He had been one of the first to reach the open hatch. As though by prearranged system, he had stood there giving orders. When the motor boat had prepared to pull away, some one had fired a bullet point-blank into Stock’s heart. Then the underlings had been deserted. The whole affair was the most ruthless double-cross that had ever been perpetrated in modern crime.
The real pirates had escaped unscathed, with the gold. Somewhere, they were seeking safety; and as the fruitless search continued, it became apparent that the master crooks had schemed to perfection.
Road patrols diminished. Coastal investigations became mere routine. Only in distant ports lay the hope that the malefactors might be luckily apprehended.
In all reports concerning the Patagonia, not one word appeared to mention The Shadow’s interest in the case. Clyde Burke said nothing regarding the radiogram that he had tried to send. The operator who had destroyed the message was dead.
But despite his exhaustive dictation on the subject of the Patagonia, Clyde had other facts to mention that he did not give to the press. These — and they included the matter of the radiogram — went to Rutledge Mann, the investment broker who had contact with The Shadow.
Rutledge Mann, in turn, forwarded the report along with marked newspaper clippings. He deposited them in the door of an empty office in an old building on Twenty-third Street. All messages that Mann placed there reached The Shadow.
The public was forgetting the Patagonia affair. The action of the law was weakening in the face of barren clews. All efforts had diminished, except on the part of one man, who, like those who had manned the pirate boat, was a figure of mystery.
That person was The Shadow.
SOMEWHERE in New York lay an unknown spot — the sanctum of The Shadow. It was here that the mysterious being who fought crime made his lone headquarters. On a certain evening, some time after the Patagonia affair had reached the stage of total hopelessness, The Shadow arrived in his sanctum.
No sound marked his coming to that hidden room. The Shadow entered as a creature of invisibility — an unseen being in a mass of total darkness.
It was after his arrival that a slight noise gave token of his presence. A click sounded; the weird glare of a bluish light appeared in the corner of a black-walled room.
This eerie illumination was shaded so that it cast its glow upon the smooth, polished top of a table. No human presence was apparent until two white hands crept slowly into view beneath the unreal light. Those hands were like living creatures, detached from the arms that owned them. They differed only in one respect.
The right hand was unadorned; but the left bore a shining gem upon its third finger. That jewel was the symbol of The Shadow, and its very appearance was mysterious. Its iridescent glow caught the reflection of the light above and transformed that eerie blue into a myriad of ever-changing shades. From sparkling azure, the strange gem took on a purplish hue that deepened to a rich mauve.
The rare stone resembled a sinister eye, staring from limitless depths. Then it began to sparkle, casting shafts of flashing light.
This was the phenomenon that marked the species of the gem. This symbol of The Shadow was a girasol or fire opal; and with its lifelike sparkle, the hand that wore it moved to action.
Objects began to appear upon the table. Clippings — notations — then pins and tiny disks of varied color. The hands moved these into separate piles near the table edge; then produced a folded sheet of thick paper. When spread, this proved to be a large map of the Atlantic coast.
Eyes hidden in the darkness scanned the large chart. The right hand picked up a white-headed pin and set it in the bluish portion of the map. The pin marked the exact spot where the Patagonia was at the time of the attack.
Besides the pin, The Shadow placed a tiny black disk to represent the mysterious pirate vessel. The hand moved the disk in a direct line, marking off the approximate distance that the swift boat could have covered between the time of the robbery and the alarm. Using the position of the Patagonia as a base, the right hand took a pencil and drew a perfect circle.
That sphere indicated the area in which the fleeing boat must certainly have been at the time when the search began.
The left hand referred to printed notations that told of the activities of the nearest coast-guard cutters. The right hand put green disks at certain established points; then moved them, one by one, along the coast line, converging toward the Patagonia.
This action enabled The Shadow to make a definite increase in the range of the mystery ship’s area. The circle that showed where the boat might have been included a long stretch of coast. In that section, The Shadow placed red pins at various spots — each indicating possible landing places.
WITH more detailed reference, The Shadow made marks that covered the roadways leading to the important sections of the coast. These represented the cordons that had been established. The frequency of the marks showed plainly that a positive barrier had been placed behind this vital section.
The Shadow was acting on the original assumption that the fleeing ship had headed for an accessible portion of the shore. The government had done the same; but the fact that a thorough search had brought no trace had been sufficient to eliminate that area. Nevertheless, The Shadow’s interest in this sector continued.
One portion of the protruding coast — a section some twenty miles in length — seemed of intense moment to The Shadow. It lay well within the circle where the mystery ship might have been. It was provided with three red pins at different spots, and The Shadow’s fingers moved from one pin to another.
A low laugh sounded through the gloom beyond the range of bluish light. There was a meaning in that laugh. Mentally, The Shadow was reconstructing the plot, seeing its details with the same perceptive that the villains must have used.
His hand made notations with a pen. The Shadow was calculating the exact time of sunrise on that eventful day when the Patagonia had been met by a raider from the deep.
The right hand moved forward and took away two of the red pins. The one that remained marked a jutting promontory that bore the name “East Point.”
A stretch of bay lay between the narrow cape and the coast. Small dots showed islands in between. East Point represented the most isolated spot on that section of the coast. It also afforded a fair harbor.
The reason in The Shadow’s selection was apparent — particularly because of his references on the time of dawn. The mystery ship had not approached the Patagonia until darkness had begun to lift. A night attack would have been difficult.
Having gained the objective, the fleeing boat had lost the greatest asset that had helped its approach — namely, night. It had been forced to flee into increasing daylight.
East Point — The Shadow was now calculating — could have been reached within two hours after the raid. The sun would then have been barely above the horizon. At such an obscure place, a landing could easily have been effected.
But there lay a new difficulty. The roads along the lengthy peninsula were not built for rapid travel. It would have required another hour to reach the mainland, where the point terminated in a small but thriving town.
Still, this did not concern The Shadow. His pointing finger continued to indicate that pin. Here, at East Point, the gold carrier could have landed.
Coast guards had scoured the promontory and had found no trace of any boat. East Point, of all places, had been most efficiently eliminated at the start.