A brick gave under pressure. The Shadow dug his slipping toe more firmly; he gained a better hold. The reason was simply that a chunk of brick loosened; carrying mortar with it, the fragment dropped down into the courtyard. It clattered an echo from the stone paying beneath. The sound brought a quick snarl from Ku-Nuan.

Instantly, Ku-Nuan recognized The Shadow’s presence. Leaning outward, the Mongol shot his left hand downward. His clawish clutch found The Shadow’s right shoulder. With a triumphant snarl, Ku-Nuan drove his right hard downward, seeking to bury a long blade into The Shadow’s body.

THE SHADOW saw the driving arm against the sky. He sped his left hand from the corner of the sill, plucked Ku-Nuan’s arm in the middle of its swing. He darted his right hand for Ku-Nuan’s neck. The Shadow needed no further hold upon the sill. Ku-Nuan’s arm and neck served instead.

Ku-Nuan did what The Shadow expected. Clutched, the Mongol writhed inward from the window. The Shadow kept his toe-hold; snapped his body forward. As Ku-Nuan tried to wrestle away, The Shadow came with him. One knee found the sill; then the other. Ku-Nuan felt The Shadow surging in upon him. The Mongol changed his tactics.

Stabbing wildly, uselessly with the hand that held the knife, Ku-Nuan tried to lurch The Shadow outward. He half succeeded; but with it, he swung his own body partly across the sill.

Fiercely, The Shadow grappled with Ku-Nuan. Together, the fighters formed a writhing pair that leaned body and shoulders outward over the court. For a moment, it seemed that both would launch themselves into the blackened depths beneath.

The Shadow twisted. He loosened his grip upon Ku-Nuan’s arm. The Mongol slashed a long stroke inward. The Shadow twisted again; the blade found nothing but the shoulder of his cloak, to slit it half from The Shadow’s body.

Again, The Shadow shifted. His head back against the sill, Ku-Nuan saw blackness coming down upon him, plain against the sky’s slight glow. Ku-Nuan swung a terrific up-arm stroke. Again, his knife cleaved cloth. Shedding the carved cloak. The Shadow had swished it like a blanket down upon Ku-Nuan’s head and shoulders.

His arm beneath the cloth, The Shadow found Ku-Nuan’s wrist. With quick grip, he twisted the killer’s hand. The knife slipped from Ku-Nuan’s grasp. Weaponless, the killer snarled from the muffling cloak. Lunging, he shot hands free to catch The Shadow’s throat. For a moment, The Shadow sagged; then gained a body grip upon Ku-Nuan. Choking, he used all his strength to offset the Mongol’s fiendish power.

The grapplers locked above the window ledge. Straining, they formed a motionless picture beneath the dulled sky. The tableau persisted amid silent moments. Endurance had become the test. The one who could outlast the other would be the winner.

During those first few moments, no judge could have told who held the advantage: The Shadow or Ku-Nuan.

CHAPTER XII – CRIME’S PRISONER

Ku-Nuan was not the only listener who had heard the fall of the fourth barrier. While The Shadow was spending time in strategic attack upon the lookout, word of the closed trap had gone elsewhere.

In an alleyway a half block distant from the trap, Spark Ganza had received the reports of three pickets who had been stationed outside different passages. The trio had waited with their leader, counting upon word from a fourth. It had come at last. A hoarse-voiced rowdy, scudding into the alley, announced the final news:

“It clicked, Spark! The gate alongside of the hock shop! I was listenin’ for it -”

Spark gave a harsh command. Each of the four men with him was to assemble a crew from henchmen in the neighborhood, who were awaiting orders. Spark added final words:

“I’ll be coming in from the hockshop side! Have the typewriters set up; but don’t start gunning until I’m there to give the word! What’s more no glims, unless he starts trouble!”

Four thugs hurried away. Spark chuckled loudly; then listened for sounds of gathering henchmen. His band was already divided into four parts. Each crew would move like clockwork. Spark had assembled two dozen in all; each crew of six had its machine gun, in addition to the revolvers that the gorillas habitually carried.

Spark could hear his underlings moving to position. With the stride of a triumphant general, Spark headed for the pawnshop. He reached the passage and walked by the metal-sheathed door that was near its opening. Arriving at the short tunnel near the inner end, Spark found the crouching crew that was at this gate.

“Ready with the glims,” rasped Spark. “When they see ours, the other guys will shoot on their lights. All set -”

Spark stopped. He heard a clatter from the courtyard, that came with uncanny echo through the tunnel. Spark recognized the sound: the fall of a sprawling body. Then came a long, hissed snarl of triumph from a place somewhere above.

Spark knew the tone. It was Ku-Nuan’s, delivered from the little window on the pawnshop’s second floor.

That vicious utterance from the lookout post told Spark an entire story. He knew at once that The Shadow must have tried to scale the pawnshop wall, only to meet with fierce resistance from Ku-Nuan.

“Give the glims!” ordered Spark. “Hold the typewriter, though!”

LIGHTS flashed at the gate. The courtyard was illuminated. Other lights responded from the other passages. Every portion of the trap was in plain view. Spark heard yells of triumph from the crooks at other stations. Pressing close to the gate, he saw the reason.

Sprawled in the courtyard was a cloaked figure that showed the results of combat. Instead of The Shadow in challenging pose, crooks were greeted with the sight of a vanquished, crippled fighter. Pitched from the second-story window, the defeated battler had taken a heavy jolt.

He was crawling toward the center of the courtyard, slumping as he came into Spark’s view. Spark saw the slashed cloak draped over head and shoulders. Near by lay the slouch hat; it had scaled through the air from the second-story window.

Thugs uttered gleeful curses. Tuned with their epithets came the clank of the machine gun muzzle against the bars at Spark’s elbow. Spark snapped a halting order.

“Hold it!” he commanded. His tone carried through the courtyard, to the other crews. “Keep him covered; then wait!”

Spark was watching the cloaked prisoner as he spoke. He saw the shoulders sag. The crawl had ended. Spark decided that The Shadow’s plight was real. There was something pitiful in the huddled position of that cloak-enshrouded form.

“Wait till he makes a move,” snapped Spark to the men beside him. “Maybe he’s gotten his already. Stick here; I’ll be back.”

Striding out through the passage, Spark reached the metal door that led upstairs. He heard a scraping sound beyond it. As Spark waited, the door edged outward. Spark delivered commending words:

“Good work, Ku-Nuan! Say – did you knife him?”

There was a snarl from the opening door. It betokened malicious pleasure. Spark heard Ku-Nuan’s voice hiss in singsong fashion. He grimaced as he stepped aside to let the crouching victor pass. In Ku-Nuan’s lingo, Spark recognized a tone of elation.

“Hop back to Malfort’s,” suggested Spark. “Give him the news, Ku-Nuan. Tell him we got The Shadow! I’ll see how bad you knifed him. If he’s croaked we won’t have to bust loose with the typewriters. No use bringing the cops, if it ain’t needed.”

SPARK heard the creeper reach the street; he caught the last tones of a triumphant babble. Returning to the gate, he took another look at the flattened prisoner in the courtyard. Deciding against the “typewriters” and their loud clatter, Spark placed his fist upon the muzzle of the machine gun and shoved it back from the gate. Drawing a revolver, he barked an order: