The Shadow - The Black Dragon Part 1

THE BLACK DRAGON.

by Maxwell Grant.

The Shadow strikes back - at a devil G.o.d that symbolizes all the hate and menace and trickery of the j.a.ps!

CHAPTER I.

BLACK MADNESS.

STEVE TRASK stared at the carved dragon that squatted in the shop window.

It was a tiny object, not more than four inches high. Carved from solid jet, the dragon was a glossy black, save for two dots of jade that gave it the look of a green-eyed monster in miniature.

It might even be Miljohn's dragon!

Singular, how Steve had scoured Manhattan's Chinatown in vain, looking for just such a dragon, only to find one in the window of this obscure shop which bore no name and looked as though it was no longer doing business!

As Steve stared, something more singular happened. A saffron hand came through the curtain that backed the show window, gripped the jet dragon in its fist and disappeared as rapidly as it had arrived.

Springing to the door of the shop, Steve pounded with one hand, while using the other to grip the stubby revolver that he carried in his pocket. Shuffly footsteps answered from within; the door opened a crack and Steve received a minute inspection from a slanted eye.

Then the door went wide and a yellow-faced man bowed Steve to a counter.

Seeing Steve's eye upon his fist, the man inquired: "You wantee buy dragon?"

As Steve nodded, a telephone bell rang. The shopkeeper answered, all the while keeping a wary eye upon the door. Across the wire, Steve heard a sharp voice that inquired: "You, Sujan?"

The shopkeeper muttered quick words that ended the call. Turning to Steve, he spread his hand twice to indicate the price of the dragon as ten dollars, absurdly low for such a rare curio. With his free hand, Steve produced the money and pocketed the jet ornament, but he still gripped his gun as he stepped outdoors.

That ten-dollar price was proof that something was wrong in this shop.

But it simply clinched an impression that Steve had gained earlier. It wasn't until the door slammed shut and bolts slid home that Steve put facts together.

The shopkeeper hadn't said "dlagon" as most Chinese would. He had correctly p.r.o.nounced the word "dragon." Also, the name that had been spoken over the wire, Sujan, was distinctly not Chinese.

The man was a j.a.panese!

No wonder the shop bore no name and looked closed. It was a hideaway for Sujan and perhaps for other j.a.ps. Steve started to dismiss the thought as preposterous, until he reasoned how shrewd the game could be. Chinatown was the one place where j.a.panese could risk being seen by Americans, because there they could be mistaken for Chinese.

Naturally, they'd have to make sure that the Chinese did not spot them, but Sujan's actions proved that he was following just such a policy. He'd taken a chance when he saw that Steve was an American. But Steve had guessed the truth and maybe Sujan knew it. If so, there could be trouble!

THIS dimmed street was sinister. Looking about, Steve saw a ma.s.s of bas.e.m.e.nt entries, so dark they looked like fox holes. The only place that promised Steve safety was a doorway across the street. It was deep, even though it ended in a door of heavy bronze, so formidable that quick entrance would prove impossible.

To the right of the house with the bronze door was an alley; on the far side, Steve saw a higher structure that looked like an old apartment building.

Its second floor was fronted by a balcony with bulky ornamental posts.

Odd how the nearest of those posts looked like a huddled figure watching for some prey!

Shaking off the illusion, Steve glanced elsewhere. His eyes narrowed as they covered the cornice of the house roof above the bronze door. Even more ominous than the apartment balcony, that cornice jutted like something carved from blackness, yet with a clinging effect that reminded Steve of a living creature.

Turning his gaze across the narrow alley, Steve looked higher to the projecting caves of the apartment building, four floors up. If he'd wanted to let his fancy get the better of him, Steve could have imagined a stir beneath those eaves.

But Steve wasn't letting himself be deceived by shadows that looked like things alive!

Dimmed lights were coming along this forgotten street. They marked an arriving taxicab, its driver looking for some address. As the cab pulled in front of the house with the bronzed door, Steve saw that it had a pa.s.senger who was about to get out.

This was real opportunity. All Steve had to do was get into the vacated cab and ride from this weird neighborhood. Once away, he could examine the black dragon and figure out what it meant. Probably owners of black dragons were regarded as members of a secret fraternity, something that Miljohn hadn't known.

Those thoughts were flashing to Steve as he crossed the street, wisely going in back of the cab so that its dimmed headlights would not disclose him. But as he rounded the rear of the cab, Steve stopped short, face to face with the pa.s.senger who had just stepped to the sidewalk.

Fierce eyes met Steve's, ugly eyes that flared narrowly beneath bushy brows. He saw a sharp nose; beneath it yellow teeth that gritted from the sudden thrust of a heavy jaw that poked from a m.u.f.fling overcoat collar. The man was an American, of tawny visage, but he wasn't welcoming Steve as a compatriot. An instant's glance at Steve, then those narrowed eyes tilted upward. With a half snarl, the tawny man swung his arm wide, as if in a signal. Steve didn't lunge,because the man was springing back into the cab. What Steve did was swing about, following the direction of the tawny man's gaze.

Shadows had come to life!

THE balcony post across the alley was lunging into human shape, if its grotesque lurch could be called human. Steve saw a saffron j.a.panese face push forward from the rail; with it came a clawed hand that furnished a downward whip. From those fingers came the glint of a knife that the creature was releasing - with Steve as the only target in its path!

Nothing could stop that hand of death, for its fling was complete. The intervention that saved Steve was of a more amazing sort.

A gun tongued from the cornice on Steve's side of the alley. Straight as the knife-fling and far swifter was the bullet that intercepted the blade of death. Literally, that leaden slug plucked the knife from the hand that hurled it. Steve heard the sharp ping and saw the knife go flying out into the street, while the clawing hand whipped back as though stung by the force that shivered the deadly dirk!

Steve's rescuer was the black shape that he had mistaken for a segment of the cornice. Timed to the recoil of its gun, that figure was rising to reveal itself as a cloaked form. Shadows had truly came to life.

This one was The Shadow!

Cloaked fighter who battled men of crime, The Shadow wasn't stopping with his first endeavor. He was swinging from the cornice to take another gun stab at the foiled a.s.sa.s.sin on the balcony across the alley. And Steve, knowing that this cloaked being must be a friend, was wheeling about to handle the glaring man who had sprung back into the cab.

That man was gone; so was the cab. Steve's hearty lunge carried him out into the street, where he sprawled. He heard the staccato punches of The Shadow's gun, saw the knifeless a.s.sa.s.sin scrambling along the balcony to avoid the fire. Then, rolling on both elbows, Steve was staring straight up, to witness something truly amazing.

Both sides could boast rescuers in this combat!

TWO floors above The Shadow's head, a mere dozen feet across the alley, the eaves were disgorging another j.a.panese a.s.sa.s.sin who traveled along with the murderous stroke he hoped to deliver. This creature was swinging a weapon shaped like a cleaver, and the drive of the chopping blade was carrying it to its mark!

Before Steve could aim his gun, the cleaver man landed.

Weird was the laugh from the cornice. Steve's revolver was talking into the darkness. The Shadow had heard the clatter of the eaves and had literally rolled across the edge of the cornice to avoid the cleaver stroke. By a quick clutch back across the brink, The Shadow was hauling himself back to solid footing by seizing the scrawny opponent whose cleaver slash had gone wide!

His shots not being needed, Steve sprang across the street to see what happened next. As he reached the front of Sujan's shop, guns jabbed from all about. The bas.e.m.e.nt doorways on this side of the street were alive with marksmen shooting at The Shadow!

On the cornice, The Shadow twisted his scrawny opponent as a shield againstthe gunfire. They twirled back across the roof, where the scrawny man wrenched free and scrambled to a higher ledge. Another defiant laugh resounded as The Shadow sprang after his slippery enemy, to regain him as a shield.

With a howl of indescribable glee, the wiry j.a.p jabbed his hands to The Shadow's throat. They twisted like a windmill painted black and yellow. Amid the kaleidoscopic spin, the human whirligig disappeared over the rear of the higher roof. Clutched by a tenacious strangler, The Shadow was bound on a three-story plunge to a solid courtyard behind the house with the bronze door!

Black madness gripped Steve Trask. He wanted the quickest route to reach The Shadow and wreak vengeance on the strangler who had gained the upper hand in the fatal plunge.

Steve's dash stopped as suddenly as it began. It stopped when he drove through the opposite doorway and met the bronze barrier shoulder-first.

Grabbing the big door latch, Steve found it wouldn't yield. There wasn't any chance to pound the door; others were doing it for him.

They were pounding it with bullets, those marksmen from the bas.e.m.e.nt fox holes. Having settled The Shadow, they were giving Steve their attention.

Escaping the first wild shots, Steve at least had sense enough to respond with his own gun, but to even less avail than his enemies.

Steve's bullets might as well have been blanks, considering the way his adversaries ducked to shelter. Besides, his fire was rapidly exhausted. Steve was simply clicking a hammer on empty chambers. Why he kept tugging the useless revolver trigger, Steve didn't know, any more than why he should be keeping his other hand in his pocket, clutching the black dragon as a lucky token, but this was one spot where luck looked sure to fail.

Back against the bronze door, Steve braced as he saw revolvers thrust.

Then came the jabs of flame accompanied by a unanimous roar. With it Steve caved; but he was pitching backward, not forward, a thing that he couldn't understand until he saw that the bronze door was swinging shut above him, echoing from the clang of bullets.

The barrier had yielded at the crucial instant, gulping the victim whose death had seemed so imminent. But Steve wasn't stopping just across the threshold; he was going down through a s.p.a.ce where there wasn't any floor, into an abyss of engulfing blackness!

The bronze door slammed with a mighty clangor. Tuned to that strident clash, Steve struck the bottom of the pit below. He saw sunbursts outmatching the gun spurts that he had so luckily escaped. Then, as though jarred into oblivion by the brazen echoes, Steve's senses vanished.

Black madness had overwhelmed Steve Trask, just as it had taken his rescuer, The Shadow!

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE OF LI HUANG.

THE sound was sharp. Click! So close that it seemed to snap exactly in Steve's ear. Coming to one elbow, he took his head between his hands. While his brain still swam, he realized that it wasn't the clicking sound that had roused him.

There were other sounds, very distant - the shrills of police whistles, the wails of sirens. They came from the street, a place Steve couldn't reach, for there was more than a bra.s.s door barring his exit from this pit. When Steve came to his feet and struck a match, he saw that a solid floor had closed above his head.

The match flame wavered along with Steve. It reached his fingers and he opened them suddenly. The match struck a stone floor and went out. Sagging to his knees, Steve struck another match and looked along the floor.

Something glittered in the corner; it was Steve's revolver. Clutching the gun with his left hand, Steve shook out the match flame with his right.

The moment he gripped the revolver, Steve remembered the click that he had heard. The walls about him seemed solid, like the floor; still it was from one of those walls that the sound had come. Steve didn't light another match.

Instead, he swung to his feet again, shoved his back against the wall and found the nearest corner. He was forgetting that his gun was empty as he gestured it in the pitch darkness. At least he preferred darkness, since it enabled him to stay from sight.

Then, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, Steve demanded: "Who's there?"

The question came back, hollow, like a sneer. Its repet.i.tion marked it as an echo, but Steve wasn't sure. It certainly didn't resemble his own voice.

Still, the confines of this narrow pit could probably produce vocal illusions.

After listening for several seconds, Steve began to creep along the wall.

He could hear other footfalls, timed to his own. Again, they seemed echoes, but of a distorted sort. Steve halted his caged pacing. When he did, the other sounds stopped, too.

The click hadn't been an echo. So Steve waited, hoping it would sound again. If it did, it would mean that his unseen companion was going out. So Steve was reasoning - when the sharp sound came straight across the pit. Gun ahead of him, Steve lunged.

There wasn't any wall when Steve arrived. He went right through, swinging his gun, hoping to overtake the person who was darting out ahead of him. Only n.o.body was going out, except Steve, and he didn't travel far.

What Steve met were men coming in. They stopped his gun swing, along with his surge, hurled him back and pinned him helpless against the far wall that he had left. A flashlight suddenly appeared and Steve found himself confronted by a yellow-brown face, flanked by two others belonging to the men who clutched him.

All three belonged to the group that stopped Steve's drive. Except for them, the pit was empty. Completely flabbergasted by the way his imagination had tricked him, Steve subsided without further resistance. His captors took his gun away and marched him out through the open wall, clicking it shut behind them.

THE brief parade ended in an upstairs room, where a thin-faced Chinaman was seated behind a teakwood desk. Though shrewd, the eyes that greeted Steve were somewhat friendly. The man, himself, looked Chinese, though the three servants did not. They seemed more Mongolian, those three, when Steve gave them side glances.

However, he wasn't well enough versed in Oriental nationalities to be sure of anything, except that the trio looked ugly and dumb - two points that did not apply to their thin-faced master.

The man behind the desk spoke first. "I am Li Huang," he declared in precise English. "This is my house. I am glad to receive you" - the lips gave a twitch which Steve decided was a smile - "but I regret the sudden method that necessity impelled. Perhaps Ming Dwan should explain the situation, since she was the person responsible."

Li Huang gestured toward the door of a room and Steve turned to see a Chinese girl enter. She was dark-haired, pet.i.te, more typically a native of Cathay than Li Huang himself. In what seemed a correct Chinese fashion, Ming Dwan looked straight past Steve and answered Li Huang directly.

"It was right that I should allow a friend to enter," declared Ming Dwan.

"But it would have been wrong to let an enemy reach you, Li Huang. Not knowing which was outside our portal, I treated this stranger as both.

"I opened the door as to a friend. I pressed the switch that let the floor fall, that I might trap a foe." Li Huang actually smiled as Ming Dwan bowed.

Crossing the room, the Chinese girl stopped beside the desk, folded her arms and turned toward Steve. Words of grat.i.tude stopped on Steve's lips as his eyes met Ming Dwan's.

This Chinese girl was utterly impersonal. Her expression showed no interest in the man whose life she had saved. Rather, Ming Dwan regarded Steve coldly, as though no thanks on his part could make amends for the inconvenience he had caused.

At least Li Huang proved more affable.

"I have introduced myself," stated Li Huang blandly, "because I have nothing to conceal. My doorway was a trap, yes, but it is lawful for a man to protect his own premises, particularly when he is a retired merchant known to possess wealth.

"Your situation may be different." Li Huang fixed his eyes steadily, on Steve. "Therefore, I do not ask you to declare your name. It is but fair, however, that you should detail the events that occurred outdoors and give me some token of your circ.u.mstance."

Fairly spoken, those words of Li Huang. They stirred Steve's mind to a logical chain of thoughts. He remembered the events that brought him here.

THE chain began with the death of Steve's friend, Rufus Miljohn, once the owner of a black dragon carved from jet - a death that the police termed suicide, but which Steve cla.s.sified as murder for the Black Dragon. It was on Miljohn's account that Steve had scoured Chinatown for a jet dragon like Miljohn's, and had finally found one in the shop of Sujan.

Men of evil had sought to murder Steve. Therefore, the little black dragon could only represent a clan that favored justice. Looming in Steve's memory was the picture of a black-clad fighter who had saved him from doom, only to receive death's burden. The Shadow, cloaked master of justice, somehow symbolized the black-dragon token that Steve himself had acquired.

Li Huang was a just man, too. More than that, he understood. His words proved it, those final words that were still chiming through Steve's brain. Hecould almost hear those words again: "Give me some token of your circ.u.mstance -" Steve saw the bland face of Li Huang, awaiting his reply. A friendly face, with sympathetic eyes that formed a counterpart of Li Huang's patient smile.

All Li Huang wanted was to hear the truth.

Steve opened his lips to speak the facts. It wasn't the gaze of Li Huang that stopped him. The stare that caught Steve's attention came from Dwan.

No longer did the girl's face lack expression. She was putting contempt and more into the glare that accompanied the twist of her lips. It wasn't that Ming Dwan would doubt whatever Steve might say. It went deeper than that; she wanted to hear his story. Behind that wish was nothing friendly, judging from the girl's expression. She was in a different camp than Li Huang; her very purpose in this house was to betray the placid Chinaman who owned it! That Ming Dwan represented the wrong people seemed clear enough to Steve from the girl's expectant gloat. That was Ming Dwan's one mistake; she'd given herself away too soon. It was up to Steve to play the smarter hand, in a way that would satisfy his friend, Li Huang, yet keep Ming Dwan totally at sea.