Harry Vincent raised his head and opened his eyes. He found himself staring through the windshield of an automobile. The car was standing still. Its gleaming lights revealed a rough dirt road that curved away among the trees.
He placed his hand to the side of his head. There was a throbbing pain there. The back of his head ached, too. Somehow it was difficult to think. He could not remember entering the automobile; yet here he was, slouched over the wheel.
Harry closed his eyes and slumped aver the wheel again. The throbbing continued, more painfully now.
He gave up trying to remember what had happened.
The whistle of a locomotive sounded through the silent night. Four short blasts, some distance away. The whistle of a standing locomotive.
Two minutes passed. The throbbing bothered Harry, and he shifted his position. He sat up again. He opened his eyes; this time his consciousness was more alert.
A bell had commenced to ring — a loud bell — not ten feet away. Its continued dingle increased the throbbing of his head. What did the bell mean? He rubbed his forehead and looked around.
The glint of metal on the ground attracted his attention, but his confused mind did not identify it as the rails of a single track until he detected a singing sound. Then the connection came. The automobile was stalled upon a railroad crossing; the bell meant that a train was approaching!
As the horror of the situation dawned upon Harry, a bright glare burst the darkness. Out of the night came the headlight of an onrushing locomotive!
Instinct came to Harry's rescue. He thrust his foot forward. By sheer luck it pressed squarely against the pedal of the self-starter. The car had been left in gear; the ignition switch was on; and the response was instantaneous The automobile jolted forward; its front wheels rolled down the incline from the crossing.
The motor started because of the added impetus.
For the fraction of a second the fate of Harry Vincent stood undecided. The car had come to life; the slope had enabled it to start in high gear; yet the mighty monster of the rails was bearing down upon the moving automobile at whirlwind speed.
The glare of the headlight was dazzling; the heavy locomotive was almost upon the fragile car that barred its path. But the very instant that the huge engine clattered on the crossing, the rear wheels of the touring car slipped over the incline. The plunging piston rods almost grazed the back of the automobile.
A new danger threatened momentarily. As the train shot by, Harry urged by the terror of his close escape, pressed the accelerator. The touring car whirled along the bumpy road. Harry's hands lost their clutch on the wheel. The automobile lunged into the ditch at the side of the road, then the driver regained control. He swung back to safety and brought the car to a stand-still.
Harry leaned forward against the wheel as he listened to the roar of the train off through the distance. The sound became less, then it ceased. His brain began to work; the incidents of the evening flashed in rapid memory.
Steve Cronin — the man on the train. The room in the hotel, where he had been discovered. The offer that Cronin had made with his account of Elbridge Meyers, the man that Cronin sought. These facts were clear now.
Harry's head still throbbed. He knew that he must get somewhere. So he drove the car cautiously along the road and turned off at the first crossing, finding a better highway that paralleled the railroad. After several miles the road turned beneath a trestle and curved up a hill. At the top Harry stopped and alighted beside a railroad station.
The ticket agent was behind his window. His clock registered the time as ten minutes of twelve. Harry felt for his watch. It was gone.
"When's the next train?" he asked.
"Where to? Harrisburg?" questioned the man at the window.
"Yes."
"To-morrow morning. The last one left here fifteen minutes ago."
"How far is it to Harrisburg?"
"Only about ten miles. You've got a car out there, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Drive into town, then. You can't get another train to-night."
The station agent laughed.
"You're way after train time, anyway," he remarked. "The train that just left was forty minutes late. They were having trouble with repair work on the trestle. Had to flag the train at a little station about six miles up the line. Held it there more than half an hour."
The whole of Steve Cronin's fiendish scheme unfolded itself to Harry as he drove, half dazed, along the road to Harrisburg. Helpless, in the touring car on the railroad crossing, he had been left for what promised to be certain destruction. The fact that the train was to be held for thirty minutes at the station before the crossing was something that Steve Cronin had not known.
Harry had regained consciousness in the nick of time. Yet he was still groggy, and the lights of the city streets danced before his eyes as he drove into Harrisburg. He managed to locate the station. He left the touring car in a parking space.
There was a sleeping car in the station, waiting to be attached to a through train bound for New York.
The seven dollars in Harry's wallet was about sufficient for the railroad fare; in with his change were some silver dollars that he always carried. So he engaged a berth and was soon asleep, for the throbbing in his head ceased when he lay down.
* * *
Morning found Harry Vincent in the Pennsylvania Station in New York. He registered at the Metrolite Hotel, had breakfast, then set out for the office of Claude Fellows, the insurance broker in the Grandville Building.
Fellows greeted Harry with a cordial smile.
"I am glad you arrived to-day," he said. "I have something to discuss with you."
Harry watched the chubby-faced insurance broker as the man went to a filing cabinet. His connection with Fellows was a simple one. The insurance broker was The Shadow's detail man. Giving instructions and receiving reports seemed to be his entire work.
Fellows returned to the desk with two clippings. One was from a newspaper in Trenton, New Jersey, the other from a journal in Richmond, Virginia.
Harry read them. The first was an account of the strange disappearance of a commercial artist named Arthur Hooper; the other told of the mysterious vanishing of J. Howard Longstreth, a druggist.
"Note the similarity of those two items," remarked Fellows. "Both men left suddenly. They stated that they would be back within two or three days, yet neither has returned. Hooper left Trenton, slightly over two weeks ago; Longstreth left Richmond just about one week ago.
"You could transpose the names of the men, yet the facts would serve for both cases. A strange coincidence, isn't it?"
"Very strange," replied Harry, "yet it can be nothing more than coincidence."
"Do you think so?" said Fellows. "Well, Vincent, I spend a great deal of time looking through out-of-town papers for coincidences such as this. In the majority of cases they have meant the beginning of important events."
"Involving The Shadow?"
"Of course. Those clippings indicate something unusual. I have sent copies of them to the empty office on Twenty-third Street, where The Shadow receives his messages. I have received instructions to watch for any further news of similar disappearances."
"Do you expect such news?"
"Perhaps. Note that these men disappeared a week apart. Hooper left Trenton on a Tuesday afternoon; Longstreth was last seen in Richmond on a Monday. The papers did not give the news until the end of the week, in either case."
A sudden thought occurred to Harry Vincent.
"I have a report to make," he said, "and it may fit in with this. It concerns a man named Elbridge Meyers who left Cleveland, Tuesday morning — two days ago."
Fellows seemed interested. Vincent began his story from the time that he had first observed the man on the train, who had proved to be Steve Cronin. When he completed his narrative, he was surprised to see Fellows become unusually alert.
"Write that down immediately," said the insurance broker, handing him pen and ink. "I have something to do in the meantime."
While Harry prepared his report, Fellows was busy with the telephone.
"Universal Insurance Company?" he called. "This is Fellows, in the Grandville Building. Notify your Cleveland agent to kind out if Mr. Elbridge Meyers is in his office in that city. If he is not in his office, try his home. Have them call me when they are ready with their report."
While Fellows was reading and approving Vincent's report, the telephone bell rang.
"Hello," said the insurance broker. "What's that? Cleveland calling?… Oh, yes. This is Mr. Fellows…
What's that? Elbridge Meyers is out of town? Wait a moment."
He pencil made notes as he repeated them.
"Left Tuesday morning… Expected back the next day… Had important appointment. Neglected it, but should have been back this morning… Never away more than forty-eight hours… His partner is worried.
"No, I haven't heard from him… I was anxious to communicate with him, as a friend gave me his name as a good insurance prospect. Let me know if you hear that he has returned.
"Thank you. Good-by."
Fellows seized the pen and wrote a message of his own. He sealed it in an envelope with Vincent's report, went to the outer office, and gave the packet to the stenographer. The girl left.
"Steve Cronin evidently told you the truth," observed Fellows in a methodical voice. "He expected to do away with you. Hence his entire story may be correct. If so, he does not know why Elbridge Meyers went to Harrisburg. That makes the Meyers disappearance as mysterious as the others.
"Your report has enabled me to turn in information a few days before the story will appear in the Cleveland papers. Furthermore, it locates Harrisburg as a center. Make yourself at home here. We should receive a reply within an hour."
The stenographer had left at five minutes after ten. She returned about twenty minutes later. At exactly eleven o'clock a messenger arrived with an envelope for Fellows.
The insurance broker stood by the window as he read the letter carefully. He stared for a while as though committing facts to memory. When he laid the paper on the desk it was a blank sheet of paper. This was no surprise to Vincent. He, too, had received letters from The Shadow; letters written in simple code, with disappearing ink that vanished after a few minutes.
"Vincent," said Fellows, "when unusual crimes occur, unusual men are often responsible for them. There is a man in this city who has been indirectly concerned with other disappearances. He lives in a section of the East Side; his name is Isaac Coffran.
"I learned that this man has been watched for the past few days — either by The Shadow or by one of his men, for there are others besides us. Last night Isaac Coffran left his home — something which he has not done for months. To-night he expects a visitor named Bruce Duncan.
"Coffran's house must be watched, and you are the man appointed. There is an empty store across the street. The door is unlocked. You can stay in there. Here is an envelope that contains a telephone number. There is a telephone in the store. Report when any one enters Coffran's house, and whenever any one leaves. If a man goes in and stays there more than two hours, report by telephone.
"Your report concerning Harrisburg will doubtless be investigated to-night. Naturally you are not the man to go back there at present. Hence you will perform this new duty."
The chubby-faced insurance broker became very solemn as he added the final words of his instructions.
"Remember, Vincent," he said, "that Isaac Coffran is a very dangerous man. He is not of the criminal type; he has never been suspected of a crime. Yet I have been assured that he has not only known the facts of the disappearances of various people, but also that certain persons have entered his house and have never been seen afterward.
"The police know nothing whatever of this man's activities. Coffran is old and wise. His memory is remarkable, and his resources are many.
"So be alert. Be careful. Remember all you see, and report everything. We are on the verge of important discoveries. Three men are missing. The Shadow intends to find out where they are."
Harry Vincent left the office with the address of Isaac Coffran tucked away in his vest pocket. He was sober as he went down in the elevator. Fellows's words had been impressive; never before had the insurance broker talked so thoroughly. A tremendous crisis must have arisen, for The Shadow's detail man had exhibited unprecedented activity.
Master minds were engaged in some uncommon crime. The Shadow was exerting all his power to defeat them. The Shadow would need many eyes to-night.