The great menace in Spider’s mind was The Shadow. That fear dwarfed all others. Nothing — so Spider was convinced — could stop the wrath of The Shadow. The little mobster feared that the black-garbed avenger might already be on his trail.
Down the steps of the subway, to the platform where both local and express trains stopped on their way uptown, Spider went. Forty or fifty people were here. Spider clung to a little cluster. He tried not to notice anyone.
Men were watching Spider Carew now. Detective Sergeant Markham, Detective Merton Hembroke, and three other sleuths — all five kept up a stern vigil. A local rolled into the station, Spider Carew sidled into the third car. Hembroke, watching, saw three detectives follow. Then Hembroke boarded the train also.
Where was Markham? Hembroke, always keen, looked back to the platform. He saw Markham still waiting. The detective sergeant was moving along the platform.
Hembroke frowned. Working independently, Markham had decided to stay for some special purpose.
The local pulled out. Hembroke shrugged his shoulders. He set an example for the other detectives by keeping away from Spider Carew. The rat-faced little gangster was hanging on to a strap, staring out through an open window.
BACK on the Fourteenth Street platform, Detective Sergeant Markham was staring suspiciously at a man who was resting against a post which bore a chewing-gun machine. As Markham glanced in the fellow’s direction, the man turned his back and began to make a pretense of dropping a coin in the slot. Markham was sure that he had seen this man before. Tall, heavy — someone connected with crime—
Markham’s thoughts broke off as an express roared into the station. He saw the man start slowly for one car; then, on an impulse, hurry down the platform and board the train at another spot. The doors were closing. Markham leaped aboard, two cars away from his quarry.
As the train started, the detective sergeant was on his way to the car where the other man had entered. There were four watching Spider Carew; it would be well to watch this fellow also. There might be some connection, Markham decided.
The detective sergeant reached the car where the man was just as the express was passing the Eighteenth Street local station.
Then came the unexpected. Before Markham’s eyes, a drama of crime crept into actuality, so subtly that the detective sergeant did not realize what was about to happen until the actual deed occurred.
First, Markham recognized the profile of the man whom he was watching. A pair of bloated lips, a pudgy nose, a bulging forehead; these and roughly shaven cheeks awoke the detective sergeant’s recollections.
Socks Mallory! One-time racketeer — owner of the Club Janeiro — a man wanted for murder! That was the fellow whom Markham had followed on a hunch!
The local train had pulled out of Eighteenth Street, and at the very moment when Markham made his discovery of Mallory’s identity, the express was overtaking the local. The detective sergeant caught a peculiar gleam in Mallory’s eye. He realized that the man was watching for something as he stared from the window.
Markham looked in the same direction. He was near the front of the car; Mallory just beyond the center. Thus, as the express slowly moved past the speed-gaining local, Markham was the first to spy the occupants of the third car in the other train.
Spider Carew was gripping a strap. Hembroke and the three other detectives were all at least ten feet away from him. Markham noted the anxious look on Spider’s face.
The express moved slowly by; Markham looked through his own car, and suddenly realized that Socks Mallory was on a direct line with Spider Carew.
The trains were traveling at almost uniform speed. In the local, the detectives who were watching Spider saw a hunted look come on the stoop-shouldered gangster’s face. They looked into the express. They, like Markham, saw Socks Mallory!
The hard-faced gang leader yanked a revolver from his pocket. With a sure, determined motion, he leveled the weapon through the open window before him, and covered Spider point-blank.
With the roaring trains side by side, in the midst of terrific noise, Mallory had a perfect shot at a range of no more than six feet!
The flash of the revolver was accompanied by a roar that was scarcely heard above the rumbling of the trains. A second report followed immediately afterward, as Socks Mallory made sure.
THE second bullet was not needed. The first found its mark; the next caught Spider Carew as he was toppling away from the strap.
The detectives in the local pulled out their revolvers. Markham, in the express, duplicated the action.
Socks Mallory was too swift. His next deed eliminated all but Markham. With his free hand, the killer reached up and yanked the emergency cord which ran through the car. The air brakes whistled. The cars of the local swept along in rapid succession as the express came to a jolting stop.
Socks Mallory was springing toward the end of the car. No one moved to stop him. Markham could not fire; too many people were in the way. By the time the detective sergeant had reached the end of the car, Socks had opened the door between the cars, and was leaping to the local track.
Markham delivered bullets that flattened themselves against a post between the tracks. He leaped from the train to follow the escaping killer. Somewhere along the tracks, heading back toward the Eighteenth Street station — that was the way which Socks had taken.
Markham kept grimly on. Socks Mallory was well ahead; the detective sergeant could see no trace of him. It took Markham some four minutes to reach the Eighteenth Street station; meanwhile an uptown local and roaring downtown trains had forced him to stick to the uptown express track.
At sight of the lighted station platforms, Markham paused. He realized that Socks could have scurried by this point; but he knew that the killer would have been seen had he clambered up either platform.
Markham waited a full minute, undecided whether to keep on, or to take to a station platform. Suddenly a flashlight glared from the uptown station. Markham heard a voice shouting his name. Cautiously, the detective sergeant went across the local track and raised his arms, to be pulled up to the platform.
It was Merton Hembroke who had called. The detective was explaining how he had arrived back at Eighteenth Street so suddenly.
“Saw the express stop,” he said. “Left one man at Twenty-third Street when the local reached there. Another to get on the telephone. Brought one man here with me. He’s on the platform opposite. Man on the wire is telling headquarters to cover Fourteenth and Twenty-eighth.”
“The emergency exits?” queried Markham. “I passed one on the way here, but I didn’t see the man I was after.”
“Couple of policemen at Twenty-third,” responded Hembroke. “Sent them to cover the emergencies. They’re getting others. Headquarters will take care of it. I came here in a taxi — in a hurry. Say, Markham, I saw the guy. I thought I recognized him. Do you know who he was?”
“Socks Mallory,” returned Markham. “Wanted for murder.”
“That’s the bird!” exclaimed Hembroke. “I know him now! Say — I’ve got to pass that word along quick.”
“Go ahead,” said Markham. “I’ll take charge here and along the line. Leave it to me, Hembroke.”
THE detective was momentarily piqued at Markham’s assumption of command; then a thought occurred to him. He spoke in the tone of a subordinate, even though his words were a suggestion.
“Suppose I hop up to the commissioner’s,” he said. “After I’ve passed along the dope on Socks Mallory. The commissioner was waiting for Spider Carew to show up — and Spider’s dead.”
“O.K.,” agreed Markham.
Detective Hembroke hurried to the street. He encountered two policemen as he reached the top of the steps. He flashed his badge.