window, gripping a brace of automatics that still showed wreaths of smoke coiling from their muzzles.
The Shadow was on the trail of Five-face, the crook of many parts, who had
staged crime as Flush Tygert. How long the man of crime could retain his quarter-million-dollar loot was a question soon to be decided!
CHAPTER IX
VANISHED BATTLERS
VEERING westward from the Bowery, the chase covered a few dozen blocks in uneventful style, while The Shadow kept close tabs on the speeding cars ahead.
Ironically enough, the pursuit passed very close to police headquarters, on Centre Street, without producing a ripple.
Five-face had planned well. The battle in the old arcade, staged by riffraff acquired through the master crook's lieutenants, had drawn patrol cars
in the wrong direction. If The Shadow hadn't come along to take up the pursuit,
the getaway would have been perfect.
News was just reaching police headquarters when the caravan went by. In the radio room, dispatches were going out to patrol cars to pick up a fleeing taxicab and three convoying sedans. Perhaps crooks realized it, for they were increasing their pace, to get as far away as possible.
Unquestionably, they hoped to find a hiding place before the law was in full cry. The Shadow was preventing it, by his policy of dogging their trail.
Thus crooks were caught between two problems: that of being spotted by their speed, as soon as the full alarm went out; and the alternative of letting The Shadow overtake them.
They feared the first proposition less. The Shadow's victory at the arcade
seemed a superhuman accomplishment. People who stopped to get The Shadow usually
stayed too long. The Shadow would certainly draw patrol cars with his gunfire; after that, the crooks would be trapped.
So the speeding cars kept right ahead, and while Moe clung to the chase, The Shadow leaned through the front window and inquired how his other agents had fared.
They were all right, Moe reported. He had contacted them, somewhat battered and bewildered, outside the arcade, but on their way to safety.
Rescued by The Shadow, the agents had survived the police onrush by the simple expedient of lying low at the sides of the arcade and letting the surge travel past them. So many thugs had been fighting the police hand to hand that the agents had easily escaped notice.
Sirens were wailing as Moe finished his report. Patrol cars were on the job, searching for the fleeing caravan. Leaning from his window, The Shadow tried long-range fire at the wheels of a crook-manned car.
The vehicle was too far ahead, but the shots counted. Sounding loud in the
narrow side street, they were sure to be reported to the police when they cut in
along this route.
Results came sooner than The Shadow hoped. As his cab passed a corner, patrol cars appeared. Fortunately, they recognized that The Shadow's cab held a
pursuer, not a fugitive. Soon, they were actually gaining on The Shadow, a fact
which was quite important.
It meant that the last car in the caravan must have slowed somewhat, since
Moe was guiding by its pace. Thus, when that car swerved a corner, The Shadow ordered Moe to keep ahead.
Crooks fired a volley as The Shadow's cab whizzed by, and he returned the fire. The lone car fled by the side street, its occupants unrecognized.
Grease Rickel was in command of that car. He had found it waiting for him near the Bowery elevated station. Grease snarled curses as he took to flight.
It had been his job to decoy The Shadow and the police cars, getting them away from Five-face and the swag. The Shadow had seen through the ruse.
Only a few blocks along the straight route, Moe was picking up the real trail again. He had spurted the cab, drawing away from the police cars, but they were again beginning to gain. The fact told The Shadow that another trick was coming. When he saw the last car of the caravan keep straight ahead at a street crossing, The Shadow ordered Moe to turn.
How The Shadow guessed the correct direction was a mystery, even to Moe; nevertheless, the black-cloaked observer picked it. This time, it happened to be Banker Dreeb who staged the dodge. Like Grease, Banker was angry because he managed to get clear so easily.
Only one car still clung to the cab that carried Flush Tygert. The man in charge was the third lieutenant, Clip Zelber, and he was in a dilemma. He didn't know whether to stay along with Five-face and protect him or to make another effort to divert the trail.
Clip hadn't expected the chase to reach its present state. While he was puzzling over the situation, The Shadow solved it for him.
Knowing that only one car lay between him and the fugitive cab, The Shadow
ordered Moe to overtake it. As Moe made a marked gain by a swift turn at a corner, The Shadow opened a bombardment.
Had Clip allowed it to continue, he and his companions would have found themselves in a wrecked car, for The Shadow had neat ways of puncturing tires and crippling drivers at the steering wheels.
Frantically, Clip ordered his driver to take the next corner. The sedan scudded for safety, leaving The Shadow a clear route to the cab ahead.
IN that cab, Five-face rode alone. The term suited him better than his recent identity of Flush Tygert, because Five-face no longer looked like Flush.
He had started to change his personality with the aid of materials from a make-up box.
He was using a fake chin and a molding substance that looked like putty.
He spoke in the tone of Flush, however, as he ordered his driver to start dodging corners.
Oddly, the driver of the fugitive cab was not a thug. He was simply a scared cabby, who had been drawn into this mess by chance. Choice of the cab was another tribute to the mastery of Five-face. The chameleon crook had foreseen that a threatened driver would show more speed than any other, and the
cabby was proving it under the present strain.
He took corners on two wheels, whizzed right through traffic lights, jounced the curb in order to escape blocking traffic. In the course of a dozen blocks, the fellow actually gained a few on Moe Shrevnitz, which was a very remarkable feat.
The numbers on the street corners were clicking past like those on a roulette wheel. Almost finished with his make-up, Five-face glanced from the window. He couldn't spot the street numbers, but he recognized the district.
He
was very close to the destination that he wanted.
With one hand, Five-face gripped the jewel bag beside him; then, in the tone of Flush Tygert, he ordered:
'Take it easy, jockey. We're getting too near Times Square to raise hob with the traffic. You know where Lody's Cafe is?'
The cabby gulped that he did. The fellow's tone brought one of Flush's typical laughs. Lody's was noted as a hangout for mobsters of a deluxe sort, but patronized only by those against whom the law had no definite complaints.
Despite its glitter, Lody's was a joint, and recognized as such.
'We're going to Lody's,' came the assuring tone of Flush. 'Nice and properlike, understand? Pull up in front and drop me like I was any ordinary customer.'
The cabby began to stammer that they were east of Lody's, and that it happened to be on an eastbound street. It wouldn't do for an ordinary cab to be
bucking traffic. Flush's tone cut the driver short.
