Only one figure could move so silently and invisibly through the dark. That was the same one whose warning against crime had passed unheeded. The Shadow was here, in Seaview City!
CHAPTER V
BEHIND THE DOOR
THE Club Catalina was traveling full blast when Police Chief Yates entered the popular night club. Located on the first floor of a large building, the club was the logical place for board-walk amusement-seekers.
Chief Yates paused and looked over the large room, with its broad dance floor. It was a gorgeously furnished cabaret, with hundreds of tables about the sides. The single vaulted room was fitted with three imposing pillars set in the center of the floor to support the high ceiling.
His brief inspection ended, Yates turned toward a stairway at one end of the room. His thoughts were working slowly, and his usual alert eye did not notice the shadowy shape that moved up the stairs ahead of him. Treading the thick carpet, Yates was speculative.
Carpeted stairs meant that visitors were expected up here. Yet there was no influx of customers. Yates was doubtful. He knew the signs of a hideout, from the ground floor up.
At the head of the turning stairs, Yates encountered a closed door. He turned the knob. The door opened, and the police chief strode into a small room with a door on the other side. The second door also yielded to his touch.
The room which Yates now entered was rather large and square. It had two doors in adjacent sides. These were open, betraying the plan of the floor — four rooms, each part of a large square.
The first of these rooms — the one in which Yates now stood — was peopled with a dozen persons, who were playing bridge at card tables. There were others standing about the room. Yates recognized one man as a detective stationed on the premises.