Grant, Maxwell - The Shadow 138 - Teeth of the Dragon by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Detective, Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Adventure, Thriller
Publisher: Street & Smith Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BELOW, The Shadow was breaking his speed as he reached the bottom of the lower tube. His hands struck a bamboo matting that covered a stone floor. With the skill of a tumbler, The Shadow somersaulted across the floor and landed with a thump.

A door opened in the darkness. A hand found a light. In the glow that came, The Shadow saw a big, dull-eyed Mongol, who had come expecting to find a truncated body on the floor. The guard recognized the figure of Ying Ko. He reached for a knife.

The Shadow launched forward, upward, from hands and knees; his head hit the guard’s chest like a battering-ram. As he bowled the Mongol to the floor, The Shadow snagged the knife with a sideward grab. Springing through the doorway, The Shadow reached a dank, unlighted passage. He bolted the door behind him, to imprison the big guard.

As The Shadow started to grope along the pitch-black passage, a sudden glare came from the far end. The Tao had arrived. He was directing a spotlight from a room that opened into the dismal corridor.

The leader of the Jeho Fan was beyond the light. His devil-mask was off his shoulders; he was holding it beneath his left arm. His right hand, no longer encumbered by a gauntlet, drew a revolver to take steady aim along the brilliant passage.

All that was invisible from The Shadow’s position, for the Tao stood in absolute darkness behind the floodlight. The menace, though, was clear. The Shadow met it.

With a sudden turn, The Shadow drove straight along the passage, in the direction of the light. The glow showed a gigantic shadow on the wall behind him; as cloaked arms spread, that shade had the appearance of a mammoth bat, with wings outstretched.

Five long, swift strides, as the Tao fired. Tricked by the grotesque illusion on the wall, the Tao aimed too high. His bullet sizzed above The Shadow’s head.

With the report, The Shadow’s lunge ended. From his flinging hand scaled the captured knife, hurled for a spot above the brilliant light, where his keen eyes had marked the faint stab of the Tao’s gun.

End over end, its whirl a dazzle in the spotlight, that knife was winging for the Tao Fan. Its spin rendered its flight deceptive and dangerous. If it struck point first, it would pinion the Tao. If the handle hit him, the result would be the same. The knife would take another turnover, to bury itself in its human target.

The Shadow had practiced that end-over-end hurl often. It was a sure system with a borrowed knife.

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