One move more could be one too many for the intrepid criminal who had dared The Shadow's might!
CHAPTER XV
CRIME ON THE SIDE
THE evanishment of Barney Kelm was no more singular than the disappearances of Jake Smarley and Flush Tygert. By this time, the public was getting used to crooks who staged one big thrust and then evaporated. Such things, criminologists said, always came in cycles.
It was all very plausible. Nobody in the underworld had ever rated Smarley
high. Though he fluked his robbery at Melbrun's, he had managed to hide himself
completely away; therefore, a smarter crook, like Flush, had thought it easy to
follow Smarley's example, with better success.
Barney Kelm was a different sort of case. A professor was writing a book about him, using long words, like egocentrism and megalomania, to show that acclaim had gone to Barney's head and twisted his brain. Public hero or public enemy, only a hairbreadth separated them, according to the professor.
All this was a tribute to Five-face, though neither the public nor the professor knew it. The master criminal had done far more than disguise himself facially. He had established and effaced three different personalities as widely separated as the points of a triangle.
In fact, Five-face had his lieutenants guessing. Gathered in their shabby apartment, the three were speculating heavily as to what had become of their chief.
'It's been three days, now,' argued Grease, 'and we haven't heard a thing from the guy. It's giving me the jitters!'
'It was a week last time,' reminded Banker. 'So why should we worry?'
'Because we need dough,' put in Clip. 'Five-face knows it. He's got dough,
too, from the last job. Two hundred and fifty grand of it.'
Banker shook his head. Reaching for a newspaper, he pointed to a paragraph.
'The cash is hot,' he stated. 'Those Wall Street guys gave Barney big bills right out of their banks. They didn't expect Barney to grab the mazuma, but they had the numbers listed, just the same.'
Clip was still in an argumentative mood.
'We need dough,' he insisted. 'We've had to hire some new torpedoes, to be
ready for the next job. What are we going to pay them with?'
'They'll wait,' returned Banker. 'Take that guy Cliff Marsland, for example. We were smart, hiring him. He wants to get in a lick at The Shadow, and knows we're the fellows who can put him in line for it.
'The little guy, Hawkeye, is another good bet. Dough doesn't worry him.
He
gets lonely unless he's trailing somebody, and we've promised him a lot of work,
which is what he wants. Say - I'll bet Hawkeye could even pick up The Shadow's trail and keep it!'
'You'd better put him on the trail of some hamburgers,' snapped Clip. 'We won't be eating after tonight, unless we hear from Five-face.'
'Hamburgers sound good,' spoke up Grease, 'with onions on the side.'
Banker was looking at the newspaper. His eyes, narrowing, showed a gleam, as he heard what Grease said.
'Something on the side,' remarked Banker. 'Say - that isn't a bad idea.
While Five-face is going after hamburgers, we can try onions.'
The others thought that Banker was trying to be funny, but he wasn't. He showed the newspaper and said:
'Take a gander at that guy, Clip.'
'Which one?'
Clip chuckled as he put the question. He was looking at a row of three photographs, showing Smarley, Flush and Barney, with the caption: 'Three Wanted
Men.'
'I don't mean those photos of Five-face,' said Banker. 'Over here, Clip, on the other page. This glamour boy with the fancy moniker: Count Raoul Fondelac.'
THE picture showed a man with a foreign face, high aristocratic nose, thin
lips that had a bored droop at the corners. Count Fondelac fitted his name; he looked like a nobleman. His age was problematical. He could have been called a young man who looked oldish, or an old man who looked youngish.
'His nibs is stopping at the Hotel Bayonne,' declared Banker, 'a very exclusive place. You couldn't walk through the lobby without a dress suit, but I'll bet it would be easy to sneak in the back way.'
'To rob the guy?' demanded Clip. 'Counts and such don't have a dime; not the sort that hang around New York. They're big-time panhandlers, that's all they are!'
'Count Fondelac is engaged to Albertina Adquin,' continued Banker, referring to the newspaper. 'You've heard of that dame, Clip. She's had three husbands, worth about ten million bucks apiece. Now she's buying a fourth one.'
'Yeah. So what?'
'I'm just wondering,' said Banker, 'Why she shouldn't buy him from us.'
Clip brightened instantly, and Grease showed sudden interest. It was Clip who queried:
'You mean, why don't we snatch the guy?'
'That's it!'
The three men scanned the newspaper eagerly. They learned that Count Fondelac was to be the guest at a reception in the Adquin mansion at ten o'clock in the evening. It was only half past seven, which gave them plenty of time to operate.
Leaving the apartment, they contacted men across the street, told them to follow in another car. Among the small group of hirelings were Cliff and Hawkeye, who had worked themselves into the service of the gang lieutenants, at
The Shadow's suggestion.
It wasn't until they stopped near the Hotel Bayonne that The Shadow's agents learned what the game was to be. Banker Dreeb had taken charge; he posted Cliff and others near the rear of the hotel, and sent Hawkeye ahead to reconnoiter a route to Fondelac's hotel suite. During that trip, Hawkeye performed a double job.
Not only did he find a service entrance that connected with a rear stairway; he crawled out through a window and took a passage to the front street, where he sneaked up to a taxicab that had parked in the hack stand.
Moe Shrevnitz was the driver of that cab; he had trailed the cars after they left the old apartment.
Small, hunch-shouldered in manner, Hawkeye poked a wizened face in through
the cab window and gave the facts to Moe. By the time Hawkeye was sneaking back
to join Banker and his companions, Moe was driving away to put in a call to Burbank. The way matters were fixed at present, such a call would bring The Shadow in rapid order.
Hawkeye made a lengthy report that stalled the expedition for several minutes. Having finally impressed the details on Banker, Hawkeye joined the cordon, taking the next post to Cliff's. Both agents watched Banker enter the service door of the hotel, followed by Grease and Clip.
The waiting period seemed long, though it was a very few minutes. There came a whisper from the darkness, one that drew Cliff and Hawkeye close together. They couldn't see The Shadow in the gloom, but they could sense his presence. Hawkeye gave the necessary details; a cloaked figure glided forward.
There was dim light near the service entrance. It had shown the gang lieutenants plainly when they entered. But The Shadow passed that hazard, observed only by his own agents. To others, posted by Banker, the blackness that glided beneath the light was nothing more than a flicker of the light itself.
THE SHADOW quickly made up the few minutes that he had lost. When he reached Fondelac's floor, he saw a valet come out from the suite, and knew from
the man's manner that nothing could have happened yet.
Choosing the next door, The Shadow picked its lock with a tool that resembled a tiny pair of tweezers. He stepped into a bedroom of Fondelac's suite.
From there, The Shadow looked into a lavish living room. He saw the count standing in front of a mirror,
