“Just luck,” replied Jake. “I parked my bus at the side of the house and stepped up on the end of the porch. I saw him, and knew he didn’t belong here. So I landed on him.”
“Very good,” commended the lawyer. “Come in from the door, Tony. Close it when you do.”
Tony was standing, lantern in hand, on the porch before the door. Beside him was a long thin shadow that came from the steps and lay motionless in the light. No one noticed the peculiarly shaped blotch. It passed the shadow of the post beside the steps.
“You can take it from me,” said Tony as he stepped through the doorway. “There’s nobody within five hundred yards of this place. Jake and I did a real job.”
“That was what you were sent out to do,” declared the old lawyer.
Tony shut the door; and the shadow on the porch was obliterated. All was dark outside - dark and silent.
“Let us check up, first,” declared the lawyer. “There is only one more coming. We can hear from him later. How did you come, Tony?”
“I laid around a little town out here for a couple of days. I didn’t go back to the city after I left you the other night. No chance that anybody knows where I am.”
“How about you, Jake?”
“I’ve been down in Philadelphia for a month. I cleared out after the last job. I wasn’t in on this, and I’ve been working in a restaurant while I was away. I had my car down there and came straight through. I’m safe enough.”
“Well, Spotter?”
“Youse guys know I’m always safe. I went up in Connecticut. Bought an old car up there an’ came across the Sound in a ferryboat. Youse just know I looked ‘em all over on that boat. Why should anyone be followin’ me, anyway? It’s me that follows other people; not them that follows me.”
“Well,” declared Ezekiel Bingham, “my own case is, of course, exceptional. I have very little to avoid; nevertheless I took every precaution. I came here two days ago, and have remained alone since then.”
“What! Out here?” exclaimed Jake.
“Certainly. It is the safest possible place. Everything is arranged upstairs so that I receive an instant alarm when any one enters here. I am awake at night, and sleep during the day - and I sleep very little and very lightly.”
With the door and windows tightly shut, none of the men heard the arrival of another automobile. It was a large sedan which coasted up directly in front of the house, its motor shut off.
A big man stepped from the car and looked at his watch in the light of the dash lamp. A grunt of satisfaction came from his lips.
“Eight o’clock,” he said. “Just timed it right. Kennedy sure knows how to circle around in that plane of his.”
He struck a match, and the glare revealed his full red face. He puffed away at his stogie as he stood by the car. Then he walked to the steps and stopped a moment.
“Nice place this,” he chuckled. “No shadows out here.”
He seemed to be enjoying the combination of night air and cigar smoke.
“Well, I’m on time,” he observed. “Guess all the boys are here. Let them wait a couple of minutes for me.”
The red glow of the cigar deepened and softened alternately, as indication of the smoker’s puffs. Occasionally the glow disappeared for a few moments, as though it were subsiding in the hand of the man who held it and lowered it to his side. Two minutes passed; then the cigar light moved through the darkness toward the porch.
The boards creaked under heavy, solid footsteps. A large hand pushed the door open, and the man with the cigar stamped into the lighted room where the four men were seated.
“English Johnny!” exclaimed Jake.
“Hello, boys,” greeted the big man with a grin on his beefy face. “I’m just about on time, ain’t I?”
CHAPTER XXXIII
ENGLISH JOHNNY EXPLAINS
“WE are ready for business,” declared Ezekiel Bingham, looking at the other men as they sat about the table. “Have you anything to report before we start?”
The question was addressed to the big man with the red face.
“Plenty,” was the reply.
A look of interest flashed around the crowd.
“What’s up, Johnny?” questioned Pete.
“Nothing, now,” replied the big man with a broad grin. “I was up - up in the air. That’s how I got here.”
He paused and studied the effect of his words. His listeners silently awaited his explanation.
“It was this way,” he continued. “Two nights ago a phony taxi driver tried to pull a fast one on me. I got rid of him quick enough. But that night I thought somebody came in my house.”
“You thought some one came in!” exclaimed Ezekiel Bingham. “Why didn’t you find out positively?”
“How can you find out?” questioned the big fellow. “How can you find out when you don’t see nothing but a lot of shadows?”
“Shadows aren’t people.”
“Yes, but I saw one shadow - all by itself. It looked real.”
Ezekiel Bingham’s face showed his annoyance.
“Let me explain,” English Johnny continued. “This shadow hung around my house. It was in my room. I says to myself: ‘English Johnny, old boy, there’s some one here with you.’ So I wrote a phony letter and left it where anyone could read it. Then I took it to the mail box and faked putting it in.”
“Nonsense!” cried the old lawyer. “This is ridiculous. English Johnny talking about living shadows.”
“English Johnny is right,” declared Spotter solemnly.
Ezekiel Bingham stared at him in amazement.
“I mean it,” Spotter went on. “Croaker seen The Shadow the night he was killed. Other guys have lamped The Shadow.”
“Where? When?” came a chorus of voices.
“One night,” said Spotter, “I seen a guy in a black cloak getting in a big limousine. I couldn’t see his face, but he handed dough to the chauffeur and they drove off.
“I had a car around the corner, and Birdie Crull was waiting for me. I drove after the big car, but it got away from us. Then we picked it up again, just by luck, a half hour later.
“I tells Birdie that the guy in the big bus has a roll on him. So I gets past the car on another street and runs into it coming the other way. Up she goes on the curb, and Birdie opens the door and flashes a rod.
“Then, out of nothin’, comes this big black shadow. It was a man, all right - but it didn’t look human. It wraps around Birdie and shoots him with his own rod. He flops in the street, and The Shadow moves right across without a noise, and that was the last we seen of it.”
“That’s The Shadow, all right,” declared English Johnny. “I was never quite sure he was real.”
“I seen The Shadow again,” said Spotter eagerly. “Down by the Pink Rat. This time I looked for his face. I saw nothing but a piece of white that looked like a bandage. Maybe The Shadow ain’t got no face to speak of. Looked like the bandage hid somethin’ in back. There was a young guy once who the crooks was afraid of - he was a famous spy in the War, and they say he was wounded over in France - wounded in the face. I think The Shadow is this guy come back - maybe he -“
Ezekiel Bingham interrupted.
“I heard about Croaker and The Shadow!” the lawyer said. “Once I imagined I saw a shadow. Imagination plays many tricks; even on those who have steady nerves. But what of it? Why talk of a shadow? Go on, Johnny, tell us the rest of your story. We may judge then.”
English Johnny grinned with satisfaction. Evidently there was a surprise in store. But the big man restrained himself and continued in a casual manner:
“I’ll make the rest of it short. Last night I ran into the taxi driver again. In one of my lunch wagons. I knocked him groggy when a new man behind the counter helped him get away. Some of the gang chased him but wrecked their car.
“So I was wise today. I says to myself: ‘English Johnny, there’s some guy on your trail.’ Everywhere I went it was the same. So I hopped over to Newark, and got a friend of mine named Kennedy to take me up for a ride in his plane. Then I says to Kennedy: ‘Go like blazes up above New York, and cut back to Long Island. You can name your price.’ And Kennedy went like blazes. Even this Shadow couldn’t have followed us. After we landed, I got a car from a place I knew about, and here I am.”