'I'm no good, Lamont,' she confessed. 'If you can pick any goats from these sheep -'
'I see one goat,' interposed Cranston. 'Look over by that notion counter, Margo. You'll recognize him.'
Margo's eyes almost popped as she studied a young man whose face, though somewhat hardened, looked to be the result of dissipation, rather than crime. She caught herself just in time to keep from exclaiming his name too loud:
'Dwig Brencott!'
Handsome in his way, black-haired, with a complexion that would be defined as dark, rather than sallow, Dwig was the pride of the night clubs. A member of cafe society, he never appeared in public until afternoon, and from then on, could be seen in what some columnists considered the 'best places' in town.
Dwig was in and out, from one spot to another, until the closing hour, which was usually five in the morning. It hadn't occurred to Margo, until Cranston mentioned it, that such a practice might be Dwig's alibi. Dwig had a way of being somewhere else, very often. There were many times when he might even have been out of town.
It could be that Dwig was the mainspring of the jewel mob, so far as actual robberies were concerned. If so, he was falling for the blue bait. Whether or not he intended to go after the six sapphires, Dwig hadn't been able to resist the temptation of looking over the situation. The Shadow's theory was right; not only that, it was proven.
Of all people, Dwig Brencott wouldn't be hanging around the cheap jewelry counter, striking up an acquaintance with a melancholy-looking clerk, unless he had some purpose in mind. He would be more likely to chat with Raymond Walder, who was standing behind the sapphire exhibit, except that Walder was getting attention from socially prominent visitors, who might remember Dwig if he made himself too noticeable.
'At seven o'clock,' Margo heard Cranston say, in an even undertone, 'the sapphires will be removed in an armored truck. It will be dark at seven, and the truck will be the natural target for an attack. It might be well for someone to follow the truck.'
Margo nodded. She could think of someone perfectly qualified: namely, The Shadow. Hence, Cranston's next words rather surprised her.
'Tacking an armored truck would be too difficult,' he said indifferently. 'There will be no trouble outside.
It would be interesting, though, to know where the sapphires go. Suppose you stay around, Margo. Then you can follow the truck, and find out.'
STILL wondering if her ears were hearing right, Margo forgot to use her eyes. She was looking at Cranston, not at Dwig. But, in his turn, The Shadow was watching Dwig Brencott. He saw the sleek man turning away from the counter, about to leave Walder's store.
Outside, accumulating dusk promised Dwig an easy departure. It also offered The Shadow an excellent chance to follow him; hence The Shadow's casual instructions to Margo.
Before Margo could argue that trailing trucks was not her idea of a pleasant evening, Cranston strolled away as if the whole matter had been settled. It was then that Margo discovered the coincidental departure of Dwig Brencott, and understood.
In giving her one trail, Lamont was taking up an earlier, and more difficult, one. He was following Dwig Brencott, on the chance that he might learn enough to stifle coming crime before it even began.
In either event, whether crooks planned to move tonight or not, Margo's task of trailing the truck would be reduced to a matter of routine. Should any threat of actual danger arrive, The Shadow would be the one to accept it.
Of course, Cranston had neither stated nor implied that fact. He had a way of treating The Shadow as a different personality than himself, even though Margo had long identified them as the same. It was just another proof of The Shadow's perfect tact.
Considering how crooks were always gunning for the black-clad avenger who so often crossed their paths, it was wise policy for The Shadow to deny the Cranston link, even among friends.
Proof of his sagacity was being evidenced outside of Walder's store, where Dwig Brencott, turning to walk along the avenue, was taking a shrewd backward glance into the jewelry house. Had Dwig even suspected that Cranston could be The Shadow, he might have noticed Margo's hawk-faced friend strolling out with others who were leaving the exhibit.
As it was, Dwig simply classed them all as curiosity seekers who had seen enough of the sapphire display. The sleek man was on lookout for persons who might be detectives, and he was quite sure that none such had followed him from the store.
In the back of his mind, perhaps, Dwig might have been looking for a stealthy figure clad in black, but the lighted doorway of the jewelry store could have offered no concealment, even for The Shadow.
When such a figure did appear, he came from across the avenue, where Cranston had gone, unnoticed.
Stepping into one door of a taxicab, Cranston had entered as himself, and come out the other side as The Shadow, all in a matter of mere seconds.
He was on the west side of the avenue, where the buildings cut off the last rays of sunset. Under the shroud of dusk, The Shadow was gliding, unseen, from doorway to doorway, keeping pace with his quarry, Dwig Brencott.
Cloaked in black, a slouch hat drawn down across his eyes, The Shadow wore the famous garb that enabled him to stalk an unsuspecting prey. With darkness on the increase, every minute was improving the conditions that the cloaked investigator needed in his present expedition.
With nearly an hour until seven o'clock, The Shadow was confident that he could learn the essential details of any crime with which Dwig Brencott, might be concerned.
That was why a whispered laugh came from The Shadow's hidden lips. It was a tone that presaged trouble for men of evil, the sort of trouble that The Shadow could provide. As bait for thieves, the six sapphires had come up to The Shadow's expectations. The rest would lie in his hands.
Perhaps The Shadow's tone would have lacked the prophetic touch had he known the full story of the Star of Delhi and the six blue gems that Raymond Walder was exhibiting as the carved components of the famous sapphire.
That story could have given The Shadow an index to the startling and unexpected turn that crime was to produce at seven o'clock; events that even The Shadow would not quite fathom when they came!
CHAPTER III. CRIME IN REVERSE
'AT seven o'clock, in front of Walder's.'
It was the fourth time that Dwig Brencott had given those simple instructions from the telephone booth near the cloakroom in the Club Cadiz, which was one of the night spots that Dwig frequented.
Just past the cloakroom was a stairway, and under its shelter The Shadow was listening to Dwig's smooth- purred tone, hoping that he would specify further details; but Dwig didn't. Furthermore, The Shadow had encountered another handicap.
From his listening post, he could hear Dwig's voice, but the clicks of the phone dial were not audible enough to be translated into numbers, a favorite trick of The Shadow's. Hence, when Dwig left the phone booth and went to the bar to get a drink, The Shadow had gained a rather frugal net result.
He knew only that Dwig had called four men, all obviously tools of crime, instructing them to be outside Walder's at the time when the six sapphires were to be taken away. Perhaps those four would bring others; in any event, the thing fitted with The Shadow's previous calculation that Dwig intended to trail the truck that came for the sapphires, either to take a crack at its contents, or to learn the truck's destination.
At the bar, Dwig was chatting with cronies and building up something of an alibi. He was telling them other places where he intended to go, even suggesting that some come along with him and make the round of the hot- spots. They were all promising to meet Dwig later, the very point for which he had been playing.
Seven o'clock was drawing close. By then, Dwig would be gone from the Club Cadiz, for the build-up that he was giving indicated, to The Shadow, that the sleek man intended to be at Walder's, too.
But Dwig was making it very easy for himself to drop out of the night-club picture for the half-hour between seven and seven-thirty, and yet have friends believe that he had been at one place or another all during that period.
