The Shadow - Death's Bright Finger Part 3

"Well?" Turk growled.

"Marjorie Logan--h.e.l.l! Who do you think this dame is? Margo Lane!"

"Huh? Ain't she the one who--"

"Right! She's the dame who spends a lot of her time running around with a guy named Lamont Cranston.

She ain't one of Ron Dexter's blackmail suckers any more than I am! I couldn't figure why she came snooping in here. Now I know! She was trying to get a line on Dexter's blackmail racket!"

"You mean she's a lady d.i.c.k?" Turk asked dully.

"I mean she may be working for someone we been warned by the Light to watch out for. The Shadow!"

"I thought you said she was in cahoots with Lamont Cranston?"

Nick uttered an oath of disgust. "What I'm trying to tell you, dope, is Lamont Cranston may be the very guy we've been warned to watch out for! Lamont Cranston may be The Shadow!"

Margo suddenly tore herself free. She ran desperately toward the locked door of the apartment.

Turk's clutch stopped her in mid-stride. He hurled her to the floor. Margo felt a vicious kick. The pain of it brought blackness before her eyes.

She fainted.

When she recovered, she was dripping with water that Turk had flung over her face to bring her back toconsciousness.

Nick had the poker in his hand. There was a smell of burned rug where it had fallen. But the gray end of that poker didn't satisfy Nick. He shoved its point back into the blazing fireplace until it again glowed cherry-red.

"First, we'll give you a sample against your bare back," he told Margo, with a grin. "If that doesn't work, we'll let you have it across the face. How would you like a nice burn sear on that cute cheek of yours?"

"I'll tell... anything!" Margo gasped.

"Tell us about this lad Lamont Cranston."

"He's wealthy, and a sportsman. He's a friend of mine."

"Skip that baloney! Is he The Shadow?"

"No, that's ridiculous!"

"Why did you come here to see Dexter?"

"He was trying to blackmail me!"

"Listen, lady, if that was true, your name would be on the sucker list we found in Dexter's wall safe."

"I've told you all I know."

"Give her the poker, Nick!" Turk grated.

It was only a brief touch by a practiced torturer--a sample of what was yet to come if she persisted in being stubborn--but Margo screamed as she felt the red-hot metal searing the flesh of her shoulder.

They waited until her desperate screaming stopped.

"Ready for some more across your face?" Nick asked, then.

"Don't... don't!"

"Tell us about Cranston!"

The pain in Margo's flesh was like the throb of a raw wound. But she bit her lips. No answer came. She was still hoping against hope for the arrival of The Shadow.

In her agony, Margo Lane had forgotten a tragic fact. She had left a signal in lipstick on the door downstairs. That signal would notify The Shadow she was still upstairs in the penthouse of Ron Dexter.

Until a second signal was added to the first, The Shadow would not enter to make a confidential search of the premises.

Margo was doomed more horribly than she realized.

"She's gonna try being brave again" Turk sneered.

That's swell!" Nick said.

He moved the bright-red end of the poker slowly, almost lovingly, toward Margo's agonized face.

CHAPTER IV. THE LIGHT.

SIBILANT laughter came from The Shadow's lips. He had wasted little time. The doorway in which be stood was the street entrance to the private elevator that led to Ron Dexter's penthouse.

The Shadow stared at a tiny horizontal mark made with a lipstick. There was no sign of a second mark, a vertical one crossing the first.

There was nothing to do for the present. The Shadow prepared to do a quick fade to the parked car of Lamont Cranston. From there, he could watch for the departure of Margo and Ron Dexter.

But as he turned away, The Shadow suddenly stiffened. His sharp eyes had noticed something else. He was staring at the lock of that street door. The lock was defaced by a network of tiny scratches.

Someone had picked the lock!

Danger! That was the thought that stiffened The Shadow. Margo had not made those scratches. Dexter had expected her. Someone had forced an entrance, either before or after the arrival of Margo!

The Shadow duplicated the tactics of the unknown burglar. A small tool picked the lock deftly without breaking its mechanism.

The Shadow hurried down a dimly lit corridor and ascended swiftly in the automatic elevator. Twin .45s appeared from beneath his black robe.

When the elevator stopped at the penthouse floor, The Shadow listened outside Dexter's door. He pressed his face against the panel until the blood drummed in his ear. Then suddenly he heard a faint sound.

It was more like the echo of a scream than a scream itself. But The Shadow knew whose throat had emitted that m.u.f.fled shriek of terror.

Margo!

There was a tiny bull's-eye of gla.s.s in the center of the door. It was one of those gadgets that permit a householder to see the face of a visitor without being seen himself. The gla.s.s was tough, but a bullet from The Shadow's .45 was tougher.

He shot the lens into smithereens. An instant later, The Shadow was peering through. A horrible sight greeted him.

Margo was held immovable in the grasp of a pock-marked thug. Another thug was raising a red-hot poker toward the shrinking face of the captive girl!

Margo was spared an agonizing disfigurement by the smas.h.i.+ng roar of The Shadow's gun. With the shattering of the peephole, the thug with the poker recoiled. So did his pal who was holding Margo. Both crooks grabbed for their guns. They swung toward the penthouse door as Margo collapsed to the floor.

The twin .45s of The Shadow were both in action now. Heavy slugs attacked the lock of the door.

Wood peeled and splintered. The lock twisted in its shattered housing.

An instant later, the body of The Shadow struck the weakened barrier. The door groaned but it did not give. Again The Shadow hurled bone and sinew against the barrier. The second attack made the door loosen. A third sent it cras.h.i.+ng inward. Under the impetus of his plunge, The Shadow fell headlong inside.

The fall to the floor was all that saved him from death. Bullets spat above his p.r.o.ne body. His slouch hat leaped from his head, pierced in two places. There was a ragged rip along the sleeve of his cloak. But none of those slugs found a mark in The Shadow's flesh.

He rolled sideways and lifted his hands. Again his guns spoke with jarring echo.

Nick retreated like a bounding ape. A leap took him behind an armchair. He fired wildly at The Shadow over the back of the chair.

The Shadow whirled to meet the attack of Turk. Turk had profited by the exchange between Nick and The Shadow to pull a sneaky attempt at ambush. He crouched almost directly in the rear of The Shadow.

The Shadow had barely time to realize his near doom. The killer's pudgy finger was already squeezing the trigger.

THERE was an ear-shattering roar as Turk fired. But at the very instant the bullet left the barrel of the s gun, it was deflected. The diving body of Margo did the trick.

Roused from her daze by the snarl gunfire, Margo had seen The Shadow's peril. She had dived headlong at the snarling killer.

Her body struck Turk just below the knees. He staggered backward as his bullet thudded upward into the ceiling. Margo, who was only half conscious, held on to his legs with the tenacity of death. She brought him to the floor in a desperate tackle.

The Shadow was on his feet now. He heard Turk scream an oath of rage. Turk's gun had failed to kill The Shadow, but Margo was a closer target. The hot muzzle jammed against Marko's skull just back of her ear.

The Shadow had to make a split-second decision. It was Margo's life or the life of the snarling murderer.

The Shadow didn't hesitate.

At the roar of the .45, Turk collapsed into a boneless huddle. Margo collapsed, too. But it was weakness that toppled her, not the smas.h.i.+ng impact of lead.

With a whirl, The Shadow made for the spot where Nick had taken refuge. A bold a.s.sault tossed the chair aside. Nick squirmed like a snake toward another defensive spot--the sofa. But The Shadow outflanked him with a hail of bullets. Nick was caught on his knees in the open.

The Shadow stopped firing. He said no word. Blood poured down his cheek from a crease across his temple. Silent automatics menaced Nick like twin rods of blue steel.

Nick's weapon dropped from his hand. Both arms lifted in token of surrender.

The Shadow's laugh was like the crackle of ice. He stepped swiftly forward. At the last instant, Nick tried treachery--as The Shadow had divined he would. A knife whipped from the thug's sleeve. It swept toward the throat of The Shadow.

With the skill of a boxer, The Shadow ducked. Nick crumpled. He was made swiftly helpless with a length of cord that emerged from beneath The Shadow's cloak. Margo was on her feet, her face the color of chalk. The Shadow could see the raw burn on her bared back. He turned to a.s.sist her, but she shook her head. Her lips were pinched in a gallant smile.

"Question him! Ask him about someone he calls the Light!"

"The Light?" The Shadow spat the two syllables like bullets.

"Yes!" Margo gasped. "It's the name of the criminal these killers work for. Turk let it slip while he was questioning me."

The Shadow's glance made Nick quail. But Nick's fear of The Shadow was less strong than his fear of the Light.

"The h.e.l.l with you!" Nick babbled. "I'm working for a guy tougher than anyone on earth! If there's any talking, you'll do it! You'll be d.a.m.ned glad to spill your guts to the Light before long."

"The Light!" The Shadow rasped. "Who?"

"I'll tell you who you are! Lamont Cranston--The Shadow! That's who you are! And this Margo Lane is one of your agents!"

"No, no!" Margo cried.

"Don't try to kid me. And don't think you can keep me a prisoner. The Light will take care of me. He'll hand you what Dexter got; what he handed the dumb cop he shot through the top of the skull! You think the Light don't keep tabs on you? O. K.! Drop in on your friend Jonas Lee. See what the Light has already done to him!"

The Shadow's eyes flamed. He hadn't meant to bring any danger to Jonas Lee. He had stopped there to make a quick change merely because the tobacco shop was close to the home of Flash Snark.

This defiant killer could be forced to talk later. There were bloodless, scientific methods to force criminals to confess everything they knew. The Shadow had a laboratory wherein tougher thugs than Nick had been glad to squeal. The time for action had arrived.

A hypodermic needle jammed home into Nick's throat. The result of the injection was exactly what The Shadow wanted. Nick turned swiftly into a remarkable imitation of a drunk. He was able to walk with the support of The Shadow's arm. But he couldn't utter a sound, or offer further resistance by his drugged muscles.

Margo repaired the torn shoulder of her gown with a couple of pins. Her face was like paper, but she uttered no groan of pain. Bravely, she followed The Shadow and the captive thug down in the private elevator.

The Shadow waited in the hallway until Margo found a taxicab, was driven away. The Shadow knew where she was going. Margo was obeying his whispered order.

In a certain side street of Manhattan was a small private hospital run by a doctor named Rupert Sayre.

Margo would receive expert treatment there for the painful burn on her back. There would be no publicity. Rupert Sayre was in the service of The Shadow.

AS SOON as Margo disappeared, The Shadow transferred Nick to the parked car of Lamont Cranston. The transfer attracted no attention. It looked as if The Shadow was a.s.sisting a drunken friend of his. The Shadow had resumed his role of Lamont Cranston. He drove swiftly away.

Grim eyes watched his departure. They watched through a tiny hole in the drawn shade of a ground-floor window across the street.

An unknown leader of crime had not been idle. The master of Nick and Turk--the man they had referred to as the Light--was aware of what was going on.

However, there was one fact that even the Light didn't know. He had arrived at his post behind the drawn shade too late to witness the transfer of Nick. He didn't know that one of his killers was in the custody of The Shadow.

The moment that Cranston's car vanished, the front door of the shade-drawn apartment opened. A tall figure emerged, walked quickly toward the corner. A felt hat was drawn low over the man's forehead.

His coat collar was turned up. All that could be said of him was that he was tall and bent over a little, as if he might be crippled.

He slid swiftly behind the wheel of a parked car, drove away fast.

The Shadow drove fast, too. But he soon ran into trouble. One of his tires went bad. He had to pull into the curb and change a wheel.