The Shadow - 280 - Voodoo Death by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1944-05-31T22:00:00+00:00

“I - I think I’m sure. Only it was so strange in here, with the scent of the flowers so oppressive.”

“Chauncey says you were in here when he came through the conservatory. He thinks you must have opened the windows.”

“But I passed someone when I was going out, Lamont!” exclaimed Margo. “I passed Jeno!”

“Jeno - or Fandor?”

“I suppose it was Fandor,” recalled Margo, hazily. “Funny that I should have them mixed. Maybe it’s because they are both dark and bow so profoundly. But Jeno looked almost like a Hindu while Fandor is a Cuban.”

“No, Margo. Cubans speak Spanish, but Fandor had a habit of dropping into another language, French.

It happens to be the language spoken in Haiti.”

Margo’s eyes opened as they had before; she could feel herself seized by one of those hunted fits that Rex Tarn was always trying to fight off. To Margo, Haiti spelled Voodoo, the word that prompted fear.

Again, Cranston’s calm took hold; he turned Margo’s mind to other matters as he gestured to the plants that Walden had admired so greatly. Margo’s gasp was one of sorrow when she saw that those precious specimens had wilted, flowers and all, from the cool air through the open windows.

“Why, they’re dead,” expressed Margo. “I - I suppose I’m partly to blame. But I supposed century plants would be more hardy.”

“They are,” acknowledged Cranston. “A single treatment shouldn’t have killed them, which proves that these weren’t century plants. I’ll tell you more about them later, Margo.”

Going out by the rear door, Cranston and Margo entered the coupe and drove back to Manhattan.

During the ride, Margo came under Cranston’s keen-eyed scrutiny more often than she realized, for at the moments when he watched her, she was staring straight ahead. Cranston drove across a bridge instead of using the East River tunnel because he felt the open air was doing Margo good; at least she was quite relaxed when the car reached the familiar city streets.

It was then that Cranston said:

“I spoke to Chauncey about Fandor. It seems that the handsome Senor Bianco may have much less background than we supposed.”

“But Walden said he was a sugar planter,” reminded Margo. “They did business, didn’t they?”

“Walden expected to do business,” replied Cranston, “purely on Fandor’s say-so. The chap came here with an offer of sugar in huge tonnage at the lowest wholesale figure that Walden could expect. Of course Walden treated him like a long-lost friend. That’s business.”

“You mean they’d just met for the first time?”

“That’s right. Chauncey corroborated it. I doubt that Fandor could deliver a hundred pounds of sugar, let alone a thousand tons.”

“Then what was Fandor’s game?” Margo was experiencing new palpitations. “Tell me, Lamont -“

“Tomorrow,” interposed Cranston, as he swung the coupe to the curb. “You’re tired and here’s your apartment. Why don’t you nap a while and then go out to dinner? But forget all that happened today -

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