The driver was completely bewildered. This man who had seemed so anxious to get away was now
deliberately enticing and aiding the pursuing car!
IN fact, the sedan was close behind, when the cab resumed its speed. The driver, catching a slight
advantage, put a half a block between himself and the pursuers.
A few blocks later, the cab stopped. It was well ahead of the sedan; yet the passenger seemed in no
hurry to leave. He stepped slowly from the cab; gave the driver another bill, and watched him pull away.
Then, as the sedan whirled up the street toward him, Lamont Cranston calmly stepped into a limousine
that was parked a few feet away. The chauffeur, dozing at the wheel, woke up instantly as he heard the
door close. He looked back with a startled expression.
'Take me to the Landis Club,' said Lamont Cranston, in a deep voice. 'Hurry, Wilkes. Move along.'
'Yes, sir,' replied the chauffeur.
He turned the limousine into the traffic, skimming the front of the pursuing sedan as he did. Lamont
Cranston was scarcely visible in the back seat. But he was moving in the darkness. His hands were lifting
a package from the floor.
Ten minutes later, the limousine rolled grandly up to the entrance of the Landis Club, which was fronted
by a canopy that stretched across the sidewalk. The sedan pulled into a vacant space behind, and waited
there.
THE car starter was busy at the moment; then he saw the limousine, and hurried to open the door. No
one stepped out. The starter spoke to the chauffeur.
'Have you come for some one?' he questioned.
The chauffeur looked bewildered.
'I'm bringing Mr. Krause,' he said. 'Didn't he get out?'
'There's no one in the car,' replied the starter.
The chauffeur alighted, and looked into the back of the limousine, with unbelieving eyes. At the same
time, a man emerged from the inconspicuous sedan, and strolled up toward the limousine.
'Blame me,' said the chauffeur. 'I've been dreamin', that's what! I would ha' swore that Mr. Krause was
in the car there. You're sure he didn't get out?'
'Positive!' snapped the starter. 'He's not there now, that's certain.'
The chauffeur looked at his watch.
'Early for him at that,' he said. 'Just the same, I can't figger it. He got out where he always leaves me, an'
left me waitin' there. Funny thing, too; just after he left, I thought he came back, but it wasn't nobody at
all.
'Then I went to sleep; couple hours. Then he gets in the car, wakes me up, an' tells me to bring him here.
'Blame me, it's funny. Yet it ain't time for the theater to be out. Guess I'd better be goin' back.'
He took a last look in the back of the limousine; his eyes saw a piece of wrapping paper. He brought it
out; looked at it, and dropped it on the street.
'Looks like somebody had a package in there,' he said. 'They must ha' opened it, an' left the wrappin'.'
His final remarks were addressed to a few bystanders; the starter had left.
'It sounded like Mr. Krause, all right,' continued the chauffeur. ''Take me to the Landis Club. Hurry,
Wilkes,' he says. I ought to know his voice when I hears it. Yet it must ha' been me dreamin'.'
The chauffeur returned to the limousine, and drove away, still shaking his head in bewilderment. Yet he
had propounded one theory which was correct.
There had been a package in the car; it had been placed there early in the evening, just after Mr. Krause
had left the limousine. That same package had been opened—while the chauffeur was driving to the
Landis Club.
Its contents had been a black cloak, and that cloak had been donned by the man who had ridden in the
car. Lamont Cranston had slipped from the door opposite the curb, just as the limousine had pulled up to
the Landis Club.
He had been nothing more than a shape of the night—a shadowy, sable figure, that seemed clothed with
a garment of invisibility.
THE sedan remained a while after the limousine had gone. The man who had left it had returned. He
watched the street on both sides.
He saw a cab pull up on the other side; it discharged two passengers, who argued about who should
have the privilege of paying the driver.
The cab pulled away; and the man watching it from the sedan never detected the blotch of blackness that
flitted into the back seat just before the driver closed the door.
The taxi driver did not see it either. In fact, he was stupefied, a short while later, when a head appeared
from the interior of the cab, and he was given an address by a passenger whose presence he had not
suspected.
The cabman was somewhat in a quandary about how to regulate the meter; for he did not know when his
passenger had arrived. But the man in back settled that matter, by handing him more than sufficient
payment.
The sedan pulled away not long after the cab. It wended its way uptown, again, and stopped for nearly
an hour in front of Prince Zuvor's house. Then one of the occupants alighted, and walked along the street,
while the other drove away.
The man who was on foot was an observant fellow; but he did not see the peculiar shadow that had
suddenly detached itself from the house that he had been watching.
He stopped at a restaurant, and his companion joined him. The other had put the car in a garage. The
two men sat and talked.
They scarcely observed a quiet, black-clad individual, who sat in a corner, eating alone.
Leaving the restaurant, the men walked along a street, and their shadows moved with them, by the curb.
Had they looked behind, they would have seen a third shadow, not far in the rear; a strange, uncanny
shadow—one that apparently had no right to exist; for no human being was visible beside it.
The men reached a house, and entered. When they had gone in, the shadow that had kept pace with
them suddenly disappeared. It melted into the shadow of the house, and its presence was no longer
evident.
Those who followed had, in turn, been followed.
They had been traced by The Shadow!
CHAPTER XIX. THE GHOSTS OF DEATH ISLAND
THE first three days at Death Island had been uneventful ones for Harry Vincent. His strange introduction
to the men who lived there had been followed by very prosaic reality.
He was lodged in an upstairs room on the second floor; and it appeared to be a typical room of the
