Central Park did look like a huge front yard from where Margo viewed it and that was why the trees, people and everything else looked proportionately small. Margo’s vantage point was the top story of the sizeable Chateau Parkview, a huge apartment-hotel that towered from the lower side of Central Park South, once called Fifty-ninth Street.
This apartment belonged to Niles Ronjan and Margo had come here before with Lamont Cranston. The place was so curious that despite herself, Margo began to forget Central Park and its mystery of last night.
If the place was curious, so was Ronjan.
Here was a man with the genius of an inventor, the urge of an adventurer, and the air of a fanatic. He was sallow, quick of eye, and with shaggy, unkempt hair that fluttered on any provocation. Ronjan gave it plenty of provocation, the way he bobbed around the room.
Ronjan had to hop around because the room was large and the whole center was occupied by a large tank the size of a billiard table and similarly mounted on heavy legs. The tank was full of water, and the metal bottom was shaped irregularly, as though representing part of the ocean bottom, which it did.
Not only did Ronjan sail boats in this tank, he sank them. At present one was under water, hanging to a submerged ledge, while another was floating nearby. The two boats were connected by a curious piece of metal hose which was made in joined sections.
“There you are, Cranston.” Ronjan shook his shaggy hair and spread his arms deprecatingly. “The Good Wind sunk off Skipper’s Rock, with our salvage boat moored above. The treasure is there, the link is completed” - another shrug from Ronjan - “and now we must begin all over.”
Cranston’s eyes denoted query.
“We approached from the wrong side,” explained Ronjan. “We took the lee side, thinking that the sand would have piled from windward. We were wrong, as Yuble will tell you.”
Ronjan gave a gesture toward a corner of the room and Margo furnished a half-gasp from the window. Margo knew who Yuble was, but she hadn’t realized that the man was here at all. On the few occasions that she had previously seen Dom Yuble, he had at least been conspicuous.
Now Yuble was rising from the corner chair where he had been a silent witness to proceedings. Whether he’d been here all along or had come in silently later, Margo couldn’t guess. However Cranston didn’t appear perturbed, probably because he was used to silent tactics himself.
Dom Yuble, sometimes called Captain Yuble, looked like something washed up from the Spanish Main after having been lost there a long, long time. He couldn’t be termed a chunk of human wreckage because he had stood the test of time. Rather he was stout timber that had hardened into iron.
Solid of build, taller than he looked because of his brawny proportions gave him extra width, Yuble had a face that was a study in itself. That face looked like something that had been molded soft by an apprentice, who had not done his job too well; then, discouraged, the moulder had left the job alone and it had set like cooling metal.
Not that Yuble’s features were permanently fixed; that applied only to two scars, one across his cheek, the other a jagged line at the side of his forehead. Yuble’s face was usually stolid simply because he had no reason to make it otherwise. When he wished, he smiled by parting his straight lips and showing the gleam of white teeth, but the smile had no particular expression and might have been interpreted in a dozen ways.
As for Yuble’s complexion, it too fitted the hardened softness of the man. Yuble was dark, or had been once, but his face had become so weather-beaten that its color was reduced to a peculiar tawn that almost matched an olive drab.
In a way, Yuble seemed the tropical equivalent of a New England fishing skipper whose face had become as rugged as the rocks of his own shore. In Yuble’s case, his features had taken on something of the look and contour of a coral reef.
As Yuble stepped forward, his face caught the gleam of sunlight from the window and his ear-lobes showed large, with round, pierced holes showing in them. In his native habitat, Yuble evidently wore ear-rings, of a large and heavy variety. Those lobes had been stretched to double size and they were the only part of Yuble’s ears that showed. The rest was hidden by the mass of Yuble’s curly hair, which was so dark and glossy that Margo wondered why it wasn’t slick instead of curly.
When he spoke, Dom Yuble supplied an apologetic tone that was chiefly mannerism, though in this case there was cause for it, since he was ready to take part blame for Ronjan’s failure.
“There was sand,” agreed Yuble. “Much sand. More sand than would pile on reefs in the West Indies. But I should have thought to expect sand.”
“That’s why we need more money, Cranston,” asserted Ronjan. “We shall require new units for the articulated tube when we operate from windward.”
Carefully, Ronjan shifted the position of the floating boat and altered the miniature pipe line accordingly. It came short of the sunken model and because of the contour of the ocean bed, it was obvious that the new segments of pipe would have to be inserted at specific intervals along the line.
Cranston accepted this with an understanding nod; then queried calmly:
“What about Craig Farnsworth?”
“He has promised us more money,” returned Ronjan, frankly, “but so far he has not provided it. Perhaps if you talked to him, Cranston -”
With that Ronjan paused, his eyes so canny that Margo suspected that there was craft behind them. Ronjan was waiting for a response that came. Cranston nodded again.
With that, Ronjan started eagerly for the door, as though to speed Cranston to his coming conference with Farnsworth. Cranston followed and Margo did the same, with Ronjan talking all the while.
“It’s a sure investment, Cranston - no need for extra shares in the enterprise - merely a loan to be paid at interest - perhaps a special bonus for the investors - the basic arrangement should be the same -”
Repeating such running patter, Ronjan stepped into the elevator when it arrived and rode down to the ground floor, continuing his statements in a confidential tone close to Cranston’s ear. Out through the spacious lobby, clear to the street, Ronjan accompanied his parting guests, all the while emphasizing the very things that he had said before.
Standing by while Ronjan completed his repetitious discourse with Cranston, Margo stared across at Central Park, now deepening with dusk. As she asked herself the same old question of whether banshees did exist, Margo had a sudden start.
Something loomed into the glow of the early street lamps opposite. It wasn’t the exotic figure of some sylvan creature, but a shape even more unexpected.
For the moment, Margo thought she saw The Shadow!
Then the illusion ended. It was only some peculiar bird that had fluttered from the gloom, its wings giving the curious effect of a cloaked silhouette, magnified against the light.
Turning, Margo thought she saw the creature flying upward; then all sight of it was lost against the front of the tall hotel, though Margo had a vague impression that the bird had come to roost up beneath the long-eaved roof of the Chateau Parkview.
A taxicab horn interrupted Margo’s train of thought. Having finally shaken hands with Ronjan, Cranston had hailed the cab and it was waiting to take him and Margo to their interview with Craig Farnsworth.
“Yes, Margo,” said Cranston, “that’s Ronjan’s apartment up where you see the top floor lights. He’s gone back up there, so we can talk about other matters.”
Margo responded with a surprised smile as she stepped into the cab. If Lamont wanted to play at reading her thoughts, it would be just as well to let him think that he was right. No use mentioning the odd bird that had given such a brief but startling imitation of The Shadow.
If Cranston’s guess was wrong, so was Margo’s conclusion as was later to be proved!