The Shadow 135 The Pooltex Tangle by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1937-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

THE SHADOW, however, had no intention of returning to that cleverly prepared trap.

He had boarded the departing freight train as it halted at a switch to pickup more box cars, then await the signal to roll onto the main line. He was in the last place a brakeman would be apt to search for a stowaway.

Four units ahead of the sealed Pooltex car was the sleek, black roundness of an empty tank car. The Shadow knew it was empty because he was hidden inside

it. His feet rested on the rungs of a short ladder that was used by employees when they entered the car to clean its interior.

Above The Shadow’s peering face was a turretlike projection capped with a tight, metal cover. The cover did not exactly fit the neck of the turret. The Shadow had propped a flat chunk of stone under it to make an aperture an inch or so wide.

He could see and hear anything that went on outside his self-chosen prison. There was nothing much to hear. But beyond the fringe of bushes that lined the siding there was a patch of dark road. On that road The Shadow’s attention was now riveted. He expected something to develop soon in that quarter.

His intuition was correct. Hardly had the main line begun to quiver with the roar of the approaching passenger train for which the freight was waiting than another sound became dimly audible on the deserted road beyond the bushes.

A car rolled out of the darkness.

It was braked to a sudden stop. So hastily were the brakes applied that they squealed a mechanical protest. But the roar of the passing express drowned

out that minor sound. The Shadow heard it because he allowed nothing else to interfere with his observation.

He saw the car back out of sight into a covert of brush. A man leaped away

from the hidden automobile. He ran with the quickness of a cat toward the stalled freight train.

Watching intently, The Shadow was unable to see the man’s face. The stranger was masked in a black silk handkerchief.

The freight had received the proper signal from the cleared switch and was

already moving ponderously ahead. The mysterious figure ran alongside and swung

aboard with a muscular heave of his body. He vanished instantly two units behind the tank car where The Shadow was hidden.

None of the train crew had seen this happen. The train crew was ignorant of the presence aboard of either The Shadow or this masked hijacker. The hijacker himself had no knowledge that The Shadow was riding a few cars ahead of him.

The Shadow alone knew the full facts. Watching, he saw the masked face peer cautiously and withdraw again. A flame burned in the quiet depths of The Shadow’s eyes.

The train roared into the night with gathering speed. The whistle of the puffing locomotive far ahead was like a shuddering wail in the darkness.

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