It was the broad mark of a tire with an old-fashioned, dotted tread. Large enough to have been made by a light truck. Using a bit of string, The Shadow measured this mark. He made an estimate of the tire’s width.
Stepping up to an embankment, The Shadow looked forward and saw the hazy course of Roaring Creek. He gained a distant view of the broken bridge on the main highway.
Even at such long range, he could discern the muddy turbulence of the torrent that still raged through the gap. Near that spot where disaster threatened was the place where Goodling and Lanford had been found on Sunday morning.
Something in the view must have impressed The Shadow, for his laugh came as a spontaneous utterance. Turning, he made his way back to the abandoned house. Climbing through the window, he began an inspection of the ground floor.
In the front of the building, The Shadow discovered a stairway. There was an obscure closet beneath it. The Shadow blinked his flashlight and tugged at the closed door. It opened. The rays of the light revealed an object in the closet’s depths.
It was a small steamer trunk. Locked, but easily opened. Entering the closet, The Shadow blinked his flashlight on the trunk. There he discerned the remnants of steamship labels and stickers that bore the names of European hotels.
Another turn of the flashlight showed the end of the trunk. The Shadow saw the initials M. L. D. Using a pick, he unlocked the trunk and opened it. The trunk had a tray which contained various odd papers.
Steamship menus, theater programs in various languages, clippings from foreign newspapers. The Shadow raised the tray to find the main portion of the trunk empty. Replacing the tray, he rummaged among the papers and discovered a small stack of hotel bills.
There were all made out to Miss Myra Dolthan, of New York. With them, The Shadow found an envelope which had once contained a letter. It bore an American postage stamp. It was addressed to Miss Myra Dolthan, Hotel de Ville, Paris. It was postmarked Boston, but bore no return address.
THE SHADOW closed the trunk and locked it. He stepped from the closet. He picked up his briefcase and brought out a blackened fold of cloth. A cloak slipped over his shoulders. A slouch hat settled on his head.
Automatics went beneath the cloak; The Shadow’s hands encased themselves in gloves. Beside the dusty stairs, The Shadow had become a living shroud. This spot was to be his headquarters until after dark.
For The Shadow had learned the one name that others had not gained: that of the mystery girl whom Goodling and Lanford had seen in this very house. The occupants, in leaving, had forgotten the single trunk.
Searchers had been about until this afternoon. The scouring of the district had ended. It would be possible for someone to return to this house. The odds were that the vanished occupants had learned that they had forgotten the steamer trunk.
The Shadow was waiting in the hope that he would later meet some member of the band that had departed so suddenly from this house of doom. That forgotten trunk was the factor that would bring a secret emissary hither.
To The Shadow, certain possibilities could rise to a point where they were sureties. He had discovered such an instance at present. He needed no further trail until this development had completed itself. His process of logic had brought him to a definite conclusion regarding the ways and means of the persons who had left this house.
Only the unforeseen could balk The Shadow for the present. Only developments that offered no clue could hold The Shadow to one duty while another pressing task was close at hand.
Oddly, both such obstacles were already in the making. The fortune which had resulted in the finding of the trunk was keeping The Shadow from other spots where strange events were due.
CHAPTER V
THE MAN IN THE SEDAN
WHILE The Shadow was lingering in the empty, almost forgotten house on Dobson’s Road, one of his agents was approaching a farm building on the other side of Sheffield. This was Clyde Burke, riding in a coupe that he had hired. The reporter was on his way to pick up Fred Lanford.
Clyde applied the brakes as he saw a man step into the road. The fellow had come from a house gate. Clyde knew that this must be Lanford’s farm. He turned on the dome light as the man stepped forward.
“You’re Fred Lanford?” queried Clyde, surveying the pale, serious-looking man who peered through the coupe window.
A nod was the response.
“I’m Burke,” explained Clyde. “Hop in; we’ll ride downtown.”
Lanford complied. He shook hands with Clyde, then turned out the dome light at the reporter’s suggestion. Clyde headed back toward Sheffield.
“Nice of you to come out here and get me,” said Lanford, as they rode along. “There’s only one thing about it, Burke. I don’t think I ought to talk much until after I’ve seen Goodling.”
“I understand,” acknowledged Clyde. “I’m not trying to work you for an interview. I told you that over the telephone. All I want to do is check up on the story as it already stands. This business about the house seems too fantastic to be real.”
“I don’t blame you for thinking that, Burke,” chuckled Lanford. “Actually, I thought I’d had a pipe dream when I woke up. But when I told my story, it fitted Jay Goodling’s account right to every detail. We couldn’t both have had the same delusion.”
“That’s logical,” agreed Clyde.
“Jay and I have always been pals,” went on Lanford. “We went to college together; then I came back to help dad run the farm while he took up law. I can vouch for Jay’s word and he can vouch for mine.
“We went through a real experience Saturday night. We both remembered names that we heard mentioned. The names of people whom we saw. Kermal — Daggart — Croy. Say — that fellow Croy was a tough fighter.
“He caught Jay unawares; but I had a chance to nab him. I would have made good on it, too; but I was woozy after looking at that corpse in the other room. Say” — Clyde could see Lanford’s fists clench — “I’d like a crack at that big bird once again. I’d show him this time.”
“About the girl,” remarked Clyde, as Lanford paused. “Her name was not mentioned?”
“No. She was the one who told us the names of the others. That pale fellow, Daggart, seemed upset about it. I wonder what had happened to him. His left arm was bandaged and in a sling.”
“Do you think that his wound was recent?”
“Yes. The bandages were fresh. Of course they could have been new ones; but he was so pale, it looked as though he’d gone through something not long before we arrived.”
LANFORD paused and sat silent, staring through the windshield. Clyde had turned into a road that led directly into Sheffield. Far ahead, a traffic light showed a crossing on the outskirts of the town. An arc light also illuminated the corner.
“I was rather groggy when I came to my senses,” resumed Lanford. “First thing I heard on Sunday morning was the roar of the creek. They’d parked Jay and myself mighty close to the broken bridge.
“It’s a deep chasm there; and it was filled to the brim. Sure death for anybody who might have coasted into that mess. But I stopped worrying about the creek when I began to think about the night before. My arm’s still a bit stiff from that jab they gave me with the hypo.”
A sedan had cut in from a side street. It was rolling ahead of Clyde’s coupe. Both cars were approaching the traffic light. The gleam turned red. The sedan stopped and Clyde swung up beside it.
Clyde went to the left of the sedan, which was apparently waiting to make a right turn into the secluded cross street.