Armed men were coming into the lighted study. They were mobsters, hard-faced rogues like the troupe that had invaded Tobold’s pawnshop.
Once again, fighters from the underworld were backing Homer Hothan.
CHAPTER XIV. THE FUTILE FRAY
THE SHADOW’S automatics boomed their opening shots. Two gorillas were beaten on the draw. One mobster sprawled forward from the doorway. The second, partly covered by his falling pal, sagged out into the hall. The Shadow had gained the edge. His sinister laugh came with the echoes of his fire.
But with those two rounds, The Shadow’s vantage ended. This was destined to be a battle replete with surprises. These first mobsters had been sent as shock troops. Some competent leader had profited by the setback at Tobold’s. The reserves were not so unwary as before.
Barks burst from the depths of the outside hall. Mobsters were under cover, ready in case The Shadow intervened. They were opening from ambush; had they been less hasty, they might have scored a triumph.
As it was, whistling bullets did not more than give The Shadow warning. The zipping slugs were wide, discharged from long range. The Shadow saw Professor Morth diving to cover behind the big desk. Built of heavy wood, the desk was sufficient protection. It was not flimsy, like Tobold’s counter.
That meant that The Shadow, too, could seek a bulwark. With a quick swish, the cloaked fighter leaped for the curtained alcove. Shouts from the hall; futile guns barked wildly as The Shadow dived for shelter.
Aiming mobsters missed their whirling target.
Bullets clipped skulls in Professor Morth’s cupboard. Plop — plop — plop — three heads went toppling like tin birds from the rack of a shooting gallery.
Morth uttered a mad gabble from behind his desk, as he saw his prizes fall. The professor’s outcry was drowned by new shots.
Mobsters were aiming for the alcove. Its opening was at right angles to the doorway of the room. They had no chance to clip The Shadow in his shelter. But The Shadow, thrusting a gun muzzle from the curtain, was returning the fire.
One cry from the hallway. Another. Mobsters were writhing, wounded. The Shadow had picked the spurts of their guns. Sharpshooter extraordinary, he was dealing havoc to the ranks of the foe. He was crippling a man with every shot.
An enemy sprang boldly into view, to open rapid fire. The Shadow glimpsed a fierce, hardened face. He knew its owner: Flick Sherrad. The hired mob-leader was not staying back tonight, as he must have done at Tobold’s. Flick was out to get The Shadow.
Revolver bullets chiseled chunks from the woodwork by the alcove. The Shadow’s fire had halted. Flick was delivering the full contents of his revolver. He thought that he had clipped The Shadow. He did not know that The Shadow was waiting.
As Flick’s fire ended, an odd break came in the fray. Flick had loosed five swift shots. The Shadow expected another. Back in the alcove, he waited, believing that the hot-headed mob-leader would loose a final slug for good measure. The Shadow had calculated well. Flick pressed the trigger of his gun to dispatch a useless bullet.
At that instant, Professor Morth bobbed up from behind the desk. Opening with Hothan’s .32, Morth fired at Flick Sherrad. The professor’s aim was bad. His shots went wide of the mob-leader.
This new attack, however, sent Flick diving for cover just as The Shadow swung out from the alcove.
Automatics thundered through the narrow-walled room. But for Morth’s intervention, The Shadow would have dropped Flick Sherrad. As it was, the mob-leader escaped death by a hair’s breadth. His strategy spoiled by Morth’s unexpected action, The Shadow quickly took a new course. He whirled forward toward the outer door.
Stopping short, he used the side of the doorway as a new bulwark. He fired out into the hall. Shouting men went clumping down stairways, front and back. Flick Sherrad and the remnants of his crew had taken flight.
The Shadow did not follow. Instead, he swung quickly back into the study. He had a reason for avoiding that darkened hall; one that was to become apparent later. He knew that he had shattered the venomous morale of Flick Sherrad’s band; but he suspected that another enemy might be present.
ALL during the fast fray, Homer Hothan had been squirming madly, trying to release himself from the mechanical skull. His right hand was lacerated by the pressure of the rowels against which he had tugged.
Blood was showing about the clamping skull teeth.
Out of the path of bullets, Hothan was gasping frantically. As he saw The Shadow turning in his direction, Hothan displayed his cowardice. He wailed for mercy.
“Don’t kill me!” cried the sneaky murderer. “I’ll — I’ll squeal! I–I’ll tell everything—”
As Hothan’s voice broke, The Shadow turned quickly toward the door. A gorilla was crawling in from the hallway. Wounded, the man was on his hands and knees; he was the rogue whom The Shadow had clipped at the beginning of the fight.
The thug had heard Hothan’s plea. Possessed of the mistaken sense of duty that rules the underworld, he wanted to finish this squealer. Alone of all the scattered mobsters, this one knew that Hothan was yellow.
The gorilla could not have clipped The Shadow. Already, the cloaked fighter was swinging an automatic to beat the thug to the shot. But Hothan was a target that the gunman had already spotted. Half sagging, the gorilla fired; then collapsed with a vicious gasp.
The gorilla’s gat was a big “smokewagon.” The slug that it delivered produced a result that not even The Shadow had expected. Aim slipping, the gorilla missed Hothan; but the bullet found another mark — the jaw joint of the mechanical skull that held the squealer prisoner.
The jaws of the skull snapped open. Hothan, tugging, went staggering forward. Straight in his path was The Shadow, turning. With a frantic cry, Hothan leaped wildly upon this formidable foe.
Lucky in his attack, wild with frantic desire for escape, Hothan sent The Shadow staggering backward.
Madly, Hothan grappled for The Shadow’s throat but his clutching hands fell short of their mark. The Shadow’s tall form sagged; as Hothan cried out in fury, powerful shoulders came straight upward.
One gloved hand, dropping its automatic, caught Hothan in a quick jujitsu hold. An instant later, Hothan’s body shot straight upward into the air; it seemed to poise there; then the struggling squealer went plunging headlong for the wall behind The Shadow’s back.
Again, luck was with Hothan. By rights, he should have landed head-first on the floor. But the very power of The Shadow’s thrust brought a different result. Thrown almost to the wall, Hothan, wildly clutching, encountered the cupboard that contained the rows of skulls.
HOTHAN grabbed; then pitched backward. With him came the cupboard. The Shadow, swinging about to stop its fall, was too late in new action. The heavy shelves toppled forward, Hothan with them. The cupboard trapped The Shadow where he stood.
Skulls scattered everywhere as The Shadow was flattened. Again Professor Morth cried wildly. Hothan, whose grab had loosed this cataclysm, was thrown clear of the debris. Finding his feet, he scurried madly for the door to the hall, clutching his torn hand as he ran.
Morth fired wild shots to stop him. Again, the anthropologist showed himself no marksman. Hothan dived past the door; Morth started forward to pursue him. The professor did not heed a warning hiss that came from the overturned cupboard.
The Shadow was coming up between two shelves. Half tangled in the debris, he wanted to stop Morth’s dash. Close by The Shadow’s right hand lay a skull; quickly, the cloaked fighter seized the death’s-head and hurled it toward the professor.