Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 266 - Young Men of Death

VIP免费
2024-12-22 1 0 184.5KB 74 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
YOUNG MEN OF DEATH
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in "The Shadow Magazine," April, 1943.
Death by accident - that was the verdict of everyone. And yet The Shadow
knew there was a definite answer to the riddle of the missing men!
CHAPTER I
DANGER IN CHICAGO
A COLD night wind from the lake had set Chicago to shivering. On
fashionable Michigan Boulevard people turned up overcoat collars and walked
briskly.
A bad night for slum dwellers. A worse night for bums who didn't have the
price for even a cheap flop-house.
Some of the shivering bums were trying to keep warm under a bridge
approach. It was a dead-end street where nobody but bums would congregate. The
bridge approach took up most of the street. The sidewalks below the steel
slant
of the structure were lined with decayed tenements and cheap gin joints.
In the blackness under the bridge, small fires burned in a half a dozen
trash cans. Bums crowded about them, toasting their hands. Occasionally a cop
drifted past. But no cop stopped or asked questions.
This was not a healthy section for cops. Thugs found this a good
neighborhood in which to drop conveniently out of sight. Unless a known
criminal was wanted for a known crime, cops didn't go out of their way to stir
up trouble.
The Shadow preferred to remain invisible, too. But for a different
reason.
The Shadow was watching a certain grogshop. He expected a Chicago
underworld character named Snuffy to enter that joint.
Invisible against the cold blackness of the bridge support, The Shadow
waited. His black cloak muffled his face below his mouth. The brim of his
slouch hat hid the gleam of watchful eyes.
The thought of Snuffy seemed to amuse The Shadow. Sibilant laughter came
in a whisper from his hidden lips.
Snuffy was far from a big shot of crime. He was a jackal of the
underworld, not a tiger. He ran errands, did favors for more dangerous crooks
who found Snuffy's talents helpful. In Chicago police headquarters, Snuffy was
listed as a pickpocket. He had another talent that the police didn't consider
important. Snuffy was supposed to be "hot luck."
Criminals, especially big ones, are superstitious. Things went well for
bigger crooks to whom Snuffy attached himself. The Shadow had learned this in
a
patient investigation of a score of criminal hang-outs.
The Shadow had been in Chicago several days. A master of disguise, he had
penetrated crook dens without arousing suspicion. In Chicago, unknown
derelicts
were always dropping off freights. The Shadow seemed a harmless bum.
The accidental death of a young man had brought The Shadow to Chicago.
The
young man had fallen from a tower window of a Chicago skyscraper. His name was
George Eldridge. He was a metallurgist employed by a large company. He had
gone
to a tower washroom, had lost his balance at an open window, had fallen to a
horrible death far below.
The police report showed that George Eldridge suffered from dizzy spells.
There was no reason to suspect anything more sinister than an accident. The
facts were in a newspaper clipping under The Shadow's robe.
But the clipping concerning George Eldridge wasn't the only one in The
Shadow's possession. There were two more. One was from an Atlanta newspaper.
The other was from a paper in Boston.
Two other young men had met death in accidental plunges from high places.
They had also been metallurgists, though not in the same company which had
employed young Eldridge. All three had been recent college graduates; all
three
had been recommended as brilliant technicians.
From his sanctum in New York, The Shadow had sent agents nosing along
what
was by now a cold trail. The reports from his agents did not seem to justify
The
Shadow's suspicion. The three similar deaths in three different cities
disclosed
no apparent motive for murder.
Neither George Eldridge nor the other two victims had been engaged in any
secret research. All three had been doing routine laboratory work in
metallurgy
of no especial importance.
Now, in the cold darkness of a Chicago slum, The Shadow's laughter
indicated that a link existed between the death of George Eldridge and a minor
pickpocket named Snuffy!
THE day after George Eldridge's death, Snuffy had begun spending money -
lots of it. He paid off gambling debts. He spent freely in the company of a
dance-hall girl named Irma. Snuffy had given this Irma an expensive gold watch
he was wearing. The Shadow had been curious about that watch. It was a man's
watch. Irma never wore it.
The Shadow searched Irma's apartment in her absence. He was unable to
find
the watch. But he found a pawn ticket. He went to the pawnshop and redeemed
the
watch. Inside the back, a small photo of Snuffy had been pasted. The Shadow
removed the photo. Engraved words were disclosed: "To George Eldridge, for
proficiency in the Chemistry of Metals - Barham Institute of Technology."
At his hidden post below the bridge structure, The Shadow stiffened
suddenly. He saw a beady-eyed little man slip quietly into the gin joint. It
was Snuffy!
The Shadow made no move to follow his quarry. Another figure was due
before The Shadow would be ready to put certain plans into execution.
The Shadow was waiting for Cliff Marsland.
Cliff was supposedly on the lam from the New York cops. He had managed to
scrape up a friendship with Snuffy. Snuffy didn't know that Marsland had long
since paid his debt to society and had gone straight. It suited both Marsland
and The Shadow to keep up the illusion that Cliff was still an active
criminal.
Marsland was an agent of The Shadow.
A few minutes after Snuffy had faded, Marsland drifted into view. He
moved
into the darkness under the bridge approach. The shivering bums around the
trash-can fires paid no attention to him.
Presently, in the blackness, he heard a softly uttered word:
"Report!"
The Shadow seemed to be part of the steel girder against which he stood.
Marsland's report pleased him. Cliff had arranged to meet Snuffy tonight in
the
gin joint.
Cliff listened to sibilant instructions. A wallet passed from The Shadow
to his agent. The wallet was bulky with currency. Most of the bills were of
large denomination.
In addition to the money, there were three newspaper clippings. They
described the "accidental" death of George Eldridge and the other two young
metallurgists who had perished in Atlanta and Boston.
The Shadow vanished. Marsland remained where he was.
Presently, a grimy old bum lurched into view from the darkness under the
bridge. He walked with shambling slowness to the joint where Snuffy had faded.
As soon as the bum lurched inside Marsland glanced at the radium dial of his
watch.
Ten minutes later he followed the trail of the bum.
Marsland had to brush past the disguised Shadow to reach Snuffy's table.
A
glass of gin and water was clutched in The Shadow's grimy hand. He seemed to
be
in a semi-drunken stupor.
Snuffy's ratlike eyes scanned Marsland keenly. He wasn't sure why Cliff
had arranged this date. Cliff had been deliberately mysterious in his hints of
"something in the wind" that might mean big dough.
"What's up, chief?" Snuffy whispered. He had a whining habit of calling
bigger crooks "chief."
"Buy me a drink," Cliff growled.
Snuffy nodded and bought drinks. His tight eyes got tighter. Marsland's
previous hints of something promising didn't sound so important tonight. If
Marsland was broke, there didn't seem much chance for the cunning Snuffy to
wangle a kickback for himself. He scowled, let Marsland do the talking.
CLIFF seemed in no hurry to come to the point. Artfully he beat about the
bush. He hinted vaguely that there was something going on in Chicago that
looked to him like a juicy set-up.
"The trouble is," he muttered sourly, "I'm busted! Haven't got a dime! It
took all my dough to get out of New York with a clean nose."
"So?"
"I got a proposition. If it works, there'll be dough enough for you and
me
to buy ourselves yachts."
Snuffy's tight eyes sparkled.
"What's the angle, Cliff?"
But Marsland shook his head. He was still spreading bait.
"I need one more guy to make my stunt work. Somebody really big. A guy
with plenty of guts."
Snuffy rubbed his long nose.
"Where do I come in?"
"You know everybody in Chi. I figured you could give me a knockdown to
some smart mobster. Some guy who wouldn't be afraid to tackle a risky job."
Snuffy shook his head.
"No soap. I'm only a two-spot in this town. I don't know no big shots."
"O.K. Skip it!" Marsland growled.
He started to get up from the table, but Snuffy halted him with a
placating grin. He bought Cliff another drink.
"It's cold outside. Stick around. Why do you need a tough guy? Sounds
like
a highjack? Am I right?"
"I'll give you a hint," Marsland grinned. "Ever hear of a guy named
George
Eldridge?"
He busied himself with his drink. He pretended not to notice the swift
grimace of surprise that twisted Snuffy's lips.
"Never heard of Eldridge," Snuffy muttered. "Who is he?"
"He fell out of a tower window in one of the big Loop skyscrapers. You
know, got dizzy." Cliff's chuckle sounded nasty. "Too bad for the guy, huh?"
"How do we make money out of some dope who has an accident?"
"Maybe it wasn't an accident!"
"Whaddye mean?"
"Suppose somebody pushed that guy Eldridge. Nice for him, huh? The cops
closed up the case as an accident. If it was a bump, the guy that shoved
Eldridge is sitting pretty."
Marsland grinned.
"But suppose a guy named Cliff Marsland smelled something funny? Suppose
I
could team up with a really tough mobster who knows Chicago? I think I could
pull off a sweet blackmail job on somebody. But skip it, pal! I'm busted. And
you don't know anybody!"
"Have another drink," Snuffy said in a choked voice.
Marsland reached for the bottle. He seemed oblivious to the presence of
the sprawled bum at the adjoining table. The bum had risen dizzily to his
feet.
He headed for the door. As he passed Marsland's table he lurched, almost
upsetting the drink that Cliff had just poured.
Marsland uttered a grunt of anger. He grappled with the hum, shook him
fiercely. The exertion spun Cliff around with his back to Snuffy. The leather
edge of a wallet stuck partly out of Marsland's hip pocket.
Snuffy took the bait. A clever pickpocket, he snaked the wallet loose,
with one deft motion. By the time the bum had been thrown out, and Marsland
was
back at the table, the wily Snuffy was eager to make an excuse for a brief
fade-out. He said he had to go to the men's room.
Aware that The Shadow's scheme had worked, Marsland nodded and turned to
his drink.
THE room where Snuffy had faded wasn't the men's room. It was a tiny
cubbyhole with nothing in it but a droplight and a phone. With eager fingers,
Snuffy opened the wallet he had snatched. A quick inspection of its contents
made his thin, jackal face turn pale.
Marsland had said he was broke - and there was more than a thousand
dollars in his wallet!
But it was the three newspaper clippings that made Snuffy tremble. He
dialed a number with careful speed. His whisper spat a warning over the wire.
"Listen, chief! There's hell to pay! A crook from New York named Marsland
- you know the guy I was telling you about? - well, he's wise to the Eldridge
job!"
"What!" The voice from the other end was like a whiplash.
"I'm tellin' you! I just snatched his wallet. He told me he was broke -
and he's carryin' more than a grand in cash. He's got a clipping about the
Eldridge accident. And that ain't all! He's got clippings about the guy in
Atlanta and the guy in Boston!"
There was a soft oath in the receiver.
"Marsland, eh? So that's why he came to Chi!"
"He's trying to muscle in on a highjack. He's been sounding me out to see
if I know any big-shot crook to help him turn those newspaper clippings into a
juicy bunch of blackmail."
Laughter rustled coldly over the wire.
"O.K. We'll fix Marsland up! Go back and tell him you just thought of
someone who'd be a smart bet to team up with. Tell him you phoned and are
trying to locate a guy. I'll need about a half-hour to get things set. And get
that wallet back in Marsland's pocket before he begins feeling for it!"
"Yeah, yeah," Snuffy gasped.
He hung up hastily and went back to the table where Cliff Marsland was
still innocently gulping liquor.
Snuffy grinned. Leaning over Cliff he whispered, "Good news, chief!" He
whacked Cliff with friendly force on his shoulder.
It gave Snuffy a lightning chance to return the stolen wallet. Marsland,
aware of what was going on, was forced to admire the deft skill of Snuffy.
"What do you mean - good news?" he grunted.
"I just thought of a guy. He'd be tops in a highjack proposition. I tried
to get him at his hang-out, but he wasn't around. I left a message for him to
call me back. Are you in a hurry?"
"No."
"Swell! We'll stick around. I oughta hear from my guy in about a
half-hour."
"Who is he? Do I know him?"
Snuffy shook his head. "This ain't no place for mentionin' names. Take it
easy, chief!"
A half-hour later the barkeep called across the room.
"Hey, Snuffy! Phone call! In the back room."
Snuffy faded. He was careful to talk only in monosyllables.
"Who? Yeah... O.K. Sure thing. You bet."
The whiplash voice at the other end of the wire wasn't so brief. There
was
murderous intensity in it.
"I've got everything set. We'll cook his goose - and we'll cook him, too!
But not until I find out how he got so damned wise. You know the house over by
the freight yard?"
"Yeah."
"Take him there! And don't grab any old taxi. Ask Carl to give you the
one
in the garage. I don't want to have to be bothered bumping a hack driver later
on."
"Sure," Snuffy said, and hung up. He had left the door of the back room
open, to help Marsland keep on thinking that things were good. His grin when
he
returned to the table emphasized their good luck.
"All set. My pal says he'll lay a grand on the line if you show him a
good
proposition."
"Fair enough. Where is he?"
"He's waiting for us at the other side of town. Let's go."
Snuffy paid the liquor bill. He led the way up the dead-end street to the
corner. Turning the corner, he went another block or two down the avenue.
There was a taxi at the curb and Marsland started to hail the sleepy
driver. But Snuffy said no to that.
"I know a pal who'll drive us across town for nothing."
He entered a grimy garage that didn't seem to be doing much business.
There was a taxi parked at the rear. A man named Carl slid obligingly behind
the wheel when Snuffy said he had a little trip to make.
The man named Carl looked more like a thug than a mechanic. The taxi
looked queer to Marsland, too. Its license number was almost illegible with
grease and dirt. The photo in the identification rack had been badly torn.
But Marsland, obeying The Shadow's orders, made no complaint.
The ride was a long one. It took them to the outskirts of Chicago. It
stopped on a deserted street lined with shabby dwellings. Most of them were
empty.
Behind the houses, Marsland could hear the choof-choof of switch engines
and the banging of freight couplings.
Marsland and Snuffy entered one of the dilapidated dwellings.
CHAPTER II
DEATH JET
UNSEEN in the windy darkness, The Shadow watched Marsland and Snuffy fade
into the house.
The Shadow had trailed the pair in the taxicab which Snuffy had been too
cagey to hire. In that cab he bore no resemblance to the black-robed figure
under the bridge approach, or to the shambling bum who had tussled briefly
with
Marsland in the gin joint.
The Shadow studied the row of houses on this dark, unfrequented street.
Melting into a narrow alley, he transferred his attention to the rear.
He saw at once that a rear entry was impossible. The backs of the row of
houses were flush with a stone retaining wall. Below the wall was a sunken
freight yard many acres in extent. The Shadow could see the crimson and green
glow of signal lights. Switch engines shuttled back and forth, making a
hideous
clamor.
The rear walls of those houses that backed on the railroad cut were blank
brick. No windows showed.
The Shadow was eager to reach the roof level, but those vertical brick
walls offered no chance for a foothold.
The Shadow returned through the alley to the street. He had donned his
black robe. Except for the gleam of deep-set eyes below the brim of his slouch
hat, his face was as invisible as the rest of his figure against the dark
background of the front entry he selected.
It was not the house into which Marsland had been led by Snuffy.
Skeleton keys moved deftly in and out of the rusted lock of a vestibule
door. The door opened and closed without sound. The Shadow raced silently up a
couple of flights of dusty stairs.
A moment later he was on the roof.
Hunched low to avoid silhouetting himself against the sky, The Shadow
hurried across to the roof of the house that Cliff Marsland had entered.
Noiseless leaps carried him across the narrow valleys that separated the
houses.
He leaned from the roof coping, studied the set of a corner window that
faced the street. A rope appeared from beneath the robe of The Shadow. It was
light, pliable and strong.
It would have been simple for The Shadow to have slid from the roof
coping
to the sill of the top-floor window. But there were lights in some of the
houses
across the street. The Shadow chose a more secluded route by way of the alley
wall.
He slid several feet down the rope. Dangling invisibly against the
blackness of the alley wall, he hooked one toe around the brick corner of the
building. His foot braced itself on the sill of the front window.
A black-garbed arm snaked into view. Fingers that were expert at jobs
like
his explored the window catch. A small-edged tool of tempered steel took care
of
the rusted catch. The window lifted gently.
Through the dark opening of the window moved a swift patch of blackness.
The Shadow was inside!
He still retained his end of the dangling rope. Within the room, crouched
below the sill of the window, he made certain quick motions with the rope. The
tricky knot at the coping of the roof came apart. The Shadow drew in his
dangling rope.
Tiptoeing through the dark room on the top floor, he opened a closed
door.
Below him lay a seemingly empty house. There was no sign of a light, no hint
of
a sound.
The Shadow advanced toward the black staircase.
MEANTIME, Snuffy hadn't wasted any time. He and Marsland climbed the
stairs to the second floor behind the gleam of Snuffy's tiny electric torch.
Marsland's spine was cold with the knowledge that he was deliberately
risking his life. But the risk was necessary. This was the only practical
method of uncovering the identity of the boss for whom Snuffy worked.
Marsland hid his wariness under a careless growl.
"What kind of a joint is this? Dust and dirt! Are you sure this guy of
yours has dough?"
Snuffy giggled.
"Don't worry. My guy's got everything! In here, chief!"
He opened a dark door. Again Marsland saw only a dusty and empty room.
But
within this room was an inner door, also closed.
Snuffy opened the inner door. Instantly bright light streamed into
Marsland's eyes.
The light came from a small room with no windows. It looked like a
storeroom. Blinking, Marsland saw the taut face of a man.
It was a face that he recognized.
"Hello, Cliff," the man said.
Snuffy had remained a pace in the rear. His voice sounded strained.
"Hey! Do you guys know each other?"
Marsland had conquered his surprise. He put fake pleasure into his hoarse
voice.
"Mike Vallon! I didn't know you were in Chi."
"I didn't know you were, either," Vallon said.
Mike Vallon had eyes like dull-blue chips of ice. Behind those unblinking
eyes was a cold, shrewd brain. Marsland had met him once or twice in New York,
but had never found out much about him. Vallon lived well, dressed well,
always
had ample funds. He had never faced a police line-up. Mike was the sort of
crook
who knew aldermen and judges. In hot weather he played golf in some cool
mountain resort. In the winter he was apt to be seen on the beach at Florida.
There was a gun in his hand. Its muzzle pointed at Marsland. Mike Vallon
had stopped smiling.
"I hear you got a proposition for a highjack."
Marsland didn't say anything.
"What made you think you could put the bee on me, you stupid louse?"
Vallon continued in a soft, ugly whisper.
"You?" Marsland pretended amazement. "I didn't even know you were in
Chicago. I just figured that Snuffy might put me in touch with somebody who
could -"
"You liar! Do you think I'm a sap? Snuffy was dumb enough to fall for a
dance-hall girl named Irma. He gave her a certain gold watch. Irma was greedy
enough to pawn the watch."
"I don't get you," Marsland muttered.
"No? Who swiped that pawn ticket from Irma's apartment? Who got the watch
out of hock? Why did you lie to Snuffy about being broke? Where did you get
those newspaper clippings?"
"Clippings?" Marsland said.
He tried to let his hand drop slightly toward his hip.
"Freeze, sucker!" Mike Vallon snarled.
There was death in his eyes.
"Get his rod, Snuffy!"
Snuffy obeyed. He was like an eager little ferret behind Marsland's
frozen
back.
"Put your hands behind you," Vallon ordered. "Slow! One at a time. Up in
the small of your back. Up high - between your shoulder blades!"
He didn't give Snuffy any orders. They weren't necessary. In a moment
Marsland's joined hands were tied viciously tight by the wily little
pickpocket
behind him.
"You know too much," Vallon told Marsland with a horrible little grin
that
barely pulled his lips away from his teeth. "I think we'll take you for a
little
freight ride. It'll be nicer if cops don't find your body here in Chicago.
We'll
let some hick cop out in the sticks have you. Or maybe we'll let the swamp
snakes and mosquitoes find you first, and do a little work on your corpse!"
Laughter trickled through Vallon's teeth.
"You showed up at a nice convenient time, pal. I'm through with Chicago.
I
got a little job to take care of somewhere else. So tonight I'm heading West!
On
a fast freight."
Snuffy's chuckle echoed Vallon's.
"Where are we gonna toss him off, chief?"
"Nowhere!"
It was a crisp word that sounded with grim suddenness. It was followed by
weird, menacing laughter.
SNUFFY had left the storeroom door open. Across the lighted door lay a
black, projecting shadow. The projected shadow of a cloaked and invisible
figure - a figure with twin .45's!
The shadow of The Shadow jerked swiftly forward. Gunfire hammered. But
neither of the opposing bullets found a mark.
The gun of Mike Vallon missed the black-robed figure plunging toward the
open doorway. The Shadow's heavier-calibered slug did not find a target in the
swift-moving body of the killer. The Shadow had meant to wing Vallon, not to
kill him.
His maneuver failed as Vallon darted behind Cliff Marsland.
At the same instant, Snuffy dropped to the floor. He stiffened like a man
mortally wounded. But it was a cunning stratagem. Protected for a precious
instant by the flaming stabs of gunfire that Mike Vallon spat over the
helpless
shoulder of Marsland, Snuffy kicked fiercely at the partly opened door.
The door slammed!
A bolt clicked on the inside as the advancing body of The Shadow struck
the barrier. Heedless of danger, The Shadow began a fierce assault on the
lock.
But no bullets ripped through the panel to cut him down. A sinister
silence prevailed in the windowless room on the other side of the locked
barrier.
It was impossible to smash the door down. It was made of heavy oak. The
.45s of The Shadow crashed again. Roaring streaks of scarlet ripped at the
lock
mechanism.
The wood around the lock split and splintered. The lock itself turned
into
a battered and shapeless hulk of metal. The butt of a .45 beat like a ram
against that twisted lock. It was battered out of its anchorage in the wood.
The door burst violently open. A leap carried The Shadow across the
threshold. Twisting as his feet touched the floor, he flung himself lithely
aside.
Light still blazed in the inner room. But there was no sign of Snuffy and
Mike Vallon. Nor of Cliff Marsland.
The room was completely empty!
The gleaming eyes of The Shadow scanned the empty floor. There was a
sprinkle of scarlet drops on the dusty spot where the helpless Marsland had
stood. He had been slugged on the head. Dragged somewhere through a secret
exit.
But where?
The blood trail didn't lead to any of the four walls. The Shadow was
faced
with the swift and urgent task of locating the secret exit.
Marsland's life hung now by a slender thread. The Shadow knew that. He
also knew that Marsland had imperiled his life because of his obedience to The
Shadow's orders. Mike Vallon's complicity in the "accident" to George Eldridge
was now proved.
The Shadow's swift energy indicated that he did not intend to let
Marsland
pay for that success with his life.
He devoted only a split-second scrutiny to the floor of the room. Eyes
trained in the ways of crime told him that there was no trapdoor opening
through that dusty expanse of floor. Somewhere in one of the walls was the
route through which Marsland had been jerked from sight.
The butts of The Shadow's .45s tapped the walls in a swift drumbeat. One
of them gave back a hollow echo - the clanging echo of hidden metal!
The Shadow's eyes peered. His scrutiny detected a slight blur in the
dusty
expanse of the wall. The mark of a hurried finger!
The deft fingers of The Shadow explored the same spot. Presently, he felt
a slight depression in the wall's surface. He pressed.
A square opening appeared.
IT was a vertical pit inside the wall. Peering downward, The Shadow could
see nothing but blackness. He sent a ray of light into the pit from a tiny
electric torch. The light did not add to his knowledge.
It showed nothing but emptiness and the metal rungs of a wall ladder that
led to the bottom.
Swiftly The Shadow descended through the wall.
At the bottom he found another opening. This time the passage was
horizontal. It led toward the rear of the house.
The Shadow divined at once where this horizontal passage led. He knew
that
it was very deep. He had estimated the depth while he was racing down the
steel
rungs of the vertical pit. He was now considerably below the street level of
the house.
There was only one answer to the problem of where this deep, horizontal
passage led. To the stone retaining wall of the freight yard! To the tangled
area of tracks and switches where a fast freight was almost ready to leave for
the West!
The Shadow crawled along the passage. He could see the exit opening now.
He could see the twinkle of red and green lights in the darkness outside.
He tensed his muscles to move into the open. But before be could quit his
earth tunnel, another sound made him stiffen. It was a sound that was barely
audible. A slight click. It didn't come from the darkness of the open freight
yard. It came from the horizontal tunnel behind The Shadow!
Twisting about in his confined position, The Shadow crawled backward. He
didn't crawl as far as the vertical pit through which he had descended. That
was no longer possible.
A barrier blocked off any possible return to the house. It was steel! It
had dropped like a solid guillotine blade from a slitted recess in the roof of
the horizontal passage.
The Shadow was cornered! He had now only one possible way to advance -
through the opening in the stone retaining wall that led to the freight yard.
The Shadow peered cautiously from the exit hole. A single glance proved
that his guess about the depth of the passage was correct. His face was barely
two feet above the dark gleam of a railroad track. It was the track closest to
the masonry wall of the freight yard.
A moment later The Shadow saw the switch engine. It was on the track
closest to the wall. It was heading swiftly toward the spot where The Shadow's
head projected.
His impulse was to jerk his head back and remain inside the wall passage
until the locomotive roared past the opening.
But The Shadow noticed something else.
There was no headlight gleam along the track from the advancing switch
engine. Its lights had been doused to avoid drawing the attention of other
railroad men at other points in the freight yard.
The engineer at the throttle was not piloting this locomotive willingly!
The Shadow could see the frightened blur of his pale face. A thug with a
gun was giving the engineer orders. The reflection of the locomotive's banked
fire gleamed for an instant on the barrel of a gun.
The brakes of the locomotive were beginning to grind and squeal. A moment
later it came to a halt directly opposite the tunnel exit in the stone wall.
The thug with the gun snarled an order to the captive engineer. There was
a roaring cloud of steam. It shot sideways, under pressure, from the exhaust
of
the steam box.
Live steam, as potent as the steam in a pressure cooker, filled every
inch
of the blocked-up passage from Vallon's house!
For five full minutes that horrible jet roared!
CHAPTER III
FAST FREIGHT
THE SHADOW, hidden by darkness, uttered a grim whisper of mirth.
The Shadow was no longer in the death trap!
An instant before the switch engine had ground to a halt opposite the
open
tunnel end in the retaining wall, The Shadow had dropped headfirst to the
tracks.
A swift wriggle had rolled him like a patch of blackness to the narrow
space between the track and the wall. Belly flat against the ground, he
crawled
swiftly away from peril. The jet of live steam roared harmlessly above his
flattened figure as he crawled onward.
Unseen, he climbed to the rear of the switch engine's coal tender.
He began to belly forward across the lumps of coal toward the figures of
the engineer and the thug with the gun.
Soon he could see the face of the thug more clearly. The Shadow
recognized
him as a local Chicago criminal. His name was Pocky Bender. His nickname came
from the ugly, pitted skin of his lantern jaws. He was a lone-wolf crook, on
摘要：

YOUNGMENOFDEATHbyMaxwellGrantAsoriginallypublishedin"TheShadowMagazine,"April,1943.Deathbyaccident-thatwastheverdictofeveryone.AndyetTheShadowknewtherewasadefiniteanswertotheriddleofthemissingmen!CHAPTERIDANGERINCHICAGOACOLDnightwindfromthelakehadsetChicagotoshivering.OnfashionableMichiganBoulevardp...

展开>> 收起<<
Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 266 - Young Men of Death.pdf

共74页,预览15页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：74 页 大小：184.5KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-22

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 74
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注