Across the path of the car lay a blot of blackness, a long, oddly-shaped shadow. The driver of the car did not give it a second thought. He took it for the shadow of a tree.
The car moved slowly forward. As it passed the spot where the shadow had been, a long, agile form leaped forward. It would have been invisible in the darkness, except for the fact that it momentarily obscured the rear light of the car.
The vague form attached itself to the back of the vehicle, and remained there while the automobile jolted along the dirt road.
The man in the front seat was muttering incoherent oaths as he drove along. His low voice was drowned by the groans of wounded gangsters. But he did not hear those sounds.
Still ringing in his ears was the peal of a taunting laugh — a laugh that no hardened denizen of New York’s underworld could fail to recognize.
For the laugh that had sounded when the limousine had fled to safety was the triumphant cry of The Shadow. Single-handed, the invisible man of the darkness had won the fight, against tremendous odds!
CHAPTER XIV
THE MENACE OF THE SHADOW
IT was after midnight. A coupe turned from Broadway, above Seventy-second, and stopped before a house on a side street.
Two men alighted. They ascended a pair of steps. One of them unlocked the door to the house. They entered.