Grant, Maxwell - The.City.of.Doom

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1
THE CITY OF DOOM
Back from the grave comes Doctor
Mocquino, the Voodoo Master, to battle
The Shadow again in a terrific struggle
to the death!
CHAPTER I
AT THE STEEL WORKS
THICK night engulfed the valley about
the town of Hampstead. One area alone
showed brilliance; that was the central dis-
trict of the little city, where rows of street
lamps shone and electric signs added their
blinking brightness.
Near the town, a few specks of light
showed against the hillsides; but beyond
was a blanket of blackness that seemed a
shroud of doom. A stranger, viewing the
town from some near-by slope, could well
have pictured the darkness as a monster,
about to swallow the city.
Nor would the thought have been too
fanciful. Hampstead was a city touched by
terror - a town where disaster had already
taken toll.
Men who passed upon the streets were
melancholy. Smiles were forced when
friends exchanged their greetings. Though
business was as usual, this was a surface
indication only. Secretly, every citizen of
Hampstead held a horror of the future.
Out where the railroad line reached the
city limits, stood the long, low-roofed build-
ings of the Hampstead Steel Works. There,
quivering light flickered from frosted win-
dows, accompanied by the thrum and clank
of machinery. The steel plant was working
to capacity. The night shift was on duty.
Two men were standing in a little of-
fice, staring through the glass panel of a
door that opened into the main furnace
room. They were watching a crew of men
at work - a score of hardy laborers whose
faces showed grimy against the ruddy glare
from open-fronted furnaces.
THE CITY OF DOOM
by Maxwell Grant
As originally published in “The Shadow Magazine,” May 15, 1936
2
THE CITY OF DOOM
One of the observing men was the fore-
man of the furnace room. His companion
was the general supervisor of the steel plant.
“IT’S been like clockwork tonight, Mr.
Harlin,” declared the foreman, solemnly.
“Not a thing to trouble us. Every man’s been
right at his job.”
Harlin nodded.
“I’ve been watching them, Steve,” he
told the foreman. “This department is run-
ning as smoothly as every other one. But
we can’t be sure about anything.”
“On account of those other troubles?”
Another nod from Harlin. The supervi-
sor pulled a folded newspaper from his
pocket and tapped its headlines.
“This town is jinxed,” he stated, seri-
ously. “The people here know it. Our local
newspapers have tried to softpedal it; but
they haven’t in other cities. Look at this
sheet, Steve.”
The foreman took the newspaper, stud-
ied it while the supervisor kept steady watch
through the window in the door.
“Whew!” Steve’s utterance was spon-
taneous. “They sure made a big howdy-do
about those two wrecks in the railroad
yards!”
“Why shouldn’t they?” demanded
Harlin. “Both were unexplainable. One
would have been bad enough; but a second
one, at the same spot, is ten times worse.
Read what it says about the quarry com-
pany. They’re shutting down.”
“Afraid to bring in dynamite,” nodded
Steve. “On account of danger in the yards.”
The supervisor continued his watch,
while the foreman devoured more news from
Out from the mammoth ladle came a cataract of liquid steel, more terrible
than the flaming lava of a volcano.
3
THE CITY OF DOOM
the out-of-town journal. Steve was mum-
bling in surprised tone, half to himself, half
to the supervisor.
“Eight men killed in those smashes! We
thought it was only three. Here are facts on
that boiler explosion at the dye plant last
week. Two men died along with the engi-
neer! Say, if this gets out -”
The supervisor snapped a query that
interrupted the foreman’s muttering:
“Who’s on the ladle, Steve?”
The foreman laid the newspaper aside
and stared through the square window. A
huge device shaped like a mammoth cheese-
box was moving slowly through the furnace
room, suspended from an overhead track.
Workmen had ceased their labors while it
approached. Harlin was eyeing the advance
of the metal monster.
“Old Joe Grandy’s handling it,” declared
the foreman. “Best man in the place. Al-
ways holds up when he gets close to the
pouring platform, so as to check it for him-
self.”
“Good!” approved the supervisor.
“Grandy is reliable. Let’s go out, though,
and watch while he lets the ladle ride.”
THE two men stepped from the office.
The mammoth ladle halted as they ap-
proached it. They saw a stocky, gray-haired
man climb down from a perch where the
controls were located. Spryly, he stepped
to the pouring platforms, which were at the
side of the big room.
Checking those platforms was the
foreman’s job. It had been done; otherwise,
no order would have been given for the ladle
to make its trip. But old Joe Grandy took
nothing for granted. His job was to tilt that
ladle when it reached the pouring platforms;
to loose tons of molten steel from the great
cauldron that he controlled. Old Joe was
making sure that the platforms and their
troughs were ready.
“Grandy’s the right man,” affirmed the
supervisor, nodding to Steve, the foreman.
“We’ll put his system in the regulations:
Always stop the ladle short of the pouring
platforms; make final inspection, then bring
up the ladle.”
“That’s what Grandy’s going to do
now,” returned Steve. Then, with a laugh:
“Look how spry old Joe is! Shoving back
those fellows who want to boost him up to
the controls! He can make the climb him-
self.”
Workers by the pouring platforms had
seen the foreman. They were signaling that
the second inspection had shown all in or-
der. Others, beyond the pouring platform
were chatting as they stood beneath the bulk
of the motionless ladle.
“Steve’” ripped Harlin, suddenly.
“What’s making old Grandy wait? Why
don’t he move the ladle up to the platforms?
That molten steel can’t wait all night.”
“He’s ready to move it now,” snapped
back the foreman. “There he goes, handling
the controls. Only five feet more and -”
Steve’s voice broke with a gasp. Rooted,
he stood goggle-eyed; then his new words
came with a terrified shriek:
“Grandy’s at the wrong lever! Look out
- up by the platforms -”
4
THE CITY OF DOOM
The cry was too late. Old Grandy had
swung away from the levers that controlled
the forward motion of the ladle. He had
placed his hand upon another rod; he was
tugging it. The ladle was tilting; a yawning
mouth was opening in its side.
Nothing could have halted the deluge
that came. Not even old Joe Grandy; for
he, least of all, seemed to realize his mis-
take. That was evidenced by the fact that
his back was turned toward the tilting caul-
dron, giving him no chance to swing away
to the safety of his perch.
Out from the mammoth ladle came a
cataract of liquid steel, more terrible than
the flaming lava of a volcano. With its first
gulp, the surge of molten metal over-
whelmed the unfortunate man who had re-
leased it. Grandy, a shriek upon his lips,
was plucked from the forward edge of his
control perch. A bobbing shape in a hiss-
ing, metallic wave, the gray-haired man was
pitched to the floor beside the pouring plat-
forms.
As the wave struck, five other men were
caught within its path. Roaring, its own
weight adding to the quick tilt of the ladle,
the molten steel crashed with the power of
a Niagara, engulfing the doomed men be-
low.
Not one of the five could scramble to
safety. The cries that they managed to utter
were brief - a momentary recognition of the
quick death which was coming to them.
Steel scorched flesh, withering its vic-
tims before their bodies could sense the pain
of the terrific heat. A blast of torrid air swept
through the huge room, drowning the fumes
of the furnaces. Then molten steel was ev-
erywhere, pouring, spreading, seeking lower
levels while men found their legs and ran
shrieking from the monstrous substance that
sought them.
STEVE bolted forward. Harlin grabbed
the foreman, hurled him back against the
office door. There was no help for the men
upon the floor, except the aid that they could
give themselves. Harlin, above the level of
the flow, held his vantage point and shouted
advice to the men.
Some heard the supervisor and heeded.
They leaped for iron steps between the fur-
naces; scrambled upward to levels of safety.
Others did not hear. Confused, they lost all
sense of direction. Harlin saw three more
workers go to doom. Spreading steel caught
their ankles, seemed to trip them as they
howled. They sprawled, splashing, into the
hellish river that had gripped them.
A fourth man, farther away, stumbled
at the foot of an iron stairway. He could
not follow Harlin’s call; but a companion
heard the supervisor’s shout. From the
steps, the other worker snatched the last man
to safety. The steel lapped the base of the
steps; its heat made the ironwork glow and
quiver.
The supervisor sagged, weakened by his
ordeal. Nine men had perished including old
Joe Grandy, whose slip had loosed the mol-
ten horror. The liquid metal had reached its
limits; it had lapped the fronts of furnaces,
found an emergency doorway. But that
would be its farthest mark.
5
THE CITY OF DOOM
Steadying himself, Harlin managed to
reach the office. He was looking for Steve,
to tell him that the steel would harden. There
would be no more human toll; but other loss
would prove tremendous. Harlin found the
foreman at the telephone.
“I’ve called for ambulances!” gulped
Steve. “Thanks, Mr. Harlin, for hauling me
back! I’d most certainly have jumped in
there -”
The foreman buried his head in his
hands; the supervisor found a chair.
“No use, those ambulances,” he choked.
“Not even hearses could find work here,
Steve! There’ll be no bodies from that mess.
They were swallowed alive, Steve, lost in
that steel! It happened - worse than I
feared.”
The clang of ambulances was already
sounding. The wail of a huge siren was ris-
ing from the steel works. As Steve arose
and pressed open a window to relieve the
stifling atmosphere, he and Harlin could see
the lights of automobiles stopping on the
highway that led into Hampstead.
Once again, stark terror had found this
city of doom. The siren’s wail; the clang of
bells; the shouts of men outside - all were
proclaiming the horrendous news.
Rescuers, yanking open a door, saw the
seething spread of steel that glistened in the
glow of furnaces. They heard the calls of
men who were isolated in spots of safely -
shouts that warned them to stay back and
let the metal cool.
The word passed in terrified tones. It
stopped the arriving ambulances. It came
to squads of men from other portions of the
plant and held them, in awed groups, whis-
pering the news of tragedy.
Those whispers reached the space where
cars had pulled in from the highway. Breath-
less men told others of the terror that had
struck; how rescue would be impossible for
those who had felt the touch of living, burn-
ing steel.
WITHIN the window of a coupe, a si-
lent listener caught those tragic mutters. His
eyes turned toward the building where the
hellish stream had done its work. The driver
of that coupe had chanced to reach the out-
skirts of Hampstead just as the steel plant’s
siren had broken loose with its banshee
screech of disaster.
A lone watcher among the throngs who
huddled about the steel works - such was
the arrival in the coupe. Yet he, more than
any other, held regret for the tragedy that
had occurred. He had come to Hampstead
with a single mission: to prevent disasters
such as this. He had reached the town too
late to halt the new stroke of unexplainable
deaths.
The silent watcher in the coupe was The
Shadow. Master of crime detection, he had
divined the presence of an evil, unseen hand
behind the horrors which had come to
Hampstead.
There was determination in the blaze of
The Shadow’s steady eyes. This tragedy
would be the last. No longer would destruc-
tion stalk through the city of doom.
6
THE CITY OF DOOM
CHAPTER II
FROM THE DARK
Two hours had passed since the catas
trophe at the steel plant. Lights were
glowing in the large furnace room, where
workers were present, using electric drills
upon chunks of hardened steel. Outside, the
glimmer of flashlights told that guards were
patrolling the vicinity of the plant.
There were lights in another building.
They came from windows on the second
floor and marked the offices of the steel
company. There was a downstairs door,
where a guard stood on duty, chatting with
a companion.
“The big guns is upstairs,” informed the
guard, in an undertone. “They showed up
half an hour ago.”
“Listening to Harlin and Steve, are
they?”
“Sure. The coroner’s there with them.
Harlin looked pretty shaky when he went
up.”
“He ought to. Seeing them fellows get
swallowed by that steel must have been kind
of tough to look at.”
With this comment, the guard’s friend
started away. The guard called after him:
“See if you can find Travers over by the
furnace. Tell him it’s time I was off the trick.
Have him send over some fellow from his
own crew.”
Three minutes passed, while the guard
paced back and forth in front of the dim
light that came from the doorway. There
was a stir in darkness close by. The guard
wheeled, with the query:
“Who’s there?”
“Came over to relieve you,” responded
a gruff voice. “Mr. Travers sent me.”
The guard did not see the speaker; but
took it for granted that he was the proper
man. He grunted a good night and walked
away from the door. It was not until he had
passed a corner that a figure stepped into
the light.
That form was cloaked in black. The
arrival was The Shadow. He had heard the
conversation; he had taken advantage of it.
He had bluffed the guard into believing that
he was the man sent as relief watcher.
No introduction
was necessary.
The Shadow knew
this intruder for
Banzarro.
7
THE CITY OF DOOM
THE SHADOW did not linger at the
doorway. He knew that Travers’s man
would soon arrive. He wanted the new guard
to think that the old one had simply gone
off duty because his time was up. The
Shadow’s own work lay elsewhere.
Entering the doorway, The Shadow took
to a darkened flight of stairs. He ascended
and reached a hallway that showed a nar-
row shaft of light from a partly opened door.
Edging in from darkness, The Shadow saw
the interior of an office.
Officials were gathered about a table.
With these company men was another whom
The Shadow knew must be the coroner.
Harlin was seated at the far end of the table.
The supervisor looked pale; his voice came
brokenly as he spoke.
“That’s the whole story!” declared
Harlin. “Just as I saw it, gentlemen. Noth-
ing was wrong mechanically. The mistake
was a human one; and those kind are bound
to happen.”
“We have your full report on Joseph
Grandy,” returned the coroner, fingering a
sheaf of papers. “I regard it as thorough,
Mr. Harlin. We can accept the statements
of the foreman and three laborers that
Grandy was in full possession of his facul-
ties.”
“The most reliable man in the plant,”
stated Harlin. “Always sober and consci-
entious. A loyal fellow, too, old Joe was.
He didn’t know the slip he’d made; if he
had, he wouldn’t have been the first to go.”
The coroner drew a penciled diagram
from the papers. It was a sketch made by
Harlin, showing the position of the levers
that controlled the big ladle.
“I think that this explains it,” decided
the coroner, with a nod. “With all his care-
fulness, Grandy performed certain actions
automatically. He was farther forward than
he realized. When he reached for the start-
ing lever, he grasped the tilting device in-
stead.”
“That’s the way I saw it, coroner,” as-
sured the supervisor. “The diagram bears
out my explanation.”
The coroner arose; he put Harlin’s re-
port into a briefcase: then passed carbon
sheets across the table to the supervisor.
Other men were rising; The Shadow saw
them pause. One of the officials had a query.
“Tell us this, coroner,” he asked, in
troubled tone. “Do you connect this acci-
dent with the other disasters that have oc-
curred in Hampstead?”
Emphatically, the coroner shook his
head.
“But they look like sabotage,” persisted
the official. “This is the fourth accident; and
every one brought heavy property damage
along with its toll of life.”
The coroner reached in his briefcase and
brought out some sheets of yellow paper.
He passed them across the table.
“File those with your own duplicate re-
port,” he suggested. “They give the details
of the explosion at the dye works, the smash-
ups in the railroad yards. Compare them
with the disaster here. You’ll see that I am
right. In not one instance, was there any
outside factor.
8
THE CITY OF DOOM
“I’ve had lots of experience, gentlemen.
Sometimes accidental deaths are uncanny.
Like an epidemic, you might say. A year -
two years - no trouble; then they hit in a
bunch. That doesn’t mean a thing, unless
there’s proof that some one was culpable
or negligent. Not one of these cases shows
any such indications.”
HARLIN had taken the duplicate sheets.
The Shadow saw the supervisor place them
in a table drawer. Then it was time to step
away; for the men were coming toward the
door. The Shadow swung to a darkened
corner; when the door opened, it moved
outward and covered him completely.
Harlin was the last man from the office.
He waited while the others went down the
stairs to the lighted entry at the bottom. Then
the supervisor clicked off the office light.
The top landing was dark when he closed
the door and locked it. Harlin had no chance
to see The Shadow.
Soon after the supervisor’s footsteps had
faded, a tiny flashlight shone upon the of-
fice door. Its glow was but twice the size of
the keyhole; but it was sufficient for The
Shadow to work upon the lock. A gloved
hand introduced a long thin instrument that
resembled a pair of pliers. A click came
from the lock. The Shadow opened the of-
fice door.
Using his flashlight within the office,
The Shadow found the drawer that con-
tained the report sheets. He spread the du-
plicate papers and began a close study of
past events in Hampstead. The Shadow
soon learned that the coroner’s claims were
well supported.
The boiler blast at the dye plant had
occurred shortly after a routine inspection.
The cause had evidently been the failure of
a worn safety valve. The engineer had made
the inspection himself; he was a man of long
service, who would not have omitted an
essential detail; nor have been so foolish as
to tamper with the machinery.
The first wreck in the railroad yards had
occurred when a switchman highballed a
shifting locomotive along the main track.
The engine had taken the siding instead,
mowing down the switchman who stood in
its path.
The second wreck had been a
brakeman’s error. He had been crushed
when a string of freight cars crashed into a
motionless line of day coaches. In both
cases, additional lives had been lost.
Tonight’s disaster at the steel plant re-
sembled the others, in two definite ways.
First: that no one from outside had tampered
with any machinery; second: that old Joe
Grandy, like others who had died before
him, had been sound mentally and alert in
action. Not one of the men who had borne
the brunt of disaster could have chosen to
make a deliberate mistake.
Behind disasters stood crime, engen-
dered by some master-plotter. A genius of
evil was at work in Hampstead. Through
some process, this unknown criminal had
managed to control the minds of unwitting
men. A master of murder and destruction
had chosen to work with human tools, of
whom old Joe Grandy was the fourth.
9
THE CITY OF DOOM
The fact that this theory smacked of the
incredible was something that gave it
strength. There was a reason, however, why
The Shadow accepted it immediately. A few
days ago, The Shadow had sent a trusted
agent to Hampstead to investigate disasters
there. That agent’s name was Harry
Vincent. No word had been received from
him since yesterday.
Harry’s disappearance had brought The
Shadow to Hampstead. The steel plant di-
saster, at the very time of The Shadow’s
arrival, had simply added to the
supersleuth’s belief that crime stood behind
every accident that had struck the city of
doom.
EXTINGUISHING his flashlight, The
Shadow left the company office. He reached
the bottom of the stairs to find total dark-
ness. No guard was present; if one had come
on duty, he had gone when the officials de-
parted.
The Shadow reached the highway,
crossed it and arrived at his coupe, which
he had wisely parked in the shelter of a side
road before beginning his investigation. The
car was just within the town limits of
Hampstead. Ten minutes’ drive would bring
The Shadow to the heart of the little city.
That short journey was to be fraught
with danger. Starting his car, The Shadow
swung out to the main highway. He headed
townward and came immediately to a quar-
ter-mile stretch where buildings were few.
Hardly had The Shadow struck this open
space before a rakish touring car roared out
from the darkness beside a closed filling
station.
Instantly, The Shadow knew what was
due. Prowlers had spotted his coupe near
the steel plant. They had decided that the
car belonged to some independent investi-
gator. They had gone into ambush to way-
lay the coupe when it arrived.
A machine gun rattled. Instantly, The
Shadow veered his coupe from the touring
car’s path. He swung his automobile into a
ditch; let it careen and stop with a jolt, tilted
far to the left. The men in the touring car
thought that they had scored an instant hit.
The rakish machine slowed as it swung to-
ward the halted coupe.
An automatic spoke from the darkness
of the ditch, just behind the coupe. The
Shadow had dived from the wheel, un-
scathed. He had waited for close range; his
first shot was aimed for the rear door of the
touring car, where he knew the machine
gunners would be.
A howl answered The Shadow’s blast.
He delivered a second gun-shot; another yell
was the response. The Shadow had winged
a second crook.
The touring car shot forward. Its canny
driver gave it a zigzag twist, wheeling over
so that the bulk of The Shadow’s coupe
would make the invisible marksman seek a
new vantage point. The lights of the tour-
ing car blinked off. Its driver, knowing the
road, was chancing darkness.
A mocking laugh sounded in the dark-
ness of the ditch, as The Shadow boarded
his tilted coupe. Victor in the short-lived
fray, The Shadow had gained the proof he
10
THE CITY OF DOOM
wanted. Crime lay behind the disasters in
Hampstead - crime so big that it needed
murderous crews to back it in a pinch.
This first encounter would bring others.
Battles and opposition could produce clues.
The Shadow was satisfied that his stay in
Hampstead would lead him to a master-
villain’s lair.
CHAPTER III
THE DEATH THRUST
IT was half an hour before The Shadow
reached the center of Hampstead, for he
chose a roundabout course that finally
brought him to an obscure garage. His pur-
pose was not to avoid a new encounter; he
would have welcomed such a fray. But The
Shadow knew that there would be no new
ambush.
Spies would be the next enemies. They
would be watching for The Shadow’s coupe,
in hope of identifying its occupants. Hence
The Shadow chose to enter Hampstead from
another direction; to keep his car away from
the main streets. He had, moreover, delayed
five minutes during his circuit. In that in-
terval he had changed the license plates on
his coupe.
When The Shadow strolled from the
obscure garage, he was no longer clad in
black. Street lamps showed him dressed in
a dark-gray suit. His features were full and
bore little of the hawkish aspect which en-
emies identified with The Shadow’s coun-
tenance. The Shadow was carrying a large
suitcase, which contained his cloak and hat.
He looked like a tourist who had stopped
off in Hampstead.
The railroad station was near the garage.
An approaching whistle told that a passen-
ger train was due. Picking an obscure route,
The Shadow neared the depot and stood by
an old freight shed until the train arrived. A
dozen passengers alighted; half of them had
bags. The Shadow stepped up to the sta-
tion platform and mingled with the small
throng. Two arrivals were going toward an
old sedan that served as taxi. The Shadow
followed them.
The driver announced that his cab took
passengers to the Hampstead House. The
two men boarded the car and The Shadow
joined them. They rode through the main
streets and pulled up in front of a preten-
tious hotel. If spies were about, they took
The Shadow merely for another passenger,
who had come into town by train.
The Shadow let the two other men reg-
ister first. He wrote his own name as “Henry
Arnaud,” with Chicago as his home city.
The name and identity of Arnaud were The
Shadow’s own device. He used them upon
occasion such as this.
THERE was a lone clerk at the desk,
and only two bell boys available. This meant
a delay in room assignments. The Shadow
took advantage of it to note the lobby. He
saw no potential spies. It was possible that
crooks had decided to head for cover, after
their fray. That was not surprising, since
they had carried away two wounded men.
摘要：

1THECITYOFDOOMBackfromthegravecomesDoctorMocquino,theVoodooMaster,tobattleTheShadowagaininaterrificstruggletothedeath!CHAPTERIATTHESTEELWORKSTHICKnightengulfedthevalleyaboutthetownofHampstead.Oneareaaloneshowedbrilliance;thatwasthecentraldis-trictofthelittlecity,whererowsofstreetlampsshoneandelectri...

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