A bank messenger shot down in open daylight. A chase of elusive assailants, who disappeared after a cordon of police had closed in upon them. A huge blot of crimson upon the sidewalk at the spot where the man had been slain.
The messenger’s blood? That had been the theory, until the second crime!
Three masked marauders had entered a club where gambling was in progress. They had extinguished the lights; with flashlights, they had covered the players and threatened them with guns. They had reaped a harvest of cash.
While they were robbing their victims, police had arrived. The crooks had fled and, despite the closeness of the chase, had made an escape so effective that they might have actually melted. Upon the green baize of the central card table in the club was discovered a huge dab of dulled crimson — again the red blot!
A third crime — the theft of a painting valued at many thousands — had been perpetrated at the home of a New York millionaire. Servants had arrived as the criminals were departing with the painting that they had cut from its immense frame. Two servants had been shot; one mortally wounded.
Again, the evil raiders had escaped. Behind them, in the empty frame, they had left their mark — a red blot!
THE RED BLOT!
In the underworld, it was believed that a master mind of crime had chosen that mark. The Red Blot was a name — not a sign. Some supercrook had assembled a squad of daring gangsters, who would stop at nothing.
The police had advanced the same theory. The newspapers had taken up the cry.
Then had come the fourth crime. A big-time fight promoter — supposed to carry a bankroll of more than a hundred grand upon his person — had been found strangled in his apartment. Upon the starched front of the victim’s dress shirt was that same dread sign of spattered crimson — the mark of The Red Blot!
Men of wealth — from legitimate commercial barons to those who dealt in hazardous enterprises — were in trepidation. The newspapers had called upon the police to apprehend this supercriminal. The police had not gathered a single clew.
Underworld and social swim alike — neither revealed the presence of a master mind to whom these crimes could be attributed. Police, with their stool pigeons at work, had covered all of gangdom’s daring workers; the ones who might be logically picked as henchmen of the supercrook. They had not brought in a single suspect.
The Shadow, too, had been seeking traces of The Red Blot. His agents had been at work. Their reports were barren. These crimes which had emanated from the underworld, and had struck in higher places, left no trail.
But The Shadow’s way was not to follow crime when it bore the mark of well-linked continuity. He had been seeking the forebodings of crime that he might anticipate the next stroke of The Red Blot.
The clock upon the table was more important than all these clippings and reports of frustrated efforts to line up the cause of past outrages. The Shadow, through his own investigations in the underworld, had been watching for an impending stroke.
Even whispered inklings had been lacking. Until tonight, each crime had given no preliminary sign. Often had The Shadow thwarted crooks by prying into their games before the lid had been raised.
Now, amid the quiet of the underworld, he had caught the words he wanted. Here, he was biding his time until the proper second for his calculated plan.
The ticking of the clock went on. A long second seemed to hover; then the indicators on all three dials moved at once, That final second marked the completion of a minute which, in turn, showed the end of an hour.
Before the second indicator moved again, The Shadow’s hand had swept up the scattered bits of paper. A click sounded from the lamp. The room was plunged in darkness. Something swished through the gloom.
Then came a peal of laughter. The Shadow’s mirth rang ghoulishly through the blackness. As his invisible form moved toward the secret door of the sanctum, the master of the night sent forth his mocking challenge in chilling tones that foretold disaster to evil brains of crime.
Blackened walls caught up the merriment. Weird reverberations sounded as cries from goblin throats. Corridors of space seemed to open with whispered answers to The Shadow’s taunt.
Those strange, terrifying sounds persisted long. When the last echo had faded into nothingness, only the smooth, quick ticking of the clock was audible.
The Shadow had departed upon his quest.
CHAPTER II
WITHIN THE SAFE
IT was exactly ten o’clock when The Shadow departed from his sanctum. A half hour later, a strange phenomenon occurred at the intersection of two obscure streets on the lower East Side.
A moving patch of blackness passed along the sidewalk beneath the glare of a street lamp. It was one of the many shadows that had crossed that spot during the evening. But in one respect, this moving splotch differed from all others. There was no sign of the person who cast it.
A long streak of darkness, which terminated in a perfect silhouette. This was the only mark that betrayed the presence of The Shadow. Somewhere in the darkness of the brick wall beside the sidewalk, the being whom the underworld so greatly feared, had passed unseen.
Some fifty feet from the corner stood a dilapidated brick building of three-story height. Beside it ran an obscure alleyway. This structure, apparently an old residence that had seen better days, was actually a most important adjunct to the decrepit neighborhood.
Three golden balls glimmered faintly above the dim front door. Blackened windows showed the outlines of heavy bars. This building housed the pawnshop of Timothy Baruch, one of the oddest characters on this section of the East Side.
Old Baruch’s place was known throughout the underworld. The man had been a pawnbroker for many years, and it was an adage among thieves and burglars that Baruch’s bids on stolen goods could be accepted as reliable.
Baruch was not the usual type of “fence,” who disposed of stolen articles. His place was termed a “hock shop,” even by those who had dealt with him under cover.
For Timothy Baruch was a canny individual who had ways of assuring police and detectives that his transactions were legitimate; and the great proportion of his business was in keeping with the policies of better-class pawnshops.
The old pawnbroker was unpretentious. He made no great show of worldliness. Nevertheless, it had been noised about that his safe contained pilfered jewels and other rarities of great value.
These rumors had never gotten back to Baruch’s ears, hence the old man dwelt in security. He was sure that his pretense of poverty would suffice to keep malefactors from his property. Moreover, he relied upon his connection with the underworld and the security of his safe as positive protection.
Underworld connections might fade; but the fame of Baruch’s safe would remain. The huge strong box was the one thing in which Baruch had invested heavily.
Various gangsters had viewed it; and they held to the opinion that there were but two safe crackers skilled enough to open it. One was “Tweezers” Darley, at present retired from active practice; the other was “Moocher” Gleetz, no longer in Manhattan.
Perhaps Timothy Baruch knew of the inactivity of these two safe crackers; at any rate, his safe remained inviolate, despite the fact that his barred doors and windows were not as formidable as they might have been.
THE SHADOW now stood in front of Baruch’s pawnshop. There, within the fringe of darkness cast by the old building, his tall form was invisible. No motion, no sound, betrayed The Shadow’s presence as he glided into the entrance of the alleyway.
The invisible visitor did not continue to the rear of the building, the spot where access would have been most likely. Instead, he stopped beside the wall and began a strange upward ascent in the midst of almost total darkness.