nobody else could have took it."
Fully devoted to his duty as county sheriff, the erstwhile coroner was
tracing marks on the map while the visitors from New York looked on. Being
responsible for having sent Steve Kilroy here, they too were interested in the
capture of the man who had so completely betrayed their trust; again with one
exception.
The exception was Lamont Cranston. Imbued with a new theory or at least the
possibilities of one, Cranston was strolling out from the reception room and
through the hallway to the front door. A waiting deputy saw him pass but did not
challenge him, because he recognized him as one of the New York delegation.
Besides, there was complete complacency on the handsome though hawklike
features of Mr. Cranston, a calm that masked the keen thoughts of the brain
behind it. Stepping into a car, Cranston drove down the rain-soaked driveway
without for an instant relaxing the immobility of his expression.
There was something prophetic in that poker-faced demeanor. It told that
Lamont Cranston might soon become his other self, The Shadow.
CHAPTER IV
THE Sorber Greater Shows hauled into Hilldale with its personnel in a mood
as sullen as the dripping skies. Whenever the Sorber Show hauled in anywhere, it
did it in a big way, for this carnival was one of the largest in the business.
Its long train carried about every item of equipment imaginable in the outdoor
show business.
Two dozen flats were loaded with menagerie cages, concession booths,
sections of portable Ferris wheels, carousels and other standard attractions,
with wagons in which to haul them from the siding to the lot. The roughnecks who
handled the unloading were bunked under the canvas-covered wagons and they had
been staying there all day because of the inclement weather.
It was bad enough for those really outdoor men, but they minded it less
than the more privileged passengers who rode in the rear cars, where they slept
in berths and drawing rooms. The roughnecks didn't share in the "take" when the
carnival was doing business, whereas these folk did, except for a few lesser
freaks who were working on straight salary.
One and all, they were chiding Pop Sorber, the red-faced, bull-headed
manager of the show who had drunk himself out of ownership into the purely vocal
portion of a silent partnership in which someone else kept quiet and took the
big share of the profits.
The only graft that Pop controlled in full was the concession car used as a
diner when meals were due, but otherwise served as a moth-eaten Monte Carlo
where grifters who swindled the outdoor public would indulge in such indoor
sports as roulette, faro, and chuck-a-luck, equipment which Pop had salvaged
from a gambling boat back in the days when people talked of ocean shores in
terms of a seven-mile limit.
Everybody lost when they played Pop's games, but they didn't ordinarily
blame him for it. This trip the carnival folk had occasion to grouse because
instead of unpacking in the morning, they had been traveling all day with
nothing to do but toss away more money and the fault was definitely Pop's.
Drago, the sword swallower, told it all in a few words when he angrily
