When they returned an hour later, Harry was still slumbering. Harvey Wendell appeared, carrying a stack of addressed envelopes. The slam of the screen door half awakened Harry Vincent from his nap.
Then came another sound — a distant drone that gained in its intensity. Harry sat up and blinked. He saw Wendell and stared questioningly. A smile appeared upon the secretary’s sallow, pasty face.
“Just an airplane,” informed Wendell. “Following the river. They come along here every now and then. If they get off the regular course, they pick the Mississippi and take it down to St. Louis.”
Harry stepped from the veranda and looked toward the sky. Wendell was close beside him. Levis and Hadley had ended their conversation. The thrum of the plane was louder; the ship itself had come to view. It was flying at an altitude of a few thousand feet. A swift monoplane, this man-made bird was winging its way at a modified rate. It passed directly over the plantation, veered slightly as it traced the river bend, and lost in altitude.
“He’ll give it the gun when he gets farther down,” commented Wendell. “They all slow up a bit along here — the river course is pretty twisty.”
Harry watched the plane. The silvered wings were glinting in the sunlight as the ship continued on the river course. Instead of taking the leftward bend which characterized the main channel of the Mississippi, the monoplane seemed to guide itself toward the island which caused the divergence of the great stream. As the airplane covered the distance which lay between the plantation and the isle, Harry observed a peculiar phenomenon. The direction of the sun’s rays produced a blackness underneath the silvered wings. Just as the plane neared the island, that spread of darkness assumed the proportions of a grotesque shadow.
The plane above the island! A natural result of the aviator’s course. Yet, to Harry Vincent, there was singular significance in the scene. Harvey Wendell had turned away. Weston Levis was walking back toward the house. Hadley was departing. Harry remained, staring down the river, under a fascination which he could not voice.
The airplane had passed. To all but Harry, its passage was now a forgotten event. There were men upon the island over which the plane had swept. Those men, as Harry knew, were crooks, but they would see no significance in the mere passage of an airplane heading down the river.
But Harry Vincent, as he still watched the plane’s thrumming progress toward the horizon, realized a new sense of security. A chain of connected events throbbed through the young man’s mind.
The Hotel Slater, in New York — this isolated plantation on the Mississippi — Harvey Wendell, the pretended secretary — crooks in hiding — telegrams with double meaning — all were linked.
Harry had received his message from Rutledge Mann. More than that wired answer had come. This airplane, a chance traveler through the sky, was joined with all that had gone before!
THE plane was no more than a speck in the distance. Harry’s gaze lowered to the green wooded surface of the isle of doubt. Harry’s eyes also noted the derelict shape beside the island — the wreck of the River Queen.
Harry had found the spot which he had been deputed to discover — the little island which was the goal of men who sought ill-gotten wealth. Harry had been upon that isle. Yet he was not the only one who had studied that clump of green in an effort to learn the secret shared by men of crime.
Eyes from the monoplane had seen the isle of doubt as well. Harry Vincent, alone, could guess the identity of those eyes. They were the eyes of The Shadow!
The airplane had passed from view. Harry Vincent turned toward the veranda, quietly concealing a smile of elation. He knew that his hunch was correct. The Shadow had come to the Mississippi Valley. High in the air, the master who battled crime had passed above the isle of doubt!
CHAPTER X. THE SHADOW SEES
SHORTLY after midnight, a quiet, dignified man appeared in the lobby of a large St. Louis hotel. He stopped at the desk and inquired if there were any messages for Mr. Lamont Cranston. He also gave his room number — 618.
The clerk found a notation in the box and brought forth a package that lay beneath the desk. The quiet man received it and walked toward the elevators. He stopped on the way; returned, and spoke to the clerk, as though by afterthought.
“I may be leaving town tonight,” he remarked. “However, I shall retain my room here. If any messages arrive, be sure to hold them until I return or call.”
“Very well, Mr. Cranston.”
The clerk watched the tall figure that again started toward the elevators. There was something distinctive about Lamont Cranston that attracted the attention of the hotel employee. In appearance, manner, and speech, this guest was unique.
In viewing Cranston’s face, the clerk had seen a firm, well-set countenance that possessed a marked impassiveness. It was impossible to make a conjecture as to Lamont Cranston’s age. It might have been judged at anywhere between thirty and fifty. A visage so chiseled that it appeared almost masklike — such was the face of Lamont Cranston.
Tall, upright in carriage, and of sweeping stride, Lamont Cranston impressed the observer as a man of great latent power. He moved with a pace which was almost leisurely, yet which carried him forward with surprising swiftness.
In speaking, Cranston had a steady, even tone that carried no unusual note when one heard it; yet every word that Cranston uttered seemed to embed itself within the listener’s mind. While the clerk watched the guest enter an elevator, he could still fancy that he was hearing the words which Lamont Cranston had spoken.
Despite the routine which now engaged the clerk’s attention, the man could not shake off the presence of the singular guest who had discussed such minor matters as a package and possible messages which might arrive during his absence.
IN the meantime, Lamont Cranston had reached his room. Standing by the window, the tall figure was strangely still. Lamont Cranston, idly staring toward the lights of the city, had assumed the appearance of a blackened statue.
More amazing than that form was the silhouette that lay upon the floor. Stretching across the thick carpet lay an elongated splotch of blackness that terminated in a hawk-nosed silhouette. Like a sinister shape from another sphere, that streak of darkness betokened a presence that seemed more than human.
As Cranston turned from the window, the silhouette vanished. The shadowy stretch shortened as Cranston approached the wall. A long white hand pressed the switch. The major portion of the room was plunged into darkness; only one corner remained illuminated. There, a small, shaded incandescent cast a bright glow upon a writing desk.
Cranston, as he approached that spot, was almost invisible in the gloom. His hands, as they stretched forward beneath the light, crept into view with a curious action that made them seem like detached creatures of life. White hands, long-fingered, they showed a sensitive touch combined with latent strength.
In appearance, the hands were identical; but one bore an emblem which marked it from the other.
A jewel of radiant hue — that was the token which shone from the left hand. A gem that flashed uncanny light reflected the illumination of the lamp. Sparks seemed to leap upward, while the weird stone glimmered with the colors of a living ember. That gem was the identifying mark of the personage who wore it — for it was unique in all the world.
The jewel was The Shadow’s girasol!
Harry Vincent had been correct in his belief that the plane above the isle of doubt had seen piloted by The Shadow. The master of mystery had arrived upon the Mississippi. He had passed the place of his quest. Here, in St. Louis, he had revealed himself in the adopted identity of Lamont Cranston, wealthy visitor from New York.