Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 326 - Return of the Shadow

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RETURN OF THE SHADOW
Walter B. Gibson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? The Shadow
? ONE
? TWO
? THREE
? FOUR
? FIVE
? SIX
? SEVEN
? EIGHT
? NINE
? TEN
? ELEVEN
? TWELVE
? THIRTEEN
? FOURTEEN
? FIFTEEN
? SIXTEEN
? SEVENTEEN
The Shadow
In a black-walled room where a bluish light shone down upon the surface of a polished table, two
long-fingered hands were moving in and out of the glow like detached creatures, operating of their own
accord. These were the hands of The Shadow and this room was his hidden sanctum, where he received
reports from his agents and planned his campaigns against crime.
On the third finger of The Shadow's left hand there shone a large, strange gem, resplendent with a fiery
sparkle that was ever-changing in the bluish light. That stone was The Shadow's token, a rare, unmatched
fire-opal, called a girasol that reflected the hypnotic glow of its owner's burning eyes.
A tiny tight glimmered in the dark beyond the bluish ray. The Shadow pressed a hidden switch and a
quiet voice came over an amplifier:
"Burbank speaking."
"Report..."
ONE
FROM the little knoll above the cloverleaf, Harry Vincent studied the upper Hudson River as it wound
through the massive highlands. Far below, the blue sheen of the vast waterway made a striking contrast
to the verdant foliage of early springtime and the darker patches of evergreens upon the steep, gray
granite slopes. Beyond the cloverleaf, the river was spanned by the Twin Peaks Bridge, so named
because of the rugged pointed mountains that bulked at each end, dwarfing the toy-like towers of the
suspension bridge.
But Harry was not interested in scenery as he scanned the Hudson with a pair of powerful binoculars. His
job was to check on odd activities along the river and report them to his chief, a mysterious crime fighter
known as The Shadow. Harry had chosen this vantage spot on the west side of the river as the best
observation place available. He had also picked an off hour on an off day during the off season as a time
when any unusual happening would be most noticeable.
Harry Vincent lowered his binoculars and glanced toward the cloverleaf just below. There, a bright red
convertible was swinging idly around the circle. The car had a wheelbase longer than an average
limousine; and Harry's open-topped car, parked at the foot of the knoll, looked puny in contrast as the
elegant red job rolled past it. Even more eye-catching than the red car itself was the blonde who drove it.
Her wind-swept hair was silvery in the sunlight; her chin had a saucy upturn as she looked toward Harry
through a pair of dark-tinted sunglasses that added a touch of mystery to her charm.
In the car with the blonde lovely was a stolid, square-faced man of perhaps forty, whose expression was
slightly quizzical as he followed the girl's upward gaze. Then, apparently indifferent to a touring sightseer
like Harry, the stolid man looked ahead and gave a sweeping gesture to the turn the girl was to take. A
few moments later, the blonde swung the car into a road leading to the Twin Peaks Inn, about a half-mile
to the south. With a sudden spurt, the convertible became a red streak that was swallowed by the green
clumps of budding forsythia that lined the road bank.
So that was that and rather nice at that, from Harry's brief glimpse; but immediately following the rapid
departure of the blonde in the red car, Harry was conscious of a new and closer approach from an
opposite direction. He swung about, binoculars still in hand, to face a man who had all but stolen up
behind him, from a pathway forming part of the Appalachian Trail, which came past the ski jump not far
from the Twin Peaks Inn.
The man was tall, lanky and probably in his early thirties. His face, though thin and decidedly long-jawed,
was rather handsome, due to his affable smile. He was wearing khaki shorts, a short-sleeved khaki shirt
and he carried a khaki knapsack. His face, like his bare arms and legs, was decidedly tanned, evidently
from a sojourn in more southern climes, for the season here was too early for either tan or hikers.
"Do you know where I can pick up the A.T. across the river?"
"The A.T.?" Harry gave a well-feigned frown as though totally unfamiliar with the term.
"The Appalachian Trail," defined the hiker. "The footpath that follows the mountain ridges. I happen to be
following it."
"I wouldn't know," rejoined Harry, "but they might tell you down at the Twin Peaks Inn." He gestured to
his car. "I'm driving down there now, so hop in and I'll take you along."
The hiker accepted. During the few minutes' drive, Harry maneuvered a casual side-glance, noting that
the hiker had a blunt profile and that his shocky hair showed reddish in the sunlight. But Harry avoided
further conversation. There wasn't much reason to be sightseeing up here this early in the season and still
less for a hiker to be on the trail, particularly alone. In that mood, Harry decided that the less said, the
better.
They pulled in at the Twin Peaks Inn, which stood on an artificial plateau surrounded by acres of parking
lots, all utterly empty and deserted. A few cars were parked beside the huge sprawling inn, which was
heavily patronized over weekends in the summer and during the winter ski season; but not at this time.
Among the cars was the big red convertible, so Harry parked in back of it and strolled into the inn with
the hiker. A lone clerk was behind a desk and souvenir counter in the corner of a vast community room
where rustic chairs and benches were grouped about a gigantic fireplace; but there was no sign of the
blonde, her companion, nor anyone else.
The clerk gave the hiker a map showing local trails. The hiker bought some picture postcards, addressed
them and asked:
"When will these go out? Tonight?"
"I don't think so," replied the clerk. "I believe they made the last pickup. You'd better check the time on
the mailbox by the door."
The hiker went over to the corner and Harry, who was looking over the rack of postcards, had a chance
to notice those that the hiker had written and left lying on the desk. They were overlapping and the upper
card was addressed to Miss Mildred Joslyn, Henniker, New York. Its message simply stated: "Hope this
reaches you before you leave. I am hiking up to Herb's place, so a letter will reach me there... Don."
Evidently Don's full name was Donald G. Morland, for Harry could see that signature on the portion of
the lower card that poked from beneath the upper. But Harry didn't risk moving it. Instead, he chose
some cards of his own and was buying them from the clerk when Don Morland returned and told the
man behind the desk:
"You were right, the last mail has gone out." Don picked up his two cards. "Would they go out from
Colonial Town if I mailed them from there?"
"They should," responded the clerk. "That's over on the Northern Turnpike and the mail trucks come
down by that route."
"Good enough," Don decided. "It can't be much more than an hour's hike, so I should make it easily
before dark."
With that, Don shouldered his pack and started off, without giving Harry a chance to offer him a lift back
to the cloverleaf. That was just as well, for Harry knew that hikers could be an independent lot,
particularly the lone type like Don Morland, if that really was his name. Don might even have hoped that
Harry would express some interest in hiking, so that in his turn Don could inquire what Harry was doing
in these parts.
So Harry simply watched the lanky hiker disappear along a path that formed a shortcut to the Twin
Peaks Bridge. By then, an expensive gray sedan was wheeling up to the inn. It parked behind Harry's car
and a short, self-important man stepped out. Something in the upthrust of the man's jaw was familiar to
Harry, as was the sharp stare of his narrowed eyes.
The man gave a contemptuous look at the fancy red convertible as he passed it. Next, he gave Harry a
passing appraisal as he stalked importantly into the inn. His face was much younger than his manner
indicated; and oddly, that made it seem all the more familiar to Harry. That was explained when the
newcomer stopped at the desk and demanded imperiously:
"Do you have a message for Mr. Shallick?"
"Yes, sir," returned the clerk, with a quick bow. "Mr. Winstead said to tell you that they are waiting for
you in the cocktail lounge."
No wonder Harry Vincent had recognized that upthrust, sharp-eyed face. It belonged to Craig Shallick,
a younger member of a family with large financial holdings and political ambitions. Other Shallicks were
wealthier than Craig, but he had been getting front-page newspaper stories and TV interviews which had
greatly increased his popularity and made his face familiar to many, including Harry Vincent.
Lately, though, Craig Shallick had suffered something of a setback. His wife, Irene, who was the
vivacious, party-loving type, didn't go along with Craig's political aspirations. Her excursions into cafe
society had caused newspaper columnists to more than hint that the present separation of Craig and Irene
Shallick would soon culminate in divorce.
Craig Shallick stalked through a side door that bore the sign COCKTAIL LOUNGE and Harry Vincent
followed. There, at a table, sat the blonde of the red convertible, with her stolid male companion, who
rose to shake hands with Shallick. Harry, taking one of the many empty window tables, heard their
exchange of greetings. The stolid man said, "Hello, Craig," and received a brusque reply:
"Hello, Pete. What is this supposed to be, some sort of an attempted reconciliation between Irene and
myself?"
From that, Harry gathered that the stolid man's full name was Peter Winstead and that the blonde with
him must be Craig's estranged wife, Irene. The contemptuous glance that Craig had given his wife's gaudy
convertible was outmatched by the look that Irene had reserved for her husband in person. Without her
sunglasses, as she was now, Irene would have been very sweet indeed, except for the spiteful, almost
vicious pout of her lips and the glare of her half-closed eyes. Even to the upthrust of her chin, Irene
seemed to copy her husband's pompous manner, perhaps as a form of defense that she had unknowingly
cultivated during their brief years of unblissful matrimony.
"It might be called a reconciliation," returned Winstead, in a calm tone, "but I'd rather class it as business.
Sit down, have a drink and let's talk."
Craig Shallick obliged. Harry Vincent ordered a drink at his own table and while he waited for a sleepy
waitress to bring it, he caught snatches of conversation from the neighboring table. From it, he gathered
that Irene's uncle, Gregg Austin, was annoyed at the divorce talk and was threatening to cut off Irene's
share of her father's estate, if Irene finally broke with Craig Shallick. Peter Winstead, who handled
various financial transactions for Gregg Austin, was trying to soothe matters.
"We're going over to see Gregg Austin now," explained Winstead, "and then off to a dinner party with the
usual crowd. It would help if you stopped by to say hello to Uncle Gregg and then went along with us.
Make it look as if you want to patch things up and maybe spike this divorce talk."
Before Craig could voice an objection, Irene added in a tone that was truly bittersweet:
"If you don't play along, darling, you will be a long, long time getting that divorce; perhaps never. I don't
want your money beyond a reasonable settlement, but I'm not going to lose out on what's rightfully
coming to me, just because you won't humor Uncle Gregg."
Craig Shallick shrugged as though accepting the inevitable.
"Go on over to Austin's," he said. "I'll join you there and do my bit. The sooner we get over all this
nonsense, the better."
"Good enough," decided Winstead. "I'll phone and make a dinner reservation for one more. We wouldn't
want it to get back to Gregg Austin that you didn't go along on the party."
Winstead and Irene left the cocktail lounge and Harry nursed his drink, waiting for Craig to follow. From
the window, Harry saw the red car swing up the road toward the bridge. Craig probably noted it, too,
for he left the lounge soon after and possibly made some phone calls, because another long interval
passed before Harry saw Craig's car heading toward the bridge.
By then, the sun was disappearing over West Peak and it was time for Harry Vincent to be on his way.
He drove up to the bridge, paid his toll and continued across, turning right to follow the Thunder Cliff
Highway south to the town of Vanderkill. When he reached the overlook, Harry swung into a broad
parking space that was well protected by a high stone wall. There, Harry alighted and took a last look
through the binoculars.
The highway itself was dark when Harry climbed back into his car, so he turned on the headlights and
continued his winding journey along the curves that clung to the cliff edge. Twenty miles an hour was a
high speed for the horseshoe bends that swung in and out of the folding hills, but Harry cut down to
fifteen or less when he hooked around a hairpin turn. He came to one where the guardrail showed against
a fringe of tree boughs, indicating that the ground sloped precipitously just beyond, forming one of the
barren granite cliffs from which the highway gained its name.
There, Harry blared a warning with his horn, confident that it would bring an answering blast from anyone
coming the other way. Instead, he was met by a terrific roar accompanied by a blinding glare that
drowned the gleam of his own headlights as a huge truck shot from a parking space at the inside of the
turn, launching its crushing bulk full upon him.
Caught squarely in the path of that surging tonnage, Harry Vincent and his car seemed doomed for a
plunge over the rail and into the depths below!
TWO
IN THAT FRANTIC instant, Harry Vincent took the longest and wildest of chances. Instead of trying to
stop or even veer away from the onrushing truck, he gunned his car full speed straight ahead, intending to
hit the guardrail at an angle. That, at least, would carry him past the truck, which was swinging in upon
him.
The guardrail consisted of two stout horizontal cables, held by steel uprights imbedded deep in the rock,
strong enough to buffer the impact of Harry's light car. But there was more to consider than just the car;
Harry himself, for one thing. In a quick flash, Harry recalled that he hadn't fastened his seatbelt for the
simple reason that he'd planned to stay at low speed along this precarious highway.
This was the last sort of emergency that Harry could have anticipated. It also threatened to be the last
that he would ever encounter. There wasn't much sense in taking a bounce off the guardrail only to get
mashed behind the steering wheel. But Harry, thinking with split-second precision, saw a way to
counteract that.
The car's lurch carried it clear of the truck, and Harry offset his lack of a seatbelt by bracing his hands
hard against the wheel and driving the brake pedal to the floor just as his hurtling car hit the rail. That
double stiffening of legs and forearms shoved his body deep into the seat, ready to withstand the shock.
But there was none.
Instead of a harsh twang from the cables and the terrible jolt that Harry expected, the car sailed into
space. The whole guardrail had given, literally flattening beneath the impact. For a moment, the headlights
pointed straight outward, hanging in mid-air. Then, they dipped downward, gleaming between the trees
and showing the Hudson's surface for one twinkling instant, seemingly miles below.
Then, amid the crash of saplings the car hit nose first upon the cliff brow. It twisted crazily toward the left,
threatening to pin Harry beneath it as he tried to shove open the door beside him. There wasn't a chance
for him to extricate himself; and somewhat mercifully, his head glanced one of the tree boughs, blacking
out Harry's senses as the car teetered above him, sparing him the sight of the new horror that was due.
On the road, the truck had halted half around the hairpin turn. Two men, springing to the ground, reached
the flattened rail in time to see the wheels of Harry's car spinning almost straight up in the air, as the
doomed vehicle made its sideways somersault. Then, wheels first, its metal bulk vanished against the
sunset-reddened sky beyond the brow. Brief seconds later, the listening pair heard a muffled crash from
a hundred feet or more below the edge.
Below, a hundred-car freight train was racing southward along the outer track that flanked the river bank
and it seemed that the twisted mass of Harry's car was going to land squarely among a lot of shiny,
brand-new models that were being carried piggy-back on railway flat cars. Instead, it struck another
bulge of rock that jounced it clear over the speeding train and out into the river, where the jumbled
wreckage sank, leaving no trace of an occupant.
On the highway, hundreds of feet above, the two truck-men were already swiftly obliterating all traces of
their murderous handiwork. From the back of the truck, they had brought a big hook and had thrown it
over the flattened guardrail. Now, they were using a motorized winch to haul the rail back up into place,
posts, cables and all, so that the embankment looked exactly as it had before Harry's car crashed
through.
It was the whine of the winch that brought Harry Vincent back to consciousness. He was lying on what
he thought must be the river bank, for he last recalled being trapped in the car just as it careened for its
plunge from the cliff. Now, he realized that he was still where all that had started, on the brow of the cliff
itself, staring up at the rim of the banked-up highway.
Then, before Harry could begin to wonder how he had landed where he was, he heard the answer. It
came in a whispered tone:
"Steady, Vincent. They are about to leave. Get ready to follow."
It was The Shadow!
Looking up, Harry saw the familiar figure of his chief, a cloaked shape with a slouch hat above,
silhouetted against the crimson sky above the distant mountains. That was The Shadow's favorite attire
when he set out on special forays. It enabled him to blend with blackness when stalking or eluding
enemies. Right now, the formula was working both ways. The truck-men, looking down at a sharp angle,
had failed to see The Shadow crouched in the slight gully just short of the cliff brow. Now, in his turn,
The Shadow was ready to trail them unseen; or at least he could be doing so, without Harry as a
handicap.
Harry had been expecting to meet The Shadow but not under such startling circumstances as these.
Knowing the ways of his chief, Harry realized that The Shadow, driving north along the Thunder Cliff
Highway, must have seen the lurking truck and suspected some vicious purpose. Once past the turn, The
Shadow must have parked his own car somewhere; then doubled back on foot to investigate the truck.
While working his way outside the guardrail, The Shadow had been analyzing the setup just as Harry had
come along and driven squarely into it.
Those frantic moments were now straightening themselves in Harry's mind. Too late to stop the truck's
murderous assault, The Shadow had dropped away as Harry's car crashed the rail. Harry could
remember getting the door open and trying to twist free from behind the wheel; now, he realized that The
Shadow must have reached him and yanked him clear just as the car jounced over the brink. From here,
The Shadow had rolled Harry to the safety of the gully; and right now, as The Shadow's hand moved
upward, Harry could see the outline of an automatic in his chief's gloved fist, ready for a pot shot if one of
the truck-men showed himself.
But the pair didn't linger up above. They were anxious to get away before other cars came along. They
had covered the secret of the tampered guardrail and were confident that their victim couldn't have lived
to tell it. They had already released the hook and had drawn it up on the winch; now the roar of the
truck's motor told that they were getting underway.
That was a cue for The Shadow's next move. He hauled Harry to his feet, guided him up the
embankment and along the outside of the rail, steadying him when he stumbled. The truck, by then, was
well around the hairpin turn and heading north. As The Shadow pushed Harry up to the roadway, its
lights appeared suddenly, deep in the horseshoe bend ahead. The range, however, was too long for The
Shadow to blast a tire with a shot from an automatic; and there was too much likelihood that a bullet
would be deflected by a rock or tree.
With the way things were working out, Harry realized that The Shadow was playing the smarter policy of
not letting the truckers guess that their game was known, or even that anyone was on their trail. Alone,
The Shadow might have closed that trail rapidly, but with Harry still faltering along, valuable time was
lost. A hundred yards past the hairpin turn, The Shadow finally guided Harry into an opening among the
trees at the inner side of the road. It was a little clearing that had once housed a work shack; there, The
Shadow's dark, sleek sedan was parked and waiting.
With Harry in the seat beside him, The Shadow was soon in pursuit of the mysterious truck, but with the
start that it had gained, the chance of overtaking it was slim. Still, The Shadow was doing his utmost to
lessen the margin, from the skilled way he handled the car around the bends. Now, they were meeting
cars coming in the other direction and Harry, still not over his recent shock, shied instinctively each time
the glare of headlights met his eyes.
But none of these cars were trying murderous tricks and the whole thing became quite fantastic to Harry
when he recalled how a short time before he had been driving south along this very highway in a car that
was now at the bottom of the Hudson River. Now he was making a return trip, with, of all things, his
binoculars still dangling from the strap around his neck. Harry still couldn't fathom what had led up to all
this and whether or not he was in any way responsible. But The Shadow, in his thorough, calculating
way, was already working on the problem, as was evidenced when he intoned:
"Report."
Report, Harry did. He told how in three days of driving around this area, he hadn't spotted anything
unusual until late this afternoon. Even then, the incidents had seemed slight, almost inconsequential. But
they were the sort of data that The Shadow wanted. Harry could tell that by the way his chief accepted
them in silence, as Harry told of his observations from the cloverleaf; the arrival of the red convertible; the
brief meeting with the trail hiker, Don Morland; the eavesdropping that Harry had done when Craig
Shallick joined his wife Irene and their mutual friend, Peter Winstead, at the table in the cocktail lounge.
By the time Harry had finished, the sky was totally dark and as they passed the overlook, twinkling lights
were visible from across the river. The Twin Peaks Bridge, too, was illuminated, and suddenly flashed
into sight; but the river lights were too far down to be glimpsed, except at intervals. As the car passed the
end of the brightly glowing bridge, Harry looked to his left and saw that his companion was no longer
guised as The Shadow.
Along the way, he had dropped his slouch hat in the back seat and had let the black cloak slip down
from his shoulders. Now, he was his other self, Lamont Cranston, a man whose immobile features were
strangely hawklike and whose eyes showed a steady, impassive gaze that contrasted with the glint of The
Shadow's. It was Cranston, now, who analyzed Harry's report.
"Our purpose is to find a lead to the strange occurrences in this area," stated Cranston in a calm,
methodical tone. "Certain key men in international affairs have been acting oddly enough to indicate that
they are under undue pressure or that impostors have taken their places. The only clue is that in each
case, the person involved was in this area just before the change was noted."
Harry nodded that he was familiar with that much of the case.
"Any attempt to trace the actions of such people," continued Cranston, "would only excite suspicion on
the part of those who are covering up. It is smarter to force the opposition to show its hand; to find out if
a cabal or criminal mechanism is at work, capable of accomplishing its aims through threat, imposture, or
even murder. You have just proven that it does exist."
"Do you mean that the persons who disappeared were brushed off the road like I was, so that substitutes
could supplant them?"
"Possibly, but I doubt it. There is no evidence of missing cars in their cases; also, any abducted persons
may be needed for some purpose later. You happened to be an outsider who moved into the situation;
therefore, you were expendable."
"Could they have mistaken my car for someone else's?"
"Hardly. While coming north, I passed both of the cars you mentioned - the red convertible and the dark
sedan - before I saw the parked truck. In any case, you have given us a very valuable lead. Apparently
someone thought you had found out something, which may be better than if you actually had."
They were now a few miles north of the bridgehead, where the terrain was still rugged, but the highway
less precarious as it cut more into the folds of the hills than along the river edge. Harry noted that
Cranston's keen eyes were ferreting every possible side road, in case the truck had taken one. So far,
there had been none, other than slight turnouts which Cranston ignored. But about four and a half miles
north of the bridge they struck the first really good prospect. Off to the right - away from the river - an
arrow pointed with the legend: RAGGED GAP ROAD.
The Shadow took the road, which wound up among the lower hills. He was checking driveways and
turnouts now; and Harry realized that his chief's purpose, rather than trying to overtake the truck, was to
look for places where it could have gone, or even better, where it might have come from, before starting
its murderous foray. Any clue to the truck could lead to the men behind it.
There were houses at intervals along the road, but mostly of the summer type and therefore not yet
occupied. The road itself was dirt, but in good repair, until in less than a mile they came to a barrier
reading: ROAD CLOSED - BRIDGE OUT.
The car halted at a slight angle and as Harry was staring at the sign, a figure, shaped like an enormous
bat, edged into the headlights' glare. Startled, Harry glanced beside him and saw that Cranston was gone.
He had switched to his cloaked garb of The Shadow, to be ready for any eventuality while he examined
the roadblock. Then, he was back at the wheel again, backing the car around and starting down the road
to the Thunder Cliff Highway.
"That barricade hasn't been moved for at least a week. The truck couldn't have gone in or out of there
today," The Shadow said.
On the highway again, another mile and a half north brought them to a driveway leading to the left,
marked HUDSON VIEW TAVERN. Cranston swung in there, looped around the big brick mansion
past parking spaces where cars were already congregated for the dinner hour, then swung out again. No
chance of a hiding place for a truck in there.
Another eight miles of winding road continued northward, precarious in spots and twisty enough to keep
their speed down around twenty miles. That suited Cranston, as it enabled him to check more side roads,
all of which proved to be just short deadends. But when he reached the little village of Rockwood, at the
end of the eight miles, there was no use trying to track the truck further.
There, roads diverged. One went down to Rockwood Landing and backtracked southward. Another
continued north along the river, past Castle Point. A third veered northeast among the hills to meet the
Northern Turnpike at Hickory Corners, ten miles away. That was the route The Shadow chose and it
proved fairly twisty, for it followed one of the many brooks that tumbled from the highlands down into the
Hudson.
So it took about twenty minutes to reach the Corners, which consisted of an old country store closed for
the night, a church with an ancient graveyard, a beaten-down old barn and a few hickory trees,
descendants of a once-proud grove. There, Cranston paused in the glare of a blinker light and studied a
road map.
"It's sixteen miles south to Colonial Town," he stated. "We can stop there and check on that hiker, Don
Morland. We can also look up Gregg Austin in the phone book, because ten miles more will bring us to
the junction of the Northern Turnpike and Thunder Cliff Highway, just north of Vanderkill. I know that
Gregg Austin lives somewhere near there, because he and I happen to have some mutual friends."
Cranston supplied a dry chuckle; then added: "So we can top off our eventful evening by dropping in to
see him."
Cranston swung on to the turnpike and soon was crowding the forty-five mile an hour speed limit as he
headed south. It was good, though, that he had spoken as Cranston and not as The Shadow; otherwise
The Shadow for once would have been wrong.
Lamont Cranston and Harry Vincent weren't going to top off their evening by dropping in on Gregg
Austin. They were just going to begin it.
THREE
WHILE THE SHADOW was taking up the roundabout trail of the vanished truck, Gregg Austin was
receiving visitors at his pretentious home on Pleasant Valley Road, a mile east of the Northern Turnpike.
It wasn't unusual for people to drop in on him at odd hours because Gregg Austin combined business
with pleasure, the simple reason being that his only pleasure in life was business.
The house was the old Austin mansion and Gregg had taken it along with most of the land in Pleasant
Valley as his share of the family wealth, letting his brother Lawrence - Irene's father - control their
industrial holdings. Gregg Austin, owning so much real estate, had gone into the business, not just as an
agent, but as a buyer, seller, landlord, developer and specialist in foreclosures. So it was difficult to tell
the sheep from the goats among the visitors, or to distinguish Gregg's straw men from his more solid
customers.
The Austin house was a combination of stone and clapboard set back a hundred feet from a slight bend
in the tree-lined road, with a sloping woodland another hundred feet behind it. In the dusk, the deep-set
windows made the house look like a huddled monster with glowing eyes; but inside, all was different. To
the right of the front door, a broad double doorway opened into a large living room where paneled walls,
old-fashioned easy chairs and a fireplace with a crackling fire created a truly homelike effect.
Behind that, reached by doors from both the living room and the hallway, was a smaller room that Austin
used as his office. It was furnished with heavy, wide-built chairs and a big, flat-topped desk, the only
modern touch being the filing cabinets that Austin had added to take care of his constantly increasing
records. The office had a third door opening out onto a porch overlooking a wide side yard, where a
row of cedar trees cut off the view of an old abandoned stone quarry.
To the left of the front door was a dining room; in back of that, a pantry and a kitchen with a back door.
Straight ahead was a stairway to the second and third floors, which were occupied by Gregg Austin, and
an old retainer named Chester who had been with the family for three generations.
There were also guest rooms, chiefly for the accommodation of Austin relatives who seldom cared to
accept the begrudging hospitality of their cousin Gregg, whom they heartily despised. The one exception
was Gregg's niece, Irene, who came and went as she wanted, figuring this was as much her home as her
Uncle Gregg's. Since her break-off with her husband, Craig Shallick, Irene stayed at a hotel when in
New York, but she had come to prefer the country around Vanderkill, because she was fond of horses
and a boyfriend named Rick Langdon.
Those two passions were furthered by the fact that Irene had met Rick at the Palomino Dude Ranch a
few miles up the Pleasant Valley from the Austin homestead. Rick, a personable local boy, had really
made good, so far as Irene was concerned, though Uncle Gregg didn't go along with that opinion.
Indeed, Rick's injection into Irene's life was largely responsible for Austin's ultimatum regarding Irene's
reconciliation with Shallick. Right now, Austin was expressing that sentiment to his last business caller of
the day, who happened to be Mark Wade, owner of the Palomino Dude Ranch.
They were a striking contrast, Austin and Wade, as they sat at the big desk in the office. Both were men
in their mid-fifties, but no one ever would have guessed it. Austin looked much older as he sat behind his
desk, a dryish, withery figure, lost like a rattly peanut in a shell represented by his big chair. Austin was,
nevertheless, a dynamo of nervous energy and he liked to punctuate his sharp remarks with a shake of his
tight, scrawny fist.
Wade, youthful in manner, was burly of build and broad of both face and beam. He fully occupied a chair
the same size as the one that to Austin was over-commodious. Wade's face wore an unchanging smile
that featured a gold-toothed gleam; he also wore an oversized Stetson, which at present occupied a front
corner of Austin's desk, and he sported a shoestring necktie, a ruffled shirt and gold-braided Mexican
jacket which gave him enough of a look of the Old West to brand him as the proprietor of an Eastern
dude ranch.
At present, Gregg Austin and Mark Wade were much in accord as they vociferated on a subject which
both regarded as their pet peeve: Rick Langdon.
"That whippersnapper?" defined Austin. "Tell me, Wade, why did you tolerate young Langdon around
the dude ranch in the first place?"
"For the same reason other people did," returned Wade. "He runs around with the country club set and
he talked as though he could bring some business to the ranch. After all, Rick comes from a good family
-"
摘要：

RETURNOFTHESHADOWWalterB.GibsonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?TheShadow?ONE?TWO?THREE?FOUR?FIVE?SIX?SEVEN?EIGHT?NINE?TEN?ELEVEN?TWELVE?THIRTEEN?FOURTEEN?FIFTEEN?SIXTEEN?SEVENTEENTheShadowInablack-walledroomwhereabluishlightshonedownuponthesurfaceofapolishedtable,twolo...

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