Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 242 - Formula for Crime

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FORMULA FOR CRIME
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. FORMULA FOR CRIME
? CHAPTER II. TRAPS REVERSED
? CHAPTER III. MASSACRE REVERSED
? CHAPTER IV. AFTER THE STRIFE
? CHAPTER V. THE LINK BETWEEN
? CHAPTER VI. OUT OF THE FOG
? CHAPTER VII. CRIME TO COME
? CHAPTER VIII. CAMPS OF EVIL
? CHAPTER IX. HAND OF DEATH
? CHAPTER X. TROUBLE FINDS THE SHADOW
? CHAPTER XI. TWO SIDES TO A STORY
? CHAPTER XII. STRANGE TRAILS
? CHAPTER XIII. THE SHADOW'S PLAN
? CHAPTER XIV. THE AMAZING VANISH
? CHAPTER XV. GATHERED EVIDENCE
? CHAPTER XVI. CRIME'S COME-BACK
? CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW WAITS
? CHAPTER XVIII. THE WRONG SHOWDOWN
? CHAPTER XIX. NEEDED: THE SHADOW
? CHAPTER XX. STRANGE SETTLEMENT
CHAPTER I. FORMULA FOR CRIME
A BIG, official car was twisting its way through the narrow streets of downtown Manhattan.
The car had two passengers: one, a man of brisk manner and military appearance; the
other, an elderly gentleman with thin face and shocky white hair.
The man with the military manner was Police Commissioner Ralph Weston, and this was his
official car. He was intent upon finding a certain destination among the narrow streets, a
task that was quite difficult, considering the darkness. Weston was anxious, too, that his
approach should not be known; for the fifth time, he lifted the speaking tube and warned his
chauffeur not to use the siren.
Then, recognizing a corner they were passing, Weston added through the tube:
"One more block, then stop at the old garage on the right. Inspector Cardona will meet us
there."
As he leaned back, satisfied, the commissioner was somewhat startled by a chuckle that
sounded in his very ear. He looked about, saw the gleam of eager eyes that peered from a
fanatical face. The commissioner smiled, indulgently. He'd almost forgotten his fellow
passenger, Professor Achilles Troy.
Sometimes, on these excursions to a scene that promised crime, Commissioner Weston
took along a friend named Lamont Cranston, who usually rode in meditative silence.
On this occasion, Cranston hadn't been around when Weston received the call to arms.
Since Troy was present, the commissioner had accepted him as Cranston's substitute.
There were good reasons to invite Troy on a trip like this. Fanatic though the man might be,
he was a criminologist of some repute, and his theories on crime, though eccentric,
deserved some consideration. Still, Weston deemed it best to remind Troy that he was here
on sufferance only.
"Calm yourself, professor," said Weston. "Nothing has happened, so far. Remember, we
are acting merely on a tip-off."
Troy's eyes turned questioning.
"A tip-off?"
"Anonymous information," defined Weston, smiling at Troy's ignorance of police language.
"We don't know who phoned Inspector Cardona, or why. We must hear his report, before
forming further opinion."
The official car was stopping at the old garage. Weston and Troy alighted, to meet a stocky
man whose swarthy, noncommittal face identified him as Inspector Joe Cardona. The
inspector gave the commissioner a nod, but showed no surprise at seeing Weston's
companion. Professor Troy had been much in evidence of late, and Cardona had
conjectured that Troy had been playing for an invitation of the present sort.
"I was right about the address, commissioner," stated Cardona. "It's Bartier's, the wholesale
diamond merchant. But the place is as dead as Coney Island in the winter."
"That may be a bad sign," returned Weston. "Crooks have a way of keeping quiet when on
an important job."
"Burglar alarms don't keep quiet," reminded Cardona, "and Bartier Co. have a flock of them.
Anyway, I've posted my men, and we can have a look for ourselves. Across the street and
through the alley, commissioner."
The three emerged from the alley to find themselves near the corner where Bartier Co. were
located. The diamond merchants occupied the ground floor of a squatty old building which
had other wholesale jewelers on the floors above. The windows of the place were barred
with heavy iron shutters, and didn't promise much of a look inside.
Cardona suggested that they move along toward the front of the building and take
observations from the corner opposite. Weston was giving agreement by stepping in that
direction, when a tight hand clutched his sleeve. The hand was Troy's, and the professor
was using his other hand to point the opposite way.
"Behind the building, commissioner!" Troy's cackly tone was lowered to a sharp whisper.
"Isn't that another alleyway?"
"It is," put in Cardona. "A blind alley."
"All the better, then." Troy's whisper was gleeful, as he centered his argument on Cardona.
"It should end right at the back door of Bartier Co.!"
Inspector Cardona didn't like blind alleys and began to say so. Prejudice on such matters
did not suit Commissioner Weston. Hence, in authoritative style, Weston promptly sided
with Troy, and the three set out for the alley, as the professor had suggested.
A bit reluctant, Cardona finally compromised with his dislikes by raising his hand in signal.
Two detectives came from doorways and joined the trio. Cardona dropped back to speak to
them, but merely told them to come along.
His hesitation was a pretext. The inspector wanted to get a look at a low roof which
projected a short way into the alley, just above the barred rear windows of Bartier Co. He
saw that the roof was vacant.
Upon rejoining Weston and Troy, Cardona used a flashlight close against the brick wall of
the alley. Trickling along the brick, the light finally halted on a heavy steel door. Professor
Troy had called the turn; this was undoubtedly the rear exit from Bartier's, and as good a
place as any to listen for alarms from inside.
At Weston's order, the five men took their silent station, and Cardona's flashlight flicked off.
But, in the darkness, the ace inspector was visualizing that steel door and the possibilities of
cracking it as a quick route into Bartier's, should occasion demand.
Cardona was beginning to have a hunch; it told him that all was not entirely well in the
preserves of Bartier Co.
WITHIN the building, matters were bearing out Cardona's hunch. There were lights
inside—lights that couldn't be seen from street or alley because of the thick steel shutters.
Furtive lights that were blinking downward from a corner, like hovering fireflies coming down
to roost.
One flashlight, stronger than the rest, emerged from the corner and then gleamed back
again, revealing what was happening.
Intruders, half a dozen in number, were entering Bartier's from a doorway leading from a
spiral staircase. They had come down the staircase to begin with, thereby showing their
acquaintance with a secret much cherished by the heads of Bartier Co.
That stairway, hidden by a paneled door, led up to another office, kept by Bartier's under
another name. It was a secret emergency outlet, to be used if daring crooks staged a raid
by day. But these crooks weren't coming by day; they had arrived by night, and were using
the upstairs exit as their entrance.
Having solved the riddle of any alarms above, their way was clear, and one man, evidently
the leader, showed further acquaintance with the Bartier preserves by flicking his flashlight
straight across the floor. Passing desks, showcases and counters, the gleam fixed on a
ponderous safe in a deep wall of the ground-floor room.
Like a magnet, the safe drew the prowlers to it. The leader passed his flashlight to another
man and thrust his face into the gleam. The light showed shrewd features, sallow in the
yellow glow, and the grin on the man's lips was both contemptuous and hard. As he turned
toward the light, the man's face revealed a short but jagged scar that crossed his square
chin.
The scar was the final touch that identified this product of crimedom. He was Mort Lombert,
a very canny crook, who knew when to play things safe. Once, Mort had aspired to be a
mobleader, in the days when warehouse robberies had been popular, but he had tossed
aside such ambition about the time police began to smother that particular species of
crime.
Still, Mort had not forgotten his skill at working into places; nor had he let his ambition go to
seed. Crime was experiencing a revival, and Mort Lombert was to the fore. Instead of a
warehouse, he was tackling a wholesale diamond house, and he had his mob, a
streamlined crew, all specialists in their way.
With a glance toward two of his followers, Mort announced coolly:
"You fellows are good at open work. Take care of the pete."
Then, leaving the pair to work on the safe, Mort began to spread the others to strategic
spots. He pointed one man behind a counter; another toward a door that led from the rear of
the big room. He was starting to post the others, when he heard the second man's footsteps
clatter on the stone floor.
Mort snarled for less noise. In so doing, he drowned a noise that occurred close by.
It came from behind the counter where the first man had stepped. There, as the fellow
started to poke his flashlight into darkness, the darkness rose to meet him. It came as a
living shape, that drove a steel cudgel to the crook's head. Mort's man sagged; there was a
swish in the darkness and the unknown assailant was gone.
Invisible in the gloom, the lone fighter encountered another of the crooks near a showcase.
Again a blow sledged home, and a thug settled silently. This time, however, the sprawl
brought an untoward result.
Hooking the showcase as he fell the mobsman overturned it. The crash, though muffled by
the falling man, was more than enough to bring Mort Lombert full about, swinging his
flashlight as he snarled at his clumsy follower.
Then the light, like Mort, fixed in frozen style. Perhaps it was the chilling laugh that produced
the result; or it could have been the black-clad apparition that confronted Mort Lombert.
Cloaked in black, a slouch hat on his head, a tall figure dominated the scene. The laugh that
spoke a whispered mockery from his lips was backed by the brace of automatics that
projected from his gloved fists.
Huge weapons, those, and in their slow wave they covered Mort and his remaining crew.
Each .45 seemed a living extension of the dread fighter who gripped the formidable guns.
The Shadow!
FROM across the big room, this master foe of crime held Mort and his men at bay. His very
presence confounded them; the fact that he had already begun to thin the opposition, was a
promise of what would happen to the rest.
Mort's own revolver was half drawn, and other crooks were shoving hands to pockets. But
the burn of The Shadow's eyes, the sinister finish of his laugh were invitations to disaster
that none cared to accept.
Hands released guns and came upward. Under the sweeping movements of The Shadow's
guns, gestures easily understood, crooks began to cluster. They weren't joining Mort near
the safe front because they had confidence in their leader; they were doing it because they
feared The Shadow.
Of that trapped tribe, Mort Lombert, the big-shot, had suddenly shrunk to the smallest of the
small.
Again The Shadow's laugh, its sinister whisper echoing from all about, pronouncing his
triumph over crime. A triumph as good as accomplished, for, having cowed this crooked
crew, he could easily march them out of the premises that they had invaded.
In token of such intent, The Shadow took three strides forward from his corner.
Lucky strides, those!
Hardly had The Shadow finished the third step before the floor coughed behind him. It
coughed in a titanic style, with a muffed burst that shook the entire building.
Up from the floor, amid a gust of flame and a deluge of smoke, came chunks of solid
masonry, like brimstone from a volcano's throat.
Only a pace clear of the blasting corner, The Shadow was lifted by the upheaving floor and
flung forward ahead of the tidal wave of stone that gushed to the ceiling and bashed great
chunks of plaster that descended, pulverized like snow, along with the hail of stone.
The Shadow's guns spoke as he took that long, sprawling dive, but their bursts were feeble,
unnoticed, amid the echoes of the huge blast. Mort and his followers, spilled by the quake of
the floor, were clear of The Shadow's gunfire.
Men of crime were saved from their arch-foe by the intervention of a power more formidable
than The Shadow's own!
CHAPTER II. TRAPS REVERSED
HURLED headlong by the explosion, flayed by the chunks of stone, The Shadow should
have proven easy prey for Mort Lombert and his murderous crew. But they were in no mood
to take advantage of the fortune that had come their way.
The burst from the corner, timed almost to The Shadow's own endeavors, seemed
something of his own making. Thinking it was meant for them, mobbies couldn't believe that
The Shadow had suffered by it.
Staggering as they found their feet, they heard Mort shout to rally them, but thought that he
was calling them to flight. All but one had lost their flashlights, and the man who still held one
kept waving it frantically, trying to find the spiral stairway. The two men felled earlier by The
Shadow were on their feet, blundering into the rest.
From somewhere on the floor they heard The Shadow's laugh, and Mort, like the rest, went
short on nerve. Matters were swinging The Shadow's way, had he chosen to take immediate
advantage; but The Shadow had a different plan.
His head had escaped blows from the peppering stones, and his quick wits were
functioning at their fullest, when he turned and drove straight toward the huge gap that the
explosion had opened in the floor.
The Shadow was expecting new invaders—and they came, out from the pit that they had
manufactured. They, too, had flashlights, and the glow from below showed their leader, a
burly warrior with an oversized face that looked gigantic, from bulging forehead to
underslung jaw.
There was only one face that looked like that. It belonged to Hogger Unstrum, noted for his
ways of crime. Hogger had passed from sight when he tried to sabotage a river tunnel in
which he and some of his cronies had been working. Wanted by the police, Hogger had
shown skill in burrowing from their sight.
At present, he was coming up for air, along with his henchmen, in a place where Mort
Lombert had already seen chances for profit. Hogger was simply taking over where Mort
was leaving off; but, like his predecessor, he had to deal with The Shadow.
Wheeling in from an angle, The Shadow was merely in the fringe of the flashlights. It was one
of those cases where crooks wouldn't even have a chance to find the fighter in black.
The trouble was that The Shadow no longer was a fighter in black. He didn't realize it until
his enemies swung savagely in his direction, spotting him before he could use his guns.
The Shadow was entirely in white. Where stones had failed to put him out of combat,
showering plaster had played its part.
Coated with the powdery stuff, The Shadow resembled a snowman, the frosty tint extending
even to his guns. As bad as the fact that crooks saw The Shadow was their inability to
recognize him as a foeman to be feared.
To them, he was simply an interloper who wanted to make himself a target. They dropped
into their hole, Hogger with them, to take point-blank aim at this foolish foeman who was in
the open. Their laughs, loud and derisive, drowned the mockery that might have informed
them who their enemy really was.
In the instant that he heard derision greet his challenge, The Shadow understood. He
preferred derision to death, and took advantage of it. The very fact that foemen laughed was
a good token, for it meant that they would be deliberate in their aim. Split-seconds lost by
trigger fingers of others were moments won by The Shadow.
He made a sudden whirl, and actually shook himself into darkness, under the very muzzles
of the astonished marksmen who thought him the surest of targets!
A clever thought, that shake. It flung the plaster from the black cloak and made The
Shadow's vanishment all the more startling. He was gone, and flashlights, swinging wildly,
were sweeping past him, missing him completely.
So startling was the disappearance, that it transcended all belief, even among these
witnesses who had heard rumors as to The Shadow's faculty for projecting himself into the
unknown.
Had The Shadow been dealing only with Hogger and his crew, he would have won the fray
right then. His foemen were too stupefied to even dive back into the oversized rat-hole that
they had blasted in the floor.
They heard a laugh and could only picture it as coming from nowhere. Bullets were due from
the same source, shortly, though Hogger's thugs didn't seem to realize it.
Then Mort Lombert and his crew stepped in, and spoiled The Shadow's strategy.
MORT'S mob wasn't teamed with Hogger's. Had the two groups met independently, both
seeking the same loot in Bartier's safe, they would have locked in a death fray. But criminal
rivalries were forgotten with The Shadow on the ground, and Mort's men weren't stupefied.
They hadn't seen The Shadow shake himself from sight, for the transformation of white to
black was accomplished before Mort's crew rallied. Mort saw the sweep of flashlights,
watched the glare focus on a swirling white cloud that was dispelling itself to the floor.
For some reason, Hogger and his marksmen were dumbly mistaking that drift of pulverized
plaster for The Shadow. Mort didn't make the same mistake.
He knew that The Shadow must be somewhere beyond, in darkness, and Mort set the pace
for his own sharpshooters by firing in that general direction. Other guns barked savagely;
bullets began to bite the front corners of the big room.
The shots were wild, but they served a purpose. They were boxing The Shadow in a spot
where he would give away his location, if he fired in return.
What The Shadow needed was a shelter, and he found it in the form of the big front door of
Bartier's. The explosion had jarred the formidable barrier loose, and it swung when The
Shadow tugged it. The inward sweep of the door brought in light from the street, and
Hogger, like Mort, caught a fleeting glimpse of a black-cloaked figure. At orders from their
leaders, members of both crooked crews began to stab shots at the open doorway.
The Shadow was gone again.
Gone, while marksmen blinked, and there was seemingly but one route that he could have
taken: through the doorway.
His sudden departure gave crooks the immediate impression that they had The Shadow on
the run. In flight, The Shadow would be easy prey, if they lost no time in overtaking him.
Hogger Unstrum, for one, was willing to drop all other business to settle scores with
mobdom's greatest scourge, The Shadow.
Hogger and his crew were off through the doorway in a surge. Mort's band would have
followed, had their leader not held them back. In Mort's opinion, it wouldn't take numbers to
abolish The Shadow, should he be spotted before he reached shelter outside. Hogger could
have the glory; Mort preferred to complete his unfinished business. Mort Lombert was a
shrewder person than Hogger Unstrum.
Yet it didn't occur to Mort, with all his shrewdness, that Hogger might have taken up a false
trail. Even when the huge front door slammed shut, Mort merely took its clang as evidence
that Hogger's men had swung it as they went out.
No flashlights were turned toward the doorway to reveal the silent figure that moved from the
space that the door had so recently covered.
With a double twist, The Shadow had wheeled behind that steel barrier when he opened it.
He'd been ready for gunmen, had they spotted his lurking place. Instead, half of them had
gone on a blind chase; and The Shadow, at the present moment, was barring their return, so
that he could deal more readily with those who had remained.
Mort Lombert was turning a flashlight toward the safe. Before he could summon his
specialists to work upon the strong box, his attention was directed to the alley door. It had
been jarred by the explosion, but it wasn't off its hinges. However, it soon would be, judging
from the noise beyond it.
Men in the alley were trying their best to pound an entrance into the premises of Bartier Co.
Swinging his flashlight toward the rear door, Mort beckoned his men along with him. As the
flashlight turned, darkness followed its swinging gleam— living darkness, that moved with
total silence. The Shadow was passing right behind Mort's men, almost brushing their
elbows, as he chose a point beyond them.
The Shadow was picking the spiral stairway that led up to the next floor, a perfect spot to lay
an ambush for Mort's crew, should they decide on sudden flight.
From outside came a flurry of shots. Mort listened, then chuckled. Hogger's outfit was
probably having it out with The Shadow, which meant that Mort could concentrate upon
matters closer at hand.
The Shadow, of course, did not share Mort's error of opinion. He knew that the shots could
only mean the presence of police posted somewhere in the neighborhood, a fact that gave
him a clue to something more.
There was a laugh, so low that it could not be heard above the pounding from the alley. The
sibilant token was followed by a swish of The Shadow's cloak. Whatever his next purpose, it
was known only to The Shadow, himself.
THE smashes against the alley door were being delivered by Inspector Cardona, and the
two detectives with him. Commissioner Weston was superintending the activity, while
Professor Troy stood by, his beady eyes gleaming happily, his shaggy hair waving every
time he turned his head.
It was good, sound police practice to get to the heart of things by the shortest route. The
blast within Bartier's was proof enough that crime was under way; the fact that alarms
weren't clanging simply meant that they had been ruined by the explosion.
There were criminals inside the wholesale jewelry house, and the police wanted to get at
them. It didn't occur to the commissioner, nor to his ace inspector, that matters might take a
sudden turnabout.
The reversal came suddenly. Flashlights blazed from the mouth of the blind alley. The
commissioner wheeled, as did the men beside him. They saw more than the glow of
flashlights; they spied the glitter of leveled revolvers. To a man, Weston and his companions
were trapped by the criminal horde led by Hogger Unstrum.
Losing track of The Shadow, and bothered by the scattered fire from the men that Cardona
had posted earlier, Hogger's men had looked for a stronghold of their own. They'd found the
alley behind Bartier's, and they heard the pounding that the police were making.
Crooks were declaring themselves in terms that lacked no certainty. Hogger Unstrum was
their voice, his tone a triumphant snarl.
As Weston and his trapped companions turned, Hogger saw their faces and exulted. No
quarter to such as these! Hogger's failure to eliminate The Shadow could be amended, in
part, by erasing the police commissioner and his ace inspector, Joe Cardona.
Of course, others present would be included in the massacre. To the detectives with him,
Cardona gave the quick word to shoot it out, rather than be murdered in cold blood. They
flung themselves forward, drawing their guns, though such a drive was only hastening their
doom.
For Hogger's men were ready. Before any of the victims could bring a gun into play, Hogger
Unstrum rasped the order for a point-blank fire that would turn the alley into a shambles!
CHAPTER III. MASSACRE REVERSED
GUNS blasted with a volley that riddled the blackness of the alley; nothing more. No bullets
drilled Cardona and the victims who were delivering a last, futile drive. For the stabs that
knifed the darkness with tongues of living flame were darting at all angles except the
point-blank range that Hogger had ordered!
The reason was an influx of new blackness—a solid, spreading mass of inky dynamite that
descended like an unseen thunderbolt. It announced the personal advent of a jet-clad fighter.
If the paving of the alley had opened to disgorge The Shadow, mobsters wouldn't have been
as surprised as they were. They'd used the trick of popping up from below, themselves, and
The Shadow was going them one better. The master of darkness was arriving from midair!
There were things that Hogger Unstrum and his pack of murderers didn't know. They hadn't
learned that Mort Lombert and his outfit used a route from the second floor; nor had they
noticed the low roof projecting above the alley in back of Bartier's.
The Shadow had started along Mort's route, then taken a short-cut to the little roof. An
excellent vantage spot, that roof, but The Shadow hadn't kept it.
Though he couldn't see the figures below him, he risked a headlong plunge in hope of
finding Hogger's firing squad. He found them, his hands ahead of him, and in each fist The
Shadow carried an automatic, with which he cudgeled as he came.
The Shadow's swings were stopped by heads; his fall was broken by shoulders on which he
landed. Two marksmen were felled by The Shadow's slugging, and the rest went sprawling
with him as he reached the paving.
All but Hogger, who was free of the tangle. But Hogger was overplaying his part as leader of
the motley mob. He was giving orders, instead of executing them.
Seeing his men sprawled by the impulse of an invisible avalanche, Hogger hesitated just too
long. By the time he decided to let his crew handle The Shadow, and attend to settling
Cardona personally, Joe and the detectives reached him.
Like The Shadow, Hogger became the center of a human vortex. Each was too cramped to
use his gun, and surrounding men were unable to shoot for fear of hitting members of their
own faction.
But The Shadow, in his tussle, was keeping six men too busy for their comfort, whereas
Hogger was having trouble battling against three.
Through the alley they reeled, smashing from wall to wall, stumbling, coming up again, while
Commissioner Weston stood with gun waving in one hand, not knowing which way to shoot.
With his other arm, the commissioner was warding back Professor Troy, whose bobbing
head of shocky hair was visible in the gloom, while his high voice cackled suggestions that
Weston neither heard nor accepted.
Professor Troy, at least, was pleased by this twofold conflict, his introduction to what might
happen when men of the law clashed with those of crime. It was a real treat for the
professor, considering that The Shadow, crime's greatest nemesis, was in the thick of the
struggle, doing his utmost to swing the balance in the law's favor.
There were moments when Troy would have lent a hand, but for Weston's sturdy efforts to
keep him out of it. Then, before the excited professor could break through the
commissioner's resistance, the climax came without Troy's aid.
The two swirls met.
HURLED together, friend and foe were at total loss—with one exception: The Shadow.
Crooks couldn't seem to find his cloak as the melee spread, but The Shadow found their
heads—with guns! He was turning the fray into a one-man slugfest, and he was delivering all
the goods.
Uncannily, The Shadow pulled his strokes every time he encountered Cardona or a
detective. Whether he could spot the glimmer of their badges, in contrast to revolvers, or
whether he was depending upon some sixth sense, that the other fighters didn't have, the
result was the same.
Actually at large amid the men who crowded the alley, The Shadow was putting gunmen to
rout.
Receiving a glancing blow, Hogger Unstrum reeled toward the street bawling for his men to
follow. They did so to the mockery of a strange laugh, that might have come from anywhere.
Some aimed stupidly for the alley walls; others actually pointed their revolvers upward,
groggily remembering the direction from which The Shadow had come. Their guns blazed
wide and high.
But there was nothing wrong with the volley that the police returned. They put their shots right
down the alley where crooks were as thick as tenpins. Reels became staggers as Hogger
and his men reached the street, where they were plain in the light: hopeless fugitives. The
Shadow had put them on the run.
Crooks couldn't even scatter, for by this time Cardona's scanty outposts were closing in
upon the fray. Foolishly, Hogger kept howling for his men to battle it through; equally foolish,
they complied. With wild men frantically aiming their way, Cardona and the surrounding
detectives had no choice but to supply well-aimed gunshots before the frenzied crooks
could properly retaliate.
Reaching the mouth of the alley, Weston and Troy saw the struggle in the street. It had,
indeed, become a shambles, but the victims were the crooks. The Shadow's prowess had
put the massacre into absolute reverse.
Oddly, thoughts of triumph had led Hogger and his crew into disaster. Now, flushed with
victory, the police were putting themselves on the spot. They'd forgotten the door in the deep
end of the alley. But the thugs on the other side of it, Mort Lombert and his tribe, hadn't
forgotten matters outside.
Hearing shooting in the alley, Mort attributed it, correctly, to a fray between Hogger and the
police. He preferred to clear out interference before blowing Bartier's safe, and this looked
like the proper opportunity. It would have been, if The Shadow had not foreseen Mort's
action.
Picking up where the police had left off, Mort ordered the door ripped open. As his men
obeyed, Mort led the charge out into the alley, gun in hand, a flashlight gleaming ahead of
him.
摘要：

FORMULAFORCRIMEMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.FORMULAFORCRIME?CHAPTERII.TRAPSREVERSED?CHAPTERIII.MASSACREREVERSED?CHAPTERIV.AFTERTHESTRIFE?CHAPTERV.THELINKBETWEEN?CHAPTERVI.OUTOFTHEFOG?CHAPTERVII.CRIMETOCOME?CHAPTERVIII.CAMPSOFEVIL?CHAPTERIX.HANDO...

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