“They all work like you — fifty-fifty split with me. So far, I’ve never been stung.”
“Why should we sting you, Doc? It’s a soft racket for us.”
“You said it, Spotter.”
“To tell you the truth, Doc, I was always kinda worried about you. I figured maybe you was makin’ the phony mazuma right here.”
Doc Birch snorted.
“You should know better than that, Spotter,” he said. “If I had the plates and tried to print, I’d be nabbed quick. No, sir. Get it in, get it out. That’s my method.”
He went to a safe in the corner. As he did, his shadow loomed large upon the floor of the room. It became a huge black phantom that seemed to reach to the dim hall.
Spotter uttered an exclamation of fright.
“What’s the matter?” asked Doc Birch, quickly.
“Nothin’, Doc,” answered Spotter.
The gaunt man opened the safe and removed a stack of bills. He closed the safe and flashed the money before Spotter’s eyes, spreading it so the gangster could see the bills. They were crisp and new.
“All ten spots,” said Doc Birch. “No phonies, either. These are real, boy. I’m paying them out for the stuff.”
The pawnbroker wrapped a thick, red rubber band around the stack of currency. Spotter was unable to determine the amount of the cash.
“What made you so nervous?” questioned Birch, as he thrust the payment money in his coat pocket.
“Nothin’,” grunted Spotter. “I just been kinda shaky to-night.”
“Did that rub-out of Reds Mackin worry you?”
“No. Why should it?”
“Well, it was a lot of hullabaloo over just one guy. I wonder what Reds Mackin had been doing? They went out of their way to make sure of getting him.”
Spotter shook his head as though the whole affair was a mystery to him. He glanced at the floor, and felt relieved. The huge shadow had disappeared since Doc Birch had come back to his place in the room.
Evidently it had been due to the peculiar position of the lights. Spotter was not anxious to be reminded of anything shadowy.
The bell rang twice. Doc Birch motioned to Spotter.
Then he went out in the hall.
Together they descended the stairs. A man was standing beyond the glass-paneled inside door. His hand was pressed against the pane, so three fingers showed. This was evidently a sign of some sort.
Birch opened the door. A package was thrust in.
There, in the darkness, with Spotter looking on, the pawnbroker gave the man the packet of ten-dollar bills. In an instant, the visitor was gone. The sound of a departing automobile came from outside.
“Come on,” said Birch, picking up the package. He led Spotter through a short hall. They went down a flight of stairs into the cellar.
Birch turned on the basement light. He laid the package on the floor, and burst it open. Stacks of twenty-dollar and fifty-dollar bills came into view. Birch examined one.
“Great stuff,” he said. “Up to the usual standard. How do you want yours, Spotter? Twenties or fifties?”
“Half of each,” replied the little man.
As the pawnbroker stooped forward to count out the counterfeit cash, his shadow again performed its elongation. This time Spotter said nothing; but his face became drawn and tense. He watched Birch for a moment; then turned cautiously and looked about the cellar.
His inspection proved that they were alone. The edges of the cellar were gloomy, but no one was visible. A pile of blackness at one corner proved to be a large heap of coal — evidently left over from the winter’s supply.
Birch finished counting the money, and rose just before Spotter ended his survey of the cellar.
The crafty-faced Spotter noted that the huge spot of blackness was no longer on the floor, now that the pawnbroker had arisen.
“Get going, Spotter,” warned Birch. “I’ll let you out as we go upstairs. The others will be here soon. I want to unload before midnight if I can. Pay me your split as soon as you finish passing these.”
The pawnbroker put the remaining counterfeit bills in a box, and covered them with paper. He and Spotter went upstairs. Birch turned off the light as they were leaving. Then, as an afterthought, he switched it on again.
“Duke will be here soon,” he said to Spotter. “No use in my blundering around in the dark.”
A full minute went by after the two men had left the cellar. Then a shadow began to grow on the floor. It extended from the coal bin in the corner.
Had Spotter been there, he would have screamed with fright; for from the blackness of the coal pile emerged a tall figure, clad entirely in black, cloaked beyond recognition.
The strange phantomlike being advanced softly across the cellar. It crouched beside the box where the counterfeit bills had been placed.
The cloak and hat dropped, and a man of medium height arose from the spot. He was attired in rough, ill-fitting clothes, with a shapeless dirty sweater to give him every appearance of a typical hoodlum.
Spotter would not have recognized the man; but he would have known the voice. For the roughly clad fellow laughed in a low, sinister tone.
His laugh, soft though it was, echoed weirdly from the basement walls. It was the laugh of The Shadow — The Shadow whom Spotter believed to be dead!
CHAPTER XV
THE RAID AT MIDNIGHT
The disguised Shadow gazed curiously about the cellar. Then he again turned his attention to the box, removed the papers, and took out several counterfeit bills. He studied these under the light. He pocketed them; then rearranged the box exactly as Doc Birch had left it.
Although the pawnshop proprietor had stated to Spotter that he would soon return to the cellar, the roughly dressed visitor seemed entirely indifferent to the fact. He went from one part of the basement to another; and finally stopped by the coal pile.
Taking a long stick that lay against the wall, he probed the depths of the coal pile.
Although he performed this operation with very little noise, the sound of the shifting coal was sufficient to drown other noises. Hence The Shadow paused in his work occasionally, and listened for any sound that might come from the stairs that led to the floor above.
A click sounded from the coal pile. Probing, The Shadow found a flat sheet of metal. He examined it under the light. It was a plate used in the manufacture of counterfeit bills.
After a close examination, The Shadow compared the plate with the sample bills that he had taken. His disguised face was impassive for a moment; then a slight smile appeared upon the thick lips.
The Shadow had detected almost imperceptible differences between the plate and the bills. He replaced the plate in the coal bin, upon others that formed a stack. He swept lumps of coal over the plates. Suddenly he stopped in his work.
He stood in an attitude of attention for a moment. He wheeled with amazing quickness just as a man appeared from the far end of the cellar.
“Hands up!” snapped the newcomer, in a low, commanding voice. The automatic which he carried gave emphasis to the order.
The hands of the pretended hoodlum were buried in the fold at the bottom of his sweater. For an instant his fingers hesitated; then he raised his hands with feigned sullenness.
“Guess you got me, all right,” he said, in a gruff, sulky voice. “But I ain’t doin’ nothin’ here.”
The new arrival sauntered into the light. He was a square-jawed individual, clad in dark blue, with a black hat. He pulled back his coat with his left hand, revealing a badge.
“Not doing anything, eh?” he commented. “We’ll find out about that, later on. In the meantime, just keep your hands up.
“I’m a Federal agent, in case you don’t know it. That coal pile is just as interesting to me as it was to you.”