Phil was right; this was The Shadow. But Phil was wrong in considering the cloaked interloper an enemy. Vengefully, Phil hurled himself upon The Shadow and a moment later they were reeling in a clinch, crashing half through the hedge.
From below came the roar of the truck as it disappeared beneath the bridge. Then, Phil was hovering over a brink that showed him the roadway below. The Shadow, knowing this terrain, had turned the grapple into a disaster where Phil was concerned; but as Phil forgot the clinch in order to grab for safety, The Shadow responded by hauling him back to safe ground.
Figures were scrambling in the opposite direction, starting a mad getaway through the hedge in order to reach the bridle path. After them went a laugh, fierce and sinister: the challenge of The Shadow. It was the sort of mirth that rankled men of crime and Phil, being of quite the opposite stripe, knew then that The Shadow was a friend.
What the fugitives had done with Ames was a matter for further speculation. Right now, the job was to round up that crew, and as Phil heard The Shadow’s laugh trail after them, he decided to follow. Thus began a pursuit that was to end in startling surprises.
So fast did The Shadow travel that Phil soon realized his own job would be to deal with stragglers. They were across the bridge and spreading pell-mell down through a slope of thinly wooded land. Off to one side, Phil was certain that he saw a figure drop into a crouch, so he drove in that direction.
Up came the figure with a snarl, out into the full moonlight. To his amazement, Phil saw a spotted leopard, springing at him with all the fury that a maddened beast would display. Instinct called for a quick change of course, but it was too late by then.
Meeting the leopard head on, Phil found that it wasn’t a leopard after all. The swing that he made for the creature’s jaws met a face that was rubbery, but human. The speed of Phil’s punch reduced its value, for he literally knocked his antagonist some twenty feet down the slope and before Phil could go after the leopard-man, the fellow was away.
Chasing a man who wore a leopard skin was just about as crazy as hunting a banshee, but this was Central Park, where anything could happen. For one thing, the man in the leopard costume didn’t vanish, perhaps because he was carrying more weight than the girl who had played the banshee the night before. What was more, he had an objective.
Coming to a long flight of stone steps, Phil took them almost headlong in pursuit of the fake leopard. Phil caught himself by grabbing at some tall bars that he passed and was greeted by a protesting roar from something huge and white, which he realized was a polar bear. Kiting away from that hazard, Phil rounded the fenced area that formed the bear’s cage and overtook the creature he was after.
Except that it wasn’t the same creature.