Silence replaced the sound of shots. The light came on, to reveal The Shadow by the curtained doorway.
Jake Dermott’s two remaining men lay wounded, with emptied guns beside them. The gang leader was dead. His own men, seeking to kill The Shadow, had riddled their chief with bullets.
Paying no attention to the crippled gunmen, The Shadow found the cord that had opened the trapdoor in the floor. He loosened it, and the trapdoor closed. In a few seconds Harry and Cliff were freed by the black-clad man who leaned over them.
Groping their way, they followed The Shadow to safety down the secret stairway. They stopped as they neared the street. Black-clad arms shot out through the darkness and seized the form of a gangster stationed by the door. The man fell heavily to the sidewalk, stunned by the force of his fall.
The Shadow pushed Cliff and Harry to the street. Following his urge, they hurried toward the corner.
They were alone now, running easily in order to leave the vicinity before either police or gangsters might arrive. As they jogged along side by side they heard a weird, uncanny sound that echoed between the walls of the narrow byway.
It was a mocking laugh — a sardonic laugh — the triumph laugh of The Shadow!
The Shadow had played the winning game. After suspecting Loy Rook’s trap, he had worked the trick of the joss and had made a quick exit to the second floor before the Chinaman had closed the camouflaged doorways. He who laughed at locks had entered the third-floor sanctum by the double-barred front stairway. With his advent had passed the fiendish schemes of Loy Rook and Sneaks Rubin!
CHAPTER XIX. CARDONA’S RUSE
THE second morning after the battle at Loy Rook’s, Detective Joe Cardona held a conference with Inspector Timothy Klein. The two police officers discussed the new upheaval that had startled gangland; the death of Jake Dermott, the chieftain who had replaced Dave Markan.