The patrons of Red Mike’s hangout knew that something had occurred. Had Birdy come out of the corridor head up, Cliff could have marched him to the street, leaving explanations to Red Mike. But Birdy’s hang-dog look marked him as a squealer. Snarling mobsters gathered for an explanation.
Cliff looked to Red Mike. The proprietor responded. He pounded on the counter for silence and gained attention. He nudged his thumb toward Birdy Zelker.
“Birdy’s a stool,” he announced. “Cliff Marsland caught him calling Joe Cardona over my phone. Three of us heard Birdy asking Cliff to let him go.”
“Put the stool on the spot!” came a response.
Again, Red Mike pounded for silence.
“That’s Cliff’s job,” he decided.
“Yeah?” It was the mobster whom Cliff had challenged who again thrust his way into the discussion.
“What about the rest of us? We know Birdy’s a stool. We want to see him get the works.”
“If you’re waiting around to see me hand out hot lead,” broke in Cliff, as he faced the challenging mobster, “you’ve got a long while coming. Unless” — silence reigned while Cliff added these firm words— “you’re looking for some of it yourself.”
The mobster quailed. A buzz came from the assembled crowd. It was partly one of admiration; partly of disapproval. Cliff’s nerve caught the crowd, but his impartial threat was not relished by some who were present.
Cliff realized from the murmur that the mobster who had challenged him must have a host of friends in the crowd. This conclusion was justified by the surly gangster’s next action.
Striding forward, the man who had argued with Cliff, clapped his hand on Birdy Zelker’s shoulder and dragged the stool pigeon across the floor. With a fierce tone, he addressed the mob, calling upon them to apply the law of the underworld.
“Give him the works!” snarled the mobster. “Don’t let one guy tell you what to do!”
“Think it over!” challenged Cliff, covering the gangster as he spoke.
The mobsman dropped his hand from Birdy’s shoulder. He backed away under cover of Cliff’s gun.
Like a flash, Cliff realized that a fight was coming. Turning, he saw the gangster’s pal whip forth a revolver. As the weapon swung in Cliff’s direction, The Shadow’s agent responded to the movement.
Beating the drawing mobster to the shot, Cliff fired. His bullet winged the second gangster’s shoulder.
The man dropped. Cliff whirled as the first man yanked a gun. He fired again and his new aim proved its worth. The challenger who had tried to seize Birdy Zelker, fell sprawling to the floor.
Cliff had acted spontaneously. He dived for cover of the counter as revolvers began to flash. His assumption that the surly mobsters had plenty of pals proved true. Bullets winged their way past Cliff’s head as The Shadow’s agent dived for safety.
IN his quick action, Cliff had brought the storm of enemies upon him. Though his hand had been forced, he had placed himself in a terrible predicament. He had dropped two mobsters in a sudden fray; it was a threat to the entire evil crew. Quick with the triggers, sympathizing with Cliff’s crippled foemen, the whole crowd of scumland rats took Cliff as their one target.
Red Mike was on Cliff’s side, but the big proprietor was no craftsman with a gun. He dived for the cover of the corridor to avoid the fray. Cliff, behind the counter, was alone against a horde.
Birdy Zelker saw a chance. In taking it, the stool pigeon sealed his own doom. At the same time, however, he brought respite to Cliff Marsland, the man who had so far saved him. As guns played toward Cliff’s spot of temporary safety, Birdy made a dash for the outside door.
Snarls arose. Revolvers flashed as Birdy ran. Quick shots sent the stool pigeon crumpling to the stone floor.
Cliff, timing his own actions to this unexpected break, popped up from behind Red Mike’s counter and pumped lead at his adversaries. He saw two gangsters stagger. He dropped as he once more became the target.
A stinging pain caught Cliff in the left shoulder as he sank behind the counter. His drop to safety had been timed too late. A gangster’s bullet had found its mark. Cries of exultation arose as enemies bounded forward, ready to end the life of the man who had challenged them alone.
Dropping back to the stone wall, Cliff raised his right arm to fire his last remaining shots. He had loosed the murderous horde. It was coming upon him now. The Shadow’s agent saw certain doom; he could only hope to fire point-blank into the first snarling faces that came over the counter.
As he poised for the final effort, Cliff heard a change in the gunmen’s cry. Pounding feet seemed to halt for one brief interval. Sullen voices broke with a terrorized warning. Instinctively, Cliff turned his head in the only direction from which help might come— toward the outer door of Red Mike’s dive.
Cliff’s own lips uttered a triumphant gasp as he saw the figure that had appeared there. The door of the hangout had opened. Standing in plain view was a form that needed no introduction. It was the outlined shape of a being clad in black.
A cloak of sable hue clung to the shoulders beneath it. Above the turned-up collar of the cloak was a broad-brimmed slouch hat that hid the features beneath it. From gloved hands that projected from the cloak loomed the muzzles of two mighty automatics.
Like a specter from another world, this dreaded being had arrived to bring a climax to the sudden gun fray at Red Mike’s. He was one who pronounced his own identity, with a weird, chilling laugh that broke from hidden lips in that momentary lull that had followed the swift roar of battle.
He was the one whom all gangdom feared. He was the master who made his arrival and departures like the phantom of the night. He was the personage whom Cliff Marsland had notified concerning the conversation that had passed between Pug Hoffler and Birdy Zelker.
Sensing the impending trouble that had been due to break, this mighty warrior had come in person to aid his agent’s cause. Armed with his mighty guns, The Shadow had arrived to save Cliff Marsland from the doom that no other could have stayed!
CHAPTER V. THE SHADOW’S CLEW
BURNING eyes gleamed from beneath The Shadow’s broad-brimmed hat. As those eyes turned, the looming automatics followed their gaze. One against a dozen, The Shadow lost no time in loosing his surprise attack.
The black-garbed fighter had arrived at a moment when none had expected him. Even at this moment, no gangster brain caught any connection between The Shadow and Cliff Marsland.
As he uttered his weird, defiant laugh, The Shadow seemed guided by but one thought — the call which he so often followed — the lure to end the barks of gangster guns.
The laugh was a well-timed deed. It came as The Shadow’s automatics picked the lines that his eyes were following. It ended the attack that would have meant Cliff Marsland’s doom. It brought a series of split-second surprises to the death-seeking mobsters who were clustered in Red Mike’s dive.
Before guns could be turned upon him, The Shadow fired. The thunderous roars of his flame-belching automatics came like the rumble of an artillery barrage as they echoed through the close-walled quarters.
The nearest gangsters sprawled. Two fell at a clip. Others, raising their glimmering revolvers, felt the sudden heat of The Shadow’s lead. Of the dozen mobsters who faced The Shadow, four went down before they could fire in return. Two, aiming hastily, held their ground. The remainder, farther away, ducked for the cover of the corridors.
A bullet sizzled the side brim of the slouch hat as one mobster delivered his shot from the center of the room. The Shadow’s tall form seemed to telescope toward the floor just as the second mobster pulled the trigger of his revolver. The second bullet whistled inches above the dropping hat.
The automatics roared amid the echoes. One mobster clapped hand to breast and plunged gasping to the floor. The second sagged; snarling, he managed to raise his revolver and press the trigger. His faltering aim was wide. A second bullet from one automatic crumpled the mobster.
Cliff Marsland, still clutching the automatic which he held, had clapped his gun hand to the counter. With a valiant effort, he raised himself and flopped forward. His elbow on the counter, he aimed for the corridor straight across the room, where flashing revolvers were aiming toward The Shadow.
With steadied marksmanship, Cliff loosed his last bullets. One revolver dropped to the floor as a gangster screamed. The other disappeared as its owner dived for deeper cover farther down the corridor. Cliff’s teeth gritted beneath his grim smile.
The Shadow had seen his agent’s action. Taking advantage of Cliff’s well-given effort, The Shadow, with a sweeping movement to the right, picked the other corridor simultaneously. His automatics blazed; the rats who had scurried to that hole were caught as they tried to aim.
Bullets, ricocheting from the stone walls of the corridor, dropped even those who had thrown themselves to a spot which they thought was beyond The Shadow’s range. The only mobsters who remained unscathed were a trio who had dodged down the corridor at which Cliff had blasted.
From their point of safety, they could not see The Shadow; but they were able to view the dropping forms of those who had taken the opposite corridor. That was enough. These three who had eluded The Shadow’s wrath, were unready to emerge in the face of deadly fire.