The Shadow of the Bat

"Get him--get him--get him--get him!" From a thousand sources now the clamor arose--press, police, and public alike crying out for the capture of the master criminal of a century--lost voices hounding a specter down the alleyways of the wind. And still the meshes broke and the quarry slipped away before the hounds were well on the scent--leaving behind a trail of shattered safes and rifled jewel cases--while ever the clamor rose higher to "Get him--get him--get--"

Get whom, in God's name--get what? Beast, man, or devil? A specter--a flying shadow--the shadow of a Bat.

From thieves' hangout to thieves' hangout the word passed along stirring the underworld like the passage of an electric spark. "There's a bigger guy than Pete Flynn shooting the works, a guy that could have Jim Gunderson for breakfast and not notice he'd et." The underworld heard and waited to be shown; after a little while the underworld began to whisper to itself in tones of awed respect. There were bright stars and flashing comets in the sky of the world of crime--but this new planet rose with the portent of an evil moon.

The Bat--they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate--women were their ruin--but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.