delaying after plans were made. That had frequently enabled The Shadow to forestall them. The big-shots had also kept on with crimes after they should ordinarily have admitted themselves licked.
Duke Unrig had outlasted the others. His case had produced the evidence of payment received for unsuccessful crimes. A good enough reason for Duke's persistence.
It showed why the others had kept on despite The Shadow's pressure. It indicated that all had received payments when they failed. That meant disbursements must have amounted to millions of dollars.
Only some huge corporation could have furnished so much money. Banks and utilities had big funds; but there was no reason why they should make crime. Insurance companies were the only other source. That gave The Shadow the answer that other investigators would have regarded incredible.
Crime insurance!
REGARDED commercially, crime was a billion-dollar industry. Although outlawed, it was organized much like big business, but it had lacked one advantage: protection against unforeseen losses. It had remained for some tycoon of the insurance world to make crime insurance a reality.
A straight survey could reveal the mastermind behind the racket. He would have to be a man who knew insurance, with an organization that included actuaries, brokers and investigators. He would need a legitimate insurance business of great size; both to serve as a smoke screen and to provide the cash for payment of claims.
Big mutual companies had too many officers to be tied up with the racket. So were concerns too specialized in one form of insurance. The field was narrowed to large corporations that controlled a great diversity of smaller companies, with one man at the head of all.
He would be able to shift funds as he chose. In with that group would be the hidden enterprise of crime insurance.
Occupants of the club library could have noticed the slight smile that showed upon the lips of Lamont Cranston, when his finger rested on a page that listed the Solidarity Insurance Company. The same finger reached the name of the organization's president, the man who controlled it outright.
The name was Marvin Bradthaw.
No other man in the insurance world could match the manipulations that Bradthaw had managed. The reserve funds at his disposal were huge, although he would have to account for them. Bradthaw could handle that without difficulty.
He had the resources to finance crime insurance. He had the shell - composed of those legitimate companies - to hide his vast undertaking from the world.
STROLLING from the library, Lamont Cranston reached the foyer and entered a telephone booth. He put in a call. A voice came methodically:
'Burbank speaking.'
'Report!'
'No reports.'
It was actually Burbank who had responded. The lack of reports was not unexpected. The Shadow's agents had been enjoying an off-period since yesterday.
Leaving the club, Cranston reached the sidewalk. There, the doorman called a big limousine from across the street.
Looking about, Cranston saw no sign of Moe's taxi. He had intended to send the limousine to New Jersey and use the cab instead. Since Moe was absent, Cranston used the limousine. Once inside, he began a transformation as the big car rolled southward.
From beneath the rear seat, he produced garments of black. Soon he was cloaked; a slouch hat fitted over his head. Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow. As The Shadow, he intended immediate moves.
There had been no reports from agents; yet it was after nine o'clock and Moe's cab had not arrived. That meant that Moe should have reported to Burbank. That made the lack of other reports significant.
To The Shadow, the lull of events foretold an immediate storm. As the limousine rolled along, he saw evidences of it!
As the car turned a corner, a slouchy panhandler noticed it and gave a hand motion. A taxi swung in to follow the limousine. At the next corner, a hotel doorman saw the big car and the trailing cab. He bobbed inside to make a telephone call.
Going southward on an avenue, other cars took up the limousine's trail. At another hotel, two men in evening clothes hurriedly jumped in a taxi and joined the procession.
Big-shots had responded to Bradthaw's call. The shock troops of the underworld were out to get The Shadow. Underworld denizens were everywhere; and among the hundreds were men whom the law had never identified with crime. Finger men and silk-hat crooks were massing to reach crimeland's greatest foe.
The Shadow performed the very sort of move that Marvin Bradthaw had anticipated.
The crime executive had arranged this display of crooks for The Shadow's benefit. To The Shadow, it looked overdone; but he took that as evidence of Bradthaw's newness to crime.
The case was quite the contrary. Bradthaw wanted The Shadow to drop the part of Cranston. The supercrook had chosen the right way to do it.
As a matter of policy, The Shadow decided to leave the limousine and let crooks find it empty. That, ordinarily, would make them suppose that they had made a wrong guess about The Shadow. In Cranston's calm tone, The Shadow told the chauffeur where to stop. The big car rolled into a side street near Greenwich Village.
The Shadow was gone before a single pursuer was in sight. Cars passed; signals were given. Men approached on foot; spoke to the chauffeur. They saw that the limousine was empty.
The Shadow had taken a passageway to the next street. He followed a twisty path; found a parked taxi and boarded it. He told the driver to take him to an East Side elevated station.
Bradthaw had foreseen that move. Henchmen had been told to watch for it. Finger men had flooded this area, moving in like troops. Every cab was spotted; someone suspected the one in which The Shadow rode. By the time that taxi had reached Fifth Avenue, pursuers were wheeling on its trail.
A whispered laugh was The Shadow's response, when he looked behind him. He planned to shake these trailers, then double back upon them. He used Cranston's tone, to tell the driver he wanted more speed.
It was a giveaway; but that did not matter.
The cab neared the gloomy elevated station well ahead of the pack. A quick look from the window; The Shadow saw a local train coming north. He called for a stop on the far side of the avenue. He fluttered a bill through the window and was out of the door before the cab had stopped.
A dash up the steps, through the turnstile, and The Shadow was across the station platform. He vaulted the gate to the rear open platform of the last car. There was a shout. Passengers leaving the train sprang aboard it just as the cars started. Through the door, The Shadow saw them making in his direction.
Some finger man had sent a call for reserves. A dozen thugs had boarded this train one station down the line. They had seen The Shadow make his leap aboard!
The train was rattling rapidly as the thugs came through. Guns were in fists; passengers were crouching along the seats. Crooks had the edge. They could fire at The Shadow. He could not respond without dealing death to helpless bystanders.
Swinging to the left of the open platform, The Shadow leaned half from the car. Guns barked. Bullets shattered the glass door and the rear window where The Shadow had been.
A gunman yanked open the door. He gave a shout as he saw The Shadow.
The cloaked fighter was completely revealed by an approaching glare, that was accompanied by a heavy roar. An elevated express was tearing northward along the center track, to overtake the local. Although the express was rising to a higher level, its headlight spread its beams upon The Shadow.
The thug sprang for The Shadow; two others were close behind that hoodlum.
The Shadow met them in a sudden grapple, before the first man could aim. The fellow's body made a barrier against the pair behind him. The Shadow's long arm came across the front man's head. His hand sledged a hard blow to the skull of a thug in back.
