In his vast accumulations of crime data, The Shadow kept records of thousands of cases. Crooks galore were labeled more thoroughly in his files than they were by the police. Through extensive memoranda, The Shadow kept track of criminals and their associates. He was always ready when new developments of old crimes threatened to occur.
The study of the first folder ended, The Shadow turned to the second. This bore the name of Slade Farrow. The first object that showed when the file opened was a photograph of the man who occupied the cell with Ferris Legrand.
Sam Fulwell — Slade Farrow. The initials were the same. The latter name was the correct one. Clippings were lacking in this folder. Letters, however, appeared with differing dates. The Shadow’s laugh came softly through the sanctum.
These facts that concerned Slade Farrow were known only to The Shadow. They gave all the details of the man’s association with crime. They reached the point where he had gone to jail, preserving his alias of Sam Fulwell.
The Shadow closed the second folder. His hands produced a map. A long finger followed a thin, curving line that represented a railway on the large-scale chart. The finger stopped upon a small city: Southfield.
WHITE paper appeared with blue ink. The Shadow’s hand began to write. It inscribed a letter in odd characters, a simple but effective code. The ink dried; The Shadow folded the paper carefully and quickly inserted it in an envelope.
With another pen, one that contained a darker ink, The Shadow wrote the address:
Rutledge Mann
Badger Building
New York City.
Tomorrow, Rutledge Mann would receive that note from The Shadow. A complacent, chubby-faced investment broker, Mann served as The Shadow’s contact agent. High in his office in the towering Badger Building, Mann would read the coded message.
The writing would fade immediately afterward. Such was the way with the ink that The Shadow used in communicating with his agents. But Mann would remember what he had read. He would summon one of The Shadow’s active operatives and would dispatch that man upon the quest which awaited in the city of Southfield.
Crime long forgotten! Its aftermath was to come. As Convict 9638, Ferris Legrand had languished in a State prison, hoping for the day when he would be free to return to his old life in Southfield.
That day would never come. Ferris Legrand was dying even as The Shadow studied the facts that concerned his past. But another would step in to take his place — one craftier than Ferris Legrand.
Slade Farrow, alias Sam Fulwell, had learned a secret from Legrand’s dying lips. Its import was something that only Farrow knew. The existence of the secret, so Farrow thought, was also a fact unknown.
But Slade Farrow had not reckoned with The Shadow. Suspecting some such secret, the black-garbed master had made his strange visit within prison walls. There The Shadow had learned that Slade Farrow had taken on a mission for the future.
Days alone remained until the clever, hard-faced convict would be at liberty. Then his action would commence. Secure and confident, Slade Farrow would step forth to begin a new and startling career.
The Shadow’s plans were made. Crime was impending in Southfield. Mysterious events, linked with hidden secrets of the past, were already in the making. Slow, cautious moves would lead to rapid action.
The Shadow was preparing for the events that were to come!
CHAPTER III
THE SHADOW TRAILS
THE upper concourse of the Grand Central Station was thronged with holiday travelers. A tall man, standing near a train gate, was watching the passers in leisurely fashion. To all appearances, he was merely a chance waiter amid the throng.
There was something in this personage’s appearance that marked him as distinctive. Hastening train takers were too busy about their own affairs to give more than a passing glance toward the waiting man’s unusual countenance. Hence he remained an unnoticed sentinel at his post.
Keen eyes gazed from beside a hawklike nose. Thin lips remained inflexible. A living statue, this personage watched the throngs so closely that not a passing face escaped him.
Thirty-odd feet away, a square-shouldered man was pacing back and forth near the same train gate. He was waiting for the barrier to be flung open, hence he did not observe the hawk-faced watcher who was observing him as well as the gate. Two sentinels: one’s purpose concealed; the other’s was apparent.
The tall observer who had rendered himself so inconspicuous was none other than The Shadow. The square-shouldered man was a representative of the law: Detective Joe Cardona from police headquarters.
Swarthy of visage, steady-faced in expression, Joe Cardona was a sleuth who prided himself upon his keenness of observation. His confidence would have experienced a drop had he known that The Shadow, attired in ordinary garb, was within his view.
Had Cardona been thinking of those about him, he might have observed that watching face with its sharp eyes and aquiline nose. But Cardona, on this late afternoon, was concerned only with one purpose — the close observation of a passenger who was expected on the arriving train.
The gate swung open. A flurry of persons began to come through the exit; then came teeming crowds. A plainly dressed man, his face drooping and discouraged, came along in the wake of the throng. Following him was a sturdy stroller who glanced in Joe Cardona’s direction. The waiting detective nodded. He sauntered off on the first man’s trail.
THE SHADOW, ever vigilant, had recognized the droop-faced arrival on the instant. The man was the one whom The Shadow had seen in the cell at the penitentiary — the one who had learned Ferris Legrand’s secret. Slade Farrow, alias Sam Fulwell, had arrived in New York.
Joe Cardona, as he started after the arrival, did not notice the hawk-faced personage who also took up the trail. Together, the detective and The Shadow were taking up the pursuit of one man. Joe Cardona was checking up on an ex-convict whom he knew as Sam Fulwell. The Shadow was taking the path of Slade Farrow.
The trio passed unnoticed amid the crowds that were spread beneath the star-studded ceiling of the huge-domed concourse. Farrow was leading the way toward the subway.
The express platform was crowded; nevertheless, Joe Cardona did not lose sight of his man. Farrow took a downtown train. Cardona and The Shadow followed. At Fourteenth Street, Farrow alighted.
As he followed the shambling ex-convict up the steps, Joe Cardona felt that a hunch was working. The swarthy detective expected to trail his quarry to the badlands. He was sure that Farrow was headed in that direction.
On the street, however, the jailbird pulled the unexpected. He stepped directly into a taxicab, gave a growled order to the driver, and rolled away. Cardona, close behind, duplicated the order. He leaped into a second cab, flashed his badge to the driver, and pointed to the taxi ahead just as it was jamming into traffic.
“Follow that cab!” ordered the detective.
Cardona’s promptness was not followed by the last of the three. The tall, keen-eyed personage who had come from the subway stood staring through the dusk as he saw Cardona’s cab pull away in pursuit. A thin smile appeared upon The Shadow’s firm-set lips as he waited.
Farrow’s cab shot off through traffic. Cardona’s taxi sped after it. Traffic, coming the other way, was beginning to move out of the jam. From between two cars, a furtive man stepped forth, hurried to a cab that was just about to move, and entered.
The man was Slade Farrow. The ex-convict’s manner had changed. From a beaten, shambling individual, he had become a quick-footed traveler. He had sent Joe Cardona off along a blind trail.