Why should we be worried? We don't have to keep our mitts on the kid. That packet doesn't sail till noon. Bill Quaine, here, has still got two hours to show up with a squad and yank Reggie off the boat.'
Meriden nodded. His lips were firmly pressed. Pinkey produced an agreement
of sale, laid it on the desk.
'The price for Interstate Service Stations,' he announced, 'is two hundred
and fifty grand.'
'You mean' - Meriden was amazed - 'a quarter million?'
'Why not?' returned Pinkey. 'Your company has got plenty of dough. You can
make this look like a swell buy! Use the phony reports that I sent you.'
Meriden winced; mechanically, he reached for his pen. He applied his signature to the agreement. Pinky reminded him that a check would be in order.
Meriden wrote one for fifty thousand dollars, stating that he would have to make the payments in installments.
'Write out the rest of them,' ordered Pinkey. 'Date them ahead, a month apart. We know you won't welsh on them. We've got the goods on you, now, Meriden, along with your son Reggie.'
Meriden made out the remaining checks; he passed them weakly across the desk. Pinkey arose, beckoned to Slick. Together, the crooks went out toward the
elevators. At the information desk, Pinkey spoke to the girl.
'Better look in on the boss, sister,' remarked Pinkey. 'He wasn't feeling so good when we left him. Maybe he's feeling sort of sick!'
Slick was waiting at the opened door of an elevator. Pinkey stepped in with him. As the door clanged shut, the girl at the desk heard the finish of two ugly chuckles that came from the lips of Meriden's visitors.
Two crooks were mutually agreed on the proposition that crime, when properly framed, could pay in plenty.
CHAPTER V
LINKS TO CRIME
IN all the reports of the Masked Playboy's final crime, there was no inkling of the real purpose. The public, like the law, assumed that the tuxedoed criminal had merely led his crew in another profitless expedition -
this time with such bad results that the Playboy might well be tired of his crooked business.
One badly wounded thug had tried to slow the police, and had received more
bullets. That thug was dead; hence, he couldn't talk. It seemed plain, though, that something had gone wrong before the police arrived. That made the law decide that rival crooks had tried to muscle into the Playboy's ill-timed game.
There were reports of flashes that had been seen from the windows of the loan office prior to the blasting of the safe. Those were attributed to tests with fuses, before the charge was set.
No investigators guessed that flash bulbs had been used for photographs; that the whole episode of the Masked Playboy was a frame-up. That knowledge belonged in one lone personage, who had been an eyewitness; namely The Shadow.
From his personal observation, The Shadow knew that blackmail was the motive behind the game. To prove that case was a more difficult proposition.
The identity of the Masked Playboy was a riddle. The Shadow correctly sized him as a dupe; probably a young man of good social status, fallen in with
bad companions. That helped little.
There were probably a few thousand such young men in New York. Any one of them might be eligible for the part of the Playboy.
Similarly, it was a hazy problem to identify the crook who had actually led the invading crew.
The Shadow classed him as a small-time mobleader; and the underworld was full of such ugly characters. Recently, New York had undergone a clean-up, wherein a special prosecutor had smashed a wide-spread racket ring. Lots of little fish had slipped through the mesh, but they were big enough to be leaders of hoodlum crews.
Last came the mobbies themselves. There, again, The Shadow drew a blank.
The actual thugs had been recruited from here and there, through an endless chain wherein each knew only a few others and none was acquainted with the persons higher up.
The Shadow had personal knowledge of that situation, for he had posed as one who was 'in the know.' That was how he had managed to receive the hand-stamped message down at Chatham Square.
The man who had passed the match pack to The Shadow was merely a messenger, slipping partial information to anyone who gave him the password.
By
mentioning a 'hand,' The Shadow had become one of the recipients.
From that incident, however, The Shadow gained a link with the past. He knew the meaning of the crudely stamped hand symbol. It went back to conditions
that had existed many months ago, during the clean-up of the so-called 'racket ring.'
There hadn't been a single racket ring; there had been several. All had learned the advantages of cooperation, shaking money from prosperous businesses. New York had been a land of plenty for the racketeers. Expecting trouble from the law, they had avoided strife among themselves. In fact, their organizations had reached an interlocking stage, even to the point where they had 'fixers' and other peacemakers, who had kept everybody satisfied and happy.
Eventually perhaps, gang wars would have come; but the law hadn't let it get that far.
Rackets had been shattered right and left, with The Shadow and his agents playing an active but hidden part in the clean-up. Prominent racketeers had been brought to trial; to be rapidly convicted and sentenced. The public thought that those men had been the brains of the racket ring. That was true; but only in part.
For every big-shot who had found the interior of a prison cell, there had been three or four who had fled from New York before crime's citadel crumbled.
The Shadow had not forgotten those who had vanished. Seated in the corner of his sanctum, The Shadow was at work beneath the bluish light. From a stack of files he drew one that was stamped with an appropriate symbol: human hand, with extended thumb and fingers.
This was a case-book dealing with one group of racketeers who had teamed together, with double result. Not only had they made their profit while rackets
were going strong; every member of the group had cleared New York before the clean-up.
Where they were, what each was doing, were matters that concerned The Shadow. That was why he laid a stack of recent reports close at hand, where he could refer to data as required.
Upon a sheet of paper, The Shadow inscribed five names:
'Thumb' Gaudrey
'Pointer' Trame
'Long-Steve' Bydle
'Ring' Brescott
'Pinkey' Findlen
One by one, The Shadow checked the list. Gaudrey was in Bermuda posing as a retired business magnate seeking a rest cure. Trame had headed for Havana to gamble some of his ill-gotten gains at the casino. Bydle had actually gone into
business, in Chicago.
Brescott had made a trip to California, probably to test some racketeering
enterprise; but without result. Latest reports stated that he would soon be coming East.
One man alone was unaccounted for. He was Pinkey Findlen, the last crook on the list.
The Shadow laid the sheet aside. He began to visualize recent crime in terms of Pinkey Findlen. It was plain that the pack had become lone wolves; that each was dangerous in his own right. Of the five, Pinkey was the first to start an individual enterprise. Therefore, The Shadow had to deal with him alone.
