Under the control of a driver who possessed amazing skill, the passing car began to slow its pace to avoid two crashes — the first with Goodall; the second with the touring car ahead.
His own car stopping, its nose turned back along the road which he had taken here, Goodall thrust his head through the opened window. He could see the touring car that blocked the way. Goodall gave a cry of fright. The glare of the stopping speedster’s headlights revealed armed men in the touring car!
Threatening revolvers pointed.
Even as he watched, the corporation president saw a flash of flame. A bullet whistled by the open window of Goodall’s coupe.
Bandits of the road! They were opening fire. Their first shots were wide; but Goodall, helpless at the wheel of the sedan, would soon have been an easy target. Strange, yellow faces were behind those guns.
Terror gripped Blaine Goodall. Death lay before him — death which would have occurred within a minute, but for unexpected aid.
It was the driver of the huge speedster who intervened. With a swing of the steering wheel, the handler of that great car swept his motored Jagannath directly between the doomed car and the touring car that threatened it.
Startled yellow faces were no longer visible as the headlights of the speedster turned; but when an automatic roared its message from the helm of the arriving car, the fiends ahead realized that they had met their match. The Shadow had reached the end of his trail. He had arrived just in time to offset the ambush arranged for Blaine Goodall. Hurling his swift speedster to the gap between coupe and touring car, he was opening fire upon the murderous ruffians who blocked the highway!
The cannonade of the automatic was silencing in its power. Before it, the revolvers of the would-be assassins were no more than playthings. Metal messengers pronounced the power of The Shadow.
Each bark of the master’s .45 found a living target. A mocking laugh pealed forth as The Shadow delivered his close-ranged broadside. Chinese mobsters crumpled. Each trigger finger faltered. Wild, hopeless shots were futile in response.
The driver of the touring car had alone escaped The Shadow’s wrath. While the being in the speedster directed his shots toward the armed men whom he faced, the Chinaman who controlled the blocking touring car jammed his vehicle into low gear. With a wide swing that nearly wrecked it against a fence beside the road, the blocking automobile shot away and down the highway, fleeing from the power of The Shadow. The driver, alone, remained unwounded.
AGAIN, the laugh of The Shadow came as an uncanny cry through the drizzling haze that surrounded the lonely spot. His automatic emptied, The Shadow had another weapon in readiness. He had saved Blaine Goodall’s life; he was prepared for further foemen.
Yet The Shadow’s able work was destined to fail; not through the ability of the enemy, but because of a sudden lack of judgment which Blaine Goodall displayed at this moment of salvation.
The skid of his car had pointed Goodall back along the road. Despite the fact that the rescuer in the speedster was certainly a friend, Goodall took to frenzied flight. Before The Shadow could stop him, the frightened man shoved his car into low, and changed gears as he headed back toward the obscure crossroad on the other side of the bridge.
The Shadow responded as quickly as was possible. He made no effort to pursue his vanquished foemen; instead, he manipulated the speedster so that he could follow the same course that Goodall was now taking. The long, powerful car, however, required more time to turn than had the skidded coupe.
Just as The Shadow managed to gain the course, Blaine Goodall reached the approach of the bridge.
The hunted man shouted aloud in new terror. A second touring car — almost identical with the first — had come out from the dirt road, and was parked across the highway to block retreat!
In the glare of his focused headlights, Goodall could see yellow faces as fierce as those which he had just escaped. A shot blazed in his direction.
It missed the coupe, but fear did the work. With a wild cry, Goodall pressed his foot against the brake of the coupe. Again the car skidded. The scared driver lost control completely.
The coupe crashed into the rail of the bridge, broke through, and plunged headlong into a deep ravine.
The roar of The Shadow’s speedster drowned the long, wailing cry that Goodall uttered. With powerful vengeance, The Shadow was speeding to the new attack. The foreign car had a right-hand drive. With his left hand upon the wheel, The Shadow leaned from the right of the car, and let his right hand loose its steel.
The muzzle of the big automatic sent its deadly projectiles into the midst of the enemy. Flashing revolvers tried to meet the fusillade. They failed. Yellow-faced men sprawled upon the seats of the second touring car. The driver responded by shooting the automobile straight down the dirt road that lay ahead.
His action was none too soon. The heavy speedster was bearing down upon the car that held the bewildered Chinese gunmen. The yellow-peopled automobile sped away just in time to avoid a devastating crash.
THE speedster came to a grinding stop. Far down the dirt road, the fleeing raiders were driving for safety. A figure emerged from behind the wheel of the big speedster. The Shadow moved through darkness toward the bridge.
A flashlight glimmered through the broken rail. It showed the shattered bulk of Blaine Goodall’s coupe.
Amid the misty drizzle, The Shadow lowered himself from the side of the bridge, and dropped to the craggy side of the ravine. He reached the smashed car.
The flashlight revealed a battered, dying form. Blaine Goodall, in a mad effort to escape death, had opened the door of the failing coupe.
The action had been an untimely one. Caught beneath the rolling body of the car, Goodall had met his doom. As the flashlight flickered on the terror-stricken face, the president of the Huxley Corporation breathed his final gasp.
The Shadow stood in silence. Again, fate had contrived against his surpassing skill. He had arrived in time to shoot down one squad of blocking enemies. He had turned and driven back to deliver death to another corps of skulking assassins. But in the midst of conflict, the man whom he had come to save had hurtled to his own destruction.
The might of Koy Shan had gained its evil purpose. Blaine Goodall was dead.
Long minutes followed The Shadow’s sad discovery; then a figure clambered into the speedster, and the powerful motor roared as it started along the road that led back to New York.
The Shadow had performed mighty deeds tonight. Here, on a lonely road in New Jersey, he had acted with sufficient power to thwart an evil killing. Blaine Goodall had died through his own frightened efforts to escape while protected by The Shadow. The slippery road, too, had been a factor in the man’s death.
The craft of Chun Shi; that, The Shadow had been too late to thwart. The might of Koy Shan; with it, The Shadow had deserved success. Yet this second minion of Kwa had gained his objective, although doom had come to the majority of his evil underlings.
The Shadow had another score to settle. Koy Shan belonged with Chun Shi. Like the crafty one, the mighty killer had gained his end. But never again would Koy Shan slay. Death would strike him before he had the new opportunity.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER XIII. THE SHADOW’S CLEWS
THE next day’s newspapers contained accounts of two murders. Westley Hartnett, prominent attorney, had been found slain in the living room of his apartment. Blaine Goodall, corporation president, had been killed while traveling along a lonely New Jersey road.