CHAPTER VII.

BROKEN BATTLE.

THE first roar of battle had produced a sudden change of events in Helene's apartment. Startled by the bark of guns, Helene had stiffened exactly as she had at Rendrew's. This time, the thing that brought back her senses was the sudden pound of Markham, dashing toward the bedroom.

Helene was gripped by the alarming thought that when the detective sergeant found her, half clad and without shoes, on the wrong side of the room, he would guess that she had been sneaking about the place, hiding evidence unfavorable to Dwight Kelden.

But Markham hadn't been paying attention to any of the sounds from the bedroom. Nor was he interested in Helene's attire or lack of it. He was anxious for the girl's safety, and when he saw her starting from the corner, he swepther back with his arm.

"Stay there!" he ordered. "Lay low!" By the time Markham had turned off the bedroom lights, stumbled to a window and raised it, the gunfire had lulled.

Looking out, the detective sergeant saw three men at a lighted window on the other side of the garage roof, and one floor up.

They were the mobbies who had just lost their grip on The Shadow, who, in turn, was at that moment groggily trying to prop himself up from the garage roof. Markham heard shouts, saw guns flash from spots along the roof.

Deliberately, Markham fired at every gun that spurted. With Helene's bedroom as a fort, he held a definite advantage over the men in the open.

Though his shots didn't have the accuracy of The Shadow's, they made gunmen scurry for cover.

His gun empty, Markham crouched to reload. By that time, matters had changed in the hotel window across the way. The gunners there had left The Shadow to the mobsters on the roof, in order to spot Markham's fire. But they hadn't started to shoot, because some of them were engaged in a scuffle with a young man who had suddenly flung himself among them, namely, Dwight Kelden.

On his feet, Dwight had met a blocking crook at the doorway and was using his fists in hope of escape. Shoved into the arms of other foemen, he wouldn't have lasted long, except for Markham. Again at Helene's window, Markham saw gun hands swinging over in the hotel room and opened fire at the brawlers.

His first bullet made men duck. Dwight staggered through the doorway, off to new flight, while his enemies dropped beneath their window ledge and jabbed shots back to Markham. His fire ceased suddenly, and they guessed why. Again Markham's gun was empty.

One sharpshooter popped above his window ledge, thrust a gun forward to take quick aim. He was speedier than Markham, that crook; he was leaning from his window, finger on trigger, before the detective sergeant realized that his own gun was empty.

Perhaps the intended shot would have found Markham, had the thug ever fired it; but he never managed to complete the opportunity.

A tongue of flame knifed straight upward beside the hotel wall. The crook jolted from the blast of the big automatic. Pitching forward, he sprawled headlong to the roof beside The Shadow.

The cloaked fighter was in the fray again!

MARKHAM and his empty gun were forgotten. More crooks were at the window, warily aiming for The Shadow, as were others on the fringes of the roof. They couldn't believe that their invincible foe had fully recuperated, and their guess was right. The timely shot in Markham's behalf had been a huge effort for The Shadow.

He was crawling toward the rear of the roof in a sideward, crablike fashion.

One arm was caving under him, his opposite leg was dragging. What lights he saw were blurred; but The Shadow could still pick out gun flashes. Every spurt, from the window or below, jarred him into a prompt response.

The Shadow was demonstrating the important margin of superiority that had so often enabled him to outmatch heavy odds. He had trained himself to gauge distance, as well as direction, when he aimed for gun spurts in the darkness.

Mere guesswork, the sort that crooks were using, wouldn't do. These thugs were learning that lesson with bullets.

Out from the wall, The Shadow was closer than the gunmen along the roof supposed. They were firing for twenty yards, instead of only ten, and their bullets were carrying high. Those at the window of Dwight's room had the range, but they were visible targets and The Shadow clipped them before they couldtug their triggers.

Then Markham was back into the fray, his one error being a shot that he fired at The Shadow, along with the other gunners. Fortunately that bullet, like most of Markham's, was wide of its hurried target.

By that time, the crooks had enough. They were thinking that The Shadow's fire was sufficient, when Markham joined in. Coupled to that, they heard the whine of approaching sirens.

Markham yanked out a police whistle and blew it, giving the impression that police reserves had already arrived. The lights went out in the hotel room; men began to drop from the edges of the garage roof.

During the lull, Helene approached the apartment window. She saw Markham squinting into the darkness. He pointed to a dragging shape partly outlined against a dull glow between two buildings.

"There's somebody." Markham's tone seemed doubtful. "Who he is, I don't know. Only I'm thinking, maybe, it might be -"

Helene held her breath, spreading her hands against her chest. She hadn't seen Dwight over in the hotel room, for she hadn't been near her own window until this moment. But she was afraid that Markham might mention Dwight by name.

"It could be The Shadow!"

Markham added that with such emphasis, that Helene exclaimed: "The Shadow? Who is he?"

"He's a fellow who gives crooks what they ought to get," spoke Markham.

"From the way that mob thinned out, I'll bet The Shadow was on deck. I couldn't have been picking them off that quick. I'd like to go out on the roof and look around -"

Pounding on the apartment door interrupted. Deciding that the police had arrived, Markham caught Helene's arm and started her out into the living room.

He heard a gasped protest, but didn't understand it until they reached the light.

"I'm sorry, Miss Graymond!" Markham gulped the apology. "I didn't realize that you hadn't finished getting dressed."

"I'll have a dress on in a jiffy," smiled Helene. "You can open the door."

She slid into the bedroom, slipped her dress over her shoulders and was smoothing it when Markham and the others came through. There were four officers in uniforms, and all had flashlights to begin the search along the roof. From the window, Markham said that Helene could turn on the light if she wanted; so she did.

Putting on her shoes, the girl started to complete her packing. Every item that she added to the bag buried the letters and the photograph deeper from sight, a fact that made Helene smile, despite the new ordeal that she had just undergone.

Oddly, Helene found herself wondering about someone other than Dwight, who, after all, might not have been anywhere around. She remembered Markham's mention of a fighter called The Shadow, and hoped that he had fared well in the battle.

Glancing from the window, Helene saw flashlights over in the direction that Markham had pointed out; but apparently no one was there.

The girl decided that The Shadow had gone; and in that a.s.sumption, she was right. But The Shadow had not traveled far.

WITH battle won, The Shadow had reached the roof edge. There, he hadattempted a drop to the ground. Two stories from a hanging drop was usually a simple matter for The Shadow, but on this occasion he trusted too much upon his injured arm.

He was lying by the wall of the garage, when officers flicked their flash-lights downward. Thanks to the overhanging roof and a short crawl by The Shadow, they did not see the figure in black.

Sheer instinct must have enabled The Shadow to perform that creep, after his drop had crumpled him. He remained quite motionless, long after the flashlight rays had pa.s.sed him.

Men were creeping in from behind the Hotel Northley. Whether friends or foemen, The Shadow was in no condition to receive them. Fortunately, they were friends: Cliff Marsland and Hawkeye. Lifting their chief, the faithful agents carried him out to the next street.

The departure was fraught with danger of discovery. More police were in the neighborhood. Two officers, stumbling through an opening, were almost upon The Shadow's agents when they stopped. The cops had come upon a crippled thug.

While they were dragging him away, Cliff and Hawkeye completed their own journey.

Moe's waiting cab whipped to life the moment that the agents and their burden were aboard. It shot right from the sight of a patrolman who was searching parked cars along the way.

A whistle gave the alarm; a police car whined in from a neighboring block.

But Moe knew these streets, like all others in Manhattan.

He twisted the cab from that vicinity as if it had been a mechanical eel.

Discarding darkness, Moe chose a lighted avenue and mixed the cab into traffic far from the scene of the brief pursuit.

When Cliff spoke through the part.i.tion, telling him to drive to Doctor Rupert Sayre's, Moe nodded. Sayre was a doctor who aided The Shadow when he received injuries in his eternal battle against crime.

The Shadow's plans were ended for the night. Later, perhaps, he would again seek the trail of Dwight Kelden - who had managed a new flight during The Shadow's costly triumph. Doubly costly, that victory, since it meant that The Shadow would have to postpone another mission: his visit to the Rendrew house.

In that old mansion lay certain clues that were the answer to strange murder; clues that might be gone when The Shadow finally arrived to seek them!

CHAPTER VIII.

THE THIRD CLUE.

BY noon the next day, Inspector Cardona had news that pleased him.

Matters were going very well in the Rendrew case. Dwight Kelden had been tagged as Suspect No. 1, and his picture gazed from the front page of every newspaper in town.

That particular photo showed Kelden in a ten-gallon hat, which - though Cardona didn't realize it - hid the suspect's most conspicuous mark of identification, his somewhat curly hair. Louise Dreller had provided the photograph; it was one that her cousin had sent her, to kid her with the notion that the West was still very wild and woolly.

Wires to San Diego had proven that Dwight Kelden was absent from that city and that no one knew precisely where he had gone. The news supported Cardona's theory that Rendrew's missing nephew was probably in New York.

As for the gunfight held between the Hotel Northley and the Winslow Arms,the ace inspector held a hunch that Dwight had been concerned in it. He argued that it might have been an effort to kidnap Helene Graymond, the law's most important witness.

Captured mobbies claimed that they had been working with a leader who had not survived the battle; that he was the only one who could have told who hired them, or what their ultimate purpose was.

That was logical enough, and Cardona had an idea that the man in back of it all was a guest at the Northley, named David Armage. The fight had begun in Armage's room, 416, and from descriptions of the guest, the name sounded like an alias, used by Dwight Kelden.

Positive that Dwight must be the murderer, Cardona had forgotten about Rahman Singh. Besides, another man had come into the scene - a taxi driver named Tim Dogan. The fellow reported at a precinct station, admitted that he had picked up a pa.s.senger in back of the Rendrew house. He was brought to headquarters, where Cardona interviewed him.

Dogan looked honest, but somewhat wary. He kept fidgeting with the battered cap that const.i.tuted his sole item of uniform. He wanted to think before he spoke, and Cardona let him. Experience had shown the inspector that fake testimony was usually given glibly, rather than with forethought of the sort that Dogan used.

"IT was this way," said Dogan. "I was grabbin' chow at the Busy Bee, see?

That's where I go regular - all the boys up there know me."

Cardona inquired where the Busy Bee was.

"It's a hashhouse on the street in back of Rendrew's," declared Dogan.

"About a block away. I'm the only hackie that eats there, and every now an'

then I gets a call."

"From that neighborhood?"

"Yeah, usually." Dogan paused, then blurted the admission: "I'd gotten 'em from the Rendrew house before."

"Who made the calls?"

"Generally a dame. The same one that wanted the cab, I guess. She's a blonde. Dizzy looking."

That fitted Louise. Cardona put a prompt question: "Did the girl call you last night?"

"No," replied Dogan. "It was a guy called. He talked kind of quick. Says to stop out in back of the old house at nine o'clock and wait there. I figures the guy is callin' for the blonde."

"At what time was the call made?"

"Along about six o'clock. I always. .h.i.t the Busy Bee ahead of six, so I can scoff before the rush starts for the restaurants an' the night clubs."

Cardona calculated. If Dwight Kelden had come East by plane, he would have arrived long in advance of six o'clock. As for the quick voice that Dogan mentioned, it certainly didn't fit Archie's whiny tone or Froy's precise sort of speech.

They were the only persons who could have called from the house, except Adam Rendrew or John Osman. Neither of them would have arranged for a cab to meet Louise. Besides, Rendrew's voice had been cackly, according to Helene, and Osman's speech was deliberate, almost a drawl.

"It's been six months that I've hung around the Busy Bee," continued Dogan, "an' this is the first time a guy calls from the house; instead of the dame -"

"He said he was calling from the house?"

"No. He just says to be there at nine. So I shows up, an' it's the guyhimself that pops out, after I've been waitin' about fifteen minutes. He's in a hurry, an' he hops aboard as soon as he sees me, sayin' to get to Times Square quick.

"By the time we're around the corner, he's flashin' ten bucks in one mitt an' a gat in the other, askin' me which I want. I figure a sawbuck is better than a slug, so I takes him where he wants to go."

Dogan ended his story abruptly. Cardona eyed him in poker-faced style.

Finally, the cabby added: "That's all, inspector. Until I takes a gander at the newspapers this mornin' an' find out you're lookin' for the guy."

Cardona pointed to Dwight's photograph on a front page, and asked: "Was that the man?"

"It mighta been," admitted Dogan. "Only I didn't see him very close. I was busy drivin' fast, like he wanted. He wasn't wearin' that hat, though."

Cardona gave a grunt. Leaning back in his chair, he considered what other information Dogan might supply. Finally, he questioned: "Where's your cab?"

"Outside here. They had me drive it down from the precinct station."

"We'll have a look inside it."

They went outside, and Cardona began to probe the cab's interior. When he lifted the rear seat, something slipped down from the side of it. Cardona saw the flutter of paper and reached for the trophy.

A moment later, he was holding a third clue that pointed to Dwight Kelden, an item quite as important as the torn calendar and the eyegla.s.s wiper.