Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 331 - Mark Of The Shadow

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MARK OF THE SHADOW
by Maxwell Grant
The Shadow fights for his very life against C.Y.P.H.E.R.--a clandestine globe-strangling
network of evil.
As originally published in the Belmont Books paperback, May 1966.
Prologue: City In Battle
IT BEGAN in Santa Carla the day the mayor declared his war on crime. Organized crime was to
be stamped out in Santa Carla. Destroyed, obliterated. No city in the country had ever
accomplished this.
Santa Carla is the second largest city in the state. A beautiful city of palm trees and hibiscus,
pine trees and bougainvillea. A busy city of expanding business and of and rapid growth. The
mountains stand brown and magnificent behind the city, the incredibly blue sea washes its
beaches.
It became a battlefield.
Five men died suddenly in the streets within a few weeks.
There seemed little rhyme or reason to the killings. On victim was a known hoodlum. Another
was a known gambler of the worst reputation. But the third was a bartender with no known
criminal associations, and the fourth and fifth were solid, respected citizens.
2 MARK OF THE SHADOW
All five died within a month of the mayor's declaration of war on crime in Santa Carla. All
five were shot down on the public streets at night.
All five had been alone when they died.
None had been robbed.
In each case the police of Santa Carla could find clues, no witnesses, no clear or immediate
motive, no marks or struggle, and no hint to the identities of the killers.
But there was no mistaking the signs--it had all the marks of an old-fashioned gang war. The
citizens of Santa Carla were up in arms. And they were afraid.
They locked their doors at night.
When they had to walk the night streets of the city, they walked rapidly and looked behind
them.
They were behind the mayor, but they were worried, afraid. The eyes of the entire state, even
the nation, were on Santa Carla. The police seemed powerless to stop the deaths, or to find the
killers.
There was talk, after the fourth killing, of an outside Crime Commission. The mayor backed
his police all the way, but he admitted that the task was large.
Then there were two more deaths, killings. The city made up its mind. The crime commission
was formed.
The first of the two killings that forced Santa Carla to call in outside help was not a murder. A
man died, was killed, but it was not murder. Not to the citizens of Santa Carla, and not to the rest
of the state or nation.
At one o'clock that morning the Santa Carla Police received a telephone call. The excited
caller was the owner of a motel on the southern edge of the city. The owner's name was Max
Goleta, the motel was named the El Capitan and the area was the worst in the city.
Max Goleta and his El Capitan Motel were well known to the police. But on this night it was
Max Goleta who called the police to come to the El Capitan. The owner was alarmed.
"She's getting killed! Hurry! I heard shots!" Goleta shouted into the telephone from his office.
"Slow and straight, Max," the desk sergeant said into the telephone.
"In one of my cabins! Three shots! Everyone's yellin' out here," Goleta shouted.
"We're on our way," the desk sergeant said.
The police arrived at the El Capitan within five minutes. The crowd of frightened, screaming
guests of the motel milled like sheep around a lighted cabin. Max Goleta himself met the police.
The owner was abnormally agitated.
"Come on!" Goleta cried.
There were four policemen--two uniformed patrolmen and two detectives. The man in charge
was Detective Lieutenant Joseph Moss.
It was Moss who entered the lighted cabin first.
The tall, distinguished man who stood alone in the center of the cabin living room smiled
rather grimly at the detective. The man was grey-haired, well-dressed, and held a snub-nosed .38
caliber Police Special in his manicured hand.
Lieutenant Moss stared.
"Your Honor!"
"I have touched or moved nothing, Officer," the mayor said. "I did not leave the room. I
waited exactly where I was until you came. That was correct, I believe?"
MARK OF THE SHADOW 3
Moss nodded slowly. "Yes, Your Honor. That was correct. Can you . . . ?"
"He threatened me. He tried to kill me. I think you will find that his pistol has been fired once.
The bullet should be in the wall just behind me."
Lieutenant Moss looked down at the floor for the first time. The dead man was a short,
swarthy man in his fifties. Moss did not have to search for identification. The lieutenant knew the
man on sight: even in death. Giorgio Fustelli, alias Jimmy Faust, alias Two-Finger Jim, alias Joe
Fusto, alias so many other names Moss could not have remembered half of them without
consulting the record. A known Mafia leader. A known killer. Moss looked at the mayor.
"He called me and suggested a meeting. He said to come alone, he had vital information for
me," the mayor explained. "I suppose I should have expected a trap, but . . . Well, you know how
anxious we are, er, Officer?'
"Moss, Sir. Detective Lieutenant Moss."
"Well, Moss, you know how it has been. I imagine I was too anxious. I did have the sense to
come armed. He missed, I did not. I have a permit, of course."
Lieutenant Moss only nodded. He instructed his men to get to work on the normal homicide
routine. They were instructed to check every detail of the mayor's story. He took the mayor to
headquarters himself. One thing puzzled Joe Moss.
"Goleta said it was a woman who was shot."
"Ridiculous. Did he see a woman shot?"
"No sir, but he swears he saw a woman go into the cabin before you arrived. He saw no man,
and no one came out."
"I saw no woman," the mayor said, thoughtfully. "Still, as Goleta said, I arrived last. Perhaps
she came with him and left before I came. Or perhaps Faust had her in another room, the
bedroom. All I can tell you, Lieutenant, is that Faust called me and was here when I arrived."
Moss nodded. He had searched the bedroom, of course, and found nothing.
The mayor was released later that morning. It was a pure case of self-defense. Faust was no
great loss. The citizens of Santa Carla were satisfied. The police thought the mayor had been
foolish to take such a risk, and made him promise to never go alone on such an errand again, but
they exonerated him completely. The physical evidence confirmed his story in full.
The mayor did not exonerate himself.
He insisted on suspending himself from office in favor of the deputy mayor pending a full
inquiry and an official verdict. He insisted that even a mayor must follow the full letter of the
law.
"That is what the law is for, gentlemen. No man can be above the law in any way."
The mayor was applauded, of course. As his last act until fully exonerated, the mayor
suggested that the outside Crime Commission be called into the city.
The second killing made the City Council agree.
That same morning, no more than ten minutes after the police had received the frantic call
from Max Goleta, the district attorney of Santa Carla, Drake Hind, was killed by a fusillade of
shots as he slowed his car at a street corner to allow another car to pass in front.
The district attorney, it was determined, had been driving very fast through the city from his
home when he had to slow at the intersection for the other car. There was little doubt that the
other car had been part of a trap to kill Drake Hind.
4 MARK OF THE SHADOW
A man, acting suspiciously near the scene of the murder of the district attorney, was captured
in a police dragnet. The man was found to be a suspected member of the Mafia in Santa Carla.
The man was arrested at once.
The next day the Crime Commission was impounded.
And that was really when it all began.
MARK OF THE SHADOW 5
1
THE CITY JAIL of Santa Carla occupies the top four floors of the Courthouse Building. It is a
tall, modern building in sharp contrast to the Spanish style architecture of the rest of the official
buildings of the city. It is not a maximum security institution, since it is intended only for
holding prisoners awaiting trial. Or prisoners awaiting not trial but interrogation. Or, perhaps,
awaiting something no one else could know.
Vita Maggiore was waiting for something. The suspected Mafia man, suspected participant in
the killing of District Attorney Hind, sat on his bunk in the cell of the city jail and talked to
himself. He talked softly, steadily, half in English and half in Italian. He talked as if to quell a
great fear.
"All right. So he kiss," and he swore in Italian. "A kiss. So? He kissed me, compare, why
not?"
Vito Maggiore stood up, paced the dark and narrow cell like a caged animal.
"No, like that a kiss it is not compare!"
Maggiore stopped in the center of the dark cell.
"The kiss, mio Dio! The kiss!"
As if this were something too hard to bear, Maggiore seemed to stagger where he stood. He
swayed. The small swarthy man reached out to catch hold and found nothing but air. He took
two steps on his shaky legs, and sat heavily on the single bunk again. Then he swore.
"Coward! Pig! What must be must be. Che será, será!"
He seemed to change actual physical shape as he sat there on the narrow bunk in the silent
cell. He grew taller, sat stronger and straighter. Down the dim corridor outside the cell a man
moaned. Someone somewhere whimpered. Maggiore smiled, curled his lips in a sneer. Women!
No, not him. Che será, será! Maggiore lay down on the bunk, his hands steady, his eyes cold but
no longer afraid.
He lay there for a long minute. His eyes closed in readiness for peaceful sleep.
The laugh came from nowhere.
An eerie laugh that had no source, no direction.
A weird, chilling laugh that hung like a cloud in the dim cell.
Maggiore jerked awake.
"What? Who the . . ."
Maggiore lay rigid, his eyes darting like the eyes of a trapped rabbit.
The cold, mirthless laugh came again. Vito Maggiore at up on the narrow bunk, all the fear
returned to his eyes. He stared frantically around the dim cell.
"Where are you? What is this? Mio Dio, I go crazy!"
Maggiore grasped his head in both his hands, the on hands his temples, pressing against his
temples as if to squeeze out the sound of the chilling laugh that came from nowhere. The eyes of
the swarthy man were closed as if to hide from the eerie laugh that filled the silent cell.
"You are not insane, Vito Maggiore!"
The voice, like the laugh, floated in the dim cell like a wraith without source.
"You do not imagine this voice, Maggiore. This voice is not an illusion you can escape behind
closed eyes."
6 MARK OF THE SHADOW
Maggiore shook his head. He held his head in both hands, eyes closed tight in the dark cell.
"No . . . no . . . no . . ."
The voice was grim. "Open your eyes, Vito Maggiore!"
Maggiore shook his head, covered his ears now. His eyes tightly closed, the swarthy prisoner
turned to the wall, huddled on the narrow bunk, ears covered to shut out the voice.
"Maggiore!" the voice commanded. A stern voice that shook the dim cell.
On the bunk Maggiore lay rigid, huddled, turned away from the voice. Then, imperceptibly at
first, the small prisoner moved, shivered. Maggiore shuddered, his whole body straining. He
strained to lie where he was, but his body moved, began to turn on the narrow bunk.
"Sit up!" the unseen voice commanded.
Maggiore turned on the bunk. His hands came away from his ears. His eyes opened. He sat on
the edge of the bunk. His eyes blinked as if he knew he did not want to do what he was doing but
could not help himself. His mind would not obey him. A thick cloud seemed to fog his mind. He
blinked, and did what the strange voice commanded.
"Look at me!"
Maggiore looked. His eyes, blinking still, trying to understand what was happening to him,
turned as if drawn by some powerful magnet. The cloud in his mind thinned and thickened as if
he stood on a swirling misty moor. Now, as his eyes turned toward the voice, drawn to the voice,
the mist thinned in his mind.
Vita Maggiore looked and moaned softly.
Before him across the dim cell he saw a looming shape--a black, vague, indistinct shape that
seemed to emerge from the darkness, that seemed to be part of the dark itself. A shape, figure,
that seemed to flow and blend into the shadows, that seemed to have come from the stone walls
themselves. A dark shadow that towered over him.
Then Maggiore saw the face--and the eyes.
A face and two burning eyes that floated above him in the dark cell. The cell itself seemed
suddenly much darker, and only the fiery eyes glowed. Hard, piercing eyes that had a light of
their own, and at the same time glowed with the reflected red light of a jewel that shined on the
finger of a long, thin hand.
The glow of the strange ring illuminated the head and shoulders of the figure that stood before
Vito Maggiore. The weird light revealed a face with a strong, hawklike nose below the piercing
eyes. The eyes stared at Maggiore from beneath the brim of a wide black slouch hat. The high
collar of a black cloak hid the face below the sharp nose. A sweeping black cloak shrouded the
figure and faded away to blend into the dark of the cell.
The towering figure moved. Silently it seemed to glide closer to Vito Maggiore. The swarthy
prisoner stared up, his mind clearer, aware of the powerful shape before him. And yet, somehow,
unable to move, unable to scream the scream that welled up in his throat. A scream that suddenly
vanished from his mind, and, in an instant, Maggiore felt calm, almost peaceful. He looked up at
the figure. Aware that his mind, somehow, was no longer under his control. Almost glad that he
was free of the necessity to control himself.
"Who . . . who are you?"
The looming shape stared down at Vito Maggiore.
"Men call me The Shadow, Vito Maggiore. I destroy evil. I battle for good and justice!"
Calm now, Maggiore nodded. "Yes, justice. What do you want from me?"
"The truth, Vito Maggiore! I want the truth!"
Maggiore nodded again. "The truth, yes."
MARK OF THE SHADOW 7
"I want to know how Drake Hind met his death. Who killed him and why?"
Maggiore blinked. "Hind? Who killed him?"
"Who!"
Maggiore shook his head as if to clear it. "I . . . I don't know."
"Do not try to lie to me!" the voice of the looming black figure said harshly.
"No," Maggiore said. "I don't know. Who or why, I don't know . . . I don't know."
The eyes of The Shadow stared down at the small man on the cell bunk. Maggiore seemed
confused, puzzled, as if he had not known until this moment that he truly did not know who had
killed Drake Hind or why. The Shadow's sharp eyes narrowed as he watched the small prisoner.
"Why did Faust try to kill the mayor?" the dark Avenger queried.
"Faust? I don't know," Maggiore said.
"Why were you at the place where Drake Hind was killed?"
"I don't know."
The harsh laugh of The Shadow echoed through the silent cell. The cloaked Avenger moved
closer to Maggiore, his face close to the small prisoner.
"You don't know why you were there!"
Maggiore rubbed his eyes, looked up, shook his head. "I'm not sure. I was there, yes, but . . .
why? I don't . . . remember."
The blazing eyes of The Shadow bored down into the small prisoner. Maggiore seemed
genuinely confused. As if the small gangster were trying to remember exactly what he had been
doing at the scene of Drake Hind's murder. The Shadow, his keen mind sharply analytical behind
his grim visage, studied the swarthy prisoner. Somehow he felt that the man was telling the truth.
"You don't know why you were there?" The Shadow intoned.
Maggiore blinked. "I . . . I was having a drink, yeah. She was a looker, yeah, a real looker. I
remember. I had some drinks, a couple, yeah. Only . . . I must of had more than a couple . . . I
mean, she was a looker, yeah. Then . . . then I had to go, some business, you know? A little
business. Then . . . I was there, the cops, they picked me up, I . . ."
Maggiore trailed off, his voice fading, his eyes going blank as he stared up at the towering
shape of The Shadow. The cloud in his mind seemed suddenly to grow thicker. He felt a
pressure, a pushing in his brain, like a giant hand pressing down. The eyes of The Shadow bored
through him.
"The cops picked you up!" The Shadow said. "Then you must have been there for a reason.
You killed Drake Hind!"
"No!" Maggiore said, but there was as much question in it as statement. "No, I'd remember.
Only the cops got me, I mean, I must have done something. I mean . . ."
"You are a member of The Mafia?" The Shadow suddenly snapped.
Maggiore nodded. "Yeah, I . . . what?! No . . . no . . ."
The swarthy prisoner was on his feet. Suddenly, his face contorted and drained almost white.
There was a look of complete horror on his face as he stared at The Shadow, his brain for an
instant clear again. The shock of what he had just done. He had admitted what no member of the
"family" could ever admit--that he was a member! The unforgivable. The unpardonable. For an
instant, under the shock, his brain cleared and he stared at the dark shape with the fiery eyes in
front of him.
"No! I never hear about no Mafia!"
The Shadow laughed his chilling laugh. His eyes bored into the mind of the swarthy little
prisoner. The power of his mind reached out to cloud, envelop, control the mind of the man in
8 MARK OF THE SHADOW
front of him. The great power learned so long ago in the Orient from the Master Chen T'a Tze.
The unique power given to The Shadow by the Master himself, its source known only to the
Master and, now, The Shadow.
"You are Mafia! Who is your chief? Who are the men who give you your orders! The Shadow
demanded, his powers enfolding the mind of the Mafia man before him.
But Vito Maggiore was conditioned from the day of his birth by the black hand of the
malignant and worldwide brotherhood of crime. As The Shadow's powers invaded his mind,
breaking down all his will and his resistance, reaching to take all that he knew, the small man
resisted with all his strength. This was the ultimate test for a mafioso. The Shadow had asked the
final forbidden question--had asked him to name, betray, his brothers, his leaders.
"No! I know nothing!"
The Shadow fixed the man with his eyes like a worm on a sharp pin. "You know! You will
tell me!"
Caught between the powers of The Shadow which no man could defeat or resist for long, and
the powers of all that he had learned and believed and sworn to in a lifetime, Vito Maggiore had
nowhere else to go. He must succumb to the power of The Shadow, betray his brotherhood,
or . . .
Vito Maggiore, in a final effort of will before the clouds of The Shadow's power closed
completely over his mind and rendered him helpless, bent to the top button of the two on his left
jacket sleeve.
The Shadow leaped forward.
Maggiore muttered a prayer--and a sharp, strangled cry.
When The Shadow bent over him, Vito Maggiore was already a dead man, the smell of bitter
almonds on his lifeless lips.
Erect in the dim cell, looking down at the dead man The Shadow had to admire the power of
the Mafia Brotherhood. Cyanide in the coat button. The Mafia had defeated him this time, but
there would be other times. He crouched to search the lifeless form of Vito Maggiore. He found
nothing. The police had taken everything--except a cyanide coat button!
Voices came along the corridor.
The Shadow straightened up. The guards, probably hearing the single strangled cry of Vito
Maggiore, were coming down the corridor. The cry had not been loud, the guards probably
thought there was nothing particularly wrong, they were not hurrying. But they would begin to
hurry when they saw what was in the cell. The Shadow blended into the darkness of a corner of
the cell.
Two guards appeared in front of the cell. They peered into the dimness. One of them pointed
to Maggiore sprawled face down on the narrow bunk.
"Look at him! Killed the DA, and sleeps like a baby!"
The other guard peered more closely, saw Maggiore's left hand dangling off the bunk. The
guard called sharply.
"Maggiore!"
The body on the bunk did not stir. The first guard stared.
"He's not breathing!"
Swearing, the two guards reached for the keys and stepped to open the door. Then they
looked at each other. The cell door was open. Quickly the two guards rushed into the cell and up
to the body. They bent over Maggiore, felt his pulse, and saw the blue cast of his lips.
MARK OF THE SHADOW 9
One of the guards suddenly straightened, turned. He blinked as he stared at a dim corner of
the cell. His partner looked up at him.
"What is it?"
The guard who stared at the dim corner shook his head. He rubbed his eyes.
"I don't know. I swear I saw something move."
This guard stepped to the dark corner. He saw nothing. He touched the walls with his hands,
looked back and forth, up and down. He rubbed his eyes again and turned to look at the open cell
door.
"Something dark. Big and dark, like a . . . a shadow! A moving shadow. I swear I saw it
move, go out the door. Like part of the cell moving, going out."
His partner watched him. "You sure you're feeling okay?"
"I don't know. I feel funny. But I saw something!"
"Okay!"
"Someone killed Maggiore!"
"No," the first guard said. "Suicide. A button on his coat. It's still in his mouth."
"Suicide?"
"Yeah. A Mafia out."
The guard who thought he had seen a shadow move looked at the dead man, and then at the
cell door.
"But the door was open."
The first guard looked at the door. "Yeah, it was open. Only there was no one in here, and no
one could have gotten out past us. He could have gotten out of the cell, But not out of the
corridor."
The two guards thought about this before they turned to go and report the death of Vito
Maggiore.
At the far end of the jail corridor, the single guard remaining at his post beyond the last barred
door looked up a moment later. This guard stared at the closed and barred window near him. The
guard was sure that something had passed him, something like a puff of wind.
He saw nothing, and the window was closed. He checked the door into the cell block. It was
closed and locked. The guard decided that he was coming down with cold, had felt a sudden
chill.
One floor down, in a corridor in the top floor of the courthouse building before it became the
jail, there was a locked store room. No one saw the dark shape pause for a second at the door,
open it, and disappear inside.
In the store room, the door locked behind him. The Shadow did not pause. He glided, a dark
phantom shape, across the storeroom. He faded into the black of a rear corner. Moments later the
black corner seemed to move and The Shadow returned--but it was not The Shadow. The figure
that came out of the black where The Shadow had gone was a different person.
The new man seemed smaller than The Shadow, stockier and shorter, although he was
actually none of these things. Instead of the burning eyes of The Shadow, the new man had
hooded eyes, impassive in the dim room. His face that betrayed no emotions, and his half-closed
eyes, had a quiet, thoughtful aspect. A quiet, steady, passive face where the face of The Shadow
was all power and vitality. And yet, with all the differences, the short-cropped grey hair, the
impeccable business suit, the features of the new man seemed to strangely resemble the hawklike
features of The Shadow.
10 MARK OF THE SHADOW
This was not a coincidence. The man now in the room was Lamont Cranston, wealthy
socialite and international businessman, close friend and helper of Police Commissioner Ralph
Weston of New York, well-known amateur criminologist--and the major alter-ego The Shadow
presented to the world to hide his true identity. There were only a few who knew that The
Shadow and Lamont Cranston were one and the same. Only the members of the cloaked
Avenger's far-flung secret organization, that small but powerful army of dedicated crime fighters,
knew that their chief and Lamont Cranston were the same. There were none, no one on Earth,
who knew what the true identity of The Shadow was. Only two had ever known--The Shadow
himself, and his master Chen T'a Tze. Now, with the Master long dead, only The Shadow
himself knew who he really was. And it did not matter who he had been, what man he had been
born. That man was gone. The Shadow was, now, only The Shadow--a cloaked instrument of
good and justice in an evil world, a man of many faces across the world. Now he was Lamont
Cranston.
Lamont Cranston, standing in the dim storeroom, listened to the sounds out in the corridor.
His super hearing waited for what he wanted to hear. Then he heard it--the members of the
newly appointed crime commission, summoned by the report of the death of Maggiore, were
passing along the corridor toward the stairs up to jail.
Cranston waited. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. The members of
the commission were just ahead. One of them turned as Cranston approached.
"Ah, Lamont, you got my message! I was afraid you might not join us in time,"
Commissioner Weston of New York said.
"In time, Commissioner?" Cranston said quietly. "Has something happened?"
"I'll say it has! Maggiore killed himself!"
With the eyes of all the members of the commission on him, Cranston feigned great surprise.
Inwardly, he was doing two very different things: he was studying the faces of the commission
members; and he was thinking about what he, as The Shadow, had learned from Vito Maggiore.
But Cranston was not the only man thinking, at that precise moment, about what had been
learned from Vito Maggiore.
2
AT THIS HOUR the street in front of the Santa Carla Courthouse and City Jail was dark and
deserted. Traffic that passed was light, and did not slow down, passing from one major highway
through the city to another. The area was old, a place of slums and cheap rooming houses. An
area of old brick buildings built in past days when the state was young, when there had been gold
and silver and few men gave their right names. A place of cheap taverns, shabby pool halls, the
barren eating places of the poor and vagrant. An area of dark doorways recessed into old
buildings.
In one of these dark doorways, directly across from the marble steps of the tall courthouse
building, there was a man. He was hidden, and he was watching the steps or the courthouse.
From time to time this man stepped closer to the front of the doorway and looked up toward the
high windows of the city jail above. When he stepped out it could be seen, if there had been
anyone to see, that he was a thin, dapper man of average height. Neat, well-dressed, smooth-
faced and well-cared-for, the man's iron-grey hair made him look not unlike any other
prosperous and respected businessman.
MARK OF THE SHADOW 11
But his eyes were not the eyes of a quiet businessman. His eyes were small, flat, hard and
cruel. Deadly eyes that looked up toward the windows of the jail with no expression at all. Cold
eyes that stared coldly, calculating, up to the jail above. He seemed to be waiting. Watching and
waiting, his eyes moving slowly over a period of time from the jail above to the wide marble
steps of the courthouse below. He seemed to be not only waiting, but expecting something.
The dapper man had been hidden in the doorway for many hours.
He had come to the doorway directly from inside the courthouse itself. In the courthouse he
had visited the jail. He was the only visitor a man in the cell next to Vito Maggiore had had. The
records showed that he was the lawyer of the man in the cell next to Maggiore. The records
showed that his name was Max Beers. His name was not Max Beers, he was not a lawyer, he did
not know the man in the cell next to Maggiore, except by name, and he had not actually visited
the man in the next cell. He had visited Vito Maggiore. He had talked to Vito Maggiore while he
was, supposedly, talking to the man in the next cell. He had done this well, cleverly, with no one
suspecting that his voice was loud in the next cell so that Maggiore could hear him. Before he
left, he had stopped in front of Maggiore's cell. He had called Maggiore to the bars of the cell
door. He had, through the bars, kissed Vito Maggiore. He had kissed Maggiore once, and smiled
at Maggiore, and left.
He had come straight to the doorway across the street to wait.
Now, some hours later, he still stood in the doorway. He smoked. No emotion showed on his
thin, well-cared-for face. No anxiety, no weariness, no impatience. He just stood, smoked, and
waited. For much of the time he did not even move. Only his hand, raising and lowering his
cigarette. Motionless, hidden, he watched the people go in and out of the courthouse building. He
was so quiet, so still, that the few people who passed the doorway did not even suspect that he
was there. From time to time the dapper man let his cold eyes rove along the entire street,
studying the buildings, the other doorways, the alleys. He saw nothing that disturbed him. He
was satisfied. He continued his waiting, sure that he was unobserved.
He waited in the doorway precisely four hours. Then he smiled. What he had been waiting for
happened.
A bright light went on above in the window of a cell. Far off above there were voices. Loud
voices and many voices. A few moments later an ambulance screamed up with its siren wailing
frantically. Two men in white ran into the rear entrance of the courthouse. Soon after the car of
the mayor arrived. The mayor himself ran up the steps of the courthouse. Moments after that four
reporters, known to the man in the doorway, hurried out of the courthouse and ran to their cars.
Next to arrive was an assistant district attorney, Gerald Symes, who was now DA after the death
of Drake Hind. The man in the doorway watched it all. The man stepped from the doorway. He
smiled. He took out a long, thin cigar and lighted it. He puffed contentedly and laughed once
aloud. He spoke once, aloud.
"Grazie, Vito, compare mio. Sleep well."
Smiling, the dapper man turned away and walked briskly to the nearest corner. A long, black
car seemed to materialize from nowhere. The thin, dapper man stepped into the car and closed
the door. The car pulled away, moving slowly and in no hurry. When it reached the next corner it
turned and vanished. No one in the car observed the next events on the street in front of the
courthouse.
The instant the car turned into the cross street, a man on a motorcycle emerged from an alley
not far from the doorway where the dapper man had been hidden. The motorcyclist was a small,
slender man with a beard, goggles, and wearing a black leather jacket. His longish, dark hair
12 MARK OF THE SHADOW
streamed out in the wind as he turned the motorcycle after the black car. His booted feet kicked
the cycle around the corner after the black car, and, in turn, he vanished from the courthouse
street.
Before the bearded cyclist had made his turn, a United States Mail truck appeared on the
street from behind the courthouse. The mail truck seemed to hesitate, as if the driver were
deciding which way to turn, and then, casually, the truck turned in the same direction as the
black car and the motorcycle. It went around the corner only seconds later than the motorcycle.
For some blocks the mail truck continued to follow the motorcycle. After ten blocks the bearded
cyclist had come close behind the black car. The mail truck was still behind the motorcycle. In
this order, the three vehicles proceeded along the streets of Santa Carla. In the mail truck, the
driver, wearing the blue uniform of the United States Post Office Department, flicked a switch
on his dashboard and picked up an innocent-seeming dashboard cigarette lighter.
"Code Ten, urgent. Agent 3, Harry Vincent. Come in Control Central. Code Ten, calling
Burbank, Control Central. Agent 3, Harry Vincent."
The driver watched the motorcycle and the black car ahead. The traffic was now heavy in the
center of Santa Carla. But the black car appeared neither alarmed nor in a hurry. The cyclist was
able to follow with care, and the mail truck followed the cyclist while the driver of the truck
continued to make his call over the hidden radio.
"Code Ten direct. Come in Control Central."
It was a dim blue-lighted room hidden high in the Park Avenue office building. A man, all but
hidden by the blue light of the room, bent over a large, rectangular instrument that seemed to
glow a deeper blue in the room. On the instrument there were dials and gauges and a round grid
that was a speaker. The man in the blue room operated the instrument without touching it--it
was an advanced, unique communications machine that operated only when a peculiar ring on
the hand of the man was passed over it.
"Report, Agent 3! Burbank, Central Control."
The blue glow filled the room as if it came from the walls and ceiling themselves--but no
walls or ceiling were visible. Only the man, and the communications machine that hummed
softly. No entrance or exit could be seen. No sound entered the blue room. No vibrations. No
movement. As if the blue room did not exist on this Earth, but floated somewhere in space. And,
in fact, the blue room did not exist, not to anyone but the few members of The Shadow's
Organization who knew it was there. It appeared on no plans, existed on no directory. There
were no entrances or exits known to anyone but The Shadow, his secretary and First Agent,
Margo Lane, and Burbank, the communications agent who never left the city. Secret as it was
this blue room was only one of the blue-lighted rooms hidden behind the elegant facade of the
New York offices of Lamont Cranston Enterprises, Inc. The other rooms were known only to
The Shadow himself. The headquarters of The Shadow were the ultimate in security--unseen,
unknown, and unsuspected. They had never been entered by an enemy.
The voice of the distant mailman, Harry Vincent, Agent 3 of The Shadow, entered the room.
"Observation of exterior of Santa Carla Courthouse resulted in identification of two other men
also observing. One, a thin, grey-haired man watched for four hours until arrival of mayor,
DA Gerald Symes, and ambulance. This man then left and entered a black car. The second
watcher is a bearded young man riding a motorcycle. He is now following the black car. I am
following both men. Will continue surveillance, report again later."
"Very good, Agent Vincent," Burbank said.
MARK OF THE SHADOW 13
The communications expert passed his fiery ring, a replica of the glowing ring on the hand of
The Shadow worn by all agents of the far-flung organization, over the large console. The room
became silent. Burbank passed the ring across another sensor on the console. The report was
immediately repeated from its permanent tape that would eventually enter the vast files of The
摘要：

MARKOFTHESHADOWbyMaxwellGrantTheShadowfightsforhisverylifeagainstC.Y.P.H.E.R.--aclandestineglobe-stranglingnetworkofevil.AsoriginallypublishedintheBelmontBookspaperback,May1966.Prologue:CityInBattleITBEGANinSantaCarlathedaythemayordeclaredhiswaroncrime.OrganizedcrimewastobestampedoutinSantaCarla.Des...

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