The Shadow - 134 - The Radium Murders by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1937-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

They

recognized The Shadow as the adversary who blocked their path.

TONGUES of flame ripped through the entry. Red-hot bullets seared from the

blasting guns. But Silk and his squad were not the first to fire. The Shadow had

opened proceedings with a spurt from his .45.

As he fired, The Shadow faded. His hand, however, held its aim, booming an

unerring barrage.

The Shadow’s bullets found the two front thugs. They fired as they fell, those evil fighters; but their shots were wasted. Bullets whined above The Shadow’s drooping shoulders; the slugs shivered the windows that fronted on Central Park. Jadway and Thurleigh, rolling on the floor, were below the line of fire.

Silk Marron did not wait for a taste of The Shadow’s lead. As his shielding

henchmen fell away in front of him, Silk made a dive for the hall. Other thugs stampeded toward the elevator. They knew that death awaited them along the narrow passage that The Shadow guarded.

Before pursuing, The Shadow whirled about, to see how matters stood with Jadway and Thurleigh. Jadway had clutched the muzzle of the revolver; he was tugging the gun from Thurleigh’s fingers. The Shadow sprang for Jadway, just as the swindler wrested free and came to his feet.

Savagely, Jadway struck at The Shadow with the reversed revolver.

Sidestepping, The Shadow aimed. Jadway sprang for the entry. Thurleigh, coming up, acted in a wild, blind fashion. He grabbed the first person in his path: The Shadow.

Sprawling under Thurleigh’s blind attack, The Shadow gave a hard lunge with

his shoulders, to send the bewildered man rolling across the floor. Jadway had leaped over Farradon’s body. At the door, he managed to reverse the revolver, hoping to aim at The Shadow.

On, hands and knees, The Shadow tongued an automatic blast that splintered

woodwork beside Jadway’s ear. It was The Shadow’s last bullet; but Jadway did not guess it. The Shadow was cagey enough not to reach for a fresh automatic at the moment.

Still seeing a muzzle pointed toward him, Jadway dived away. He ran for the

closing door of an elevator; Silk spied him from within and yanked the door open. An instant later, The Shadow swung out from the penthouse door; but Jadway had already gained the elevator and was sliding the metal door shut.

The Shadow fired parting shots with a fresh gun. They flattened against the

closed door of the elevator. The dial showed the elevator in descent.

The Shadow did not return to the doorway of the penthouse. He could hear an

excited voice within; it was Thurleigh, recovered but weaponless, calling the police. Two bodies lay on the floor of the hall; the forms of those thugs would support Thurleigh’s story of the gun fray.

Jadway had escaped, as The Shadow wanted. Unfortunately, the law would be hard upon the swindler’s trail, a situation that The Shadow had hoped could be postponed. To offset that, however, would be the fact that Jadway would not delay in flight. He would be smart enough not to return to his apartment.

Confident that Ursus Jadway would have time to

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