Entering the Cobalt Club, Lamont Cranston found Harry Vincent waiting with Margo Lane. Promptly, Cranston gave Harry some vital information.
“I’ve started Harley thinking,” Cranston told Harry. “If he doesn’t phone me, he’ll probably talk to you.”
Harry nodded while Margo wondered.
“Our problem is not entirely why or where people have disappeared,” continued Cranston. “It is who is going to disappear next. Harley may be on the list.”
“But they could have taken him last night,” began Margo. “Instead they tried to murder him.”
“It wasn’t his turn to vanish,” explained Cranston. “He was just an outsider where the leopard crew was concerned.”
“But if Phil Harley is to be next -”
“He may not be the next,” considered Cranston. “I am listing him purely because he is one more person who has no real business in New York. I would like to learn the names of some others. Meanwhile” - Cranston emphasized this to Margo - “I want you to stay quite close to old Sylvia Selmore.”
“But Miss Selmore belongs in New York -”
“She lives here,” conceded Cranston, “but at present she doesn’t belong. She postponed her trip after that seance which Madame Mathilda gave. Remember?”
Margo nodded to prove that she remembered.
“The banshee business stopped her,” summed Cranston, “and it marked the beginning of these disappearances. I’ve checked Madame Mathilda; she admits she sprang the spook stuff because she received a phone call promising her some cash, but she doesn’t know who phoned.”
With that, Cranston arose. Seeing that he was about to leave, Margo questioned coyly:
“Where next, Lamont? Back to the Graceland Memorial Library?”
“Of course,” replied Cranston blandly. “I’ve learned a lot there, Margo. That banshee pool, for instance. It used to be called the Bowl.”
“The Bowl? Why?”
“Because it was just a rounded gully with an overhanging ledge called Indian Leap. They dammed it by the bridge so that the stream that ran through would form a pool.”
Remembering how the stream cascaded down below the bridge, Margo could visualize the old Bowl and more.
“Why, the big rock must be the ledge!” she exclaimed. “I can see it now! The banshee slid beneath what was the old ledge and worked around to the nearest gully, the one I stumbled into later!”
“Very good,” approved Cranston. “There’s a great deal to be learned about Central Park. All its natural ravines were not turned into pools. There would have been too many.”
Cranston showed his interest in Central Park after he left the Cobalt Club. Soon he was walking through the transverse where the truck had gobbled Winslow Ames, only to carry him along another leg of his strange disappearance.
Not far along the transverse, Cranston came to a gate. It opened into a narrow path that followed a defile, then rose gradually. Meeting another footpath, Cranston went along it and crossed a burbling stream by a little rustic bridge.
The bridge was artificial, so was the stream’s present course. It had been diverted from the natural channel that marked the path to the transverse. Letting his eye rove up the stream, Cranston saw where it came from.
This rivulet had long ago been put underground. The bank which it flowed from rose high above it, forming a great mass of earth which was flanked by jutting rocks, high above.
Not as high as the Knoll, those rocks, though they were like small foothills leading toward it.
At the spot where the stream issued, there was a heavy iron grating set deep into a rock formation that formed the foundation of the grassy embankment. Cranston didn’t follow the stream, because his path lay off to the right of it. So he continued his stroll by that route until he reached the Graceland Memorial Library.
A polite attendant started to show Cranston to the room that contained old maps and volumes dealing with the history of early New York, but Cranston shook his head. There was another room that interested him more today. It bore a sign:
MANHATTAN GENEALOGY
It didn’t take Cranston long to find the volume that he wanted, since it was practically at the head of the row, among those bearing the letter A. In opening the book, Cranston practically skimmed through the early pages, proving that he was more interested in more modern data.
As he found what he wanted, Cranston gave a strangely subdued laugh, which by its very tone belonged to his other self, The Shadow!
IT was dusk when Lamont Cranston stopped around to see Craig Farnsworth. The evening was balmy so they went out on the high terrace that overlooked the park.
“It’s very strange, Cranston,” stated Farnsworth, “the things that have been happening in the park of late.”
Cranston nodded.
“You mean those disappearances. What were the names of the two chaps? Wait, I have them: Ames and Older.”
Farnsworth gave a puzzled stare.
“I didn’t know they disappeared in Central Park, Cranston. Who gave you that idea?”
“You did, Farnsworth, when you mentioned strange things.”
“I meant about the animals getting loose. Several people have claimed that they saw some prowling leopards. But the zoo keepers haven’t discovered any missing.”
Cranston shrugged.
The result of that banshee talk, he decided. “After the things that Miss Selmore and Officer Reilly imagined, people might cook up anything. But getting around to business, have you heard from Ronjan lately?”
Farnsworth’s rugged face turned worried.
“I haven’t,” he admitted. “I suppose Ronjan intends to wait me out. Why not?” Farnsworth gave an annoyed laugh. “He has my money all tied up.”
“Our money,” Cranston reminded.
“I know,” nodded Farnsworth. “Well, throwing good after bad is a wrong policy, but by next week, I’ll be doing it. I don’t know how you feel, Cranston, but -”
A servant arrived to explain a ringing telephone that Cranston had been hearing. The call was for Cranston, so he went into the apartment to take it. Farnsworth called after him:
“Invite Miss Lane up here if she’d like to come.”
The call wasn’t from Margo. Instead, Phil Harley was on the wire and he was very earnest, with a trace of tension in his voice.
“You spoke about phony jobs, Mr. Cranston,” stated Phil across the wire, “and the people who take them. What about the people who hand them out - would you like to know who they are?”
“It would be very interesting.”
“Then talk to yourself,” announced Phil, “unless you’d rather have me tell Miss Lane that you hired a certain girl for a rather useless task.”
“You haven’t called Miss Lane, have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you should,” suggested Cranston. “Unless you’d prefer to give me more details first.”
“As if you didn’t know,” snapped Phil. “All right, the girl’s name is Arlene Forster. She’s getting paid for checking coastal charts, only she’s seen less of them than I have seen of patent papers.”
“I’m beginning to think that Margo really would be interested.”
“A nice bluff,” complimented Phil. “I guess you figure you have that old fool fixed.”
“I wouldn’t call him a fool.”
“I’ll find out if he is,” retorted Phil. “I’m going up to see Niles Ronjan right now!”
The receiver clanked heartily at the other end and Cranston stepped away from the phone with a shrug, to meet Farnsworth, who had just come indoors.
“Miss Lane is coming up here, Cranston?”
“I hope not,” replied Cranston. “Some smart dealer wants to sell her a mink coat cheap because it’s summer. But a mink coat is never cheap. I said I wouldn’t call him a fool for trying to make the sale, but I meant it differently than he took it.”
With that, Cranston glanced at his watch and added: