Other eyes than Harry Vincent’s were watching Farrow and Griffel as the pair strolled along the main street. In the darkness of Room 401, The Shadow was gazing keenly toward the thoroughfare below. He saw a pair of loungers who followed in the wake of Griffel and Farrow. He watched Dave and Louie enter the truck and drive away. A soft laugh came from The Shadow’s lips.
Something scraped beneath the door. The Shadow turned and crossed the darkened room. He stooped and picked up an envelope. A light clicked on; the shaded rays of a lamp showed only hands as The Shadow opened the envelope. The message was in code, inscribed in ink of vivid blue. It was Harry Vincent’s prompt report of his recent observations in Farrow’s store.
The writing vanished. The light clicked out. A period of silence followed. Then came a swishing sound. The door of Room 401 opened and a spectral figure issued forth. In his garb of black, The Shadow was starting out. The tall figure reached the fire tower. The Shadow descended. His shape merged with darkness and followed a circuitous path along a back street. Phantomlike, The Shadow could move entirely unseen so long as he avoided the glittering main street.
He turned toward that thoroughfare, however, after he had traveled some distance under cover of darkness. He had reached a spot just beyond the lighted zone. The Shadow crossed the main street unobserved; his shape no more than a passing blotch of blackness.
He reached a back street beyond and reversed his course. A few minutes later, The Shadow was nearing the delivery entrance of Farrow’s clothing shop. His figure eased against the brick wall.
TWO men were blundering through the dark. The Shadow could hear their low-toned conversation. He knew that these were other henchmen who served Griffel. At night, Farrow’s place was under observation. Griffel was evidently missing no opportunity to pin something on Farrow.
The delivery door of the clothing shop was heavily bolted. Farrow had taken pains to keep the place locked tightly. The Shadow, however, had other means of entrance. He waited until the prowling watchers had passed. He pressed close against the wall.
A squdgy sound came from the bricks. In the darkness, The Shadow’s form moved upward. With rubber suction cups on hands and feet, The Shadow was scaling the wall with ease.
A window yielded on the second floor. The Shadow’s form entered. A tiny flashlight flickered; its dollar-sized circle of light was guarded. The rays could not be seen from the back street below.
The Shadow was in Farrow’s apartment.
A careful inspection revealed nothing. The Shadow unlocked the door and descended a pair of stairs that led down into the shop. There he entered Farrow’s little office.
Telegrams lay upon a desk. These were the only documents of interest that The Shadow could find in the small room with barred windows. A soft laugh came from the lips that were covered by the folds of the cloak collar.
These messages told of incoming shipments. All were slated to arrive tonight, on the Night Express. This worked in with Harry Vincent’s report. The Shadow glided from the office.
The black-garbed investigator found the delivery door. He produced a blackened pick and probed the lock of a large door beside the closed entrance. The barrier opened to reveal a stairway to the basement. The Shadow descended.
Store rooms — windowless — were located below. There were boxes and packing cases here. The Shadow passed through the first room and opened the door to a small, inner compartment. This had a side door which led back to a passage toward the stairs.
His inspection completed, The Shadow extinguished the tiny flashlight and started for the stairs. He paused suddenly. His keen ears had detected a sound from above. A key was clicking in the lock of the door at the head of the stairs — a barrier which The Shadow had locked behind him.
As footsteps pounded on the steps, The Shadow edged back into the darkness. He reached the doorway from the passage to the little room just as the arrival came to the bottom of the steps.
The approacher walked through the passage to the large store room. He switched on a light. The glow revealed Slade Farrow. The ex-convict glanced about to assure himself that all was in order. He did not see the peering eyes that watched through the crack of the door from the little room beyond.
The Shadow had taken full provision for Slade Farrow’s return. He had left no clew that would let the man know an intruder had been here. Farrow turned and went back to the stairs, leaving the light on in the big store room.
This time The Shadow waited. Shrouded in the darkness of the little room, he was prepared to play the part of watcher in the events to follow.
CHAPTER XI
THREE THREATS
UP in the back street behind the Southfield Clothing Shop, Dave and Louie were unloading boxes and packing cases from their truck. They had brought in the shipment which had arrived by the Night Express.
The delivery door was open. Slade Farrow was pointing his truckmen toward the stairs. His voice was plain as he spoke.
“That’s all for tonight, boys,” he asserted. “Leave the shipment in the store room and I’ll lock up. Have the truck around at eight thirty tomorrow morning.”
A few minutes later, the bolts shot on the delivery door. The truck pulled away. Lurkers still prowled near the back street. Griff’s watchers had seen the unloading. It had been a regular delivery of goods.
Down in the basement store rooms, Slade Farrow entered and stood beneath the light. His shrewd face wore a cunning smile, He studied the boxes that his men had brought in. Picking up a small crowbar, he pried away the top boards of a packing case.
The Shadow was watching and listening. His keen ears caught a trifling sound. His vigilant eyes saw the next result. A figure arose from within the opened box. A tall, cadaverous man stepped lightly from the container and exchanged grins with Slade Farrow.
“Hello, boss,” was his whispered greeting.
“Hello, Tapper,” rejoined Farrow. “Get busy with that second case. I’ll take the other.”
“Right. I’ll let Skeets out while you open the box for Hawkeye.”
Muffled tools pried open the indicated cases. Two men emerged, each from a separate box. “Skeets,” like “Tapper,” was a shrewd, thin-faced individual, tall and stoop-shouldered. The third man, “Hawkeye,” was small and frail.
Yet of the three, Hawkeye possessed the most striking characteristics. His face was wizened. It seemed prematurely old. His eyes formed a marked contrast to the colorless appearance of his skin. They were quick and beady; they were as sharp as the optics of a snake.
THE SHADOW knew these men. They were criminals who had served their terms; men who had vanished from the bad lands after their commitments in Sing Sing. They were of different caliber than such secondary henchmen as Dave and Louie, the two whom Slade Farrow had allowed to come openly to Southfield.
Tapper, in his heyday, had been one of the smoothest safe-crackers in the business. Skeets, The Shadow knew, had been a racketeer. Hawkeye had gained fame as a spy throughout the underworld.
The three had served varying sentences in prison. The Shadow had listed them as men to be watched when discharged. All three, however, had retired to lives away from crime. Their whereabouts had become untraceable.
They were in Southfield now — these three men who had been rated as master crooks in the past. They had come at the bidding of one man whom they recognized as their chief: Slade Farrow.
Watched in Southfield, Farrow had boldly introduced these three under the noses of Griff’s henchmen. Secretly he had gained the under cover aid of three men whose crimes had once bewildered the police force of Manhattan. Out of nowhere, he had assembled a trio capable of supercrime!