his face, the approaching man kept his features unnoticed as he puffed at a cigar.
At times, he paused to stare at tawdry shop windows. He seemed in no hurry to get anywhere. Yet all the while, his cautious course was bringing him closer to the near side of the alleyway. Pauses — puffs — pauses. Unnoticed by Dopey, the big fellow was edging toward his goal.
FROM across the street, unseen eyes were watching. A new figure had entered the strange scene. Yet this arrival had escaped all notice. Singularly, he had chosen the very doorway which Dopey had used as a spring spot to cover Creeper Trigg. Yet Dopey, staring up and down the street, had not the slightest inkling that his former post was occupied.
The big man, lounging from shop to shop, made a final pause as he neared the alley. His face came up; a rough, heavy-chinned countenance was revealed as the fellow stared across the street. But though he looked straight toward the doorway, he saw no signs of a living presence there. Edging a few steps more, the big man ducked into the alley.
The eyes saw. They glowed from the darkness like blazing coals. Blackness moved upward from the doorway. A solid mass detached itself from the front of the building and glided across the sidewalk. It joined the darkness of an elevated pillar.
A slouching drunk paused to stare. His bleary eyes had seen that semblance of life. The man had caught one fleeting glimpse of a strange, ghostly figure. Then he had lost it.
The bum shambled on, staring over his shoulder as he went. But he had picked the wrong spot. He did not see the repetition of the weird phenomenon as blackness moved once more.
The being from the doorway had reached the pillar on the side toward the entrance of the alley. Keen eyes were watching Dopey Roogan, the only person who was about. The brilliant gaze read the expression on the fake hop-head’s face. Then Dopey turned his anxious gaze in another direction. The lurking figure moved with swiftness.
For one brief second, the phantom shape was revealed by the dull lights that flickered on the sidewalk. A long cloak, inky in hue, swept back from the shoulders that wore it. A slouch hat showed beneath the light; its brim, however, concealed the features under it. Then the apparition was gone. The visitor from the night merged with the darkness of the alley.
Had Dopey Roogan turned to view the passage of that amazing form, the stoolie would have registered real terror. For the swift flight from darkness to darkness had marked the passage of gangdom’s menace.
Out of blackness into blackness: such was the course of The Shadow.
Master sleuth who moved by night; unknown battler who waged war with forces of the underworld, The Shadow had spied upon the man who had edged into the alley. For The Shadow had taken up the trail of that arrival. He knew the identity of the man whom Dopey Roogan had failed to notice. The Shadow was on the trail of Luke Zarby, notorious leader of a bank-robbing band.
Somewhere in the underworld, The Shadow had gained track of Zarby. Where police had failed to find the crook, The Shadow had gained success.
The Shadow’s uncanny skill was evidenced in the darkness of the alley. Though the man ahead was practically out of sight, The Shadow, approaching, picked the very spot where Zarby had gone. That was the passage beside the sixth house.
BACK at the entrance of the alley, Dopey Roogan had ceased his vigil. Across the street, the stool pigeon spied the men he was awaiting. They had seen him also — Joe Cardona and two others from headquarters.
Dopey Roogan shuffled away past Jake’s cigar store. His part of the job was done.
Dopey Roogan had identified Creeper Trigg as Doc Ralder, a man of medical training who aided crippled crooks. He had tipped off the police to Ralder’s hide-out; moreover, Dopey believed that wounded members of Luke Zarby’s gang might be there. But Dopey had no inking to the fact that Doc Ralder had left the hide-out; nor did he know that Luke Zarby had edged into that alleyway.
Least of all, did Dopey suspect that The Shadow had entered the kaleidoscopic picture. The squeamish stoolie would have been stunned had he been able to view the interior of the little room that Doc Ralder, alias Creeper Trigg, had used for a downstairs office.
There, revealed in the glow of the single light, was the tall figure of The Shadow. The cloaked visitor had just arrived to find the room empty. But The Shadow knew that Luke Zarby had preceded him. Two doors offered possible courses that the bank robber might have taken.