Even the tiny searchlight was absent as The Shadow groped his noiseless way to the stairs of the old house. He ascended silently to the second floor; then went up to the third.
By intuition, as much as by actual search, he discovered a trapdoor that led to the roof.
THE SHADOW had chosen this house cleverly. Fronting away from the block, well removed from the scene of action, no gangsters had stationed themselves within its portals.
Now, emerging on the roof, The Shadow crouched, alone and obscure. His sharp eyes glowed beneath his slouch hat as he picked his way along the housetops.
Every waiting gangster would have been perplexed if some one had told him that the very center of the danger zone had been left unguarded. Yet that fact was literally true. The housetops were devoid of mobsters.
The explanation was simple. The entrance to Glutz’s old strong room was on the ground. It could be approached only from that quarter.
The Shadow took no chances. If there should be gunmen here, he would be prepared for them. But he encountered none.
The Shadow, all believed, was coming into a trap unknown to him. That had been true when The Shadow had approached this area.
He had passed the most distant cordon, purely by his natural method of approaching places unnoticed. He had picked the alley through which he had come.
Seeing a gangster at one end, he had slipped by, along the wall of the building. Alert from then on, The Shadow had arrived and listened to the conversation of the watchers.