responded in booming tone:
'It's all right, gentlemen! Just a trifling mistake! I can explain everything -'
He was stepping forward, reaching in his pocket. From behind him, Barney heard a slight creak of the door. The thing that he drew from his pocket wasn't
a contract, but it was quite the thing to seal a bargain. It was a .45
revolver,
that Barney flourished under the noses of the astonished financiers.
BEFORE the group could come to their feet, two other men entered the room.
They were thuggish men, ill-clad, who wore handkerchief masks across their faces. Like Barney, they carried revolvers, but of a lesser caliber.
Though Five-face still preferred a big smoke-wagon, for the show it made, he had instructed his lieutenants to let their trigger men bring whatever weapons they chose. Big guns hadn't proven their worth during the battle in the
old arcade, wherein The Shadow, almost single-handed, had routed fighters who carried oversized revolvers.
The two men who now flanked Barney were ordinary thugs, delegated to this duty. Clip Zelber had provided them, but with instructions that, whatever happened, they were to blame the mess on Barney Kelm.
Their eyes, peering through the masks, showed surprise when they saw that they were actually siding with Barney. They had taken Clip's instructions to mean that they were framing Barney, not helping him.
But when they glanced at Barney, they understood. His face didn't wear the
smile that went with his pose of a public hero. Bearing down upon the cowed financiers, Barney was showing an ugly leer that was quite out of character.
With his present manner, Barney could have kept the financiers under full control without any assistance.
However, Barney had other work to do. He told the masked men to herd the victims into a corner. Quaking, the financiers retreated, leaving their money on the table. Stacking the piles of currency into the valise, Barney strolled to the front door of the room and laid his hand upon the knob.
'Stay just as you are, gentlemen,' he sneered, 'but put your hands in back
of you. My men are going to tie you up. Don't try to make a break, because' -
he
gestured toward the side door - 'we have a few more on hand, to keep you covered.'
At Barney's back, the door swung open to admit another pair of gunmen.
The
first two put their guns away; brought out coils of wire and rolls of adhesive tape from their pockets. Bundling the victims together, they began to bind and gag them.
Barney opened the front door of the room and sidled through, pushing the valise ahead of him. He poked his head back into the room, to take a last look.
Then, as an afterthought, Barney again addressed the helpless prisoners.
'Blame me for this,' he chuckled. 'Anybody would turn crook, if the stakes
were big enough. That's the whole story. My boys downstairs are going to be as surprised as you fellows -'
Barney halted, staring at a window straight across the room. Outside the pane, he could see the dull gleam of the bronze grille. It seemed to blacken as
Barney watched it. He didn't like the looks of the thing; it reminded him too much of The Shadow. Then Barney chuckled.
The Shadow wouldn't be at that window. There was a little balcony outside;
one that extended away from the window's edges, and therefore offered a good lurking spot. But the bars weren't the sort that could be filed or pried loose.
Such a process would take a long time and make a lot of noise.
It would be funny, Barney thought, if The Shadow really happened to be out
there. When Barney reached the street, he would signal his lieutenants and point
out the balcony. The Shadow would be a fine target, on that unprotected ledge.
Unwittingly, Barney pushed the door a trifle wider, exposing the valise that he carried, though he didn't know it. Then, stepping out into the hall, he
slammed the door behind him.
Chuckling, Barney visualized the room just as he had left it: Five prisoners in the corner, being bound by two thugs; another pair of armed guards, at the side door across the room.
The window did not matter; not in Barney's calculations. Nevertheless, the
window was to prove important.
HARDLY had Barney stepped from sight before darkness shifted away from the
bronze grille. Something still remained near the bottom bars - a roundish object, that gave a slight sputter.
Barney would have noticed that tiny squidge of light. But the thugs who had taken over for him were not in positions to observe it. Something was about
to happen very suddenly.
Five-face was wrong, when he supposed that it would take a long while to crash through the heavily barred window. He was right, however, in his guess that noise was necessary.
A huge flare of light blazed beyond the darkened pane, lighting the room vividly, along with the outdoor scene. The gush of brilliance was accompanied by a huge roar - the explosion of a powerful bomb that twisted metal bars into hanging strands. Smashing inward, the blast blew the window into fragments, turning the glass pane into powder.
Like the men who were binding them, the prisoners in the corner were flattened by the powerful concussion. The masked guards at the side door were staggered. They clawed at the handkerchief masks that slipped across their eyes. They didn't see the figure that came from the outer shelter of the balcony, leaping through the gap that had once been a window.
They heard him, that challenger who had blasted his way into the scene of crime. They recognized him by the laugh that quivered, a fierce, challenging crescendo amid the echoes of the bomb's explosion.
Only one fighter could deliver such strident mockery, the taunt that all men of evil dreaded.
The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIV
CROOKS IN THE DARK
A SWEEP of blackness in a room where lights seemed dim. Such was The Shadow, as he wheeled beneath the tilted chandelier in the center of the conference room.
Though half shaken from its moorings, the chandelier still had lighted bulbs; but their glow was feeble to the thugs who were yanking away their masks.
The brilliance of the blast had dazzled everyone, except The Shadow. He had held his cloak across his eyes, out on the balcony, while the short fuse was completing his brief fizz. He had counted upon dazzling the crooks; otherwise, he would not have made his tremendous entry, with the lives of five prisoners at stake.
Some of the financiers were bound, and the rest were practically helpless.
So The Shadow went to their rescue, first, completing it in rapid style. The thugs who were doing the binding had put their guns away; they had barely managed to get the weapons from their pockets, when The Shadow was upon them.
He settled that pair with hard blows from his guns. Shots would have betrayed his position, and he wanted no firing in this direction. Thugs at the door across the room were still wondering where The Shadow was. Half blindly, they turned toward the ruined window, supposing that he was keeping to its shelter.
Instead, The Shadow was skirting wide along the front of the room. Again, crooks heard his laugh, almost at their elbows. They turned, tugging their gun triggers, trying to aim point-blank at swirly blackness.
