WHISTLING winds and heavy clouds were broken by distant flashes and occasional rumbles. A thunderstorm was approaching. It was not the season for such a disturbance, but that did not trouble Graham Wellerton. The storm was to his liking - provided it did not break too soon.
A roar sounded from overhead. Graham paused to look up from the lonely road. An airplane was passing, its lights low. Graham did not envy the pilot. He decided that the ship must be making for the airport on the other side of Southwark, to avoid the approaching thunderstorm.
Graham thought no more of the airplane. He was too much concerned with his own problems. He was moving carefully along the road, yet he was anxious to make good time. Preliminary raindrops came as a warning that the storm might break.
Graham passed directly by Ralph Delkin’s home. He noticed upstairs lights. He hid his soup behind a hedge and strolled into the house. He could hear Eunice talking with her father.
Whistling as he strolled about the hall, Graham knew that his absence had not been noticed. He was making sure that he would be heard from above, so that Ralph and Eunice Delkin would believe that he had been in the house throughout the evening.
A muffled thunder clap reminded Graham that it was time to proceed. He slipped from the door, regained his hidden explosive and started along the street. He slipped out of sight behind a tree as a coupe turned a corner and came into view. The car rolled by without stopping.
Graham congratulated himself that he had not been observed. In that belief, he was wrong. Peering eyes had noticed him; even as he watched the departing coupe, a strange, invisible figure dropped from the moving car some fifty yards beyond the spot where Graham was standing.
Graham kept on his way. He was nearing the business section of Southwark. He turned into a narrow side street and drew up beside his uncle’s bank.
Laying his soup aside, he drew forth tools that he had taken from the factory storeroom. He deliberately set to work to open one of the barred windows at the side of the old bank.
The task proved amazingly simple. Graham chuckled. His uncle, the old miser, had been too cheap to install burglar-proof devices. Getting into the bank was almost as easy a task as breaking into Delkin’s factory.
Graham clambered through the open window. The storm was breaking outside. People would be indoors. This was the time for the job. Graham stared out into blackness; then hurried away from the window, realizing that it would be unwise to show himself in case a flash of lightning might suddenly occur.
Such a flash did come a few moments later. Graham was not at the window to see it. Hence he did not observe a chilling sight - a spectral phenomenon that human eyes would have considered unbelievable.
In the sudden brilliance of a vivid flash, total darkness was transformed into day. In the midst of the street scene remained one touch of blackness. A human form - a spectral figure in inky cloak and hat - was revealed just outside the open window of Ezra Talboy’s bank.
Tall, sinister, and silent, this being stood like a visitor from another world. The Shadow, weird master of darkness, had come to Southwark. Riding in a coupe piloted by Harry Vincent, the agent who had met him, The Shadow had spied Graham Wellerton. The Shadow, wizard of gloom, was trailing the gentleman of crime!
GRAHAM WELLERTON, within the bank, was not thinking of The Shadow. With his flashlight sending intermittent flickers, he was choosing between the large vault and a small safe which stood in Ezra Talboy’s office. With a grin, Graham chose the safe.
The young man began his task. He worked his explosive mixture about the safe in preparation for a blast. He was pleased with the soup that he had made.
“Slam broth,” chuckled Graham, using his favorite term for the explosive soup. “Wait until this wakes old Uncle Ezra. He’ll pop out of bed when he hears this.”
Graham arranged his fuse. He applied a match. He backed from the office, across the outer room and waited by the window. The results were startling.
The charge went off just as a terrific flare of lightning burst outside. The soup exploded with a roar amid a tremendous thunder clap. The mighty outburst of the heavens outdid the explosion both in flash and sound.
A strange occurrence! But Graham Wellerton, as he faced the office, failed to see the most amazing phase of it all.
Standing within ten feet of him was a tall personage in black - a creature who might well have materialized with the thunderbolt, so uncanny was his bearing.
Graham fancied that the rumble of the elements had drowned the roar of his explosion. He was wrong. The flash and its dull reverberation had been witnessed by another than himself - The Shadow!
Graham had intended that the explosion be heard. He believed, with reason, that it had not. Nevertheless, the occurrence did not change his necessary action.
Hurrying to the broken safe, Graham began to go through the papers, that he found there. His flashlight glimmered upon three documents held together by a paper clip. He read them eagerly. There were notes, to the sum of fifty thousand dollars, signed by Ralph Delkin.
A chuckle of elation came from Graham’s lips. So intent was Graham that he did not realize a presence which had moved to a few feet behind him. He did not suspect that other eyes were staring over his shoulder; that the burning optics of The Shadow were also reading those documents.
The Shadow faded like a living phantom as Graham Wellerton arose. Carrying only those stolen notes, Graham hurried to the window and dropped out into the street. He headed back along the way that led to Ralph Delkin’s factory.
The rain was slight; the storm seemed to be passing around the town of Southwark. Graham Wellerton, no longer burdened with his soup, made quick progress by means of the occasional lightning flashes. Not once did the young man look behind him, so sure was he that he had eluded detection.
Thus he did not see the phantom shape that followed in his wake, always maintaining an even distance behind him. That figure duplicated all that Graham Wellerton did, as the young man reached the factory, went through the open window and found his way to an office on the ground floor.
Here The Shadow watched while Graham, his flashlight again in use, approached a small safe and fingered the dial. Graham had seen Ralph Delkin unlock that safe. The manufacturer had made no effort to hide the combination. The safe contained nothing more valuable than business accounts which Delkin kept here to avoid possible destruction in case of fire.
Graham Wellerton placed the three notes in the safe. He closed the door and locked it. The Shadow merged with darkness at the side of the room. He watched Graham depart; then followed.
Graham closed the basement window and made for the road. The Shadow softly raised the window, slipped through and closed it behind him. He followed Graham along the lonely road until the young man reached Ralph Delkin’s home.
When Graham Wellerton disappeared into the house, The Shadow still lingered. From his hidden lips came a sighing laugh, that blended with the whistling wind that still marked the presence of the passing storm.
THE SHADOW had come to Southwark to forestall crime. He had seen crime in the making. He had made no effort to prevent it. For The Shadow had seen a purpose other than evil in Graham Wellerton’s actions. The keen brain of The Shadow had divined that the former crook had not been working for his own gain tonight, but for someone else.
Until The Shadow learned all the contributory factors to this case, The Shadow would restrain aggressive action. One test remained. If Graham Wellerton had planned further robbery, the temptation of the broken window in Ezra Talboy’s bank would still remain.
That was why The Shadow waited, watching silently from darkness. He was lingering to learn if Graham Wellerton intended to venture forth again tonight.
CHAPTER XIV
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
WHEN Graham Wellerton had regained his accustomed seat in Ralph Delkin’s living room, he felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction. He realized that he was through with crime forever. Tonight’s experience had been an odd one. He had acted as a criminal, but he felt that he had served the cause of true justice.
