In the leading cab, Harry and Cliff were unrestrained in their enthusiasm. The time for action was close at hand. Zemba’s lair had been located.
“He knows that only one person would dare to enter there,” commented Harry. “It is doubtful, though, that he actually expects that one person to take the challenge.”
“But The Shadow is coming,” returned Cliff. “He’ll give us time to get located. But he won’t be far behind us, Harry.”
Cliff was correct in that statement. Harry, too, was convinced that Herbert Balliol had also taken a taxi from the Hotel Princesse. But neither had guessed that a second cab was riding between the first and the last; trailing them, yet well ahead of the final taxi.
Knowledge of that cab would have troubled them, particularly if they had seen its passenger. At that very moment, the second cab was only fifty yards behind. Almost beside the face of its driver was another countenance that peered forward through the drizzle, showing an ugly leer.
They might have guessed that face had they seen it. The countenance that showed behind the windshield of the second cab was the face of Gaspard Zemba. Harry’s prisoner had spoken; spies had sneaked away to report; but already this hidden watcher had entered the game on his own!
CHAPTER XIII
THE THREE MEET
WHILE taxicabs were rolling from the Hotel Princesse toward the heights of the Montmartre, a pedestrian was entering the lobby of the Hotel Talleyrand. This man was Eric Delka. He was on his way to visit a guest named Perquigray, whom Delka, however, knew better by the name of Etienne Robeq.
Unannounced, Delka went up to the fourth floor and rapped upon the door of a corner room. He heard a guarded query; he responded in a low tone. The door opened; Delka stepped into a room that was illuminated by a single table lamp. He smiled as he saw the square-jawed face of Robeq, topped by its black hair. He shook hands and received a firm, viselike grip.
“You have arrived in time, Delka,” greeted Robeq. “I hoped that you received the message that I sent to Sergeant Rusanne. Sit down a few minutes. We cannot start until I hear from Rusanne.”
“He told me that we might be going somewhere,” nodded Delka. “What is it? A trail to Gaspard Zemba?”
“It may be,” returned Robeq, grimly. “Last night, two sergents de ville thought they saw him near the Cafe Poisson. This evening, there is a report of suspicious characters close to the Cabaret du Diable, in the Montmartre.”
“Zemba again?”
“We cannot tell. Any one may be Zemba to a sergent de ville. The order, however, is to keep only the regular patrol in the Montmartre.”
“So that Zemba will suspect nothing, if he is there?”
“Exactly. I intend to go there and look for him. I need some one else who is not known, particularly in case we have to summon aid. That is why I wanted you with me.”
Delka smiled. The choice suited him. Before Robeq could speak further, the telephone bell buzzed. The Frenchman answered it. Delka heard him speak in concise phrases.
“Rusanne,” informed Robeq, after completing the call. “All orders are understood. Come. Let us be on our way.”
They entered a station of the Metropolitan Railway, near the hotel. Robeq squandered two francs and thirty centimes buying first-class tickets. They entered the first-class coach in the middle of the train, and as they settled into the cushions, Robeq spoke in English, tinged with French.
“Ah, le Metropolitain,” he chuckled. “It takes one anywhere. Provided one understands its many devious ways. Which reminds me” — he studied the ticket stubs — “we must consult this hachette and learn the proper correspondance. Junction, you understand.”
“We have to change to reach the Montmartre,” recalled Delka, who was somewhat familiar with the Metro. “I don’t know where, though.”
“Here it is,” decided Robeq. “The junction that I thought. I have to be careful when riding on the Metro, because new lines have been added since the days when I lived in Paris. Quite a contrast, this noisy underground, to the soundless wastes of the Sahara Desert.”
THEY changed cars at the proper correspondance and while they were riding alone in another first-class compartment, Robeq produced a new theme.
“The Cabaret du Diable,” he mused, “is close to the Allee des Bijoux. A bad pitfall, the latter, as I remember it. Rusanne mentioned the alley in his last telephone call.”
“A blind alley?” inquired Delka. “Many of them are, in Paris.”
“The city abounds with them. The Allee du Diable is one of the worst. One would be unwise to enter it, even with a squad of agents at his heels.”
“The kind of place that Zemba would choose.”
“I know it. That is why we shall watch the outside, at a respectable distance. I shall have you summon a few officers when we near there. Our best plan would be to trap the fox when he has ventured from his den.”
Finishing their subway journey, Robeq and Delka came above ground and approached the drizzle-blurred lights of the Montmartre. Blinking, red bulbs proclaimed the Cabaret du Diable. Robeq edged Delka into an alleyway at one side; then mumbled angrily at his mistake.
“Bah! I am wrong!” he ejaculated. “The Allee des Bijoux is reached from the other side. Come, Monsieur Delka.”
They skirted the cabaret and entered a narrow, gloomy street. Robeq stopped his companion; they paused, pretending to light cigarettes while two Apaches slouched past.
“They may be going into the alley,” whispered Robeq. “It is right behind the cabaret. Go. Find the nearest agents and tell them that you are from Sergeant Rusanne. Mention that you have a friend waiting here. If they should guess that one of us is Robeq, it is better that they should believe that you were he.
“I would prefer to pass for some dandy visiting the Montmartre. My attire indicates it. Meanwhile, I shall be prepared. It would be best to mention that your friend is armed.”
Delka had noted Robeq’s attire. The detective had been dressed for the street from the time that Delka had seen him. He was wearing a fashionable Derby hat, a light waterproof raincoat, and a pair of smooth-fitting kid gloves. As he mentioned that he was prepared, Robeq peeled the glove from his right hand and held it in his left while he dipped his right and into his coat pocket to bring a stub-nosed revolver into view. Delka tapped his own pocket to indicate that he was armed. After that, he hurried to locate the agents.
FARTHER UP the little street, two men were already stationed at the mouth of the Allee des Bijoux. Harry and Cliff were on duty. Unnoticed, they had watched the two Apaches shuffle past and enter the alley. Cliff whispered to Harry.
“That makes four—”
“The Shadow will know,” interposed Harry, his tone as low as Cliff’s. “He has calculated the odds.”
“But when will he be here?”
“We don’t know. But if Zemba is already in there—”
A sibilant hiss sounded almost beside the speakers. Then came the sound of a slight swish in the rain. The agents realized that a cloaked figure had come close to them, creeping in from the rear end of this street. That was the direction which they had expected The Shadow to come from.
“Remain posted.”
The whispered warning was all. Then The Shadow had moved into the solid blackness of the Allee des Bijoux. Both agents huddled tense. They knew the danger that lay there. Any one of the lurking spots at the side of the alley might hold a full quota of Apaches. Zemba himself would be lurking within the innermost recess.
Then, like an open challenge to all men of evil came a whispered tone of mockery. It rose to a shuddering, sinister taunt. The laugh of The Shadow, delivered from the very heart of the alley. A token of a master battler who had entered the stronghold of his foe.