The Blackmail King by Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson

Author:Maxwell Grant & Walter Gibson [Grant, Maxwell & Gibson, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Espionage, Fiction, Thrillers
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1941-11-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII. DEATH OUT OF HAND

THINGS happened in a whirling fashion that Margo could scarcely grasp. She felt as Ferdy must have when the earlier fight had spun around him, except that Margo was sensible enough to stay right where she was. The impacts that she witnessed explained themselves, but only after they occurred.

The blast of a gun, the clang of metal, came in quick succession. Margo thought for the moment that Mycroft had fired again; that Rayland had tried to stop him. But the smoke that she was seeing was coiling from The Shadow's automatic.

Rayland was reeling, his own weapon drooping, and Mycroft was gunless, clutching one scrawny hand with the other.

The Shadow had taken Rayland first, beating the fellow to the shot. It was The Shadow's .45, guided as it recoiled, that thwacked the old-style six-gun from Mycroft's fist. The thoughts flashed to Margo rapidly, while smoke was curling lazily.

Smoke that remained where The Shadow no longer was. The smoke was white; his garb was black. No wonder that tiny curl caught the eye, while the larger figure vanished.

Gone, The Shadow was, from between the staggering form of Cleeve and the huddled figure of Mycroft.

Gone from under the startled eyes of Cleeve's men, as they surged in from the doorway.

They'd blundered against one another, all trying to be first, because each thought that Cleeve was softening The Shadow with a preliminary shot. They were doubly wrong; it was Cleeve who took the first bullet - from The Shadow. The entering men were forced to dodge him as he reeled their way, another point that assisted The Shadow's amazing disappearance.

Mobsters had overrun their target.

The Shadow was around them, surging in from a new angle. He was wielding two guns, but he wasn't aiming them. They were being used as cudgels, for he knew that a silent, slugging attack would enable him to hew men down before others realized that he was upon them.

Yet, Margo heard a shot.

It wasn't in this room; it was distant; muffled, and repeated. With it, she was sure she heard a splintering sound, as of someone ripping through a door. Odd, the way those sounds mixed in with other things closer at hand.

One such thing was the hoarse shout from beside the window. It was Tilroy who gave it, as he saw The Shadow piling upon his pals. Tilroy was tugging for a gun, but his hand was stuck in his pocket.

He was still the blundering monster, which, in a sense Mycroft had created. Tilroy couldn't quite forget the crash of the hydrometer jar upon his head.

The Shadow was in among Cleeve's men, but they were turned about. Three in all, they were grabbing for the black-clad fighter, stopping his down-sweeping guns. One .45 crashed through and flattened a foeman; then, with Tilroy plunging straight into things, his gun finally drawn and poked ahead of him, The Shadow made a rapid whirl.

Margo saw Tilroy's gun stab into blackness three times in succession. She saw the collapse that followed.

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