THE SHADOW edged toward the fourth passage. He reached it; came to the invisible beam. Instantly, the last gate fell with a clangor that sent echoes quivering through the courtyard. The Shadow did not enter the passage. Instead, he swung back, edged quickly along the wall of the old pawnshop. Stretching long arms upward, The Shadow gripped the protruding shutters that barred the ground floor of the building.
Silently, The Shadow lifted his body. He gained a foothold upon two stone sills. Digging fingers into the crevices of the crumbling brick wall, The Shadow made a further silent climb. His feet lifted; his toes found the tops of the shutters. Moving his left hand slowly upward, The Shadow stretched for the corner of the second-story window sill.
Simultaneously, he looked upward, straight for the dimly glowing sky. Only a few feet above him he saw the outlines of a head and shoulders. The Shadow recognized the contorted form of Ku-Nuan.
The Mongol was craning from the window. He was listening for a sound that he expected to follow the dropping of the gate. Ku-Nuan thought that The Shadow had entered the fourth passage, as he had done with the other three, to clang against impenetrable bars. So intent was Ku-Nuan upon a more distant sound, that he failed to hear the slight swish that had marked The Shadow’s upward progress against the wall.
The Shadow could see Ku-Nuan, for the Mongol was above him; and the sky formed a dully luminous background. Ku-Nuan could not see The Shadow, for the depths of the courtyard were a solid black. The Shadow’s right hand crept upward. Like the left, it gripped a corner of the sill. The Shadow raised one foot, then the other; he gained a last toe-hold. Doubled, extending from the wall, he was within reach of Ku-Nuan.
A brick gave under pressure. The Shadow dug his slipping toe more firmly; he gained a better hold. The reason was simply that a chunk of brick loosened; carrying mortar with it, the fragment dropped down into the courtyard. It clattered an echo from the stone paying beneath. The sound brought a quick snarl from Ku-Nuan.
Instantly, Ku-Nuan recognized The Shadow’s presence. Leaning outward, the Mongol shot his left hand downward. His clawish clutch found The Shadow’s right shoulder. With a triumphant snarl, Ku-Nuan drove his right hard downward, seeking to bury a long blade into The Shadow’s body.
THE SHADOW saw the driving arm against the sky. He sped his left hand from the corner of the sill, plucked Ku-Nuan’s arm in the middle of its swing. He darted his right hand for Ku-Nuan’s neck. The Shadow needed no further hold upon the sill. Ku-Nuan’s arm and neck served instead.
Ku-Nuan did what The Shadow expected. Clutched, the Mongol writhed inward from the window. The Shadow kept his toe-hold; snapped his body forward. As Ku-Nuan tried to wrestle away, The Shadow came with him. One knee found the sill; then the other. Ku-Nuan felt The Shadow surging in upon him. The Mongol changed his tactics.
Stabbing wildly, uselessly with the hand that held the knife, Ku-Nuan tried to lurch The Shadow outward. He half succeeded; but with it, he swung his own body partly across the sill.
Fiercely, The Shadow grappled with Ku-Nuan. Together, the fighters formed a writhing pair that leaned body and shoulders outward over the court. For a moment, it seemed that both would launch themselves into the blackened depths beneath.
The Shadow twisted. He loosened his grip upon Ku-Nuan’s arm. The Mongol slashed a long stroke inward. The Shadow twisted again; the blade found nothing but the shoulder of his cloak, to slit it half from The Shadow’s body.
Again, The Shadow shifted. His head back against the sill, Ku-Nuan saw blackness coming down upon him, plain against the sky’s slight glow. Ku-Nuan swung a terrific up-arm stroke. Again, his knife cleaved cloth. Shedding the carved cloak. The Shadow had swished it like a blanket down upon Ku-Nuan’s head and shoulders.
His arm beneath the cloth, The Shadow found Ku-Nuan’s wrist. With quick grip, he twisted the killer’s hand. The knife slipped from Ku-Nuan’s grasp. Weaponless, the killer snarled from the muffling cloak. Lunging, he shot hands free to catch The Shadow’s throat. For a moment, The Shadow sagged; then gained a body grip upon Ku-Nuan. Choking, he used all his strength to offset the Mongol’s fiendish power.
The grapplers locked above the window ledge. Straining, they formed a motionless picture beneath the dulled sky. The tableau persisted amid silent moments. Endurance had become the test. The one who could outlast the other would be the winner.
During those first few moments, no judge could have told who held the advantage: The Shadow or Ku-Nuan.
CHAPTER XII – CRIME’S PRISONER
Ku-Nuan was not the only listener who had heard the fall of the fourth barrier. While The Shadow was spending time in strategic attack upon the lookout, word of the closed trap had gone elsewhere.
In an alleyway a half block distant from the trap, Spark Ganza had received the reports of three pickets who had been stationed outside different passages. The trio had waited with their leader, counting upon word from a fourth. It had come at last. A hoarse-voiced rowdy, scudding into the alley, announced the final news:
“It clicked, Spark! The gate alongside of the hock shop! I was listenin’ for it -”
Spark gave a harsh command. Each of the four men with him was to assemble a crew from henchmen in the neighborhood, who were awaiting orders. Spark added final words:
“I’ll be coming in from the hockshop side! Have the typewriters set up; but don’t start gunning until I’m there to give the word! What’s more no glims, unless he starts trouble!”
Four thugs hurried away. Spark chuckled loudly; then listened for sounds of gathering henchmen. His band was already divided into four parts. Each crew would move like clockwork. Spark had assembled two dozen in all; each crew of six had its machine gun, in addition to the revolvers that the gorillas habitually carried.
Spark could hear his underlings moving to position. With the stride of a triumphant general, Spark headed for the pawnshop. He reached the passage and walked by the metal-sheathed door that was near its opening. Arriving at the short tunnel near the inner end, Spark found the crouching crew that was at this gate.
“Ready with the glims,” rasped Spark. “When they see ours, the other guys will shoot on their lights. All set -”
Spark stopped. He heard a clatter from the courtyard, that came with uncanny echo through the tunnel. Spark recognized the sound: the fall of a sprawling body. Then came a long, hissed snarl of triumph from a place somewhere above.
Spark knew the tone. It was Ku-Nuan’s, delivered from the little window on the pawnshop’s second floor.
That vicious utterance from the lookout post told Spark an entire story. He knew at once that The Shadow must have tried to scale the pawnshop wall, only to meet with fierce resistance from Ku-Nuan.
“Give the glims!” ordered Spark. “Hold the typewriter, though!”
LIGHTS flashed at the gate. The courtyard was illuminated. Other lights responded from the other passages. Every portion of the trap was in plain view. Spark heard yells of triumph from the crooks at other stations. Pressing close to the gate, he saw the reason.
Sprawled in the courtyard was a cloaked figure that showed the results of combat. Instead of The Shadow in challenging pose, crooks were greeted with the sight of a vanquished, crippled fighter. Pitched from the second-story window, the defeated battler had taken a heavy jolt.