fired.
Guns roared, and leaden slugs shattered the woodwork at the spot where The Shadow had been standing. In response came fierce tongues of flame, and terrific thunder blasts, as The Shadow’s right-hand automatic cannonaded its reply.
As one man hurried forward into the darkness of the center room, the other seemed to crumple in his tracks. Going down, he tried to rattle off further shots. His trigger finger faltered after the first wild bullet was discharged.
To the three gorillas in the darkened center office, these amazing events had happened with whirlwind rapidity. Accustomed to critical situations, they managed to respond after a momentary loss of action.
A rescue had been launched and thwarted - all in the space of one long, momentous second. The Shadow, he who counted time in delayed throbs, had proven his uncanny skill.
Now, revolvers about to slip from yielding fingers were caught with a new grip. Stabs of flame shot through the darkness as the three gorillas, dropping to the floor, aimed for the spot where The Shadow had been.
A master of strategy, The Shadow had expected this step. Knowing that his enemies would fire quickly, hoping to down him by spreading shots, he had not given his location by a left-hand fire against a trio of revolvers.
Instead, his lithe form had whirled across the room toward the door at the left. Three revolver shots - four - five - six - had come from gangsters’ weapons before The Shadow’s automatics barked their grim return.
With two guns, not with one, The Shadow aimed for those telltale jets of flashing light. Burning bullets rocketed through blackness. A scream told that one man had received a leaden messenger; an oath came as a gorilla dropped his gun and gripped his shattered right hand with his left.
Quick seconds in which more than a dozen round-nosed slugs had seared their way through that gloomy atmosphere. Burning powder bore silent evidence of the conflict. Four men were down; each a victim of The Shadow’s marksmanship; yet the phantom fighter remained unscathed.
Not only in the perfection of his aim had The Shadow succeeded. The timeliness of his shots was the factor that had climaxed his success. His speed, his swiftness in shifting to a new position, had enabled him to foil his adversaries.
Well did The Shadow know the futility of trying to outdo a bullet’s speed; just as certainly did he understand that the aiming of a revolver was no more than a human action.
In the space that others had leveled their guns at the spot where they believed the blackened target to be, The Shadow had left blankness for the bullets that were to follow.
SHATTERING echoes of the shots died in quick reverberations. Well did The Shadow know that one among his foemen was still active - one who was crouching in the darkness waiting for The Shadow to reveal himself.
There was one way to meet that hidden enemy. The Shadow’s hidden form stalked silently until it stood three paces from the door of the office on the left.
With his left hand, The Shadow fired a single shot into the room. A burst of flame; hidden behind its sudden light, The Shadow’s form made another fade-away. Not to the left, as the waiting gorilla would expect; but toward the right - away from the security of the inner office - out in the direction of the door that led to the night club.
The ruse was doubly effective. Not only did the lurking gunman suppose that The Shadow would dive back toward the inner office; he had also accepted the gun burst as a right-hand shot.
This last enemy was a desperate marksman. Three times his revolver coughed forth its message, directing well-sprayed shots toward the corner opening, following the course which The Shadow should logically have taken.
The answer came from the main door - the spot from which The Shadow had begun his original attack. An automatic thundered the single shot that brought quietus to the last of the three assassins.
Three jabs of flame had given The Shadow his target. A whimpering gasp announced the accuracy of his final delivery against the now defeated trio.
The way to escape was open. The Shadow did not take it. Instead, he aimed an automatic toward the office on the right - the only spot from which a new attack might come.
Splintering shots crashed into desk and chairs. A lull; the door of the center office opened and closed with a resounding slam. Silence was the condition that followed.
A long moment elapsed. Then, from that light on the right, came the figure of a man. Moocher Gleetz stood outlined in the door frame, above the bodies of his fallen gunmen. He was a safe cracker, not a gunman. From the inner office he has ordered his pair of subordinates to attack from ambush.
Moocher Gleetz scowled. He shoved a body aside with his foot, and moved in long strides to the outer office. He did not turn on the light of the central office; hence he never saw the tall shape that loomed in the darkness a scant six feet away. Moocher softly opened the exit door - the opening which he believed the victor had taken.
The sound of bedlam was coming down the corridor. Moocher’s cautious eye saw figures huddled by the screen. People were coming here; the quarry had escaped. Now was no time to linger. With long leaps, Moocher bounded back into the lighted office.
The Shadow moved. A long arm stretched to the closed door that led to the corridor. A firm hand silently turned the key; then softly withdrew it. Stooping, The Shadow slid the key out along the corridor.
It would be found there - apparently dropped by one who had escaped and fled, locking the door on the outside as he left!
With an automatic in his left hand, The Shadow swept boldly into the lighted office on the right, striding over the bodies of the men who lay before him. This was the way that Moocher Gleetz had taken; now, the room was empty!
The Shadow’s laugh was a low, barely audible whisper. Like a creature from another world, the black-garbed phantom stalked across the room and reached the farther corner. There, against the wall, was the cabinet with its shelves. His automatic dropped beneath his cloak, The Shadow sought for the combination to this solid-set article of furniture.
PANDEMONIUM was coming from outside the door of the center office. People, in the corridor, were trying to break down the heavy barrier.
The Shadow’s hands reached within the cabinet and joggled the uppermost shelf. It shifted downward. Pressing firmly, The Shadow pushed the shelf steadily. It descended, taking the next shelf with it. Small stacks of magazines and papers were compressed between.
The series of shelves, jammed down together, left a large space above them. Upon this, The Shadow rested.
A lull was apparent from the corridor. A shouting voice replaced the confused babble of excited tongues:
“Here’s the key! Here’s the key! We don’t have to break through! Give me room - stand back!”
A black-gloved hand had gripped the back of the cabinet behind the shelves. With a quick sweep, The Shadow slid this barrier to the side. An opening was revealed in the wall.
The black form scaled into total darkness. The back of the cabinet slid shut; the shelves came up automatically, now that pressure was released.
Men were in the suite of offices. They were surveying the forms of sprawled gangsters. Two - those who had come with Moocher - were dead. To meet their desperate attack, The Shadow had fired for their hearts as they loomed from the sphere of light.
The other three were wounded. They were the ones who could tell nothing. Crippled, they had known nothing but confusion after they had fallen. They were aids of Dynamite Hoskins. Their leader had gone; their enemy had gone also.
Police were coming in to learn the details of this new gang feud. The key that had been found upon the floor of the corridor seemed proof that someone had made a getaway by that route.
Senorita Juanita Pasquales, nervous and approaching hysteria, could tell nothing. She had been on the nightclub floor when the shooting had occurred.
But in her heart the woman knew that another man had disappeared tonight. Lamont Cranston, millionaire, had passed from view. Had he escaped? Even though she had signaled for those in ambush to arrange his certain doom, Juanita hoped that Cranston was the one who had left in safety.
