A word of understanding came over the wire. Clyde hung up the phone and sat with his head in his hands. There was a rapping on the door of the booth. Some one else wanted to make a call.
Clyde came out, made his way to the street, and leaned against a wall while the fresh air began to revive his sickened senses. It must have been fully twenty minutes after the men left the Club DeLuxe before he sent his message through. But now all was well.
He had reported to Burbank, The Shadow’s confidential aid. The message in turn would be relayed to The Shadow. Before Arnold Bodine’s enemies had arrived, The Shadow would be there — unless Clyde’s call had been too late!
CHAPTER XII. THE HIDEOUT
WHEN Clipper Tobin and Cliff Marsland left the Club DeLuxe, the toughened gangster who headed the two-man expedition led his companion to a taxi. They rode rapidly down the avenue and alighted at the corner of a side street. Here Clipper conducted Cliff along the street, away from the brilliant lights.
Hardly had they moved into obscurity before another man followed the same path. He stepped from a doorway near the corner and moved swiftly in pursuit. Only for a brief moment did his face show beneath a corner light. It was Sneaks Rubin, secret director of the crime that was about to transpire.
Neither Clipper nor Cliff knew any thing of his presence. Clipper was simply following a carefully laid-out plan, in which the time element had been taken into account. Cliff, in turn, was following Clipper’s instructions.
As a precaution, Cliff, always wary, glanced behind him as he moved along. Clipper did not consider the action strange. It was to be expected. But Cliff saw nothing, for Sneaks Rubin knew where the other men were going, and kept well out of sight.
“We’re goin’ to cut in the back way,” said Clipper in a low voice. “There’s a fire tower that’s easy to get into. Nobody sees us comin’— nobody sees us leavin’. This will be a soft get-away.”
The course taken by Clipper led across another avenue; then through an alley in back of a garage.