“I agree with you,” returned Gale.
“It is surprising to me,” mused Elise, “that Muriel Hastings and Joan Foxcroft should have left for Bermuda before the course was completed. They were so enthusiastic, you know.”
“Were they here for the last lecture?” questioned Gale.
“No,” said Elise, “they left just before that. I did not think that a summer cruise would entice them away while the professor’s course was still in progress.”
“There’s the professor now!” exclaimed Gale.
Both girls sprang to their feet and greeted Professor Sheldon with enthusiasm. The old sociologist was smiling. He looked at Elise Cathcart, who was a slender, graceful brunette; then at Gale Sawyer, a tall, attractive blonde.
“I am glad that you enjoyed my discourse,” said the professor.
“It was wonderful!” exclaimed Gale Sawyer. “You spoke of Utopia as though it were a reality.”
“Indeed you did,” added Elise Cathcart. “I was almost on the point of asking you where that wonderful place might be found!”
“Thank you, my dear friends,” said the professor, with a beaming smile. “Your interest is encouraging. When Utopia becomes a reality, I sincerely hope that you both may find and enjoy it.”
The old man walked away.
Lamont Cranston’s sharp eyes turned toward Maurice Traymer. He noticed that the young society man was still watching the girls who had spoken to Professor Sheldon. Elise Cathcart and Gale Sawyer were now discussing other plans.
“Why not come out to my summer house?” Elise was asking her companion. “The family is away — I am alone out there. Of course, the servants are present — several of them. The family decided to go to Maine. They packed up, disconnected the telephone, told the servants to go on vacation — then I said my piece. I was not going to miss the professor’s lectures. I talked with the servants, and they agreed to stay. I’m paying them myself. The folks can have their stupid time in Maine. I’m remaining here.”
“You are leaving right away?” questioned Gale.
“I am — very shortly,” returned Elise. “Frederick — the chauffeur — will be here to drive me home. Why don’t you come with me, Gale?”
“I believe I shall,” declared the blonde. “I’ll call home and tell them not to expect me tonight.”
LAMONT CRANSTON watched the two girls walk across the room. Then, from the corner of his eye, he noted Maurice Traymer heading toward the door. The society man stopped to say good night to Anthony Hargreaves. A moment later, he was gone.
Lamont Cranston’s thin lips tightened in a knowing smile. With leisurely pace, Cranston walked to the corner of the room and asked for his hat. The attendant, recalling Cranston from earlier in the evening, passed him Professor Sheldon’s hat and cane.
“These are not mine,” remarked Cranston quietly. “I placed my hat on the table while you were busy. You have it there — on the box in the corner.”
As Cranston pointed with his right hand, the fingers of his left disappeared beneath the inner band of the professor’s gray hat. Unobserved, they slipped a compactly folded slip of paper beneath the band.
The fingers came into view, and a strange gem glittered in varying rays upon the hand that held the hat. Receiving his own hat, Cranston passed the professor’s hat back to the attendant, and added the cane.
Downstairs, Cranston hailed his limousine and ordered Stanley to set out for home. Within the darkness of the car, the tall man opened the portfolio that lay upon the seat. A mass of black cloth and a soft slouch hat slid forth. Cranston’s hands encountered the metal of automatics.
Five minutes later, the limousine was jammed in the traffic of a side street. In the darkness, the door opened softly and an unseen figure slipped from the car. The door closed gently. Stanley drove on without a passenger.
A blotch of blackness sliding along the sidewalk was the only sign of a human presence that marked the passage of a figure that clung close to the walls of silent buildings. The blotch disappeared at the entrance of an alleyway. It reappeared not long afterward on the adjoining street.
A tall, cloaked form was vaguely visible by the side of a parked coupe. The vehicle moved forward, several seconds later. Driven by an unseen hand, it headed eastward toward one of the huge bridges that connect Manhattan with Long Island.
A low laugh sounded from lips above the wheel. Bright eyes glistened as the mysterious driver sped along the way.
Tonight, at the home of Anthony Hargreaves, a gentleman named Lamont Cranston had heard certain facts pertaining to members of the group that assembled there.
He had observed that two men were absent: Roy Darwin and Clayton Peale. He had learned that two feminine members of the group were absent for the second time: Muriel Hastings and Jean Foxcroft.
Cranston had a heard two other girls, Elise Cathcart and Gale Sawyer, discussing unusual plans for tonight, and he had seen the interest displayed by an onlooker — Maurice Traymer. To Lamont Cranston, these matters had been significant.
Thus, within half an hour after his departure from the apartment where Hargreaves lived, Lamont Cranston had changed his identity. He was speeding eastward in a swift coupe; but no one would have recognized him.
Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow, the silent being of the night — the mysterious personage whose keen intuition could scent crime, and whose unfailing might could bring woe to fiends of evil.
The Shadow, the one who knew no fear, was on his way to wage battle in behalf of right!
CHAPTER X
THE SHADOW ARRIVES
FORTY miles out on Long Island, a swift coupe swerved from a paved road and sped rapidly along a winding dirt highway. As it neared the top of a gradual hill, the car came almost to a stop. The driver — his form totally invisible in the darkness within the car — shifted into noiseless second, and turned the car between two pillars that stood at the side of the road.
This was the entrance to the Cathcart summer home, a place well known to those who lived along this section of Long Island Sound. The twisting drive along which the coupe was crawling noiselessly was one portion of a network of narrow roads that traversed the estate.
The lights on the coupe went out. The car, under the control of a master hand, seemed to feel its way through the blackness.
Either those sharp, flashing eyes above the wheel could see through dark, or else the steering hands could sense the pressure of the gravel upon the tires. For the car took every turn, and finally came to a stop as it swung off on a side lane that was quite invisible in the night.
The automobile had actually entered the grounds and reached a spot within fifty yards of the house without making a sound that could have been heard by listeners near the building. But the slight noise of the car was much greater than the sound made by the person who had left it, and who was now stealing across the velvety lawn with its network of gravel walks. Only an almost inaudible swish signified that The Shadow was approaching the Cathcart home.
The swift traveler of the night had reached this spot well ahead of the large car that was bringing Elise Cathcart and her friend, Gale Sawyer. The Shadow’s speedy coupe had burned up the Long Island roads in its madcap trip. The goal had been reached, and The Shadow was now approaching the side of the house, guiding his advance by the few lights that showed through windows on the ground floor.
Tonight, The Shadow had sensed that danger would be present at this lonely residence on Long Island. He knew that a plot was brewing, and he had come here to forestall it. Soon, the Cathcart car would arrive. Then trouble would be due to follow. The Shadow knew that others — men of the underworld — would be here.