end to the altercation.
'There's nobody here,' growled Five-face. 'Grease had too many drinks; that's all. But you fellows' - he swung to Clip and Banker - 'didn't use your brains any too well. Lay off the dumb stuff in the future!'
Five-face stalked out, the lieutenants following, all eager to curry favor
with the big-shot and have him forget the misguided combat. The dinette looked quite empty; in fact, it was well lighted, because the glow from the living room now came through the wide doorway.
A singular thing occurred. Silently, the crumpled curtain uncoiled itself.
Out of the fallen drape emerged a figure clad in black: The Shadow. His ruse had
deceived the crooks entirely. Caught between them, The Shadow had wrapped himself in the curtain and tumbled with it when Banker snatched it loose.
His black cloak had not shown amid the snarl of dark velvet, which formed a sizable shroud when he had lain on the floor. Fixing the curtain to resemble its former crumple, The Shadow glided to the kitchen just as the lieutenants came back into the living room, from the hall.
Five-face was gone; so was The Shadow. Their next meeting would come when crime was again on the move. Then would be the time when The Shadow could trap the supercrook in deeds that would lay bare the past and expose the methods that the evil master used.
For the first time, the advantage would lie with The Shadow; but he did not regard victory as assured. Uncovering Five-face had been no simple matter; trapping him in crime might prove even more difficult.
The Shadow knew!
CHAPTER XII
THE SUDDEN STROKE
THREE faces were staring at The Shadow from the table in his sanctum.
They
were photographs, all different, yet they represented one man: Five-face.
Jake Smarley, Flush Tygert, Barney Kelm -
There would be two more, and that fact made The Shadow ponder. Nothing had
been heard of Barney Kelm during the past week. Barney was still a public hero,
yet he had vanished like Smarley and Flush.
People acquainted with Barney said that he had gone on the road to promote
some prize fights. Despite his bluster, Barney was a very modest and self-effacing chap, his friends claimed. He didn't like to be in the public eye. Too many people had pointed him out, so Barney had just dropped out of sight.
The rumor did not please The Shadow.
He knew how self-effacing Barney Kelm could be; that the man was able to obliterate his identity entirely. It was possible that Barney had dropped out of sight altogether. If so, The Shadow's plans for trapping a master criminal called Five-face would probably fade away to nothing.
Reports from agents. The Shadow studied them beneath the blue glow. They were encouraging in one respect. Plans for future crime were being made by Five-face's lieutenants.
The Shadow's agents were keeping close tally on Grease, Banker, and Clip.
The lieutenants had spent nearly all the money that Five-face had given them, lining up thugs to be ready on call.
Checking on such activities was an easy matter for certain of The Shadow's
agents. One agent, Cliff Marsland, had quite a reputation in the underworld.
For a long while, Cliff had been gunning for The Shadow and boasting about
it to mobsters. Anyone who could get away with such talk in the badlands necessarily had to be tough. Naturally, Cliff's immunity existed because he was
in The Shadow's service; but no one suspected the fact.
Working on The Shadow's information, Cliff had met up with hoodlums who worked for Grease and Clip and had learned enough to give regular reports to The Shadow.
Aiding Cliff was Hawkeye, a clever spotter who could follow a snake's trail through the grass. Hawkeye roved the toughest districts, spotting snipers
who worked for Banker. His reports, though less frequent than Cliff's, were quite as reliable.
Nevertheless, there was one question.
Did the activity of the spendthrift lieutenants mean that Five-face actually intended new crime?
At their last meeting, the lieutenants themselves had expressed doubts about Five-face. They had been ready to brand him a double-crosser, until he had appeared as Barney Kelm.
They trusted him again, this time implicitly. Yet there was a chance that Five-face, playing the Barney role, had bluffed his lieutenants, after all -
and had, at the same time, deceived The Shadow!
Grim, sinister, The Shadow's laugh throbbed through the sanctum. The bluish light went off with a sharp click.
The Shadow was not pleased by the idle week that he had spent. Unless this
night developed something new in crime, he would have to change his policy and carry through a search for Five-face, rather than await the reappearance of Barney Kelm.
Meanwhile, the evening promised one slight possibility. Perhaps a chat with Commissioner Weston would produce a trifling result. So far, the law had been going around in circles looking for Jake Smarley and Flush Tygert, always regarding them as separate individuals. Yet out of such a whirligig might come a flash of something worthwhile to The Shadow.
REACHING the Cobalt Club in the guise of Cranston, The Shadow found the police commissioner poring over some recent reports, that might as well have been blank papers. Inspector Cardona was sitting by, poker-faced and taciturn.
Weston finished his review of the reports and was about to say something, when an attendant entered bringing a note.
'It's from Arnold Melbrun,' stated Weston, after reading the message. 'He wants me to meet him at his office. He will be there in half an hour. He says that the matter is urgent. Perhaps Melbrun has learned some new facts regarding
Smarley.'
Concluding, the commissioner invited his friend Cranston to go along to Melbrun's office. The Shadow delayed long enough to telephone Burbank and learn
that the agents had reported nothing new.
Arriving at the offices of the United Import Co., the visitors were received by Melbrun's new secretary, Boland. He told them that he had heard from Melbrun, but knew nothing about the matter that was to be discussed.
However, after the visitors had seated themselves in the private office, Boland
remarked:
'Mr. Melbrun received a special-delivery letter just after he returned from Norfolk, this afternoon. It was from that man they call the public hero.'
'Barney Kelm?' inquired Weston.
'Yes,' nodded the secretary. 'Mr. Melbrun put the letter with some other correspondence from Kelm. I suppose that I could show it to you, commissioner.'
Before Weston could reply, the telephone bell rang. It was Melbrun, calling from his home; he had not been able to leave there as soon as he expected. He wanted to talk to Weston, if the commissioner had arrived. When Weston took the telephone, the first thing that Melbrun mentioned was the Kelm correspondence.
'Get those letters, Boland,' ordered Weston. 'Mr. Melbrun wants to talk about them over the telephone.'
Soon, the letters were spread on the desk. In Cranston's casual style, The
Shadow glanced over Weston's shoulder and noted what the letters said. It was apparent that Barney Kelm had taken advantage of his position as a public hero,
