adversaries.
The Shadow's shots were quick ones, calculated to make crooks dive, rather than to drop them; but he succeeded both ways. Dwig and two others managed to do a frantic duck, but The Shadow clipped the fourth man. Coming up from elbows to knees, he was ready for more target practice with the remaining three; but, by then, it was unneeded. The final factor had come into the game.
The final factor: namely, the guards who only a few seconds earlier had been facing cold-blooded death.
Not only had they rallied, they were right in the paths that Dwig and his two unwounded pals were taking to get away from The Shadow's fire. Two to one, the guards were pouncing on the hapless crooks, intending to suppress them.
Unfortunately, the guards were too ardent, as the crooks had been with The Shadow. While Dwig and the other two were trying to wrest away in among the counters, and losing their guns in the attempt, the guards heard shots.
Wounded men were supplying them from the floor, and the guards didn't wait for The Shadow to suppress those cripples. Instead, they turned to blaze away at the incapable marksmen.
The Shadow cleared a counter in one long leap, his only way to escape the misguided fire that the vengeful guards supplied. Dwig and his two unscathed companions dashed for the front door, hoping only for a getaway, since they were gunless.
Coming up from the counter, The Shadow aimed to stop them, but by then the guards were in the way, closing in upon the wounded men that they had already riddled.
One guard saw the three escaping crooks and yelled. The rest flooded toward the door, firing as they started, thereby ending The Shadow's last chance of inserting timely shots. Once hurried, the guards were even worse marksmen than the crooks.
Two masked men went safely through the door while bullets were cracking show windows on each side.
The third of the fleeing tribe - the nervy Dwig - actually made a pause in flight, to pick up a gun that a guard had kicked from the hand of a wounded thug.
Speeding to the side door, The Shadow looked along the street, saw Dwig's car make a two-wheeled turn from the avenue. The guards, by then, were shooting from the front door of Walder's, and a single gun was answering from Dwig's car.
Coolly, The Shadow aimed at the spurting weapon, intending to put Dwig out of action and therewith demoralize the escaping pair who accompanied him. Again, The Shadow was forced to stay a timely shot.
Another car whipped around the corner. It was Harry's coupe, taking up the pursuit, and it cut right into The Shadow's path of aim. The two cars sped along the street, and The Shadow watched them dwindle to a distant corner while the noise of guns trailed back from both.
The chase was far beyond The Shadow's range of fire when he saw Dwig's car swerve around another corner. There were flashes of tiny guns and Dwig's car was gone, while Harry's coupe kept ahead and climbed a curb. Still watching, The Shadow saw his agent come from the coupe and stoop beside it.
Dwig's shot hadn't clipped Harry; it had taken a front tire instead. But it meant that Dwig was off in the clear, free to make his round of night clubs, while the two thugs with him could return to hide-aways.
Sirens were sounding in front of Walder's, telling that police cars had arrived. With a gloomy departing laugh, The Shadow took his way into paths of darkness.
JUST as Dwig Brencott moved in a fancier sphere than the ratty crooks who had helped him in a scheme of murder guised as robbery, so did The Shadow frequent places much more exclusive than the night spots that Dwig patronized.
As Lamont Cranston, The Shadow was a member of the Cobalt Club, which numbered many millionaires among its patrons.
It happened that Police Commissioner Ralph Weston belonged to the Cobalt Club, and esteemed Cranston as a bosom friend. Chances were that Cranston would be hearing from the commissioner as he always did when crime reached up from the underworld and bothered high society. So The Shadow went to the Cobalt Club, arriving there as Cranston.
He hadn't long to wait. Notified of a telephone call, the leisurely Mr. Cranston answered it and heard the brusque voice of Commissioner Weston, telling him about the tragedy at Walder's and asking him to come over. Indulgently, The Shadow drawled that he would. A while later, he arrived there in the guise of Cranston.
Instead of six sapphires, there were four bodies on display. One was Walder's; the other three were the crooks that The Shadow had crippled and the guards had slaughtered. All three had been identified as low characters from the badlands, which didn't surprise The Shadow. He was quite sure that Dwig Brencott, crook deluxe, would choose the lowest of companions for criminal forays, just to distract all thoughts from himself.
The man who had identified the three hoodlums was present. He was a swarthy, stocky, police inspector; by name, Joe Cardona. He rated as Weston's ace inspector, despite the fact that Joe and the commissioner were wont to argue.
Usually they had conflicting theories as the cause of their dispute, and they were running true to form now. Both were irked because the three thugs had died too soon to be questioned, but except for that point, the commissioner and the inspector were at loggerheads.
'The case is obvious,' growled Weston. 'These men belong to the band of jewel thieves who have been operating so extensively. They are of a low type, and their leader was undoubtedly the roughest of the lot. They weren't the sort who could show their faces in a store like this, even before they made their attempt at robbery.
'So they simply waited outside until they saw that the door was clear of guards. Not knowing that the sapphires had been removed, they made the thrust, hoping to grab the gems that they had heard about.
Walder tried to block them, so they killed him.'
The Shadow knew that Weston's theory was even wider than the shots that the excited guards had fired after Dwig when the crook deluxe departed. Even before they pulled up in front of Walder's, Dwig and his company had been close enough to see the removal of the sapphires by the side door.
They had even waited until the armored truck went across the avenue before making their thrust at the store itself. Therefore, The Shadow was interested to learn if Cardona had a different theory.
Joe did have. It was as far from the mark as Weston's.
'I figure it different, commissioner,' gruffed Cardona. 'These gunzels weren't after the sapphires. They'd have been dumb to snatch a load of matched gems like those six blue stars. What they were figuring on was a robbery of Walder's regular stock.
'They doped it that the guards would unlax as soon as the truck pulled away, which is just what did happen. It was a crazy time to stage a robbery, with the big swag gone. Only, like I said, this outfit would have laid off of gems that couldn't be easily fenced. They were pulling a routine job at a time no body figured it would come. That's all.'
Recalling Dwig's presence in the jewelry shop earlier, The Shadow could easily have refuted Cardona's theory. Dwig, had seen for himself that Walder, expecting an influx of curiosity seekers, had locked up all of his worth-while stock and left nothing but showcases of cheap trinkets and notions for visitors to look at, after getting an eyeful of the six star sapphires.
LEAVING Weston and Cardona to argue the merits of their erroneous opinions, The Shadow expressed his regret over Walder's death, and gave a leisurely good night in typical Cranston style. Still retaining his lackadaisical pose, he left the store, entered a waiting limousine outside and rode to his favorite restaurant.
Sight of Moe's cab, parked outside, told The Shadow that he would find Margo inside, which he did.
As they dined, Margo kept watching the immobile face of Cranston hoping for some expression that would answer the questions that she had in mind. None came, but as the finished dinner, The Shadow spoke in Cranston's steady tone.
'It's too bad, Margo,' he said, 'that you didn't follow the truck, as I suggested.'
'But I did!' began Margo. 'Only, I was in Shrevvy's cab, and he dropped the trail. He said that The Shadow -'
She stopped abruptly. There was no use in telling The Shadow something that he already knew. Margo
