Fifteen minutes passed, and Harry felt indolent in the sleep-inspiring atmosphere. The scene was gloomy with the afterglow.
There was nothing that inspired action.
Staring toward the quiet building, Harry half-closed his eyes. Then he became suddenly tense, and dropped beside the stone wall. Some one was coming up the hill from the direction of Blair Windsor’s house.
Harry distinguished the outlined form of a man as the stranger clambered over the stone wall. Then the silhouetted figure disappeared from the background of the sky, and became almost invisible. The man was going down the slope toward the cottage.
Turning his eyes in that direction, Harry saw the reflection of a light from a side window, which he had not seen before, on the second floor of the low, two-story building.
He watched. The man came into the dim-reflected light; then turned, as though advancing to the front porch of the farmhouse.
After a last look at the Windsor mansion, marked now only by its lighted windows, Harry stole down the hill to the little house below.
There was a tree at the side of the frame building. Under its shelter, Harry gazed at the lighted window.
The situation intrigued him. Some person was paying a visit from Blair Windsor’s house. Perhaps it was of no significance; it might only be a messenger coming on a simple errand.
Yet, there was but that one light in the little farmhouse. That, in itself, was sufficient reason for investigation.
Harry approached the house. He found a low shed at the back. He climbed it, and managed to stretch far enough to see in the corner of the window, which was open, with a blind half drawn.
A screen netting made vision imperfect; nevertheless, Harry could see two men at a table upon which rested an oil lamp.
One was an elderly man — smooth-shaven, with gray hair. Harry could not clearly distinguish his features. The other was more plainly in view. He was young, dark-complexioned, and of slightly more than average height.
The old man might be a farmer, although that was difficult to judge. The young chap might be one of Blair Windsor’s guests.
The combination was unexplainable. What did this meeting mean?
Harry listened.
“When’s Jerry coming back?” the young man asked.
“Very soon,” was the reply. “We’ll have a late dinner.”
“We just finished eating over at Windsor’s.” This statement by the young man confirmed Harry’s conjecture that the young man was a guest of Blair Windsor. “Thought I’d drop over, and discuss a few details.”
“It’s time you did. This is the fourth night you’ve been back.”
“Yes; but you know how things are over at the house. I thought it best to take no chances. Everything is all right. No reason why I had to explain the details until now. I’m glad Windsor doesn’t know anything about—”
Harry felt himself slipping from his insecure perch. He managed to scramble back to the shed, and congratulated himself on the small amount of noise he made. Dropping quickly to the ground, he kept close to the shed.
Evidently he had been heard; for some one came to the window, closed it, and lowered the shade. Probably the men had attributed the noise to a cat; hearing it had simply caused them to adopt a precaution.
But there was no use waiting around here longer. Harry stole toward the front of the house.
An old automobile, noisy in operation, turned in at the other side of the building. Harry just managed to escape the glare of its lights. He moved across the front yard, and reached the dirt road.
A variety of thoughts perplexed him as he started back to the car. He felt that he had missed an interesting conversation; yet there was no way to listen in now. Nevertheless, it was a start toward new developments.
Harry smiled as he thought of the man who had come over the hill. The fellow had never dreamed that he had been seen and followed. Who would suspect curious strangers in this lonely vicinity of Massachusetts?
While Harry was musing thus, a figure stepped from the trees in front of the farmhouse, not more than five yards from the very spot from which Harry emerged.
Ironically, the situation was almost the exact duplicate of what had transpired on the hill. Just as Harry had been unseen by the man coming from the mansion, so was the presence of this stranger entirely unknown to Harry Vincent.
It was starlight overhead. Harry’s form was visible to the man who was following him. When Harry came to the junction of the road, he took the path straight ahead, instead of turning up the road that wound around the hill.
The man in back lessened his pace, and allowed a considerable distance between himself and Harry.
There was a good reason for this. There were no by-paths from the road ahead for more than a mile. The man in back evidently felt that he could allow his quarry a long start. Hence he did not see Harry turn into the field where he had parked his car.
This was a lucky advantage for the unsuspecting agent of The Shadow. Harry worked silently with his wireless, taking considerable time. His pursuer walked completely by him while he was thus engaged.
Five minutes later, Harry Vincent sent a brief report of what he had observed. The report was in a special code, which he knew by heart. Then, with his work over, Harry hurriedly packed the equipment, backed his car out of the field, and turned back toward the farmhouse.
Sound carries far on a still night in the country. The stranger who had followed Harry Vincent was at that moment standing at the crossroad, half a mile down the straight course. He had wondered what had become of the man whom he had followed.
The noise of the distant car, and its lights, gave him the information he required.
For the next hour, a man with a small flashlight made observations along the deserted road, studying the tracks of the coupe, and noting the footprints that Harry Vincent had made in the dust.
CHAPTER X
IN THE FARMHOUSE
The conversation which had been cut off from Harry Vincent’s hearing continued long after he had gone. In fact, from the very moment of the interruption, it had assumed angles of great interest.
Harry had heard only the preliminaries. The real event began when the younger man entered into the details of his story. But there were no listeners in the vicinity when he reached that important point.
“I had to give him the rod,” the man said. “All the way down, I knew that would be the only way out.
“I listened in when he made that call from the Grand Central Terminal. I trailed him across New York and got on the same train to Philly. At the Pennsylvania Station.
“He got off at North Philly and took a cab. I hopped another taxi, but dropped off a few blocks away from the boarding house. Then I sneaked over to the place. When I caught Jarnow, he was spilling the dope to Henry Windsor. Those two shots I gave him sounded like a cannon.”
“Henry Windsor wasn’t wise to anything?” questioned the old man.
“Not a thing,” replied the self-admitted murderer. “He was soused. That helped. I came in the door of the house, and up the stairs without a hitch.
“Opening the door of the room was slow work. Jarnow must have put the key in his pocket; so I had luck with the skeleton key. But when he saw me sliding around the edge, closing the door behind me, I thought he was going to drop dead.
“Wish he had. It would have saved me trouble. I guess it was best the way it happened, though. Killed two birds with one stone by planting the goods on Henry.”
The old man shook his head.
“That may have been a mistake, Crull,” he said.