"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 026 - Murder Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

River.

Henry Arnaud!

The thought of that man angered Von Werndorff. Fixed in the German commander's mind was the
positive belief that Arnaud had been in the secret cabin; that he was responsible for Von Tollsburg's
death; that he had overlooked the torn paper and the cigarette stub as articles that were inconsequential.
Well did Von Werndorff know that it would be not only futile, but dangerous, to seek Henry Arnaud,
now that the man had left the jurisdiction of the dirigible.

In only one chief surmise was Von Werndorff correct; namely, in his suspicion that Henry Arnaud had
been in the secret cabin. But Von Werndorff was wrong when he believed that Henry Arnaud
overlooked the two fragments of evidence. Arnaud had discovered them; he had left them there; but he
had noted them as clews that Von Werndorff had not suspected.

Why would Baron von Tollsburg, whose pipe and pouch showed his preference in tobacco, have
smoked a mild Egyptian cigarette? Why, again, would the baron have scrawled his signature twice upon
a torn slip of paper?

Von Werndorff had not noted a difference in each signature; nor had he seen the beginning of a third, at
the spot where the paper had been torn. Henry Arnaud, alone, had observed these factors.

As The Shadow, he had gained two clews to the murderer; he knew that the man smoked a particular
brand of cigarettesтАФcalled PharosтАФ and he knew that the killer had spent his time endeavoring to
duplicate the signature of Baron Hugo von Tollsburg.

These objectsтАФlike dozens of other cigarette butts and many more slips of scrawled signaturesтАФhad
evidently been consigned to the ventilator shaft, but had dropped back into the berth.

In his vindictiveness toward Arnaud, Captain von Werndorff shot wide of the truth. Not for one minute
did his mind center upon actuality. Little did he know that at that very moment, the man whom he had
met as Henry Arnaud was seeking the trail of the murderer who had killed Baron Hugo von Tollsburg!

The Shadow had seen; The Shadow had discovered; The Shadow was bound upon a new mission as an
avenger of mysterious crime!

Even while Captain von Werndorff was on his way to the banquet, the work of The Shadow was well
under way. The agents of The Shadow had already been ordered on their missions. The Shadow had
already started on this trail of murder which might lead to where no one knewтАФnot even The
ShadowтАФas yet!

CHAPTER IV. THE TRAIL
BACK along the path which the airship Munchen had taken on its trip of death, a lone man watched,
parked in his car along a country road. The man was Harry Vincent, agent of The Shadow, and the
lowered top of his convertible coupe showed his features as the flashes of an airway beacon streaked the
night.

To Harry Vincent, this night was the beginning of a new adventure. Harry's life had been filled with
adventures ever since the momentous time when he had met The Shadow. Long ago, a mysterious hand
had drawn Harry from the brink of suicide; a whispered voice had bidden him to obey; and henceforth,