The Shadow - Death's Bright Finger Part 9

She turned after switching on the light. Her dark eyes veered toward the wall safe. She uttered a faint scream as she saw that the door of the safe was gone. For a second, she stood staring at the open interior as if paralyzed. Then Harry heard her tow-toned cry of dread: "Has he taken the bag?"

She darted forward, began wildly to empty the safe. Papers, trinkets--everything--were tossed fiercely to the floor by the trembling nightclub singer. A moment later, she was on tiptoe, her hand reaching inside.

Vincent could see her shoulders twitch as she worked to release some hidden mechanism. As soon as Dawn straightened, the whole safe began to pivot outward from its bedded base in the wall!

AN opening was disclosed behind the safe. It was the most perfect camouflage for a hiding place that Harry Vincent had ever seen. The Light had come perilously close to cracking that hiding place. But he had made one bad error. He had been content to destroy only the door, instead of dissolving the whole safe into nothingness.

The measure of his mistake was proved when Dawn lifted something out of that camouflaged hole in the wall. It looked like a small piece of airplane luggage. It didn't seem to weigh very much as Dawn carried it to her bed.

Her face was pale. She was so excited, that her trembling fingers could barely unlock the metal clasps with a tiny key she took from a chain around her neck. But finally she got it open.

She uttered a harsh cry of triumph.

Vincent, watching through his peephole, could barely withhold a cry of his own.

The bag was crammed with a king's ransom in jewels!

The glitter of those gems seemed to fill the whole bedroom with cold, flas.h.i.+ng brilliance. Harry could see the red flame of rubies, the rainbow glitter of diamonds.

Not one of those flas.h.i.+ng gems could be cla.s.sed as ordinary, even by Vincent, who was no expert. All were of huge size, beautifully cut. Some were mounted in bracelets and tiaras. Others had been removed from their mountings. All were breath-taking in their magnificence.

Suddenly, Dawn Reed seemed to remember her peril.

She straightened like a tigress from the glitter of the open bag. A gun appeared in her hand. There was fright in her dark eyes. But there was danger, too.

She seemed to sense peril behind the closed door of her closet. She tiptoed close to it with no more sound than a stalking animal.

A quick jerk flung the door wide. Her gun jutted, ready to spit flame. But Dawn could see no target. She was too small to look over the edge of the high shelf, but she raised herself on her toes and ran her left hand over the edge. She felt only the familiar dusty outline of the bolt of cloth she herself had placed up there.

Harry Vincent glued himself in a silent huddle against the rear wall of the closet.

Dawn Reed gave a harsh sob of relief. A mysterious need for speed seemed to be prodding her. Sheclosed the closet door and darted back to the bed. In a moment, the bag of gems was closed and locked. The tiny key slipped down the front of her dress.

She ran toward the bedroom telephone.

Vincent, listening eagerly from his hidden post, heard the place she was calling. Dawn was talking to the reservation desk at LaGuardia Field!

"This is Dawn Reed. I applied for a plane reservation yesterday. There was some doubt about finding a place for me. Is it O.K.?"

She listened a second. The delay at the other end of the wire made her smother a quick oath.

"Yes?...Tomorrow morning? The first scheduled flight after dawn? What?... No, no! Not Miami! Miami is just the first leg of my trip. Where's the man I talked to yesterday?"

Another pause.

"h.e.l.lo?... Yes, this is Dawn Reed... Oh--thank you. That's fine! Reservation O.K.? LaGuardia Field to Miami... Yes? Half-hour wait for the Pan-American s.h.i.+p... Yes? A place reserved for me from Miami straight through to Rio... Thank you!"

She licked her red lips with the darting tip of her tongue. She was like a jungle beast. As soon as she broke the connection, she made another call.

This time, Dawn called her garage.

"This is Miss Reed. I'm going to need my car right away. I've got to make an unexpected trip to Westchester. Can you have someone drive it over at once to my apartment house?... No--wait! Not to the front entrance this time."

She drew a quick breath.

"Just leave the car around the corner on the side street. You know--outside the delivery entrance to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Don't bother notifying the night doorman. Just park the car where I told you."

DAWN hung up. She reached down and picked up the airplane bag. She didn't leave the apartment the way she had entered.

Harry Vincent, watching silently, saw her head noiselessly toward the kitchen. Dawn was playing safe with that bag of precious stones. She was going to pull a rear sneak.

After waiting a nerve-racking sixty seconds to make sure, Harry Vincent let himself soundlessly down from his cramped perch on the closet shelf. He crept down the service stairs, keeping well in the rear of the night-club singer.

Ugly surmises bothered him, made him finger nervously the gun in his pocket. Was Dawn sneaking somewhere to meet the mysteriously vanished Carl Trevor? Had the sly band leader been warned by Dawn to wait for her somewhere below? Certainly there had been no sign of Trevor since Vincent had caught that one brief glimpse of him earlier.

And what about--the Light?

The Light had failed! Failure wasn't one of his habits. Surely a supercrook of the caliber of the Light hadn't quit after finding no trace of the bag that Dawn had so cleverly hidden! The hair stiffened along Vincent's scalp. He wasn't anxious to match his gun against that deadly beam of molten silver from the fingertip of a criminal genius. But Harry had nerve. The Shadow had given him orders. Those orders would be obeyed!

He reached the bas.e.m.e.nt of the apartment building without making a sound.

Dawn Reed was somewhere ahead of him. He could hear the click of her heels through the darkness.

She was hurrying swiftly toward the concrete steps of the service entrance. Moving warily after her, Harry saw her dim figure halt at the foot of the sidewalk steps.

She waited there for a moment, rigid and silent.

Harry advanced noiselessly, inch by inch. He was as close to the girl as he dared to get, when he heard a faint whisper behind him. It was almost inaudible, but Harry's muscles tensed as he heard it. It was the quick, indrawn breath of a man!

Harry started to whirl on his toes. But before his brain could telegraph the order to his muscles, he became suddenly immovable.

A palm clapped over Harry's mouth. Other hands tightened viciously around his throat. Strangled, Harry felt his feet leave the floor under the silent a.s.sault of two hidden foes.

He tried to bite the hand that covered his mouth. He failed because something struck him over the skull with stunning force, dazing him.

In a twinkling, Vincent was lowered silently to the dark floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt. The hands at his throat never stopped squeezing. The other a.s.sailant grabbed at Harry's legs to hold them rigid.

The grab was made an instant too late. Harry was writhing in agony from the throttling pressure on his throat. He kicked spasmodically. His feet drummed against the base of the concrete wall where the killers had ambushed him.

There was a sudden cry from the sidewalk exit. The cry came from Dawn Reed. She had heard the scuffling sound of Harry's feet. Whirling, she caught a vague glimpse of the desperate battle between Vincent and his two captors.

Dawn turned to flee. With the case of gems in her grasp, she darted up the cellar steps toward freedom.

One of the thugs uttered an oath. He sprang toward the fleeing girl.

The thug with the grip on Harry's throat held on. Harry didn't have a chance to do much, even against this single adversary. The weight of the strangler kept Harry jammed flat on the cellar floor.

Tight fingers around Harry's windpipe had already made The Shadow's agent semiconscious. His lungs were bursting with agony. Swiftly, the agony began to fade into blackness.

Vincent failed to see that the pursuing thug had caught Dawn. Halfway up the cellar steps, he clutched her and hurled her backward with one savage jerk.

Dawn's head struck the concrete floor. The bag fell from her relaxed grasp. She tried weakly to reach for a hidden gun, but the thug kicked her viciously.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up her gem bag. For an instant, he had it. Then he didn't!

A sudden, ominous sound made his jaw gape. His surprised fingers let go of the handle of the stolen bag.The sound came from the darkness of the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was a whisper of challenging laughter.

The Shadow!

As if he were moving darkness itself, The Shadow came out of his surrounding blackness. All that was visible was the powerful jut of his beaked nose, the flame of his steady eyes.

He came so fast, that the crook had barely time to go for his gun.

The gun swung upward to cut The Shadow down with hammering streaks of flame. Barely a foot of s.p.a.ce separated the two foes.

It was point-blank range!

CHAPTER X. DEATH IN WAITING.

FACING the mortal peril of a killer's gun muzzle, The Shadow suddenly seemed to go rigid.

The Shadow hadn't drawn his .45s. When he entered the bas.e.m.e.nt, he had been aware of the presence of crooks. His intent was to capture those thugs alive, not to kill them. The deaths of Turk and Nick had robbed The Shadow of an opportunity to learn additional facts about the Light. That purpose still remained strong in The Shadow's mind.

But the killer in the cellar thought that The Shadow was paralyzed with terror. He was certain, when he saw both arms of The Shadow lift upward in a gesture of surrender. For a second he hesitated, his finger taut on the trigger.

It was a bad mistake on the thug's part.

The Shadow's arms had not lifted vertically. They were thrown upward at a stiff outward angle, with the palms wide open. It was a gesture that should have been familiar to anyone who had ever seen a star football player about to punt. It failed, however, to warn the thug.

With all his strength, The Shadow kicked upward. Balanced by his outflung arms, his kick was accurate.

Pain wrenched suddenly through the hand that held the gun. The thug's wrist was broken. He screamed as the weapon fell from his fingers.

As the mobster recoiled, The Shadow plunged forward in his attack. He was merciless, because he knew he had only a scant instant in which to save the life of Harry Vincent. Pinned to the floor by the second killer, Vincent was swiftly dying of strangulation.

The Shadow employed jujitsu to put the crippled gunman swiftly out of action. His hands moved almost faster than light. He heaved. The thug shot headlong through the air. His body struck the wall and rebounded in a limp heap to the floor. The impact had knocked him cold.

This time, it was the turn of The Shadow to hesitate.

His swift battle with the gunman was a heaven-sent opportunity to Dawn Reed. Barely three feet away from where Dawn had been hurled to the floor by the thug, lay the gem bag. She seized the bag and writhed to her feet. In the brief time it had taken The Shadow to outwit the gunman and put him out of action, Dawn was halfway up the stone steps that led to the sidewalk.

The Shadow had a grim choice. The bag--or the life of Harry Vincent! He let Dawn flee. Whirling, he darted into the cellar darkness toward the thras.h.i.+ng bodies of Vincent and the second thug.

The other killer had expected the gun flame of his crooked pal to cut down The Shadow. The Shadow's kick and its quick follow-up had been done so swiftly that the second criminal found himself without a partner almost at the very instant he expected to see The Shadow riddled with bullets.

His tight fingers pulled loose from Vincent's throat. A gun jerked into his clawing hand. Again The Shadow faced an aimed weapon empty-handed.

Vincent helped without realizing it. His spasmodic kick as he rolled blindly aside knocked the thug off balance. A shot roared. But the killer's stagger had ruined his aim.

Pain flicked across the shoulder of The Shadow as the bullet ripped across his robe and dug a shallow furrow in his flesh. It did no vital harm, however.

The next instant, The Shadow clutched the wrist of the snarling mobster.

A HORRIBLE battle began. It was the more horrible because neither of the two adversaries uttered a cry. They rolled headlong across the dark concrete, with The Shadow and the crook alternately on top.

The left hand of the thug remained clamped on the throat of the Shadow. The Shadow kept a bone-punis.h.i.+ng grip on the hand that held the gun. The gun jerked back and forth in this double grip. But no more flashes spat from the wavering muzzle.

The Shadow's powerful wrench had broken the man's trigger finger against the unyielding metal of the trigger guard! The thug could no longer fire. But he held to the gun tenaciously.

Harry Vincent staggered to his feet. He fell as he reeled forward. But Harry's brain was slowly clearing.

He writhed to his knees, threw himself alongside the death grapple of the two foes.

Vincent's help was feeble. He had taken dreadful punishment. A side kick from the thug tumbled him. He fell with his face close to the contorted mouth of The Shadow.

Suddenly, he heard a harsh whisper at his ear. The Shadow spat four words: "Top step... left corner!"

It pierced the fog in Vincent's brain. It was a command of The Shadow. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew it required instant obedience.

He rolled away from the tangled battle, lurching wildly to his feet. He realized what The Shadow meant now. He darted up the stone outside staircase.

Vincent groveled. He flung a questing hand into the dusty left corner of the top step. His fingers closed on a small bit of metal. He swung it up close to his bloodshot eyes.

It was an automobile ignition key. The moment Harry saw that tiny key, he understood The Shadow's intent. Vincent went ahead without a backward look. It was a supreme test of obedience. Behind him, in the dark cellar, The Shadow seemed to be in a tough spot. But Harry's orders had been unmistakable.

He obeyed them.

Had he looked backward, he would have been less worried. The Shadow was no longer in mortal peril.

Without s.h.i.+fting his grip on the killer's gun hand, The Shadow bent his writhing body and drew his legsbackward.

As the two foes rolled sideways for an instant, The Shadow shoved both feet forward with terrific leverage. They landed in the pit of the killer's stomach, knocking him out. His mouth hung wide open. He lay flat on his back like a dead man.

The sibilant laughter of The Shadow was edged with pain. He had taken punishment. But he hadn't been forced to kill either of these two henchmen of the Light. Both would survive as prisoners of The Shadow.

They would live to answer questions. Torture of a kind they had never dreamed of would unlock their unwilling lips--the torture of light and sound, the torture of mental suggestion!

UNAWARE of the sudden end of the death struggle in the dark cellar, Vincent sneaked along the sidewalk outside. He could see the fleeing figure of Dawn Reed. She was holding desperately to the jewel bag. She climbed hastily into the car she had summoned by telephone from her apartment.

Harry made sure that Dawn didn't catch a glimpse of him as she set her swift little car in motion.

Protected by the dark front of the building, Harry darted unseen toward another car parked farther down the street. He had never seen it before, but he knew why it was there.