open.
Purposely, Murk had left that to the final moment, so the police wouldn't
expect the coming flight. But The Shadow wasn't allowing the final moment. He
was aiming for the rear door of the truck as Murk dived inside.
Hurdling the coffers, Murk flattened beyond them; they stopped The
Shadow's shots. The driver, responding to the menace of guns, spurted the truck
right through the garage door, which smashed apart like pasteboard.
An ordinary car wouldn't have had the weight to accomplish that little
feat, but the truck was as heavy as a fair-sized army tank. All that The Shadow
gained was a nice wide exit through which he could dash on foot.
As he came out, he saw the taxicab that had brought him from the airport.
The driver, stiffened at the wheel, didn't know what to do. The Shadow sprang
into the cab and told him.
THINGS were happening elsewhere. Up in the room where the battle began,
one man was fighting off a pair. The one man was Colin Nayre, and he was
struggling with the two policemen who had been in the fray from the start.
They had quite the wrong idea regarding Nayre. They thought that his
chance opening of the connecting door had been intentional, and they wanted to
hold him to account for it. After all, Nayre didn't quite belong to the Durez
faction - a point which the bankers were shouting aloud. He'd been ruled out of
the business conference by Durez. Maybe he'd sold out, the way the two private
detectives had.
Only The Shadow could have testified in Nayre's behalf, and The Shadow was
gone. So Nayre, thinking that The Shadow perhaps had fled from a misunderstood
situation, decided that a quick out was his course, too. Flinging the two
officers aside, he dived for the balcony just as other members of the Beach
force came plunging into the room.
All during the cannonading on the third floor, Margo Lane had undergone a
flood of reactions. First, she had stood petrified on the diving board; then,
knowing that The Shadow must be in the thick of things, Margo had wondered what
she could do.
She had hesitated, worrying about the police outside, particularly the
guardian of the hedge, until she realized that the battle must have attracted
them.
Dashing from the shore end of the spring board, Margo reached the hedge
and pushed through it, to her car. The keys were in the lock, where she had
left them just to show the too-suspicious cop that she trusted him.
All the while, Margo was darting looks up to the balcony, expecting to see
The Shadow come out by the route which he had used for entry. She only hoped
that his exit wouldn't be a tumble.
A terrific crash distracted her. It was the armored truck; smashing out
through the garage door. Margo didn't see The Shadow follow, for she was
looking upward again. Not sighting The Shadow made her magnify his plight, and
she started the roadster, feeling positive that he would arrive in crippled
condition and need someone to drive him away.
She realized, then, that she should have stopped to pick up her robe and
slippers, but it was too late to get them. So Margo compromised by getting rid
of the bathing cap, so she could shake her hair loose.
