Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 194 - The Veiled Prophet

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THE VEILED PROPHET
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. MAN ABOUT CRIME
? CHAPTER II. THE BLASTED TRAIL
? CHAPTER III. OUT OF DARKNESS
? CHAPTER IV. MATTERS OF COINCIDENCE
? CHAPTER V. THE PROPHET SPEAKS
? CHAPTER VI. CRIME'S TARGET
? CHAPTER VII. HIDDEN CRIME
? CHAPTER VIII. CROOKS CHOOSE
? CHAPTER IX. BEHIND THE VEIL
? CHAPTER X. DEATH COMES HOME
? CHAPTER XI. PROOF OF GUILT
? CHAPTER XII. GALE SEEKS ADVICE
? CHAPTER XIII. SNARE OF DEATH
? CHAPTER XIV. FIGHT BRINGS FLIGHT
? CHAPTER XV. THE KEY FROM THE PAST
? CHAPTER XVI. THE MAN WHO RETURNED
? CHAPTER XVII. THE VEIL LIFTS
? CHAPTER XVIII. THE DOUBLE QUEST
? CHAPTER XIX. DOOM POSTPONED
? CHAPTER XX. THE FINAL CHALLENGE
CHAPTER I. MAN ABOUT CRIME
RALPH JORCOTT settled himself in a corner of the half-filled subway car and casually began to read an
evening newspaper. The headlines pleased him; they referred to crime.
Not merely one crime, but a dozen; all belonging to a mysterious wave that had swept New York.
Crimes that were particularly baffling, because the police were totally unable to trace the real
perpetrators.
Jewel thefts, robberies of art treasures, stock swindles, and other specialties had been executed in
clockwork fashion. Every time the police centered on one trail, new crime occurred elsewhere.
Obviously, different hands were at work, for no crime produced a direct link to any other.
To the credit of the police, they had come uncommonly close to stopping some of the crimes. But, in
every instance, the law had managed to capture only a few small-fry hoodlums, who had been hired for
cover-up work.
Such prisoners could not tell who the important crooks were. Moreover, the time wasted in capturing the
small fry had allowed the real criminals to escape.
The situation made Ralph Jorcott smile.
Though Jorcott looked like anything but a crook, he could have told why crime was riding high. Not that
he had taken any part in recent criminal activities; in fact, Jorcott could not have identified any of the
perpetrators.
It simply happened that Ralph Jorcott, dapper and rather handsome, intended to make his debut as a
criminal this very evening. Smooth of manner, attired in a faultless Tuxedo, Jorcott looked like a man
about town. Actually, he was a man about crime.
The subway local jolted to a stop at Jorcott's station. Leaving the train, the young man drew a key from
his vest pocket, used it to unlock a metal locker provided for packages, one of many in a corner of the
station platform. The package that Jorcott found was squarish and not large, but he handled it very
carefully.
Coming up to the street, Jorcott looked for a cab. When one came cruising in his direction, he hailed it.
In the cab, with the package resting on the seat beside him, Jorcott looked from the window. He saw a
car move away across the street.
Perhaps it was his imagination, but Jorcott would have sworn that he saw a face peer toward him from
the rear of the departing car. A face that had no features; simply a blank, hidden by a gauze that formed a
silver veil!
His brief glimpse of the veiled observer did not perturb him; on the contrary, it gave him encouragement
for his coming enterprise. The dapper man was chuckling as his cab drove westward.
After a dozen blocks, Jorcott alighted. Dismissing the taxi, he reversed his direction on foot, the square
box tucked carefully beneath his arm.
Large mansions loomed in the darkness beyond a small park. They were pretentious, old-fashioned
buildings, gloomy relics that still served as residences for the wealthy, for this area was secluded and
therefore highly prized.
Picking the house he wanted, Jorcott strolled from the shelter of the trees, crossed the street, and entered
a narrow passage that led him to a side door. He was drawing another key from his pocket; when he
tried it in the lock, the door opened.
THE house was deserted. Massive pieces of furniture, covered with large sheets, looked like crouching
ghosts huddled in their shrouds. But Jorcott wasn't disturbed as he picked his way to the front hall. He
was handling a flashlight cautiously, and taking care not to drop the box that he carried under his arm.
Inside the big front door, Jorcott saw an envelope lying on the floor. It was one that had been dropped
through the mail chute; sight of it brought a satisfied intake of Jorcott's breath. Placing the box carefully
on the floor, the man of crime opened the envelope.
It contained a sheet with typewritten instructions, the very data that Jorcott expected; but what pleased
him most was the odd symbol that served as a signature. It was shaped like a double crescent. The note
read:
First room on left at top of stairs. Second panel to right of window. Up, right, up, left down, up, left.
Combination alternating left and right: 3 - 6 - 1 - 1 - 9.
The note tucked in his pocket, the box again beneath his arm, Jorcott moved toward the stairs. He felt a
momentary chill, as though a whispering breeze had filtered through the house; then, with a short, gritted
laugh, he continued on his way.
Reaching the room mentioned, Jorcott placed the square box on a table. Referring to the note, he found
the panel mentioned; it was one of many such oblongs in the oak-walled room. Using a handkerchief to
avoid fingerprints, Jorcott pressed the panel upward. It gave. He followed directions further.
The thing that struck Jorcott as particularly clever was the point where the panel was pressed down, then
up. It seemed like a retraced move, but it was not. As the panel came down, Jorcott felt it move inward a
fraction of an inch. Pushed up, it found a new niche, important to the process.
As he slid the panel to the left, a spring clicked. The oblong swung open on hidden hinges, and Jorcott
saw that its inner side was faced with metal. More important, however, was the glisten that came from a
cavity within the wall. There, Jorcott saw the chromium-plated dial of a safe.
Still using the handkerchief, the gentleman crook used the combination given in the note. The safe door
swung open, showing a goodly store of contents, in currency and bonds. Jorcott's hand moved forward
eagerly in the light. Then he restrained himself.
Turning to a fireplace across the room, he crumpled the note with the double crescent signature and set a
match to it. While the paper blazed he hovered in front of the fireplace, to shield the light.
He could hear the paper crackle as it burned, each spurt of flame was accompanied by a tiny puff. Odd
sounds, those, ordinarily unnoticeable when paper burned. But the fireplace magnified them, disturbing
the silence of the paneled room.
For the first time, Jorcott felt nervous. He fancied that he heard other sounds - a creaking from the
stairway, a creeping in the darkness. When the paper had turned to ashes, he strained to listen.
The sounds must have been his imagination. It was magnified, like the noise of the burning paper.
Stooping, Jorcott flicked the ashes with his handkerchief, destroying all traces of the typewriting and the
crescent symbol.
Back at the table near the safe, the crook unwrapped the square package. It contained a wooden box,
with a switch. Taking bonds and currency from the safe, Jorcott appraised them roughly as he wrapped
them in the paper. He estimated the haul at more than sixty thousand dollars.
Jorcott wasn't surprised that such a sizable sum had been left in a closed house.
The money, like the house, belonged to Handley Farnum, a millionaire. Hidden in a modern safe behind a
secret panel backed by steel, the funds should have been doubly secure. So they would have been
against ordinary robbery. But this crime, as Jorcott could testify, was anything but ordinary.
It would be another mystery for the police when Jorcott was through with it.
HAVING bundled the cash, Jorcott left it on the table and picked up the wooden box. He pressed the
switch; a mechanism began to tick.
Placing the box in the safe, Jorcott used the ash-smudged handkerchief to close the door and twirl the
combination. Shutting the camouflaged panel, he gave it a push to the right to hold it in place.
Jorcott chuckled.
He had thirty minutes for departure, far more time than he actually needed. After that, there would be a
blast; a big one, loud enough to bring, the police.
They would find a jagged hole in the wall, the remnants of Farnum's safe and the panel that hid it. They
would think that some crook had blown the safe to get the swag; as a result, there would be a man hunt
in this vicinity.
But within fifteen minutes - a mere half of the time allotted him - Ralph Jorcott would be in his favorite
taproom, only a dozen blocks from here. He would be ordering a drink, chatting with friends; in brief, he
would be establishing a perfect alibi.
Jorcott glanced toward the window. A half block away he could see the smudgy bulk of a warehouse.
That was where the police would be, on the watch for tonight's crime.
These crimes, maneuvered by the supercrook who used the signature of the double crescent, were
particularly clever. Arrangements were always made for the police to be near at hand, but never in the
right place.
As he gazed from the window, Jorcott chuckled again, this time with the thought that he had added his
link to a chain which others had begun. It would be another case of perfect crime.
Jorcott was looking in the wrong direction.
Light from the window spread a hazy glow upon the table where Jorcott had laid the newly wrapped
package. The loosely packed bundle now contained sixty-thousand dollars, instead of a wooden box
loaded with a time bomb. It represented Jorcott's only reason for a criminal visit to the Farnum mansion.
The package was at Jorcott's elbow. He regarded it as safe as if it had been in his own hands. All that he
had to do was turn about and pick it up. But other hands were on the move, while Jorcott's lingered.
They crept from gloom, those black-gloved hands, as if they were detached things that had materialized
within the enshrouding darkness. Unseen, unheard, their owner had crept into this room while Jorcott
was at work. He was plucking crime's spoils from the overconfident crook.
The hands grasped the package, lifted it and gave a deft backward toss that landed the bundle in the
bend of a waiting elbow. There was a swish in the darkness, as the figure wheeled away. Gloved hands
were again on the move, as hidden lips whispered a sibilant laugh.
Jorcott whipped about from the window, saw that the package was gone. With a stifled snarl, the crook
reached for a revolver; his other band, already holding a flashlight, pressed the switch. At the same
instant, Jorcott was greeted by a glare from another electric torch.
What he saw stiffened him. The race with the flashlights was a draw, but Jorcott had been beaten when it
came to the matter of a gun. He was staring into the muzzle of a weapon already drawn - a .45 automatic
that looked as formidable as a howitzer.
The flashlight clattered from Jorcott's frozen fingers. He hadn't time to find his gun. Both his hands came
up to shoulder level as he stared into the darkness.
For Jorcott had seen more than the looming gun muzzle. Behind the .45 was a figure cloaked in black,
with features hidden by the brim of a slouch hat except for two burning eyes that carried a bore as sharp
as a bullet's.
A crook at heart, Ralph Jorcott knew the identity of his superfoe. He had been trapped, while engaged in
lawless enterprise, by a fighter whose very presence spelled death to crime.
The Shadow!
CHAPTER II. THE BLASTED TRAIL
LONG minutes had passed - minutes that were torture to Ralph Jorcott. The man was no longer a
gentleman of crime; he was a wilted figure, backed against the very wall where he had opened a secret
panel.
The Shadow had moved across the room. He was standing near the door; reached by the flickery light,
his figure was vaguely visible. Jorcott could see the gun muzzle, constantly directed toward him. Calmly
waiting, The Shadow was wearing the crook down.
No system could have been better. Words were unnecessary. The Shadow had divined Jorcott's game,
and had turned it to his own advantage. He knew that when Jorcott began to talk, the crook would
speak rapidly and tell plenty.
With twenty minutes gone, Jorcott's chance for an alibi was ended. Even then, he might have retained his
bravado but for another element. In the silence of that room, Jorcott fancied that he could hear a steady
ticking from the infernal machine that he had buried in the wall safe behind him.
To The Shadow, the time element was unimportant. He was leaving all worry to Jorcott. Every time the
criminal shifted restlessly, The Shadow put him back in place with a gesture of the automatic. The
Shadow's own position was a distant one; only Jorcott was in danger, and the crook knew it.
The dim light showed beads of sweat glistening on Jorcott's forehead. Drops began to streak his face,
running down toward the Tuxedo collar that was already wilted. At last, his nerves snapped. He licked
his parched lips, began to stammer frantic words.
"It's not my fault... not my fault!" Jorcott repeated the statement ardently. "I'd been in other rackets: fake
oil stocks, things like that, a long while ago. I thought they'd been forgotten!"
Breaking off, Jorcott hoped for a response from The Shadow. He fancied that he heard a whispered
laugh; nothing more. Time was getting shorter. Jorcott hurried his plea.
"Then I got a letter," he declared. "Blackmail, that's what it was! Telling me my past would be exposed
unless I followed orders. It wasn't money that the blackmailer wanted. He said that I'd have to go in for
crime."
This time, Jorcott did hear a laugh, one that carried a world of significance. It meant that a master crook,
termed a blackmailer, had chosen an excellent tool in Jorcott. The fellow's face had lost its gloss; it
showed a ratlike expression in the flickering light.
"You're wise to the game," argued Jorcott. "You're The Shadow, the one person who could see through
it. The brain has been working on a lot of fellows like me, making us each stage a crime and hand over
the dough to him. Only -"
Jorcott hesitated. The Shadow spoke for the first time. His sibilant words had an accusing ring, as though
voicing the very thoughts in the crook's mind.
"Only you supposed that crime would produce reward," declared The Shadow. "A crook by choice, you
preferred to take the course offered you rather than give facts to the police."
There was a pause, then The Shadow's tone again.
"The brain you mention," stated The Shadow, "is unquestionably a man who has delved into many pasts.
You were surprised, Jorcott, when you learned that he knew yours. You did not guess that my own
records contained similar facts.
"I have been checking on careers like yours. This meeting is not the result of chance, but of design. Your
path happens to be the first that I have crossed in this campaign. I trust that it shall be the last."
A FLOOD of recollections swept Jorcott's mind. He remembered the taxicab that had been outside the
subway station, realized that The Shadow must have posted it there. He recalled the creeping sounds that
had accompanied the faint crackle of the burning letter, knew that they must have announced the advent
of The Shadow.
All of Jorcott's props were falling out from under him. It wasn't a case of bluffing The Shadow. The
crook was reduced to the lone hope of offering some shred of information. Caught in crime, he could
expect no mercy unless he confessed all that he knew.
The Shadow inserted prompting words:
"The letter -"
Jorcott's brain was thrumming. The Shadow had seen him burn the all-important note, the one that bore
the signature of the double crescent! In mentioning an earlier note, Jorcott had revealed only a preliminary
fact. He had to tell more.
"I don't know who sent it," pleaded Jorcott. "It told me how to find the safe; how to open it. I had to go
through with it, because I was threatened if I didn't. But I don't know who sent it -"
The crook was holding out. He didn't want to mention the thing that really counted, the matter of the
symbol that served as a signature. A fleeting recollection was responsible for Jorcott's hesitation.
He recalled that glimpse of a face veiled by silver gauze. Wilted though he was, Jorcott still had crooked
instincts. He was banking on the chance that a master criminal might somehow help him.
The Shadow's tone jarred Jorcott into reality:
"Time is very short -"
It was more than a guess. The Shadow had analyzed Jorcott's worry correctly. Time was short. Only a
few minutes of the precious half hour remained. His back against a wall that threatened doom, the crook
could hear the imaginary ticking like the beat of drums.
I'll tell everything!" gasped Jorcott. "Everything that I know! The notes were signed by -"
He interrupted himself with a gulp. It should have been a hopeless one, but it wasn't. In the sound, The
Shadow detected a hidden reason. His keen sense of hearing spliced itself, to detect other noises than the
frantic loudness of Jorcott's voice. The Shadow became a blur of blackness as he wheeled in the
doorway.
Two figures lunged from the stairs. They came with guns, swinging them like bludgeons. The arrivals were
outside crooks, members of a cover-up squad posted to make sure of Jorcott's departure. Wondering
why they hadn't seen him, they had entered the house to look for him.
Along with Jorcott, they had found The Shadow!
They were too late, those thugs. Before they could complete their drive, The Shadow was between them.
He was in the darkness of the hallway, wielding guns of his own, smashing off their stokes. Jorcott was
lunging forward from the wall, hoping to add his weight to the struggle.
Like his would-be rescuers, Jorcott miscalculated The Shadow's brain-work.
Crooks didn't come in slugging, instead of shooting, unless they preferred silence. Recognizing their
choice. The Shadow offset it. As he slashed with his guns, he pressed the triggers. Tongues of flame
ripped through the hallway. The bursts of the automatics were magnified, becoming loud roars.
The thugs started shooting as they dived, but their action was unwise. Chance for stealth ended, they
thought that they were taking the proper method. They were wrong.
Whirling into darkness, The Shadow was no target: but they proved easy prey for the quick-shooting
fighter. Picking them by their gun spurts, The Shadow withered them with bullets. Howls greeted Jorcott
as he neared the hall.
Frantically, Jorcott turned and dived in the direction of the window, hoping to crash through and take a
headlong plunge to the ground below. He was a quick thinker, Jorcott; in the middle of his dash, he
realized that he was putting himself in sight against the background of the window.
Jorcott veered to the wall, stopped to grab up the table near the panel that hid the wall safe. He made a
quick side step into the darkness.
Blindly, but with ardor, Jorcott flung the table, the hallway door his target. He saw the scaling missile
cross the path of flickering light toward the blocky darkness beyond. The Shadow must have spied it
coming just as it completed its long arc, for Jorcott heard shots rip out, accompanied by a splintering of
the table.
Instinctively, The Shadow was firing at the flying piece of furniture, unable to tell, in that brief glimpse,
whether or not Jorcott was driving with it. The cloaked fighter wanted to clip the gentleman crook, to
capture him alive and make him finish his statements.
But Jorcott hadn't accompanied the table. He had swung back toward the paneled wall. Hearing the
clatter of shattering woodwork, the crook was sure that he had delayed The Shadow temporarily.
Jorcott turned, to spring toward the window.
Unfortunately, he had delayed himself, in a permanent fashion.
The time limit was ended. As Jorcott's shoulder brushed past the secret panel, the whole wall burst with
one devastating blast. The ticking machine that Jorcott had planted was loaded with TNT.
FLAYED by chunks of metal that fanned out like shrapnel, Jorcott was hoisted bodily from the floor. A
topsy-turvy figure in a spreading sunburst of engulfing flame, he was hurled across the room, crashing
against the brick hearth of the fireplace.
The force of the concussion staggered The Shadow, even though he was outside the shattered room.
Reeling in the hallway, he was floored beside the thugs that he had dropped with bullets.
Slow in coming to his feet, the black cloaked fighter fancied that he felt the house shudder, even when the
effect of the explosion had passed.
Gushing flame had ignited chunks of broken panels. Like scattered kindling, the bits of wood were setting
rugs and chair cushions ablaze. Groggily, The Shadow guided himself by the light and entered the
smoke-filled room. He found Jorcott lying by the fireplace, a crumpled, twisted shape.
Jorcott's chance to talk was gone. His skull was as broken as his limbs and body. Lips, contorted into a
grotesque smile, were forever frozen. Hope of escape had given Jorcott that grin; doom had struck so
suddenly that the crook had lacked time to lose it.
The death of Ralph Jorcott ended The Shadow's present trail. It was blasted, that trail, like the criminal
who lay on the floor. The explosion, intended to cover up Jorcott's part in crime had done even more.
Crime's blast had postponed The Shadow's chance of uncovering a supercrook.
Only a minute before, Jorcott's brain kind teemed with recollections of a master criminal whose features
were obscured by silver gauze. Jorcott could have told The Shadow certain facts regarding that overlord
of crime, the strange, veiled prophet who knew the details of future evil, because such deeds were of his
own design.
Though Jorcott's information would have been incomplete, it was the sort The Shadow needed. Any
leads to crime's master brain could have proven valuable. One point had been of particular importance:
namely, Jorcott's delivery of the stolen funds. With the crook captured, alone, with the swag, The
Shadow could have forced the trail to its proper conclusion.
As matters stood, The Shadow was back almost at his starting point. He had stopped crime, disposed of
thugs, and gleaned a few slim facts. But those were small results compared to The Shadow's actual aim -
a meeting with the veiled master, whose baffling ways of crime had so far defied all detection!
CHAPTER III. OUT OF DARKNESS
THE shrill notes of police whistles brought The Shadow to motion. He expected such sounds, they were
in keeping with the situation. Unless police had been in the offing, the thugs in the hallway would not have
been so anxious for a silent struggle.
However, the whistles were very close; too close to suit The Shadow, and too numerous. The gunfire
must have brought the police from wherever they were, at least two minutes before the explosion
occurred.
One penetrating whistle echoed through the house, indicating that its owner had entered the side door,
which Jorcott had left unlocked. Reaching the hallway, The Shadow heard clumping sounds below, knew
that the law's invasion was at hand.
By the dying light of a burning rug, The Shadow found the bundle containing Farnum's funds. He had
dropped it while battling the pair of thugs.
There were snarls from the stairway, whither the crooks had dragged themselves. Wounded, their guns
lost in the fray, the pair could do no more than vent spite upon the black-cloaked conqueror who had
bested them.
The police were on the stairs. Rather than waste time in explanation, The Shadow chose an exit.
Crossing the paneled room, he extinguished the burning rug by smothering it with another that had not
caught fire. The deed ended all flames; the rest had burned out rapidly.
Reaching the window, The Shadow took the route that Jorcott had wanted to use. Raising the window,
he swung across the sill, caught the sash and brought it downward as he dropped. He landed in agile
fashion in a courtyard.
With The Shadow tumbled the bundle of swag. Stooping, he reclaimed it. He had a good reason for
carrying along the spoils of thwarted crime.
He wanted the police to learn the real set-up; namely, that the blast had been arranged as a cover-up of a
crime already committed. Should the stolen wealth be found on the scene of crime, the law might
suppose that it had been grabbed following the explosion. Wounded thugs would probably testify that
they had rifled the shattered safe, and then met The Shadow; for they were part of the cover-up game.
Sooner or later, the package would reach the police; but, when it did, The Shadow intended to leave no
doubt that it had been taken before the blast. When The Shadow met with planted evidence, it was
always his policy to nullify it.
His task on this occasion was to prove more difficult than he anticipated. He met with opposition the
moment that he started to pick his way from the courtyard.
Guarded though it was, the tiny beam of The Shadow's flashlight was spotted from an alleyway. Instantly,
the glare of a much larger light sliced in his direction. The Shadow was spotted against a silvery circle that
formed a full moon on the wall behind him.
Instinctively, he dived forward, below the level of the glare. Guns roared, their bullets smacking the wall
that the cloaked fighter had left. The quickness of the fire, plus the raucous shouts accompanying the
shots, told that the attackers were crooks who had recognized their archfoe.
The Shadow had run into the main cover-up crew, posted to draw the police along a false trail!
TWO factors saved The Shadow. These crooks were capable trigger men, and they had gained the
edge. But they did not reckon with The Shadow's speed on the offense, nor the unique defensive
measure that it introduced.
Whipping out an automatic as he dived, The Shadow took the fall on one shoulder, jounced upward on
his elbow as he struck. His gun shoved ahead of him with a trip-hammer action, he was actually shooting
as he landed.
His other arm thrust the square-shaped bundle in front of him. Though fair-sized, the package did not
offer complete protection, but it served well.
Dousing the light the instant The Shadow opened fire, crooks sped their own shots low, in front of their
lone target. They were hoping to clip The Shadow with ricocheting shots. Any bullet, bounding from the
cement, could prove deadly if it landed home.
Amid the roar of guns, The Shadow could hear the zing of bullets; but mobsters were doing more than
listen to The Shadow's fire. They were taking leaden slugs from the fast-spurting muzzle of the cloaked
fighter's automatic. Their flashlights were gone, but The Shadow took spouting guns as his targets and
scored direct hits on their users.
Then came a break in The Shadow's favor, one that ended the stubborn barrage that threatened him. A
window was smashed out from a floor above, and police began to fire at the men in the alley. The
officers were shooting from the paneled room in the Farnum mansion.
Who the crooks were, why they were shooting, did not concern the police. They knew simply that the
men outside were enemies, and treated them as such.
With the crooks in flight, The Shadow rolled to his feet, gathered up his package and ducked to a
sheltered edge of the alley, as the police sprayed flashlights toward the spot where he had been.
Chunks of lead thunked the cement. They were bullets, three of them, falling from the bundle that The
Shadow carried. The slugs were misshapen from their contact with the paving; all had been ricochet
shots, stopped when they drove into the thick bundle of loot.
Any one of those bullets, had it reached The Shadow, would have produced the effect of a dumdum,
spreading mushroom fashion when it hit. The Shadow's stratagem had proven its worth.
More battle was to come. As he hurried through the alley, seeking to overtake the fleeing crooks, The
Shadow heard the whining sirens of approaching police cars. He ducked away from glaring headlights,
only to be spotted by scattered crooks.
They opened a wild fire and The Shadow returned it, this time on the move. He was weaving through a
side alley, blasting with a fresh gun, keeping the bundle pressed against his chest.
Here again was danger from ricochets, for crooks were firing at angles into a brick-walled alley. Direct
shots, however, were beyond their ability, for The Shadow was jabbing bullets far too close for their
comfort. Like rats, the crooks took to whatever holes or passages that they could find.
Then came the bad break that nearly ruined The Shadow's triumph. Backed into the side alley, he met a
wall too high for him to reach the top. The blackness was complete; while probing for an exit from the
cul-de-sac, The Shadow struck against a large ash can. It clattered.
There were shouts from the mouth of the blind alley; not from the scattered crooks, but from arriving
police. Enough shots had come in their direction to make them think that all had been directed toward
them. They were taking it for granted that anyone among these alleyways was an enemy of a murderous
sort. With deadly battle under way, the only policy was to shoot first and investigate afterward.
Locating the ash can by its rattle, one officer fired, shouting for others to do the same. Five seconds later,
four guns were combing the blind alley with low shots, calculated to bring quick results. The bluecoats
heard the ash can topple with a heavy clatter, come rolling toward them. Smoking guns still aimed, they
illuminated the alley with their flashlights.
All that they saw was the bullet-dented ash can rolling lazily toward them from a blank, brick wall. It
didn't occur to them that their shots could hardly have started so large an object in motion; that the
progress of the ash can had been initiated by a kicking foot that overturned it.
THEIR flashlights roved upward, too late to see a cloaked figure rolling across the top of the ten-foot
wall.
Using the high ash can as a stepping-stone, The Shadow had not only hoisted himself above the level of
the low barrage; he had also found a quick way of crossing the wall that formed his only obstacle.
Guns were still talking as spreading police encountered fleeing crooks, who offered fight whenever they
were cornered. The battle was progressing all about the warehouse half a block from the Farnum
mansion. Meanwhile The Shadow, still clutching the shielding bundle of swag, was literally weaving a
course between the warring factions.
Pot shots in the dark were useless. Increasing in numbers, the police had the diminishing crew of crooks
on the run. The thing to do was to block off the flight of the routed thugs. Such a process would serve a
double purpose, as The Shadow's whispered laugh foretold, when he reached a silent street away from
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：77 页 大小：192.3KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

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