The crew moved inward. They reached the end of the tunnel. Only a thin shell of wall barred further progress. While a bull’s-eye lantern glowed, ready crooks pried with crowbars. Bricks tumbled. Lights showed the basement of the bank.
Dobey was the first to crowd through. His men followed him. Softly, Dobey led the way to a large vault.
He motioned his men to wait. Then he called upon two to follow him. They made for a flight of stairs.
At the top, Dobey led the way to another spot, where a little light showed a table and chair. It was the watchman’s post. Men waited in the darkness. Evidently Dobey had timed his work well, for tramping footsteps soon announced the arrival of Rowley.
Mobsmen pounced upon the watchman. As they choked his head backward, Dobey jammed close.
Again, a muffled, squidgy report. Mobsmen let go; Rowley’s body slumped to the floor.
“That finishes him,” decided Dobey. “Go get Sooky. Bring him up here. Tell him to fix this body.”
The henchmen departed. Dobey flashed a light. It showed a second vault, located directly above the first.
Dobey, however, did not linger. He followed his minions. He joined the crew by the lower vault. There, Dobey stepped into the light of the bull’s-eye lantern and began to work on the combination.
The massive door swung outward. Dobey went to work on an inner gate. The contents of the vault were accessible. Sacks were passed to Dobey. The big shot began to load in stacks of money and bundles of securities.
“Take your time, boys,” ordered the big shot. “There’s no hurry. Once we’ve cleaned this vault, we’re through. There’s nobody going to wise up that we’re here.”
DOBEY spoke with positive assurance. He and his men were underground. There was no possible way that any one on the street could know that crooks were at work below. In fact, an investigator had already arrived upon the scene and was deceived.
The arrival was The Shadow. Phantomlike, the black-garbed visitant was circling the walls of the Founders Trust Company. He had seen no sign of suspicious characters; he could see no evidence of any mode of entry to the building.
The Shadow had suspected trouble here. Not finding it, he wondered. He had picked this bank as an objective for crime, yet he had no proof that to-night was the time intended. The Shadow glided into darkness. Two blocks away, he stopped by a shoe repairing shop, where a sign indicated a pay telephone within.
The lock of the door gave as The Shadow manipulated it. The blackened form entered. The Shadow found the telephone and put in a call to Burbank. The quiet voice of the contact man came over the wire.
The only report was from Clyde Burke, newspaper reporter who was a secret agent of The Shadow.
Clyde had gone to the Antrilla Apartments. He had reported that Detective Joe Cardona was there. The fight had been classed as a gang fracas.
“Report received,” whispered The Shadow.
An exclamation from Burbank. It came just before The Shadow was ready to hang up the receiver.
“Wait!” announced the contact man. “Radio call coming through. I’ll put it on.”
One of Burbank’s duties, at his contact room, was to keep tabs on police calls. Hearing one, he must have set the loud speaker at the telephone, for The Shadow heard the call that came.
“Calling car fourteen,” droned a voice. “Calling car fourteen. No report from Patrolman Lucas. Last report from box eighty-six. Investigate…”
The Shadow hung up as the call was being repeated. Here was a clue of importance. All seemed well in the neighborhood of the Founders Trust Company, yet all was not well in the surrounding terrain. Lucas had failed to report. Something must be wrong.
The Shadow headed from the shoe shop. His objective was the same as the patrol car — the box from which Lucas had last reported. From that point, The Shadow was ready to begin an investigation. It required only a few minutes for him to reach the corner where the box was located.
The Shadow knew that he was working blind. Box 86 was five blocks from the Founders Trust Company. It was on the fringe of the patrolman’s beat. Whatever Lucas had encountered must have occurred after the cop had departed from that box. Yet it was the only starting point.
Chance had favored The Shadow. It was to aid him again. As his tall form stood unseen in the blackness of a corner building, The Shadow’s keen eyes, roving along each street, made a sudden discovery. A few blocks away, a corner light showed a boarded entrance to the new subway.
There was no subway entrance near the Founders Trust Company. The Shadow, though he knew the course of the new tube, had not considered it in connection with the bank building. It was one of those oversights that showed that The Shadow was not entirely infallible.
SIGHT of the entrance itself, however, awoke a quick chain of thought. Swiftly, The Shadow moved toward the spot that he had discerned. The subway entrance was to be the beginning of his new search.
There were two entrances at the corner which The Shadow reached. The Shadow chose the nearer one.
Black against the side of the buildings, he wrenched away one of the boards. It came loose with surprising ease.
The steps turned as The Shadow descended. One corner; then another. The Shadow was moving swiftly. As he took the second turn, something occurred ahead. The Shadow heard a growled voice; the sound of a man stumbling in the darkness.
Then, unexpectedly, some one turned on a flashlight from below. The glare revealed the steps on which The Shadow stood. A startled oath sounded from behind the flashlight. The mobster who held the torch had seen The Shadow!
Caught squarely within the glow was that figure cloaked in black. There was no chance to escape from mobster eyes. Revealed to the first of Dobey Blitz’s departing crew, The Shadow had but one course.
That was to fight with the advancing hordes of crime!
CHAPTER XI. FIGHT AND FLIGHT
TWO sounds came as prelude to combat. Both were challenges. Snarls of mobsters hissed from below.
With them, from above, came the hollow mockery of a defiant laugh. The mirth of The Shadow echoed foreboding in the confines of those tunneled steps.
Sweeping automatics beat whisked revolvers to the shot. Roars reechoed through the downward-angled passage. A slug found the flashlight and extinguished it; a second shot finished the man who had held the torch. Two other mobsmen fired through the darkness.
Blazing automatics were aimed for the flare of revolvers. While gangster bullets ricocheted close by The Shadow, the master fighter dispatched his own shots with exact precision. One gangster slumped silent.
The other staggered off into the darkness below.
The Shadow did not pause. Retreat was open; but it was not the way he chose. His leaping figure reached the bottom of the steps. His automatics blazed toward twinkling lights that were approaching through the corridor of the subway.
On flashed bull’s-eye lanterns. Again, The Shadow showed like a specter in the glare. As he weaved into the trackless subway, getting clear from the confines of the side, he fired toward the lights that had spotted him. One — then the other — out went the lanterns.
Then came bullets whistling through the dark. Like his enemies, The Shadow was using gun-bursts for targets. As gangsters spread, The Shadow battled lone-handed from a vantage point he had chosen.
Bullets were aimed straight for The Shadow. With the number of his foemen — with their deploying tactics — The Shadow could not cover all. Yet cursing mobsters were amazed when their shots failed to take effect. They were afraid to use more lights; hence they did not know the answer.