Some of Lem’s men had leaped ashore. They dashed to aid those who were battling the land force of the law. Guns were barking, to stop the police in their too impetuous charge. It was then that The Shadow entered. Leaning from his window, he thundered blasts with automatics.
Officers from the police boat were trying to board the tug. Those from the avenue were dropping back to cover. Both groups were halted; crooks swung their flashlights upward to reveal the cloaked avenger who had opened the surprise bombardment from above. Wild shots peppered all about the window.
The Shadow’s laugh returned its challenge. Eyes and guns; those were all that he kept above the sill while bullets whistled close above his black slouch hat. Stabs from his guns marked new sprawlers on the turf of Califax’s lawn.
Then came a rally of the law: shouts of triumph told that the tug was taken; a surge from the avenue marked a new charge by the police. Still The Shadow’s guns pumped on; each .45 a menace to every venomous sniper on the ground below.
IN the study below, Cardona was talking above the muffled rattle of outside guns. Still covering Bornick, Joe was explaining everything to the commissioner. His voice, however, could not reach The Shadow, whose own guns drowned all words from the low-tuned dictograph.
“Orders from you, commissioner,” grinned Joe. “At least I thought they were, at first; but after I got here, I realized they must have come from The Shadow. He had your voice down perfect, commissioner.
“I couldn’t change things then; it was too late. I couldn’t tell you, either. The works were due to pop at half past ten; when blue lights flashed from a loft building. The Python’s signal, I guess, but The Shadow was wise to it. Our men, posted on shore and in boats, are smashing up The Python’s crew right now.
“Some on a tugboat; some in a tenement house. That’s where the crooks are being nabbed. But that’s not all. The Shadow told me that The Python would be here in this room; that I could nab him when he gave himself away. He’s done it, Bornick has. He was watching those blue lights. I saw him.”
Cardona paused. Weston stared squarely at Bornick. The lawyer tilted his head back and delivered a harsh laugh.
“You’re a fool, Cardona!” he exclaimed. “Of course I was watching those blue lights. I’ve been watching them for days; ever since I first saw them from Thurney’s window and noticed him observing them. I could see them from my office — because it happens to be high up — and I’ve seen them from here as well.
“I have a pocketful of notes, ready to give you. All dots and dashes, that I’ve tried to decode. That’s why I was sure Thurney was The Python. But it wasn’t until after the murders of Jurrice and Ramorez that I realized I should have broken his game earlier. I still persisted in trying to decode—”
Bornick broke off. Footsteps were pounding toward this room. Weston wheeled toward the door; pulling a gun, the commissioner was in time to cover an armed man who came staggering into view. It was Duronne; alone of those in the tenement, he had managed to make this house. Half dazed, he had blundered into this room.
“Over here,” snapped Cardona, as Duronne let his revolver fall to the floor. “Stand beside your chief, The Python. We’ll quiz the two of you. Go ahead, Bornick. Talk some more.”
“That won’t be necessary,” scoffed a harsh voice from behind the desk. “Drop those revolvers, both of you!”
The order was followed by a fierce, snakelike hiss. Weston and Cardona wheeled to find themselves covered by two revolvers, one in each of Danton Califax’s bony hands. The bald-headed man had drawn himself erect; his face was gloating as he delivered the venomous sound that betokened The Python.
REVOLVERS clanked to the floor. Weston and Cardona stood helpless. Duronne sprang over and grabbed up his revolver, ready to aid his chief.
Bornick was standing stupefied. The outside gunfire had become spasmodic; The Python’s hordes were curbed. Their revealed chief, however, stood unhindered.
“You were my dupe, Bornick,” sneered Califax. “I kept ordering Thurney to see you, hoping that you would suspect him. He was but one of my lieutenants; the one whom I appointed to make a false trail for the law to follow.
“I am The Python. I staged those first robberies. I went after the treasure that Revoort was bringing to Ramorez. My men fired the Tropical, but failed to get the swag. I, myself, murdered Jurrice and Ramorez, because they might have told too much if they had gotten together.
“Bah! What need of other explanations to fools like you? Suffice it to say that I arranged this raid tonight, to unload all the early swag, which is in my safe with my own gems. It was to have been a quiet raid; all of us tied up and left here. Should it fail, through some misadventure, nothing would have mattered. The law would still have gone after Thurney, thinking him The Python. The law would still have regarded me as one whom The Python had sought to rob.”
Though his guns were covering Weston and Cardona, Califax was glaring at Bornick, who stood between him and the door. Narrowed, beady eyes; the evil, hissing voice — these were tokens of The Python’s merciless hate.
“Your meddling means your death, Bornick!” spat The Python. “Weston and Cardona shall die with you. I shall say that the three of you were slain by raiders. Death! To all of you, because you have guessed my most important secret — the existence of that signal tower — the center of my strength and—”
The Python’s narrowed eyes became fixed, as his ears were the first to hear a shuddering mockery from the study door. Past Bornick, Califax saw a shrouding figure. The Shadow had heard The Python’s gloating voice, across the very dictograph that Califax had planted here through Thurney.
The use of Warthrope had been a master stroke by The Python. It had enabled him to preserve his identity from his own followers. He had avoided calls from this room to the signal tower whenever he knew Warthrope had been listening.
A proof of the innocence of Danton Califax, that dictograph hook-up. Such would it have been when a show-down came. Its discovery would have made Califax appear as a man spied upon by traitors. Its use, moreover, had fooled Albert Thurney, the man who — in a pinch — would have been unable to point out the man who really was The Python.
But now The Python’s own device had been used against him. The Shadow had captured Warthrope without The Python’s knowledge. He had listened in on the beginning of The Python’s own declaration of identity; while the supercrook had continued his gloating statements, The Shadow had been on his way, down from the room above.
Joe Cardona had bungled, picking Bornick instead of Califax. That had been excusable, for not even The Shadow had known of Bornick’s observation of the lights. Cardona, however, was out to make amends.
As his ears picked up The Shadow’s laugh, Joe lost no opportunity. Away from the line of The Python’s sudden stare, the ace sleuth bounded forward, defiant of the fiend’s leveled gun.
COMMISSIONER WESTON sprang an instant later, in copy of Cardona’s example. He, too, was quick of action. So also was Lester Bornick; but the lawyer instinctively chose the foe who had him covered: Luke Duronne.
Three men had acted against individual dangers. Cardona and Weston were plunging forward, while Bornick wheeled; but each was after the nearest gun. By the very naturalness of their response, they served The Shadow. Bornick, in particular, for his twist about cleared the way for The Shadow’s aim.
Swift though The Shadow was where his own life lay in danger, he was even speedier when the fate of others stood at stake. He boomed both automatics straight for The Python. Tongues of flame zimmed like arrow points, indicating a double line between the converging figures of Weston and Cardona.