his first shot was aimed for the rear door of the touring car, where he knew the
machine gunners would be.
A howl answered The Shadow's blast. He delivered a second gun-shot; another
yell was the response. The Shadow had winged a second crook.
The touring car shot forward. Its canny driver gave it a zigzag twist,
wheeling over so that the bulk of The Shadow's coupe would make the invisible
marksman seek a new vantage point. The lights of the touring car blinked off.
Its driver, knowing the road, was chancing darkness.
A mocking laugh sounded in the darkness of the ditch, as The Shadow boarded
his tilted coupe. Victor in the short-lived fray, The Shadow had gained the
proof he wanted. Crime lay behind the disasters in Hampstead - crime so big that
it needed murderous crews to back it in a pinch.
This first encounter would bring others. Battles and opposition could
produce clues. The Shadow was satisfied that his stay in Hampstead would lead
him to a master-villain's lair.
CHAPTER III
THE DEATH THRUST
IT was half an hour before The Shadow reached the center of Hampstead, for
he chose a roundabout course that finally brought him to an obscure garage. His
purpose was not to avoid a new encounter; he would have welcomed such a fray.
But The Shadow knew that there would be no new ambush.
Spies would be the next enemies. They would be watching for The Shadow's
coupe, in hope of identifying its occupants. Hence The Shadow chose to enter
Hampstead from another direction; to keep his car away from the main streets. He
had, moreover, delayed five minutes during his circuit. In that interval he had
changed the license plates on his coupe.
When The Shadow strolled from the obscure garage, he was no longer clad in
black. Street lamps showed him dressed in a dark-gray suit. His features were
full and bore little of the hawkish aspect which enemies identified with The
Shadow's countenance. The Shadow was carrying a large suitcase, which contained
his cloak and hat. He looked like a tourist who had stopped off in Hampstead.
The railroad station was near the garage. An approaching whistle told that
a passenger train was due. Picking an obscure route, The Shadow neared the depot
and stood by an old freight shed until the train arrived. A dozen passengers
alighted; half of them had bags. The Shadow stepped up to the station platform
and mingled with the small throng. Two arrivals were going toward an old sedan
that served as taxi. The Shadow followed them.
The driver announced that his cab took passengers to the Hampstead House.
The two men boarded the car and The Shadow joined them. They rode through the
main streets and pulled up in front of a pretentious hotel. If spies were about,
they took The Shadow merely for another passenger, who had come into town by
train.
The Shadow let the two other men register first. He wrote his own name as
"Henry Arnaud," with Chicago as his home city. The name and identity of Arnaud
were The Shadow's own device. He used them upon occasion such as this.
