The Shadow - 198 - Masters of Death by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1940-05-15T21:58:54+00:00

The sharp click produced no light. Someone had cut off the current. Instantly, a whispered laugh came from the vault room, a chilling tone that gathered menace from the many echoes that rose with it. It seemed like mockery from nowhere, a rising taunt that could bring shivers even to murderers like Dobie Grelf.

The laugh of The Shadow!

AT Dobie’s snarled order, the machine gunners cut loose, spraying the vault with a terrific avalanche of bullets. The chatter drowned The Shadow’s mockery. The crooks thought that they had ended the tone forever.

Reaching to the top of the shield, Dobie turned on a spotlight. It was hooked to dry-cell batteries. The thing gleamed like the triumphant eye of a mighty Cyclops, above the smoking muzzle of the machine gun.

But the wide circle of light showed no trace of a black-cloaked figure on the floor in front of the vault.

Nor did it reveal the shiny surface of a steel door, that Dobie expected to see tight shut.

The vault was open, its door swung at a two-thirds angle. The vault’s inner walls were scarred by machine-gun bullets, but the yawning steel-lined cube showed vacancy. The Shadow had disappeared before the crooks opened fire!

Then came new mockery - a taunt that Dobie located, not by the shivery sound itself, but through a streak of blackness that traced itself upon the wall, then vanished.

Dobie recognized the hawkish profile. Momentarily, The Shadow had thrust himself into the glare, then twisted back to cover.

He was behind the slanted door of the vault, protected by its bulk. He seemed to be inviting crooks to come and take him, bringing their machine gun with them.

The idea suited Dobie. He saw a way to make The Shadow’s laugh a short one. The open vault was exactly what he wanted.

While he and his pair of henchmen were pushing across the room, the rest of the mob could take the vault as shelter. If The Shadow tried to hurdle the big shield, he would become a target for the men in the vault. With its steel walls, the vault made a perfect pillbox.

Turning about, Dobie snapped the order. He and the machine gunners heaved, pushed the big shield clear of the jamming stairway, started it rolling toward the open door of the vault.

As the big contrivance cleared from the path, five trigger men leaped from the stairs and made for the vault. Two were veering to throw their weight against the door, hoping to jam The Shadow in back of it, while the other three were ready to cover.

Meanwhile, the side of the rolling shield had almost reached the door edge when The Shadow wheeled from cover, diving past and below the muzzle of the machine gun. Dobie’s men swung the shield on its pivot.

Even before the big shield struck the door edge, the air was riddled with sparks. The crackling spurts came as Dobie’s trigger men reached the vault. They were jolted, twisted, by some devastating force; their clattering guns sparkled like short-circuited wires.

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