Le Blanc would not have understood it; Cronin would have understood it too well.
For the sound that emerged from those closely woven bushes was a laugh — a strident laugh — a sinister, mocking laugh, that increased with the tempo of a winter wind, and dwindled away to a nothingness that carried an uncanny echo.
It was a laugh that had struck terror into the hearts of brave men; a laugh that carried a meaning that none could grasp, yet that all could fear. It was a laugh that seemed like the mockery of the night itself.
It was the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER VIII
SAVOLI GIVES ORDERS
AT eight o’clock the next evening, a man approached the Escadrille Apartments, just outside the Loop district of Chicago. On entering the pretentious building, he stopped in front of an open elevator, where the operator surveyed him in a casual manner.
“Hello, Steve,” said the elevator man. “Step in. You’re expected upstairs.”
Steve Cronin entered the elevator. He did not give the floor number. The operator knew where he was going — to the fourth floor. For the Escadrille Apartments were owned by Nick Savoli, and the king of Chicago gangland lived on the fourth floor.
The elevator operators were gunmen in disguise. They received full instructions when they went on duty. To the average person entering the Escadrille, they would have appeared to be ordinary elevator men.