by; then he did it again -'
'Getting me interested,' interposed Harry. 'What a sucker I was!'
'I watched you come out of your room,' said Marquette. 'I waited a minute or two, thinking that Stokes
might be observing you. Then I realized his plan. There was no time to lose. I followed you up to the
tower.'
'But, why did you land on me so suddenly? Couldn't you have spoken to me?'
'It would have been too late,' replied Marquette solemnly.
'Too late?'
'Yes. Within a few seconds you would have died as Stokes had planned.'
'How?'
'By contact with the metal sphere. It is the controller of the aerial torpedoes. There is a switch at the
bottom. It is usually turned off. That sphere contained a powerful electric current, that would have killed
you instantly.'
'The switch was on?'
'It was. I turned it off before I came down.'
'But wouldn't Professor Whitburn have known; wouldn't he have suspected that -'
'He would have suspected nothing. He would have believed that you had switched on the current
yourself. You had no right in the tower. You went there on your own responsibility.'
Harry shuddered as he realized the truth of Marquette's words. He had escaped death by the fraction of
a second.
The secret-service man moved silently toward the door.
'Remember,' he said. 'Silence. Speak of me as Crawford. I rely upon your aid; there are two of us now.
Two against two.'
The bearded man left the room. Harry still sat upon the edge of the bed, pondering over the strange facts
which had been revealed to him.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE REDS MEET
THE next afternoon, Claude Fellows received a report from Bruce Duncan. He did not read it; he
inclosed it in another envelope and sent it to the office on Twenty-third Street.
Early in the evening, Duncan's report came beneath the glare of the shaded light, and the fire opal
gleamed like the eye of a monster while the slender hands held the written page.
The information which Harry Vincent had forwarded through Bruce Duncan was not highly illuminating.
Had the message been sent a few hours later, it might have included the amazing revelations made by Vic
Marquette. As it was, Harry Vincent's impressions were of ghosts— not aerial torpedoes.
But in his report, Duncan had included his own experience—how he had recognized the dead body of
Berchik. A hand that held a pencil underscored this passage.
Then the light was extinguished. Silence reigned in the darkened room. The presence that had inhabited
the place was gone. The Shadow had left on some new mission.
An hour later, the watching sedan was parked across the street from Prince Zuvor's residence. One of
the men stepped from the car, and walked up toward the corner of the avenue. A taxi chanced to come
along the street; the man hailed it, and gave his destination.
He left the cab later, walked a block, and took a second cab. This cab was immediately followed by the
one which the rider had deserted.
The pursuing vehicle kept well behind, but the driver did not lose his trail. When the leading cab stopped
in the middle of a dark block, the second cab also stopped.
The passenger in the first cab walked a few paces; then suddenly turned into a passage between two
warehouses. Still, the second cab remained, inconspicuous on the street.
Another person arrived and took the same path between the buildings.
The driver of the waiting cab alighted and stepped into the back of his vehicle. One might have seen him
go in, he was scarcely visible when he came out. The only evidence of his departure was a blot that
appeared momentarily beside the cab.
Another person entered the space between the warehouses. This man walked cautiously through the
shadowless darkness.
Occasionally he looked behind him; but he saw nothing. How could he observe anything in a place where
shadows were invisible?
The man entered a basement door. As the dim light from the room cast its rays upon the ground outside
the door, a blotch appeared there.
But it was unnoticed. The door was closed.
OTHERS arrived for the meeting, feeling their way through the darkness of the basement. After all had
gone in, the door that led to the little room opened gently, and a tall, shadowy form slipped into the
antechamber.
It crossed the room, and listened at the door of the meeting room. It remained there—motionless.
After some minutes, the door to the meeting room was opened, and a hooded man stepped into the
antechamber.
He was too late to detect the presence that was standing there; for when the knob of the door had
turned, the strange, waiting figure moved away, and became a heavy shadow in the opposite corner of
the room.
Prokop—masked beyond recognition—was the man who had entered. One by one he summoned his
agents and dismissed them. This was a rapid procedure, until he came to Agent M.
Prokop talked with this man, in the outer room.
'You are still watching Zuvor?' he questioned.
'Yes,' replied the agent. 'Some one visited him a few nights ago.'
'Did you follow the stranger when he left?'
'Yes; but he eluded us.'
'You were negligent,' exclaimed Prokop angrily.
'The man must have been the devil, himself,' was the agent's reply. 'We kept on his trail; but somehow,
he slipped away while we were watching.'
'Do not let it happen again,' said Prokop.
The agent left. Prokop muttered half aloud.
'That will count against Zuvor,' he said. 'Perhaps now we may strike.'
He called for Agent K. In a minute, Fritz Bloch, Zuvor's German servant, was standing before Prokop.
'A visitor came to Zuvor's house?' questioned the leader of the agents.
'Yes,' replied Fritz, in his thick tones. 'His name was Lamont Cranston.'
'Who is he?'
'A wealthy man.'
'Why did he visit Zuvor?'
'To talk about Russia. He is to come again.'
'How did he leave?'
'By the front door.'
'Did Zuvor offer to conduct him to safety?' There was a sarcastic note to Prokop's voice.
'Yes,' said Fritz, 'but he refused. Zuvor told him that enemies were waiting outside. But he refused to
listen.'
