Again came silence. The Shadow was listening.
Jurling realized why. The Shadow had heard all. He knew that Duster and the gorilla were due to return. The Shadow was awaiting their arrival in order that Tully Kelk might lie safe, though bound and helpless.
Jurling saw The Shadow’s left hand move beneath the cloak. He did not sense the reason for the action; for Jurling’s ears lacked the keenness of The Shadow’s. But Jurling, frantic in his helplessness, could stand the strain no longer. With a wild gasp, he hurled himself forward upon the being in black.
THE SHADOW did not fire his automatic. Instead, he whirled as Jurling leaped. The crimson lining of his cloak flashed wide, giving a fleeting view of the tall, black-clad figure beneath it. The Shadow was swinging for the outer door. It was there that battle lay.
Jurling, missing in his leap, plunged against the open front of the wardrobe trunk, pounding the bulky object back against the wall. As he recoiled from the plunge, he had no chance to swing upon The Shadow.
Joe Cardona and Montague Verne had leaped an instant after Jurling. Together, they fell upon the plotting crook, to overpower him and capture him alive. The Shadow had left the would-be murderer to the men whom Jurling had promised to kill in cold blood.
The door of the room had swung inward. Duster Shomak, catching the tumult of the sudden fray, was on the threshold, gun in hand. Again the big mobleader was face to face with The Shadow. This time the range was short enough for Duster’s aim. It was his trigger finger, not his eye, that failed him.
As Duster’s smoke-wagon flashed upward, The Shadow’s left-hand automatic spoke with flame. Duster’s finger faltered on the trigger. Snarling, the mobleader clapped his left hand to his chest. He wavered.
A revolver spoke from over Duster’s shoulder. The gorilla who had come with the mobleader was opening fire, with Duster’s body as a bulwark. The gorilla had a shield against The Shadow’s aim; but The Shadow also found advantage in the fact.
He faded rightward as the mobster fired. One shot — another; both were wide. The gorilla, stretching for a third attempt, snarled in triumph as The Shadow swung into a corner. In his evil hope, the firing mobster did not realize that Duster’s body was slumping.
The Shadow fired before the gorilla could deliver his third shot. A sizzling bullet skimmed Duster’s dropping head. It found the henchman’s form. The fellow staggered backward into the hall. The Shadow swept in that direction.
The Shadow had anticipated other enemies. Cliff Marsland’s report had told him that Duster Shomak had been picking a formidable crew. The mobster’s body half blocked the door when The Shadow reached it, for the crook had grabbed the door frame with one hand. The Shadow jostled him loose. The clipped gorilla sprawled.
“The Shadow!”
The cry rang out in the corridor. It came from opened doorways, where armed men were springing into view. The loudness of the shots had told these reserves that the door of Room 1472 was open. They knew that plans had gone askew.
Dale Jurling had prepared for trouble. His trip to his room at the Hotel Tolberc had been for a purpose that Joe Cardona had not suspected: from there, Jurling had made a phone call to Duster’s hide-out.
Anticipating a squad of headquarters men, Jurling had ordered a good-sized mob on hand. These were the ruffians whom the elevator operators had noticed. They were all in ambush, thanks to Jurling’s supply of master keys.
As The Shadow fired into the corridor, revolvers answered from rooms across the hall. One of four doors alone was closed. That was the room wherein Duster and his pal had stowed Tully Kelk.
The Shadow clipped one ducking mobster with an opening shot. Other bullets were wild, for crooks were diving and their own shots spattered wide of their blackened target. Then came new reports from a corridor that cut into this one. Cardona’s two detectives were coming up.
Volleys from the rooms. One detective wavered, wounded. The other dragged him to safety.
The Shadow’s automatics boomed. Again, gleaming gats were swung in his direction. The Shadow whirled back into 1472, to escape the fusillade.
Cardona and Verne had overwhelmed Jurling. They had stretched the crook across the top of the wardrobe trunk. Joe had clamped the handcuffs to Jurling’s right wrist. With Verne’s aid, he was trying to snap the other bracelet. The Shadow saw this in his twist about; then, again, he was facing the door.
A triumphant yell from the corridor. Just as Cardona and Verne had forgotten all else in their hope of triumph over Jurling, so had the ambushed crooks thrown caution in their thirst for victory against The Shadow.
To a man, they thought that they had trapped their mighty foe. With the detectives out, nothing seemed present to stop them in their surge. They were piling out into the open; a dozen strong, ready to overwhelm The Shadow through sheer force of numbers.
Not one suspected The Shadow’s ruse. They had no inkling that he, like Jurling, had prepared for trouble. It was not until the mob was completely in the corridor that The Shadow’s answer came.
Doors swung open — one at each end of the long hall. These were the rooms that The Shadow had left in readiness. Up from one door came Cliff Marsland; Hawkeye sprang into view at the second barrier. Both aimed at a slight angle, for a common target; the space in front of Verne’s room.
Each agent opened with a pumping automatic, loosing shots as fast as he could fire. Each had a second weapon ready to continue the barrage.
The foremost gorillas tumbled. Others twisted about in mad effort to escape The Shadow’s gunners. Dropping to the floor, the trapped mobsters grabbed wounded men for shields and aimed along the corridors.
Doors slammed shut. Cliff and Hawkeye had completed their swift barrage. Mobsters, scattered, came bobbing up. They were met with a sardonic taunt that rang amid the final echoes of swift-loosed gunplay.
THE SHADOW was back. He was out in the corridor, new automatics in his fists, ready to beat these scattered foemen in the final fray. Spread from the door of 1472, the battered gorillas went diving for safety, firing madly as they fled.
Swinging, The Shadow delivered timely shots that made minions of crime falter in their aim. He clipped two mobsters who were diving back into rooms. He swung for others who were bounding down the hall. A trio darted into the elevator corridor, to be met by ready shots from Cardona’s detectives.
Wounded gorillas, crawling weaponless, could fight no longer. In the corridor, The Shadow paused. Finished echoes told that the detectives had bagged the mobsters who had fled in their direction. The Shadow’s laugh rang out again. It was a signal to Cliff and Hawkeye that their departure was in order.
Then, with a final sweep, The Shadow rushed back to the room that he had left. A dozen paces would give him the final sight he needed: Dale Jurling completely in the power of Joe Cardona and Montague Verne.
But in that room had come a change of conflict. At the very moment of The Shadow’s approach, Dale Jurling produced an unexpected fight. His left wrist, almost in its bracelet, snapped free from Joe Cardona’s grasp. Jurling’s upcoming fist clipped the detective’s chin.
As Joe dropped back, Jurling rolled from the trunk. Verne fell upon him; Jurling swept his right arm far and wide. The dangling handcuff landed squarely behind Verne’s ear. The investigator staggered.
Diving for the floor, Jurling snatched a revolver in his right hand. Coming up madly, he swung toward the door. And as his aim came automatically into position, he saw the figure that he wanted.
The Shadow, returning, had stepped squarely into position as a target for Dale Jurling’s fire!
CHAPTER XXIV