stayed there, and she had guest privileges, but she considered the rates
outlandish, even at times when she had money enough to afford them. Cranston
knew all that, and therefore would understand what her message really meant.
It told that Margo had learned the one thing that wasn't in the
newspapers, and probably wouldn't be made known for a few hours: namely, that
Jose Durez and his party were the persons who would actually be found at the
Equator.
There wasn't any reason why Margo shouldn't be there, too. Hurrying from
the airport, she took a cab and managed to get started ahead of the departing
sightseers. Her own car was in a parking lot in Miami, and she was sure that
she could get it and drive across the Venetian Way to Miami Beach ahead of
Cranston, even if his plane happened to land shortly at the municipal airport.
Perhaps, Margo felt, she might learn even more before Cranston arrived!
Margo was still considering that possibility when she transferred to her
car at the parking lot. She turned on the lights because darkness had actually
begun to settle. However, by that time, her chances of learning much more were
becoming comparatively slim. A plane had just landed at the municipal airport.
Its pilot was Lamont Cranston.
Margo's message was given to him while his bags were being put into a cab.
Cranston stopped the process; he opened one bag, inside the cab, then closed it.
He asked an attendant to keep the bags at the airport. Then Cranston was in the
cab, and away.
The attendant stood watching the departing cab. He'd never seen anyone who
impressed him quite like Cranston. Calm of manner, with an immobile face that
had a hawkish expression, Cranston had shown no signs of hurry, yet had left
with surprising speed. The attendant wondered just what Cranston had taken from
the bag.
He'd have known, had not the cab sped away so rapidly on its long trip
from the municipal airport over to Miami Beach. In the rear seat, Lamont
Cranston was undergoing a rapid transformation. He was sliding his arms into a
black cloak and clamping a slouch hat on his head. A pair of automatics,
unwrapped from the cloak, went into holsters under his coat.
Amid the thickening darkness, the cab's passenger had vanished, which
meant that he had merged with the gloom within the cab itself, for he was still
there. A laugh, too low to be heard by the driver, came whispered from unseen
lips.
Lamont Cranston had become The Shadow!
CHAPTER II
CRIME PREARRANGED
SEATED by an unlighted window in the exclusive Hotel Equator, a bulky man
with hard eyes and square jaw was watching the procession that arrived outside.
The bulky man was Murk Wessel, ace of con men, and quite as much a leader as was
Jose Durez, head of the recent opposition faction in Centralba.
Murk had stooges, too; a pair of them, right here in the room with him.
There were more planted throughout the hotel, guised as bellboys and servants.
When Murk Wessel went after anything, he did it in a big way. When he went
