benefit of newsreel photographers.
Neither aquaplanes nor cameramen were in sight. Through the fringing
palms, The Shadow saw the hulk of a low-lying boat, which might belong to Murk
and his companions. Stealthily, The Shadow skirted toward a better vantage
point. He was planning to reach an ornamental bridge and make a quick drop into
the craft that carried the crooks, before it could really get under way.
Then came the thing The Shadow didn't want to hear.
It was the wail of an approaching siren, the same whistly trill that every
police car had used while on the chase. The sound proved that the police had
learned their error and were coming back, making an even greater mistake by
proclaiming their return. The give-away howl of those sirens was the very
reason why The Shadow had sent the patrols in the other direction.
Crooks heard the sirens, too. A motor coughed, and the lurking craft was
off. Low, beneath the level of the palm-lined shore, it was where The Shadow
couldn't reach it with bullets. The boat was roaring beneath the bridge as The
Shadow reached the scene on foot.
Springing to the center of the short bridge, he stabbed shots after the
fugitives, and they fired back. Palms that obscured the moonlight made the
speedy boat no more than a low-lying streak of black, which The Shadow took as
a general target.
In their return, Murk's gunners were shooting only at the stone rail of
the bridge, from which a weird, taunting laugh accompanied the gun bursts. Then
a turn in the canal carried the swift boat from sight, as well as gun range. The
roar of a powerful motor echoed back along the wave-washed waterway, while
sirens, rising in their pitch, howled a rapid approach.
HIS own ruse spoiled, The Shadow hurried back to the cab, to find that it
had no driver. The fellow was blocks away by this time. He hadn't even waited
to snatch the keys from the ignition lock, so The Shadow used the cab for his
own departure.
He was around a bend in the road that swung through the park, when he
heard the sirens halting, back where he had been.
Any chase along this driveway would be futile, for by this time, the
fugitive speedboat had reached the broad waters of Biscayne Bay. The laugh that
The Shadow gave was grim, signifying a coming problem which he could definitely
foresee because the police had overlooked it. It was something that credited
Murk Wessel with a high degree of shrewdness.
The very system by which the police had confined the crooks to Miami Beach
was now aiding the getaway!
That system involved the drawbridges. They had been lifted to prevent an
escape by road. But the criminals had taken to water, instead, and the draws
were still lifted. Therefore, instead of being boxed between causeways, the
fugitive craft would find whatever outlet it required!
No use to call headquarters and explain that situation. Before anything
could be done about it, the crook-manned boat would have passed the hazards.
The Shadow had gauged the speed of the craft. Murk Wessel wasn't risking ten
million dollars on an old hulk. The getaway was actually accomplished.
The police would realize it, soon enough, and order a hunt, by boat,
across the entire expanse of Biscayne Bay. They would probably carry it to a
