Again, the touch of the master hand; he was playing it safe, turning a crowd of
volunteers upon The Shadow.
The shout gave the attack away, but not well enough to save The Shadow.
Too many guns were on the draw for him to remain as a target. As for blackness,
there wasn't any close enough for The Shadow to make a quick fade. His only system was to provide darkness by beating the crooks to the shot, and he did.
Whipping both guns from his cloak, The Shadow blasted the lights of the nearest police car, producing a swath of blackness into which he dived. The instant that the gloom swallowed him, he reversed his course. He was speeding out again, into the light, as the Tuxedoed marksmen dented the hood of the car into junk.
Another shout; the crooks wheeled; too late. The Shadow reached the cover that he needed - the cab that Flush had used. Its driver was gone, running along the street. Springing into the cab, The Shadow turned it into an improvised pillbox.
It had a slide-back top, which enabled the cloaked sharpshooter to fire as
if from a turret. When crooks blazed bullets for the cab top, The Shadow's hands
jabbed from one window, then the other, poking quick shots from ever-ready guns.
By then, the police were in it. At first, they thought that shots were meant for them. They had mistaken The Shadow's strategy for an attack. But when
the cloaked fighter had diverted the fire, the officers knew how matters stood.
They were out of their cars, charging the frenzied men in Tuxedos exactly as they had gone after the pretended bums in the arcade.
Crooks surged for the cab, hoping to get The Shadow at any cost, while others were fighting off the police. When they reached the cab, The Shadow was gone again. He had chosen the moment of the police surge to spring to the sidewalk and take a new vantage point in a narrow alleyway. He was sniping off his foemen in a fashion that promised them sure defeat.
Then came a quick end to the battle, through aid from a unique and unexpected source.
NEXT door to Lody's was an upstairs gymnasium, rather well known in the vicinity. It was a boxing stable managed by a fight promoter named Barney Kelm,
a familiar figure on Broadway, whenever he was in New York. Barney happened to be on hand tonight, and shooting didn't bother him any more than the boos of a prize-fight audience.
Portly, wide-shouldered, with a broad, bluff face beneath his derby hat, Barney Kelm stepped to a little balcony that fronted the gym. He scanned the street and saw what was going on - a frenzied, slugging battle between uniformed police and men that he knew as hoodlums.
There was no sign of The Shadow. From his balcony, Barney could not observe the telling shots that the hidden marksman delivered. Turning back to the gymnasium, Barney gave an ardent bellow, along with graphic gestures. A dozen boxers quit skipping rope and punching away at bags. With Barney among them, they dashed downstairs to the street.
They were pulling off their gloves, to get in punches that would hurt.
Grabbing men in Tuxedos, the pugs gave them expert treatment. Hard uppercuts counted more than the wide swings of police guns. With Barney cheering them and
waving his own pudgy fists, the boxers made short work of the mob from Lody's.
Soon, the police were carrying away the wounded, while the pugilists were dragging slap-happy crooks from gutters. More patrol cars were arriving, to give the law full control. His guns stowed away, The Shadow saw Inspector Cardona step from a car and start shaking hands with Barney Kelm.
The fat-faced fight promoter was taking credit for having quelled the fray. As far as The Shadow was concerned, Barney Kelm was welcome to it. The Shadow was more interested in learning what had become of Flush Tygert. With that purpose in mind, he glided away into blackness.
Two battlers had vanished: one, The Shadow, a figure in black, his real identity unknown; the other, Five-face, who changed his personality after every
deed of crime.
When, where, and how they would meet again, neither could foretell; but the fact that there would be such a meeting was something that both knew!
CHAPTER X
THE PUBLIC HERO
SEATED in the library of the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston was scanning two
newspapers. One was several days old, telling of the foiled robbery at the United Import Co. It showed the photo of Jake Smarley, the missing bookie, beside the picture of Arnold Melbrun, the man who had outguessed the vanished crook.
The other newspaper was recent. It had two front-page photographs. One portrayed Flush Tygert, his long face displaying its habitual smile; the other,
the fat, serious features of Barney Kelm, who rated at a public hero.
Like Smarley, Tygert was wanted, but to a greater degree. Where Smarley had missed out on a robbery, Flush had succeeded. It would go hard with both, however, if they were found, for there were manslaughter charges against them, too.
Folding one newspaper, Cranston placed it on the other, so that only the two pictures showed, those of Smarley and Flush. Side by side, they made an interesting contrast. Facially, there was nothing in common between Jake Smarley and Flush Tygert; the remarkable thing was that both had disappeared.
Very remarkable, considering that they had not been highly rated in the underworld until their recent exploits. Neither Smarley nor Flush should be the
sort to have an airtight hide-away; yet, apparently, each had one. Not a trace of either criminal had been found by the police.
Placing the newspapers aside, Cranston drew a notebook from his pocket.
With a fountain pen, he wrote the two names in a vivid blue ink: Jake Smarley
Flush Tygert
Alone in the library, Cranston phrased a whispered laugh. Its low, uncanny
tone identified him as The Shadow. So did the ink with which he had inscribed the names. As it dried, it faded, obliterating itself completely.
It was the special ink that The Shadow used for important messages. He employed it, too, when he transcribed his impressions into written words.
The names linked. The Shadow had divined that Smarley and Flush were one and the same. His keen brain was visualizing the next step in the process; namely, that by this time, neither Smarley nor Flush existed; that the master criminal must have adopted another identity.
In tracing this vital fact, The Shadow had pictured two events from the past.
He remembered how Smarley had cleverly used Melbrun's cash box as a shield
to deflect bullets. Flush had done the same thing with the bag of gems when he fled from the Diamond Mart.
In flight, Five-face had been off guard, and each time, The Shadow had spied him. Though The Shadow did not know the title used by the master crook and therefore could not tell how many faces the criminal had, he was certainly on the correct track in the detection of crime's greatest secret.
An attendant entered the library, carrying an envelope. He saw The Shadow and approached on tiptoe, carefully trying not to disturb the quiet of the room. The Shadow was rising, in the leisurely style of Cranston, before the attendant arrived. Cranston's lips showed a smile as he scanned the note.
It said that Commissioner Weston was in the grillroom and would like Cranston to join him. Apparently, the commissioner had something to tell regarding the police investigation of the recent robberies.
IN the grillroom, Weston had a pile of police reports, stacked six inches high. Cardona was with him, and the two were thumbing through the papers.
Again, there was a resemblance between the raid at Melbrun's and the robbery in the Diamond Mart. Small-fry crooks had been quizzed, with only one answer.
First it had been Jake Smarley; now it was Flush Tygert. In each instance,