Taking a look in the mirror, Moe certified Margo's statement and sped the cab ahead. He was neatly in advance when he reached the side door of the Metrolite, but he didn't stop.
Instead, Moe whizzed past, went along the darkened street and swung around the block. He went by so fast, that Margo did not get a look at the hotel's side door.
A man was lounging there: Lamont Cranston. He not only saw the cab, he observed that a suspicious car was trailing it.
Things happened while those cars were rounding the block. Cranston became a figure in black: The Shadow. He signaled some blinks with a tiny flashlight; they were seen across the street. The Shadow had merged with darkness, away from the hotel door, when Moe's cab came past again.
This time, Moe slackened, and Margo thought that he intended to stop; but, instead, he kept on. Of course, the trailing coupe slowed when the cab did, but it didn't resume its speed.
A door yanked open on the driver's side of the coupe. Something hit the thug and sent him clear across the car into his companion's lap. Before the other hoodlum could get rid of the burdening driver, his head took a hard jolt, too.
By then, there were three in the car, and the driver was The Shadow. He pulled to the far curb and stepped out. Harry Vincent promptly joined him; The Shadow blinked the flashlight on the faces of the stunned men. Seeing that they would stay put awhile, he turned the car over to Harry, who drove away.
Finishing another tour around the block, Moe stopped at the Metrolite and let Margo out. Very anxiously, she looked back toward the corner, then decided that Moe must have managed to slip the trailing car. Margo went into the hotel, while Moe was looking at a green blink from a flashlight, farther down the street.
Wheeling over, Moe picked up The Shadow and made a brief report. The Shadow ordered a prompt return to Dwig's hide-out.
'Sorry about Miss Lane,' informed Moe. 'She's expecting to meet Mr. Cranston at the Metrolite.'
'Rather odd,' returned The Shadow. 'He didn't tell her that he would be there.'
'No,' Moe admitted. 'But I did.'
'Then Cranston can blame it on you?'
The Shadow's tone ended with a whispered laugh that carried nothing more significant than the fact that Margo Lane might have a very long wait before she dined with her friend Lamont Cranston.
CHAPTER XII. THE FIFTH VICTIM
IN his squalid basement hide-away, Dwig Brencott was talking on the telephone, while other men stood by.
Sleek, suave of tone, Dwig was a contrast to his companions. They were husky, but dumb-faced, recruits that Dwig had signed to take the place of the lamented gunzels who had suffered, permanently, from meeting with The Shadow and the police.
Except for the telephone, the hide-away had no furnishings other than a table and some broken-down chairs. It was quite apparent that Dwig, when he gestured for his tribe to follow him, intended to abandon the place. The Shadow could tell that from the looks of the place.
For The Shadow was present, though unseen.
The cloaked investigator had entered the hide-away from the back.
Peering through a partly opened door, he heard Dwig say: 'Let's go!' Then, followed by his small but tough crew, Dwig went out through the front.
Even though he glanced back, Dwig did not see The Shadow. Motionless in the other doorway, the cloaked observer had benefit of darkness; but that was not all. It was unlikely that Dwig could have seen The Shadow.
Using the system of remaining absolutely immobile, with even his thoughts fixed, The Shadow was practicing the ways of the Tibetan mystics.
It was their belief that such concentration could produce the equivalent of invisibility. Through experience, The Shadow had demonstrated that complete immobility did reduce an observer's chances to almost nil.
It produced the semblance of a power through which he could cloud men's minds; and many of The Shadow's enemies had sworn that he had suddenly appeared in the midst of a lighted room before their startled eyes.
Only a few could claim that they had seen The Shadow vanish, for the simple reason that it was much more difficult the other way about. Though The Shadow could fade rapidly into darkness, he required ideal conditions if he sought to remain on the very ground, unnoticed. Once crooks saw The Shadow, their minds became too excited to be readily quieted.
If Dwig had any suspicions that The Shadow might be about, they were so vague that they did not bother him. His mind was at ease and tending toward other matters.
Had The Shadow spoken at that moment, in ventriloquial style, he could have startled Dwig into absolute bewilderment. In fact, Dwig would have imagined The Shadow almost anywhere except at the spot where he actually was.
But The Shadow did not speak; nor did he choose to reveal himself. He simply waited, motionless, until Dwig had followed the others outside. Then came the slightest stir amid the darkness, the merest swish of a black cloak, as The Shadow made his own departure from the rear of the hide-out.
Moe's cab was waiting in the next street; from then on, it became the medium whereby The Shadow kept close to Dwig and his crew without being discovered.
The fact that his cruising bruisers had not returned was proof sufficient to Dwig that the way was clear.
He'd told them to go their way, and it didn't occur to him that The Shadow might have put them out of the picture by virtue of a surprise attack. Hence, Dwig was going his own way also and providing The Shadow with a very easy trail.
Where that trail would lead was no mystery to The Shadow.
Analyzing the matter of the stolen message more deeply than Margo had, The Shadow reduced it to but one solution. Mobsters had been forced to remove the link to a fifth murder because, somehow, that particular crime had fallen through. If the police had found the name on the memo pad beneath Raft's elbow, they might have been able to forestall a coming crime.
That, in itself, was an important point.
The very oddity of the four deaths - all by poison, and striking almost at an appointed hour - indicated definitely that they were prearranged. Therefore, Dwig had probably supposed that the fifth man was dead, too, until some last-minute information had indicated otherwise. Naturally, since a murder scheme had slipped, Dwig, at present, was out to amend it.
Dwig and his mob were actually leading The Shadow to the fifth victim before death was delivered.
Somewhere along this trail, The Shadow would have to pass the killers and be the first to reach the helpless man they sought!
THE trail narrowed suddenly, as the car ahead stopped near an elevated railway station. Moe parked on the other side of the avenue and The Shadow glided from the cab, prepared to follow an elusive course beneath the el pillars, in case Dwig tried a sudden move.
Crooks were watching the steps that came down from the elevated station; it might be that they intended to waylay their quarry when he descended from the platform.
A man appeared from that direction. He was well-dressed, fairly tall, and with an intelligent square-jawed face. His lined features marked him past middle age, but his gait was agile. His expression was a troubled one - that of a man who was bound upon an unpleasant duty; but The Shadow noticed no trace of fear.
Reaching shelter beside the el steps, The Shadow pointed an automatic for the window of the sedan in which Dwig and the other thugs were seated.
The mere glint of a revolver barrel would have meant a bullet for the man who showed the gun; but no one in the car tempted The Shadow's aim. Dwig and his watchers let the square-jawed man go past them, but when he had walked a half block, their car moved slowly in the same direction.
It appeared that they preferred to trail their prospective victim to some place where they could kill him with less notice.
Back in Moe's cab, The Shadow had his driver proceed along the same trail. Lights extinguished, the cab sneaked neatly up behind the sedan. The other car stopped; Moe did the same.
