Only there weren't any box-cars. Nothing but flats, with great shrouded
shapes upon them, silent monsters being carried through the night. But flats had
ladders, short ones, and Steve saw the glistening rungs he wanted. He grabbed
with his good hand and as the ladder dragged him from the clay, he remembered
that one foot could still serve him. Kicking for a toehold, Steve found it on
the bottom rung and with a corkscrew motion rolled himself on top of the flat,
glad that it wasn't a box-car which he never could have climbed
Crawling toward one of the shrouded monsters, Steve touched its skirt and
recognized it as canvas. Probing further, he found the spokes of a wooden wheel.
The thing was a wagon, braced with cleats so that it wouldn't roll. Satisfied
that the cleats were solid, Steve crawled between the wheels and encountered
something that yielded when he poked it.
Steve heard a hard, snoring breath that ended in a growled voice:
"Shove over, guy. Ain't there enough wagons to sleep under without
crowding?"
Replying with an apologetic grunt, Steve let the jarring of the train roll
him the other way. His numbed senses yielded all at once, under his sudden
relief from strain and the knowledge that he had found the safety that he
thought he could never gain.
Soon the musical clatter of the wheels was driving all other thoughts from
Steve's tired brain, including his recollections of The Harlequin, that piebald
creature of murder.
CHAPTER III
LAMONT CRANSTON sat in a corner of Treft's reception room and listened idly
to the reports concerning the murder of the mansion's owner.
Outside, the afternoon sky was darkened by heavy rain clouds that
maintained an incessant drizzle, the continuation of a downpour that had begun
the night before. In the room, the local coroner continued to repeat the facts
that Treft's servants had recited.
Of the several strangers present, all were stockholders in Associated
Metallurgy, the company that had delegated Steve Kilroy to negotiate with Milton
Treft regarding the purchase of a wonder-metal called alumite. Having missed
their opportunity to acquire that important prize, these men were naturally
interested in the case; at least all were except Cranston.
Outwardly, Cranston appeared bored, which led his companions to wonder why
he had come all the way from New York over a matter which didn't interest him.
It began to strike them that Cranston had another reason; perhaps he felt
slighted because the directors of Associated Metallurgy had not informed him
beforehand of their intention to purchase alumite.
Cranston didn't feel slighted on that point; he was regretful. If he had
been notified of this deal in advance, Treft wouldn't have been murdered, for
Cranston would have come here ahead of Steve Kilroy, not as himself, but as
another personality known as The Shadow. Therefore Cranston's present purpose
was to rectify an oversight on the part of others and he was bored because the
investigation had stalled.
The stalling point was Steve Kilroy. Sheer weight of evidence caused the
directors of Associated Metallurgy to yield to the local opinion that Steve was
