Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 198 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XV. THE TRAIL BELOW

PACKED in a room that was cramped with cigarette smoke, Blitz Gandy and his thugs were ready for their coming venture. They had guns and flashlights drawn; they were merely awaiting a buzz from the telephone to signal the moment for advance.

Blitz still hadn't mastered the ability to catch mental messages from Shiwan Khan. Perhaps that was another reason why the Golden Master had decided to discard the argumentative lieutenant.

At the door, Blitz had posted two lookouts. It would have been suicidal for The Shadow to attack the massed mob while watchers were alert. In a darkened passage outside, The Shadow was continuing his waiting policy.

There was a buzz from the muffled telephone bell. Blitz answered; he leered his recognition of the crystalline voice that spoke across the wire. Shiwan Khan had given the word. Dropping the telephone, Blitz turned to a corner of the cellar room.

There, he bashed the cement with gun butt. Astonished mobbies saw the stone fall apart. It wasn't cement, but merely a layer of plaster over a strip of wall board. Having gashed a jagged hole in the wall, he stepped through and ordered the others to follow.

The mobbies filed after Blitz, leaving only the two lookouts. One of those thugs turned to admire the trick opening in the opposite wall. While he was studying the gap, he heard a thud behind him; something like an echo of Blitz's gun strokes.

It wasn't an echo, though. The thump had been delivered by another gun butt, straight to the skull of the watcher at the door. The turning lookout saw his companion crumple; then, across the sagging figure, came a shape cloaked in black.

The Shadow reached the second crook before the fellow could fire. Again, a long hand, shoving forward, planted a hard stroke with a reversed automatic. The heavy handle of the .45 carried the effect of a sledge hammer. The second thug collapsed.

Picking up the telephone, The Shadow made a call to Burbank, told the contact man to phone police headquarters and give Inspector Cardona an accurate tip-off, by way of variety. Then, after swiftly binding and gagging the unconscious lookouts, The Shadow took up the trail below.

Soon clear of the office building, he entered the cellar of the theater. Across a wide room stacked with scenery and props, The Shadow came to a short passage that led to another section of the theater cellar.

The passage ended with a steel door, its lower half solid, the upper half criss-crossed bars. The door served as a barrier to a sub-cellar, which contained most of the theater's machinery. The door was unlocked, for Blitz considered the place safe from invasion.

Descending half a dozen stone steps, The Shadow reached the sub-cellar. It was lighted; the glow showed dynamos and other machinery, a long row of fire extinguishers along one wall.

On the far side of the sub-cellar was a metal partition; from it The Shadow heard a muffled thrumming sound. It was the fan room, important to the theaters air-conditioning system.

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