The Shadow 236 Crime's Stronghold by Maxwell Grant

Author:Maxwell Grant [Grant, Maxwell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Street & Smith
Published: 1941-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

As he placed his hat upon his head and drew his cloak up over his shoulders, The Shadow blended with the gloom that filled the interior of his car.

Reaching the crossroad, The Shadow swung left to reach the orange grove. As he did, a car from the other road took a sharp turn to avoid him. The Shadow didn’t get a good look at the occupants of the other car. In their turn, they didn’t see The Shadow at all.

It was Gabby who made comment as Griff spurted away.

“Say, that was funny.” Gabby’s tone was tense. “I looked right through that other buggy and didn’t see nobody!”

“How were you going to see anybody?” Griff demanded. “It’s turned dark.”

“I guess that’s right,” Gabby muttered. “Still -“

“Take a hold on yourself,” Griff interjected. “We’ve got other things to think about. Maybe the guy was just sitting low behind the wheel. Maybe he was a midget.”

“What would a midget be doing around here?”

“Going to Sarasota, maybe. To sign up with the circus, like we said we were going to do when we had the monkeys with us.”

Taking Griff somewhat seriously, Gabby silenced. Thinking in terms of midgets, he forgot his first qualm: namely, that The Shadow might have been the occupant of the passing car.

Meanwhile, The Shadow had found Griff’s grove and was stowing his car among its trees, which hid the automobile as neatly as they did the bungalow. At least, the car was hidden from the road, but as he alighted The Shadow could see the sky up through the trees. He was quite sure that no cars could have been parked around the bungalow at the time he observed it, less than a half-hour ago.

A breeze was blowing along the driveway as The Shadow followed the fringing orange trees. He reached the bungalow, noticed its darkness, and peered through a window. There, he caught the faint glow of a few burning coals in the fireplace.

There had been no smoke coming from the chimney when The Shadow viewed the place from the air.

Hence, the embers signified that people had been here earlier, but might have left a few hours ago.

The Shadow formed a new opinion when he reached the rear of the house. Under the whip of the wind, a garage door was flapping open. The doors had been tightly closed when The Shadow saw them from a bird’s-eye vantage. It was possible, of course, that there hadn’t been enough wind earlier to make the door flap open; but it was better logic to presume that a car had left the garage while The Shadow was making his round trip to and from the airport.

First, The Shadow had seen a likely car at the crossroad. Again, it was probable that the men in the bungalow had been waiting for darkness to settle. Without wasting further time, The Shadow returned to his car and drove it from the grove, pausing only to turn the headlights on the R. F. D. box that bore the name “Jamison.

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