Grant, Maxwell - The Shadow 222 - Master of Flame by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Detective, Mystery, Crime, Suspense, Adventure, Thriller
Publisher: Street & Smith Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

AN hour after the mutilated corpse of Frost vanished into the water-filled quarry among the Watchung hills, an unconscious man in a hospital bed opened his eyes.

It was the fireman who had been badly hurt by a falling chunk of masonry at the blaze of the dye factory in Faxton.

The fireman had suffered a serious concussion. His eyes were bright and shiny. The nurse thought he was delirious when he started an outcry:

“The Shadow!” he shouted.

But he was not delirious. He shoved aside the sedative which the nurse tried to give him. He insisted on talking to the chief of the Faxton police. The nurse called a doctor, who made a quick examination of the hurt fireman. He listened to what the moaning man was trying to say. Then he spoke quietly to the nurse.

“This man is perfectly rational. Telephone for the police.”

To the police chief, the fireman whispered the grim story he had told the doctor. Arson! A criminal had escaped from the flames by dropping from the roof at the rear of the factory. A criminal in a black robe with a beaklike nose and flashing eyes. A man with twin .45s.

The Shadow!

For the first time since the fire had occurred, deliberate arson was clearly indicated. The police chief remembered certain queer facts. He recalled what the Beecher brothers had told him on the night of the fire.

Their insurance had lapsed because of the strange disappearance of a letter of notification from the insurance company. A mysterious visitor named Frost had tried in vain to buy their business the day before the blaze.

The police chief sent for Joe and Tom Beecher. They brought him more suspicious news. Frost had left town after accomplishing what he had come for. He had purchased the dye formula for a ridiculously low price.

The police raced to the quiet little inn where Frost had stayed while he was in town. There, they made another sinister discovery. Frost was not the only person who was missing. A second guest at the inn had vanished, too. A man who had claimed to be a wandering artist making a sketching tour of the countryside.

A search of Vincent’s room confirmed the police chief’s suspicions. Luckily, Vincent had registered under another name, but he had left his artist’s materials behind him. There wasn’t a single sketch of any kind in the bulky portfolio he had brought with him. Every sheet of drawing paper in the portfolio was blank.

It was perfectly clear to the police that David Frost and this fake “artist” were criminally teamed together. They had come to town to burn down the factory, to beggar its owners, to buy in the dye formula cheap.

Frost’s room at the inn received an exhaustive search. The search brought to light the final proof of The Shadow’s guilt in the fire at the dye plant.

A badly-burned cloak was discovered hidden in the room that had been occupied by Frost. The fireman at the hospital identified the cloak as the one which had been worn by The Shadow.

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