It was The Shadow — not Koko. The flames that belched from his huge automatics were tokens of that truth.
An aiming mobster slumped as he turned to meet the menace that the taunting laugh had warned was present. The gangster had picked the sheriff’s glittering badge as his target, but he never fired the shot that he intended.
The other gorillas snarled as they swung their leveled gats. Revolvers crackled while the automatics thundered. Certain in aim, The Shadow dealt with crooks as they deserved. One — two went down as their wild bullets sped past the living target that they sought.
As the last pair aimed, shots burst from the box ahead. The sheriff and a deputy had gained their revolvers. Their bullets dug up sawdust in front of the big cage. These were hasty shots that went wide of the fighting roughnecks; but they served a vital purpose.
The Shadow was dealing with spreadout foemen. Had the mobsters been clustered, his rapid fire would have vanquished them entirely. These last two gorillas, however, had gained the edge while The Shadow was mowing down their pals.
The fire of the sheriff and the deputy gave The Shadow a momentary respite. Both mobsters faltered for an instant as the new shots broke in their direction. The Shadow, acting in fifth of seconds, performed a sidewise drop as the gangsters pressed triggers with fingers that had rested for a fractional interval.
Bullets whistled past the tall form as it rolled in the sawdust of the track. The shots were high as they sped above the cloaked left shoulder. Yet, as he performed his fade-away, The Shadow guided the sweep of his left hand. Its automatic barked as The Shadow struck the ground. One mobster staggered, wounded.
The other swung to new aim. He was twenty paces distant from his pal. The Shadow’s right hand poked its gun upward from the sawdust. A gloved finger pressed the trigger.
The Shadow’s aim, however, was not directed toward the last gorilla. In the split second that he had to fire, he aimed for a more certain target — the spotlight.
GLASS shattered as the light went out. The last mobster blazed away in darkness. He was shooting at the spot where he thought The Shadow was; but the total blackness played havoc with his aim. His shots found sawdust — not The Shadow.
Chaos reigned within the big top. Shouts of men — screams of women — the roars of maddened beasts within the cage — above all these came the barks of guns as the desperate mobsman turned his aim toward the box. Shots from the sheriff, the watchman and the deputies — delivered toward the ring — were answered by the last gorilla.
Flashes of guns were the only targets for these fighters who numbered four against one. Yet the gorilla held the advantage. His enemies were clustered in the box. He was moving across the ring. A deputy groaned as he sank wounded.
The mobster thought that he had finished with The Shadow. He was wrong. An unseen shape was moving from the sawdust. The Shadow was picking the moving target by the spurts of the revolver. Cool amid the darkness, he gauged the gorilla’s speed by the interval between two shots.
An automatic spoke. Its flash came an instant after a shot from the ring. Sheriff Howard and two companions kept up their fusillade. There was no reply from in front of the big cage. A weird laugh whispered from the track. It seemed to trail as it faded into nothingness.
Flashlights were appearing. Their beams swept toward the ring, the center point of all attention. Then, of a sudden, the tent lights came on. Gasping spectators stared toward the ring. It showed a scene that captured all attention.
Eric Wernoff had gained the safety of the little entry to his cage. He was away from the roaring, snarling beasts that were fighting and sprawling in the space behind the bars. On the sawdust in front of the big cage lay three motionless mobsters. Two others were on hands and knees, seeking to regain their guns.
The sheriff and the unhurt deputy came leaping from the box. The wounded gorillas tried to aim at them. Sheriff and deputy each picked a man. As mobster guns came up to fire, the men of the law shot point-blank. Riddling bullets dropped the two crooks whom The Shadow had crippled in the final moments of his fight.
Standing in the ring, the sheriff looked all about. So did the four clowns who were cowering by the wooden safe. Spectators followed their example. They were looking for the weird, blackclad warrior who had brought down the desperate mobsmen.
None found the object of their search. The Shadow had departed. Blood stained the sawdust where dead gorillas lay; but no token remained of the one who had vanquished the bullet-riddled crooks.
The trailing laugh had marked The Shadow’s swift passage to the runway. He had left the big top just before the lights came on. The results of the brief warfare remained as evidence of his mighty prowess.
Coming from darkness, The Shadow had won the conflict single-handed. He had left the fruits of victory — represented by the murderous gorillas — where the law could find them. The sheriff had found the robbers that he sought. Dead, they could offer no resistance.
The Shadow — his work accomplished — had returned to the darkness from which he had emerged to strike down fiends of crime.
CHAPTER XV
GATHERING CLOUDS
“WELL? What about it, Stuffy?”
“We can open tonight, Cap. The tin star says it’s all jake.”
“It’s time he made up his mind about it. The crowd — or what there is of it — won’t stick around much longer.”
The conversation was taking place in the office of the Larch Circus and Greater Shows. Cap Guffy and Stuffy Dowson were done. One day had passed since The Shadow’s battle with the mobsters in the big top. A new evening had begun.
“You can’t blame the tin star, Cap.” Stuffy Dowson spoke as Guffy was about to leave the office. “He’s a regular sort of a guy. But he can’t let the law slide just on our account.”
“We ain’t stopping him, are we?” growled Cap. “Say — what does the yap want? He landed the five bank robbers, didn’t he?”
“But he didn’t find the dough they swiped, Cap.”
“He searched the lot, didn’t he? Him and them rube deputies — say, they even tapped the tent poles to make sure they weren’t hollow. That swag’s off this lot, Stuffy. The tin star might as well make up his mind to it.”
“He has,” declared Stuffy, “and he wants to talk to you about it.”
“Why me?” queried Cap, staring hard.
“On account of that fellow Zoda,” stated Stuffy. “It looks sort of phony, Cap, that guy blowing the way he did. The sheriff tells me Zoda never set up his ‘props’ last night.”
“That’s a fact,” declared Cap. “I told the sheriff about it, though. He thought it was worth looking into, but that was all.”
“He was still thinking about the robbers,” explained Stuffy. “It wasn’t until after he’d nabbed those five heels that he began to worry about the swag. Let me give you the lay, Cap. I ain’t had a chance to talk much about it.
“You heard about the trouble in the big top. That fight was a pip. It would have been too bad for old tin star if the guy in black hadn’t got in his say.”
“Who was the guy, Stuffy?”
“We don’t know. He was gone when the lights came on. Four of the clowns said he was supposed to be Koko. So we went over to the dressing tent and the first thing we seen was a guy in a black cloak and hat, laying in a heap by one of the trunks.”
“Was he the fellow?”
“No. We thought so at first. I figured he’d got shot during the fight. We grabbed off his cloak — and who do you think it was?”
“Koko?”
“Yeah. But he wasn’t the fellow that had been in the big top. It was Koko that we found; and he was tied up with a couple of belts. He had a bandanna gagging him. He couldn’t tell us what hit him. He said he’d been going to pull a stunt on the track. He was supposed to be a guy called The Shadow, chasing four crooks. Just when he was leaving for the big top, somebody landed on him like a load of bricks. It was another guy with a black cloak and hat.”