who lay there.
WHILE Quill and the men beside him still stared, a man dropped to the balcony and thrust his masked face through the window. Quill didn't have to see the face behind that mask.
'It's Ludy!' he gulped. Then, regaining his hard tone: 'Good work, Ludy! You konked The Shadow!'
'What!' Ludy was amazed at his own deed. 'Was that th' mug that give th' ha-ha?'
Ludy was more astounded than the trio who had stood before The Shadow's gun. There was an ugly grunt as the three-fingered man from the doorway shoved past Quill. Handling a gun with ease, despite his missing finger, the thug aimed for The Shadow's prostrate form.
'Hold it!' snapped Quill. 'Not yet, Bosco!' Then, to Ludy: 'What did you crown him with?'
Ludy fished along the balcony, found a big monkey wrench and exhibited it.
'This t'ing,' he declared proudly. 'Wot we used to fix th' clamps for th' rope ladder.'
'It fixed The Shadow, too,' stated Quill. He was stooping forward, looking at the face beneath the slouch hat. 'Say - this guy looks ritzy! He's The Shadow, all right!'
'What does that matter?' put in Bosco. 'Croak The Shadow! That's what I say.'
'Sure thing!' rasped Quill. 'But we'll do it the way I figure is best. Listen!'
He drew his pals aside. The man on the floor had come to his senses, was rising groggily to join the others. They explained what had happened. Quill proceeded.
'If I'm doping it right,' declared Quill, 'The Shadow must have made trouble for that outfit that went along with Cobber. That won't matter much, if the bulls don't hook it up with other things that have happened.
'I mean, what's happened to Thurnig and to Brellick. The same thing that we just handed to Mandor.
They ain't croaked; they're sick - get it? It makes it sweet for us. What's more, if the same thing happens to other guys, it's all the better. It makes this sleepy sickness look like the McCoy.
'So we'll give The Shadow the same dose. Then we'll park him somewhere. Nobody knows who The Shadow is, and they won't guess, because we'll take that black crepe he's got hanging on him. When they find him, he'll be just another boob that's asleep.' Quill chuckled. 'And just another that'll never snap out of it.'
Quill's plan found ready approval from his mates. Bosco was the only one who offered a temporary objection. The three-fingered man clanked the gas tank with his gun.
'This thing's empty,' he told Quill. 'How're you going to gas The Shadow?'
'We'll take him to the hide-out,' ruled Quill. 'We got plenty of the gas there.'
'Suppose he makes trouble on the way?'
'Knocked cold like he is? Not a chance! Anyway, we'll have a couple of gats poked against his slats.
Listen: if we're going to hand it to him the hard way, we ain't croaking him here. That would queer the setup we fixed already. Don't forget Mandor.'
QUILL'S decision stood; not only because of its logic, but through the fact that he was leader of the crew. If it had come to a vote, Bosco would have been the only dissenter; so the three-fingered man offered no further argument.
They rolled The Shadow out through the window. While Bosco was closing it, Ludy pointed proudly to a rope ladder that dangled from the cornice, only one story above. He had done more than slug The Shadow with a monkey wrench; he had been smart enough to fling down the rope ladder before he dropped to the balcony.
Five in all - the thug The Shadow had put away had come to - the crooks had comparatively little difficulty in hoisting The Shadow's inert form up to the roof above. There were precarious moments, when they grunted that it would be easier to let him take a drop into the courtyard, a dozen stories below. That, however, was not in keeping with Quill's plan.
The crew carried The Shadow across the roof. Again, the rope ladder came into use, to provide a two-story descent to an adjoining building. The Shadow came downward, handled by bearers who were none too gentle; Quill, at the bottom, broke the senseless prisoner's fall.
'Why queer it, you saps?' rasped Quill, in an undertone. 'You don't want 'em to find this bird asleep with a broken leg, do you? That ain't the idea. Handle him easy!'
'What about the sock I handed him?' asked Ludy. 'That's goin' to show, ain't it?'
'Not bad,' returned Quill. 'He ain't gashed, on account of the hat. A bump on the konk won't much matter.'
Crossing the next roof, the crooks reached a warehouse. They went through a trapdoor, barred it neatly behind them. They carried their black-clad burden down long flights of narrow steps, finally arriving at an alleyway, where they loaded The Shadow in the back seat of a sedan.
Other mobsters were on watch, with a second car. They were eight in all, four to a car, when they pulled away. Quill was at the wheel of the first car, another man beside him.
In the rear seat, The Shadow was hunched low, his head tilted forward toward his knees. He was squeezed between Ludy and another thug. Bosco, still the only objector to Quill's present process, had been assigned to the other automobile.
THE two cars zigzagged along cross-streets and avenues, working their way eastward until they reached an avenue that ran beneath an elevated. When they stopped at a traffic light, Quill turned to the rear seat.
'How's he riding?' sneered the leader. 'Still groggy, like he was?'
'Out like a light!' returned Ludy.
'Keep those gats tight on him,' advised Quill, 'but hold 'em out of sight. Remember - we ain't still up in Mandor's joint; and we ain't wearing masks no longer.'
The light turned green. Quill shoved the car in gear.
'We're turning off at that next light,' he told his pals. 'After that, no trouble. If we have to hand him the works quick, we can do it, once we're off the avenue.'
Then, as he yanked the gear into high, Quill added: 'What about the other buggy? See it in back of us?'
'A couple of blocks back,' answered Ludy.
'That's jake,' decided Quill. 'It means nobody's tagging us. No patrol cars either, or the bunch would put us wise.'
Quill's comment ended with a chuckle that pleased the accompanying thugs. Quill could foresee the prompt completion of his present plan. Though he had deferred The Shadow's death, the time for doom was very close. The gas treatment was to be the method and a dose of that vapor meant death, although its victims lingered.
'We got Mandor,' gloated Quill, 'and next it'll be The Shadow. We'll read about it tomorrow - two more guys joined up with the dead who live.'
The others chortled their agreement. This was the beginning of The Shadow's finish, in the opinion of his captors. They could foresee nothing that might bring him aid. Quill had sized it to perfection.
The Shadow was soon to be another of the Dead Who Lived!
CHAPTER VII. CROOKS TAKE COVER
THE next traffic light turned red as the sedan approached it, but it wasn't the full cause of Quill's jolting stop. A taxicab happened to swing out to the center of the avenue, coming from beyond an 'el' pillar.
That chance cab took the very space where Quill had planned to halt.
There were growls from the rear seat, oaths directed at the taxi driver. Quill silenced them with a sharp word. There was a traffic cop on duty at the corner. Quill didn't want an argument with him.
The jolt had pitched The Shadow forward against the front seat. Ludy and the other rear-seat thug were prompt to haul their black-clad prisoner back into position. They felt The Shadow stir; but when his arms dropped limply, they decided that it was merely the motion of the car that had caused his movement.
They were wrong.
A few blocks back, The Shadow had come to a state of semi-consciousness. The shake-up that he had just received was sufficient to rouse him more.
Those motions had been The Shadow's own. Then, sensing voices close beside him, he went limp again.
The Shadow could feel the gun muzzles that pressed his ribs. His head ached badly. Thoughts thrummed through his brain mechanically. They were quick flashes, those thoughts, even though they came monotonously, over and over.
Mandor's apartment - the balcony to it - masked men, trapped before The Shadow's gun - then blackness. Not the sort of blackness that The Shadow chose to cover his shifts, but an engulfing surge that had swept him into
