Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 181 - The Crime Ray

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THE CRIME RAY
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. CRIME FROM BELOW
? CHAPTER II. CRIME'S MYSTERY
? CHAPTER III. FACTS FOR THE LAW
? CHAPTER IV. THE CONTACT
? CHAPTER V. THE VANISHED HORDE
? CHAPTER VI. THREADS TO CRIME
? CHAPTER VII. THE RAY MACHINE
? CHAPTER VIII. STRIFE IN THE DARK
? CHAPTER IX. CRIME'S NEW DEMAND
? CHAPTER X. THE DEMONSTRATION
? CHAPTER XI. DARK TAKES THE SHADOW
? CHAPTER XII. THE DOUBLE DILEMMA
? CHAPTER XIII. THE MASTER CROOK
? CHAPTER XIV. UP THE RIVER
? CHAPTER XV. WESTON DECIDES
? CHAPTER XVI. THE PRISON BREAK
? CHAPTER XVII. CURBED CRIME
? CHAPTER XVIII. TORMEON SUSPECTS
? CHAPTER XIX. THE UNDERGROUND REALM
? CHAPTER XX. SHATTERED CRIME
CHAPTER I. CRIME FROM BELOW
THE cruising coupe was not the type of car to attract attention. It was a two-year-old model of an
inexpensive make; its color was a dark-green, that passed for black as the car rolled along sparsely
lighted side streets.
Even when it reached the avenue and followed it, the coupe was inconspicuous. So, for that matter, were
the car's two occupants. They had a wary way of huddling low, that driver and the man beside him,
whenever they passed a brightly lighted area.
Their faces, it happened, had been mugged too often. They didn't care to show them when police were
about, for fear that some sharp-eyed officer might identify them as visages that he had seen among
rogues' gallery portraits.
Tonight, police were on hand in this secluded section of Manhattan. Too many of them to suit the two
men in the car. The driver emphasized that, as he swung into a side street:
"Take a gander through the back, Butch. See if that hackie is still tailing us."
"O.K., Jerry," returned Butch. "Keep your own eye peeled for the bulls. Seems like there's twict as many
as there was when we made our last round."
Jerry's grunt was one of agreement. As he piloted the car, he counted uniforms. It appeared that cops
had been moving steadily into the area centered by the Midtown National Bank. At this rate of influx,
there would be a police cordon fully formed by the time the coupe completed another trip.
That was bad enough, but Jerry knew what to do regarding the police. It was the trailing taxicab that
really bothered him.
"Still taggin' us -"
As Butch gave that news, Jerry swung into another avenue. One hand on the wheel, the other on a
revolver, he sped a quick look through the window at his left. He saw the cab, gave a pleased chuckle as
it continued straight across the avenue.
"Guess you figured it wrong, Butch," announced Jerry. "With that bird gone, we don't have to worry."
"What if the bulls spot us, though?" objected Butch. "There's plenty of 'em know that we work for Shag
Korman."
"They didn't lamp either of us on the jewelry job, did they?"
"No. But they were closer than they shoulda been. Besides -"
Butch cut off. Jerry had pulled the coupe to the curb, stopping beside a subway entrance. He gave a
quick order to his companion:
"Hop down there, Butch, and slip the dope through to Shag. Tell him I'm heading up the line to tip off the
troubleshooters. We're going to make suckers out of those bulls. That's why Shag put us on this trick."
With Butch sidling toward the subway entrance, Jerry scanned the street, saw what he expected - a man
in plain clothes who looked like a headquarters dick. Shoving the coupe into gear, Jerry wheeled full
about in the middle of the avenue and started a rapid spurt in the opposite direction.
The maneuver accomplished exactly what Jerry intended, though he didn't look back to view the result.
The headquarters man sprang from his doorway, placed a whistle to his lips. Before blowing it, he
waited, hoping to spy a patrol car.
A taxi wheeled in from a side street, took the same direction as the coupe. More traffic was coming up
the avenue; pulling from a batch of trucks was the patrol car that the dick wanted. He flagged it, held a
quick conversation with the men in the car. Then the patrolling officers were on their way, with the
detective sauntering toward the subway entrance, to await the arrival of a squad.
DOWN in the almost-deserted local subway station, Butch was rapping at the change window to arouse
the sleepy clerk. Traffic wasn't heavy at this late hour; the man behind the window scarcely noticed
Butch's face. He was more interested in the quarter dollar that the crook had laid on the counter.
Taking it, the change-maker slid five nickels in return. He was idling again, half asleep, when Butch went
through the turnstile
The lights of a local were glimmering down the track. Butch was walking rapidly along the concrete
platform, as if he wanted to be far enough ahead to enter the first car. But by the time the train arrived, it
was plain that Butch did not intend to be a passenger.
He was seated on a handy bench, his head slumped on his shoulder. He looked like a drunken bum, who
had chosen the subway as a better sleeping place than a park bench.
Doors closed; the local pulled out. Butch came to life again, made rapid paces toward the very front of
the platform. It was not a dead end; at that point a passage cut right, marked by arrows pointing to an
exit on another street. Taking the passage, Butch stopped by a barred door - an exit to an office building,
which was used only in the daytime.
A gun muzzle poked through a crack of the door; an eye glistened above it. Butch was recognized. The
door opened and he entered to meet the glare of flashlights. In a quick, hoarse whisper, Butch piped the
news that bulls were closing in. The mall who had received him growled the word:
"Tell Shag."
A flashlight gleamed along a concrete wall. It showed a rounded opening flanked by the jagged ends of
steel girders. The hole, five feet in diameter, appeared to have been made by some mighty boring
machine.
Knee deep along the floor lay the remains of crumbled concrete; among the chunks was strewn a grayish
powder that glittered with bright specks of metal. Looking inward, Butch saw a deeper hole, through
which a sweatered man was crawling to carry the news to Shag Korman.
The second cavity was more interesting than the first. It was a jagged opening, but stretched across it
were thin wires of bare copper which the crawling man lifted carefully with gloved hands as he passed
through.
During the few minutes that followed, Butch and his pals heard another local rumble into the station and
depart. Then the crawler was back bringing two men with him. Guns and flashlights in readiness, the
crooks heard what they were to do.
Moving out from the passage, they approached the platform of the subway station. Butch was delegated
to take a look toward the turnstiles. He poked his head out past the edge, returned it with a grin.
"Listen!"
Butch's fellow-thugs could hear the muffled approach of footsteps echoing from the vaulted depths. They
heard a voice, subdued with a recognizable gruffness. It was Butch who whispered the identity of that
tone.
"Joe Cardona," said the crook. "The wise guy that's always on the job! He's shoved his snoot into trouble
one time too often! The police commissioner will be short one inspector, after we get through with this
job!"
FROM a distance came the increasing rumble of another subway local. Butch took another look past the
corner, to make sure which track the train was on. He gave a quick nod to the others; they sprang into
sight, a few of them, and spurted shots along the platform.
That fire brought a rapid response from a swarthy, stockily built man who wore plain clothes and who
was backed by a squad of police and detectives, a dozen strong. Inspector Joe Cardona believed in just
one antidote for crooks when they began to shoot; his method was to answer them with a more powerful
volley. The method seemed to work on this occasion.
Butch and the rest were scurrying wildly through their passage when Cardona and the officers arrived.
Ducking into the shelter of the basement doorway, they rallied with a barrage that told the police that
strategy would be needed to complete the attack. The situation didn't phase Cardona.
"Keep low!" shouted the ace inspector above the roar of the arriving local. "We'll have those rats out of
there -"
Before Cardona could complete the prophecy, new shots came. A batch of passengers had sprung from
the doors of the local the instant that they opened. They were thugs with guns; the troubleshooters
summoned by Butch's pal, Jerry.
Wheeling, the police returned the fire. They were quicker on the trigger than the thugs expected. Two
crooks staggered back into the train; the rest were stranded on the platform, as guards slithered the
doors shut.
The local was on its way, amid the crash of breaking windows, the screams of actual passengers, who
were dropping to the shelter of the floors. The rattle of the train's departure was drowned by the bark of
guns.
Again, the law had crooks on the run, but once more, rats showed purpose in their flight. Jerry and his
tribe were making for the turnstiles. Gaining them, they were in the station proper, with the shelter of
corners near the change booth, where the frightened occupant had ducked from sight.
Leading a rapid charge, Cardona had hopes of routing crime's new troops. He was taking his whole
squad with him, not guessing the part that the first thugs intended to play.
More shots were blasting, but Cardona scarcely heard them amid the banging clatter of another subway
train; an express, coming down a center track. It was the sight of men staggering beside him that made
Cardona turn about.
Butch and the crew from the basement passage were loose again, starting an attack from the front of the
platform. Trapped in the open stretch of concrete, Cardona and his squad were between two fires.
Crouching, grabbing for benches, ducking behind slender posts, they were outnumbered, confronted by
death from both directions.
Gunmen were sparing in their shots, content to snipe off police until they forced them to some mad
endeavor. Joe Cardona saw the purpose and resolved not to wait.
Leaping into the open, he started toward the turnstiles, intending to blast his way through there, if
possible. His squad went with him, totally vulnerable to the sharpshooters at the platform's front.
All that Butch awaited was the beginning of the fray up by the turnstiles, before launching his entire crew
upon the police when the latter would be fully occupied. But something else was due before that
moment.
A SHARP, blasting sound came from the speeding express train that was roaring along the center track
through the station. As if blown out by a giant puff, every light on the train was extinguished. There was a
terrific shriek of brakes; the catapulting express quivered and jounced, coming to a stop in the space of
the platform's length.
It was one of those emergency stops for which New York subway trains are geared; a halt that
threatened to hurl the cars from the track, by reason of its trip-hammer action. There were wild, trailing
yells from passengers; then the rear lights of the last car were jerking, swaying, beyond the pillars, just
past the passage where Butch and his crew stood.
Despite themselves, the crooks forgot the police and turned in the direction of the halted train. Above the
muffled shrieks from within the darkened cars, they heard a closer sound: a strident challenge that riveted
them.
It was the mighty burst of a sinister laugh, a mockery that left no doubt as to its author or his location. In
the glow of the train's red tail-lamps, they saw a black-cloaked figure leaning across the swaying chains
that blocked the train's rear platform. Before they could aim, that black-clad figure vaulted the swinging
barrier.
There was the momentary outline of a slouch-hatted head against a ruddy light; then, like the shoulders
beneath it, the head was gone. The cloaked rider who had halted the express was dropping to the tracks
behind the darkened car.
The instant that he struck the concrete roadbed, that singular arrival evidenced his presence again. He
issued his strident mirth anew, but drowned it of his own volition, with another form of challenge. From
among the pillars came the bursts of automatics, stabbing shots straight for Butch and the startled crew of
thugs.
Crooks were due for battle of a sort that they had not sought. Murderous sharpshooters were confronted
by crime's archfoe, The Shadow!
CHAPTER II. CRIME'S MYSTERY
BY the mere fact of his arrival, The Shadow had brought timely rescue to Cardona's squad. Started on
their mad rush toward the turnstiles, the law's representatives drove back Jerry's crew and routed them.
Those mobbies couldn't understand why they weren't getting the co-operation that they expected.
Staggering for the street, hard pressed by the police, they were muttering imprecations meant for Butch
and his outfit.
Though they didn't realize it, the crooks who reached the street were better off than those who had
remained below.
At the platform's front, ugly-faced gunners were staggering as they fired into blackness. They couldn't
find The Shadow out there along the darkened track, but he was picking them off by the glow of the
platform lights.
The only hits that thugs registered came when their bullets clanged pillars. Those clanks of lead against
steel seemed to chime with The Shadow's laugh, the well-timed reports of his guns. He always had a post
in front of him when he fired, and those were stout pillars.
Crouching low, Butch was urging his remaining men to spread. They'd get The Shadow if they used their
noodles, according to the way Butch phrased it. Yes, they'd get The Shadow, somewhere out by the
central tracks.
But The Shadow wasn't along those tracks when the thugs managed to play their flashlights beyond the
pillars. Craning from the platform's edge, they were due to learn his new location from the new taste of
bullets that he gave them.
A gun flame knifed suddenly from below the platform's edge. One thug staggered backward, losing gun
and flashlight. Another saw the stabbing tongues, gave a triumphant shout as he leaned farther out, to aim.
His cry brought a spurt in his direction.
Crooks heard a shriek, saw the thwarted thug go sprawling to the local track. His clawing hand found a
strip of metal, his body was lashed with a wild contortion.
That wounded mobster had plucked the third rail. He was one murderer who didn't have to wait his turn
in the electric chair. He took his burning in the sight of others, and their urge for battle suddenly lessened.
Not so with The Shadow.
His laugh threw awe into the remaining few, as they dived for their passage. It seemed a knell for the
crook who had found a proper fate, as though the incident had been deliberately managed - by The
Shadow.
Taunted by ominous mirth, Butch and his pitiful pals were on the run, harried by shots that came from the
edge of the platform. Flinging his guns ahead of him, The Shadow gave a swift, sideward hoist up from
the track. Scooping his automatics, he supplied a kick to a revolver that a wounded thug was aiming.
While the gun was still clattering away from the snarling hoodlum's reach, The Shadow headed after the
few who had managed to flee.
He overtook them before they could barricade themselves behind the basement door. One thug took a
bullet from a .45, while the others scrambled for the round hole in the wall. Before they reached there,
The Shadow was upon them; he was slashing with his guns, knowing that he would need bullets later.
Staggered by that rear attack, Butch and a last companion sank gunless. The Shadow's way was clear.
COMING to the inner gap, the cloaked victor noticed the copper wires that stretched across the cavity.
But he seemed to understand their purpose, for he issued a whispered laugh, then lifted the wires
carefully with his thin-gloved hands.
Through the opening, The Shadow used a tiny flashlight, found a stairway that led upward. Sight of the
marble steps gave a clue to his surroundings.
The Shadow was in the basement of the Midtown National Bank. Off in the dimness, he saw
safe-deposit boxes that crooks had ignored. He knew where he would find the main body of raiders.
They would be upstairs, at the vault.
Far greater than the surprise in the subway was the consternation that The Shadow produced when he
reached the main floor of the bank. There, he saw three men in front of the vault, which showed a gaping
hole like those in the walls downstairs.
One thug was holding a flashlight steadied on the stairway that led up from the basement, expecting pals
to arrive from that direction. When The Shadow came into the glare, all that the crook could do was to
give a guttural croak.
The others spun about, then dived. The flashlight was flung away, leaving darkness. They were pulling
guns, shooting blindly. The flashes from their revolvers were give-aways that brought The Shadow's fire
in return. Though the commotion was brief, it brought a startling result.
Someone pulled a light switch. The whole banking floor was flooded with brilliance. By an outer door
which had a gaping wire-crossed hole, The Shadow saw a crook he recognized: Shag Korman.
Long known as a deader of thuggish squads that worked for racketeers, Shag was supposed to have left
New York during a clean-up. Rumors had linked him with recent crimes, but The Shadow, scouring
Manhattan in search of those responsible for robberies, had gained no proof of Shag's presence until this
moment.
There was no mistaking Shag Korman. Broad-faced, with hard-set jaw, he had tiny ratlike eyes beneath
a bulging forehead that was topped by an uncombed mop of reddish hair. The combination was a sort
that made him recognizable on sight.
Shag's eyes were squinting at present. It wasn't the brilliant light that bothered them; it was blackness, in
the form of The Shadow. Shag hadn't expected the cloaked fighter to pop up in the very center of the
rifled bank. But Shag had the quick wit that his underlings lacked.
Two thugs were flanking him with drawn revolvers. Shag propelled his cronies in The Shadow's
direction, poking their gun hands upward as he shoved them. With almost the same move, he dropped
away toward the ruined outer door.
In one brief glimpse, The Shadow viewed a scene beyond. Crooks were pushing a peculiar mechanism
out of the way; it was a squatly, compact device the size of a large radio cabinet. They were making
room for others, who were passing boxes of loot through the cross wires of the gaping bank door.
Shag was yanking a gun; so were others by the door. There would be a mass attack if the two assassins
failed. Recognizing that, The Shadow did not fire as the two killers charged. Instead, he wheeled away
across the bank floor, fading shiftily in one direction, then the other, just as the pair opened fire.
They had wasted shots, before they saw The Shadow's objective. He was wheeling toward the jagged
door of the rifled bank vault, picking a spot that could serve him as a stronghold when the later attack
came.
There were spread wires at that opening also, but they did not matter. The Shadow did not intend to
enter the vault. He merely wanted the protection of the alcove, where it was situated.
A LOUD yell came from Shag Korman; it carried a note of expected triumph. The two crooks who had
blasted shots at The Shadow made a frenzied dive for the outer door, instead of offering further battle.
Those sudden happenings, plus the snakish feel of a thick, insulated wire upon which The Shadow trod,
were enough to make the black-cloaked fighter change his own intentions.
Whirling full about, The Shadow became a streak of living blackness, as he dived for the stairway that led
down into the basement. He was in retreat, inspired by a sheer, instinctive guess that Shag was about to
release a menace against which no human fighter could compete.
It came - an explosion that shook the whole floor, jarring The Shadow's dart into a headlong plunge
down the marble steps. Shag had yanked a switch connected to the insulated wire. He had loosed a blast
that blew the empty vault into fragments.
Finding himself at the bottom of the steps, The Shadow heard a clangor from above. The explosion had
set off the alarm system connected with the bank vault. Curiously, those bells had not begun to ring when
the vault was first entered, but they were making up for their tardiness, jounced into life by the explosion.
The thing wasn't sensible.
In his present situation, shaken by the pitch down the stairs, The Shadow was temporarily bewildered by
it. Then, his senses clearing, he groped along the steps, to regain his feet.
His hand clutched another thick cord, one that ran down to the bottom of the stairs.
It meant another explosive charge ready to be released; one that would blow those lower wall gaps,
where The Shadow had battled Butch's crew! It threatened doom, not to The Shadow but to others,
whose shouts he could hear. Cardona and his squad were coming from the platform of the subway
station!
In that moment, The Shadow was confronted with a real dilemma. He had two choices: one, to dash out
through the lower route and hold back Cardona's men before it was too late; the other, to head up the
stairs again and prevent Shag from setting off the charge. Though the first course seemed more
reasonable, The Shadow staked his chances on the second.
He knew that if he reappeared, Shag might forget other matters long enough for Cardona's squad to
come through. In that case, The Shadow would have reserves at his disposal. Without an instant's
hesitation, he started up the stairs.
His choice proved better than he thought.
Before The Shadow had ascended half a dozen steps, the lower blast went off, quivering the building's
foundations. The Shadow, had he sped out to warn Cardona, would have been in the midst of the
explosion when it came.
As it happened, he was safe; distant enough, upon the steps, to escape the shock of thunderous upheaval
- and his main mission, too, was fulfilled.
The police were still short of the passage leading to the shattered lower walls. They were blocked from
joining The Shadow, but they remained unharmed.
NEW alarms were clanging when The Shadow launched himself across the deserted banking floor, intent
upon overtaking Shag and the main mob. Crooks had made good use of the short period allotted them.
Except for the few that The Shadow had felled with his first shots, all were gone, their swag and their
precious machine with them.
They had not broken the wires that stretched across the gaping outer door. Beyond, The Shadow could
hear the rumble of a truck, muffled in an alleyway. He didn't stop for the wires as he reached the door; he
ripped right through them, starting the donging of new alarms directly overhead.
He saw the truck pulling out, men clambering aboard it. From behind it was an uncoiling wire, another of
those thick insulated cords that had the writhe of a blacksnake.
That sight was The Shadow's cue not to halt where he was. Neglecting the safety that the doorway
afforded against gunfire, he sprang out into the alley, shooting for the rear of the truck while on the run.
One mobster lost his grip and hit the cobbles; another sprawled down into the truck. The rest ducked.
Among them was Shag Korman, and the leader of the horde tugged something as he went.
The explosion that came was the most violent of all. It wrecked the wall for a dozen feet on each side of
the hewn door. It seemed to jounce the cobblestones from the alleyway, for they came up in a mass to
meet The Shadow.
There was a blinding glare; then blackness. Yet, in the gloom, The Shadow raised himself from a
sprawled position and fired two more shots, as a warning that he still had teeth for any crooks unwise
enough to return.
There was a rattle of fading gunfire from the direction of the avenue. The truck was running the thin
cordon of police. Added shots told of convoying cars, helping the escape. Then came silence, broken
only by the sad, occasional wails of police sirens, that seemed to give melancholy acknowledgment of
defeat.
Like the law, The Shadow had been thwarted in his attempt to nullify crime. Nevertheless, there was
significance to the low-toned laugh that came while he was groping from the vacated alley. That tone
carried a prophecy of future trouble for the vanished crooks. The Shadow, in fighting his way to their
very midst, had delved deeply into their long-hidden game.
When Joe Cardona arrived in the alleyway, after a long trip around through the subway station, he found
no trace of The Shadow. The cloaked fighter had vanished, to take his own route through the night.
CHAPTER III. FACTS FOR THE LAW
RALPH WESTON, police commissioner, was in a baffled mood. That was why he had left his office to
seek the comparative seclusion of the exclusive Cobalt Club. There, some moments glum, at others
fuming, the commissioner bristled to the tips of his short-clipped mustache as he poured his problems
upon his friend and confidant, Lamont Cranston.
Calm of manner, leisurely in action, Cranston made the very sort of listener that Weston wanted. The
expression of his hawkish face was almost masklike, but he seemed to weigh all that the commissioner
told him.
There was a good reason why Cranston liked to hear comments that Weston offered. Lamont Cranston
was a guise of The Shadow, and was therefore interested in the law's version of mysterious crimes that
had reached their peak with last night's robbery at the Midtown National Bank.
There was a real Lamont Cranston - a big-game hunter and world traveler, and, known to him, while he
was away The Shadow would adopt his identity.
"We have had warnings," declared Weston, "if they could be called such. Warnings before every crime.
Here, for example" - he spread some typewritten letters - "are communications received by wholesale
jewelers, promising them protection against burglaries if they paid the sum of one hundred thousand
dollars."
"And those warnings," supplied Cranston, in an even tone, "were ignored, of course?"
"Not entirely," returned the commissioner. "We were on the lookout. But that didn't stop the three
robberies that followed, at the rate of one a night."
Cranston remembered those robberies. He had tried to forestall them, as The Shadow, but had gained
his leads too late.
"Then came these threats against the banks," continued Weston, referring to another letter. "A demand of
half a million dollars, to be paid through the New York Clearing House! We ignored it" - Weston spread
his hands, helplessly - "and they cracked the Midtown National last night."
The Shadow reached for the letters. They bore the letterhead of the General Protective Association,
Excalibur Building, New York. None had signatures; simply the title of the so-called association,
typewritten.
"There is no Excalibur Building," declared Weston. "All that is just a blind. If these crooks were paid,
they would still commit robberies, in my opinion. But the uncanny part of it is that we can't find a clue to
them, or any of their stolen goods."
As Weston spoke, he noted a mild query in Cranston's eyes. The commissioner immediately modified his
statement.
"We know who led the mob," said Weston. "We learned that last night. A crook named Shag Korman
was in it. We know that from the identities of the mobsters who were killed. All of them were linked to
Shag. But what's become of the rest? They're gone, the whole tribe of them. Completely vanished!"
"And you consider Shag Korman the big-shot?"
The commissioner smiled at Cranston's question. In reply, Weston tapped the letters.
"These show," he declared, "that a real brain is behind the game. Some racketeer, bigger than any in the
past, has found a way to make crooks appear and vanish; to commit crimes in the twinkling of an eye.
Shag is simply the subordinate, who leads the necessary mob.
"That robbery last night" - Weston was wagging his forefinger - "was highly mysterious. The crooks blew
the bank vault, the basement wall, and finally the side door of the bank. The explosions came three in a
row" - he snapped his thumb and finger in rapid succession - "like that! At the finish, where were the
crooks? Gone! With more than the half million that they had demanded!"
CRANSTON'S face looked dubious, as though such events could not have happened. Weston became
insistent.
"That's just what they did, Cranston! Of course, there was a lot of shooting before. But that was when
they decoyed Inspector Cardona away from the main scene. They started trouble in a subway station, to
hold him there."
"Rather unfortunate, commissioner."
"It was. But Cardona can't be blamed. He guessed where the robbery was due, which is how he
happened to be on hand. It was a marvelous guess, Cranston, and Cardona did nearly as well with the
last jewel robbery."
The Shadow remembered the crime in question. The law had beaten him to the scene by several minutes;
time enough to injure his own plans, but not soon enough to frustrate the crooks. History had, in a way,
repeated itself last night at the Midtown National.
"Cardona is playing hunches," remarked Weston, "and while I do not ordinarily approve of such a policy,
I cannot condemn it when it works. In fact, Cardona's promptness in being on the scene is the one factor
that has saved me from more serious criticism from the newspapers."
His own mention of Cardona reminded the commissioner that he had not yet heard from his ace
inspector, although the afternoon was late. Weston went to make a phone call, leaving his friend
Cranston to consider mentally the facts that had been mentioned.
There was much for The Shadow to consider.
Recent crimes, as perpetrated by Shag Korman and his followers, were still mysterious to the law. Only
The Shadow had learned one all-important fact: that crooks had some new and amazing way of entering
jewelry stores and banks without setting off alarms. Those gaping holes, strung with wires as silent as
unplucked harp strings, were proof of the method that existed.
Literally, criminals knew how to pulverize steel, without injuring copper. They had cut through doors of
metal, through steel girders, which, in yielding, had caused concrete to crack and crumble with them. Yet
the copper wires, attached to alarm bells, had failed to function when needed.
In the case of the Midtown National, the crooks had worked in from the subway, finished the vault and
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