The Shadow was on them before they fired. He sledged the pair out through the door, driving them as human blockades against reserves who were lunging in from a stairway.
Guns roared at close range. New gunmen, who could see to fire, drove their
bullets home. But it wasn't The Shadow who received those deadly slugs. The shots found the thugs that he had shoved ahead of him. His guns, blasting in reply, sent sizzling bullets past the human shields and clipped the marksmen beyond them.
There was the sound of bodies tumbling down the stairs; shrieks that turned into groans.
Wheeling full about, The Shadow saw the room again. He hadn't heard the front door rip open, but he guessed that it would be wide. On the threshold stood Five-face, still in the guise of Barney Kelm, aiming his big revolver, hoping to find The Shadow. He heard the tumble of bodies, saw the swirl of returning blackness.
Five-face dodged as he fired. The shot from his .45 went wide. Like the mobbies who had perished in his service, crime's overlord was learning that a heavy gun couldn't be handled quickly enough in combat with The Shadow. With a smaller weapon, he might have been able to jab in a telling shot as he made his
dive.
He was smart enough, however, to yank the door with him as he went.
Otherwise, The Shadow would have clipped him. The heavy door took the bullets that The Shadow meant for Barney and splintered big chunks from the woodwork.
Racing across the room, The Shadow yanked the door open.
Five-face had reached a stairway, leading down from the mezzanine. He had left the valise at the top, and was scooping it up as he went. He disappeared as The Shadow aimed.
Pausing, the cloaked pursuer motioned for the rescued prisoners to follow,
which they did, some tugging themselves from the half-twisted wires that partially bound them.
Dashing down the stairs, The Shadow saw Barney darting across the lobby, still lugging the valise. Barney was shouting something, and as The Shadow aimed, a flood of punching men flung themselves in the way. They were Barney's
'boys,' who still thought that their boss was honest.
They were sluggers, those boys from Barney's stable, but they couldn't reach The Shadow with their punches. Weaving among them, The Shadow made long sweeps with his arms, and his guns gave him a much longer reach than his opponents. Barney's boys were bouncing all around the floor, and Five-face did not wait to see how they fared.
He was gone, with his valise out through the rear exit, just as Commissioner Weston and Inspector Cardona came in through the front of the lobby, followed by a squad of headquarters men.
IT was a puzzling sight: The Shadow scattering a crowd of earnest boxers, who had so recently proven their ability to aid the law. One of those cases wherein The Shadow might have been mistaken for a crook; for there had been times when men of crime had donned black cloaks and hats, solely to confuse the
police.
But The Shadow had foreseen a circumstance such as this, and had provided for it.
Hearing wild shouts from the mezzanine, Cardona looked up and saw five frantic men, who could only be the financiers that Melbrun had mentioned in his
phone call to Weston. They were yelling something about Barney Kelm and a bag of
missing cash.
As The Shadow turned toward the rear of the lobby, Cardona beckoned to his
men and gave the word:
'Come on!'
The police followed The Shadow through the exit, spilling rising boxers who tried to stop them. Reaching the rear street, they were greeted by a hurried fire from cover-up cars.
There wasn't a sign of Barney, nor of The Shadow. But the cloaked fighter suddenly denoted his presence, by opening fire from across the way. The Shadow had made for the opposite darkness, to wait until crooks showed their hands.
Again, the lieutenants who served Five-face were trying to spring a surprise on the police, and The Shadow was turning the game on them. The crooks
didn't wait around, when they recognized the laugh that came with The Shadow's gunfire. They spurted their cars for corners, glad to get away.
Only a handful still remained on the scene; the usual brand of small-fry who could be sacrificed to save the others.
Police were spreading, to deal with those scattered foemen. Picking spurts
of thuggish guns, The Shadow supplied timely shots that picked off the nearest snipers. The rest took to flight, with Cardona's men in full cry. Alone, The Shadow began to scour alleyways in search of Five-face.
This time, Five-face had made a rapid getaway, probably to a car parked in
another block. In his hunt, The Shadow was joined by Cliff Marsland and Hawkeye,
who had been on the outer fringes of the mob and had filtered through when the cars sped away. Cliff only remembered the lieutenants and their cars, but Hawkeye recalled another automobile in the offing.
It had sped away during the brief fray in back of the hotel, and while Hawkeye hadn't seen Barney Kelm, he had heard someone running toward the car in
question. Hawkeye's testimony settled the problem of Five-face. The master crook
had completed escape, along with robbery, despite The Shadow.
Hearing spasmodic firing from the street that fronted the hotel, The Shadow started in that direction to take a final hand. He arrived in time to witness a near tragedy.
Arnold Melbrun had just reached the hotel, and was stepping out of his car. Melbrun wasn't alarmed by the excitement, until a pair of thugs bobbed into sight and flung themselves upon him.
They wanted Melbrun's coupe and were trying to slug him, to get the keys he carried. Melbrun had a heavy cane with him and tried to ward off the attack.
People from the hotel were jumping in to help him, and with figures intervening,
The Shadow was unable to aim at Melbrun's attackers.
It was Joe Cardona who brought the real rescue. He had been chasing the thugs, and he was close enough to grab one who was shoving a revolver against Melbrun's ribs. Hotel attendants captured the other hoodlum, but Melbrun was shaky when people hauled him to his feet.
He asked what had happened, and Cardona told him. All the while, the captured thugs were snarling at detectives who had taken charge of them. All that the thugs would mention was the name of Barney Kelm.
'Sure, we was working for Barney,' voiced one. 'So what? He got away, didn't he? He was lucky and we wasn't. It wasn't Barney's fault we didn't get away.'
THE financiers were crowding about Melbrun, bewailing their ill luck.
Commissioner Weston joined them and explained that if they had shown the same judgment as Melbrun, their money would be safe. But Melbrun shook his head, when he heard the truth about Barney Kelm.
'I suspected trouble,' he said, 'but not from Kelm. I would have trusted him fully. I still have my money, commissioner, but only because the bank was closed when I arrived from Norfolk.'
Blood was trickling from Melbrun's forehead, where one of the thugs had given a glancing blow with a gun. When Weston offered to have a detective drive
him home, Melbrun gratefully accepted the offer.
The coupe pulled away, with Melbrun leaning back beside the driver's seat.
Turning matters over to Cardona, the commissioner summoned his official car.
By then, The Shadow had glided away toward a solitary taxicab parked down the street. His next destination was the Cobalt Club, where, as Cranston, he would hear Weston's version of new crime.
But The Shadow was looking beyond this night, to a time when Five-face, no
longer Barney Kelm, would reappear in another guise, intent on further crime.
Despite handicaps, The Shadow had nearly ruined the robbery at the Hotel Clairmont; but he knew that Five- face, overconfident because of success, would not admit the fact. The Shadow was sure that the master crook would strike again, as boldly as ever before.
