left home after a dreadful quarrel about his gambling, his debts and his peculiar friends.'
Charles's eyes dropped away from the lawyer's steady stare.
'I have an uneasy feeling that Mr. Bruce always disappears when these rogues call, because he is in league with them.'
Timothy said, sharply: 'Are you hinting that perhaps Bruce may not be Arnold Dixon's real son?'
'I - I don't know what to think,' the butler whispered.
There was a long silence. Timothy shook his head, patted the trembling shoulder of the old servant.
'We're both allowing our fears and our imaginations to run away with us.
Bruce is the real son. He can't be otherwise. You know the tests I insisted on making. Physical and mental. Tests of memory that go all the way back to the boy's childhood.'
His voice deepened impatiently. 'Bruce passed every one of those tests with flying colors The same appendicitis scar across his abdomen. No lobes on his ears. His face, his body, his very way of talking! You yourself heard him tell me things when I examined him - things about people, places, events that no one but the true son of Arnold Dixon could possibly have known. You yourself, Charles, were absolutely convinced.'
'I know it, sir. But - well, for one thing, he's so good-humored; so devoted to the welfare of his father. Before he left home, ten years ago, he was utterly different - headstrong, obstinate, downright vicious.'
'Ten years make a big difference,' Timothy said. 'Bruce is twenty-seven now. He's had a hard time, learned his lesson. A man learns sense from getting hard knocks all over the world. It's to be expected. The natural thing.'
'He had definite criminal tendencies before he left home,' Charles insisted in a low voice. 'I hope I'm wrong. I - I want to be wrong! But if Mr.
Bruce were actually, by some queer trickery, an impostor -'
TIMOTHY'S warning hand on Charles's arm cut short his anxious words. Both men turned toward the draped doorway. The lawyer's face was smiling.
'Hello, Arnold! Ready for our chess game? Good evening, Bruce.'
Charles went back to his interrupted arranging of the chessmen. There was lazy, bantering talk between the two old friends. As Dixon took a cigar from his humidor and handed one in the lawyer, Bruce sprang forward with a lighter and held the flame with a courteous hand to the tips of the two weeds.
Mindful of the butler's ominous words, Timothy studied Bruce quietly out of the corner of his eye. The resemblance between father and son was striking.
The same long nose with flaring sensitive nostrils, the same wide Dixon mouth.
Other things that were surer proof than mere resemblance. The ears with no lobes to them. The scar at the hollow above Bruce's smooth cheek bone.
That scar dated back to a mishap that had occurred when Bruce was a lad only eight years old. He had fallen from a pony and struck his head against a pointed rock.
William Timothy caught the butler's eye and shook his head with a slight reassuring gesture. He began to puff on the excellent cigar Dixon had handed him.
The old man's hesitant words put an end to Timothy's complacence.
'Afraid we won't have time for chess to-night, William.'
'No chess?' Timothy, who had been sliding to his regular chair behind the polished game table, pretended surprise. 'Why not, Arnold?'
'It just happens I expect - er - a couple of visitors to-night. Friends of
mine I - I used to know in the West. They happen to be in town on a business trip and I - I invited them over for a chat. Do you mind?'
'Not at all,' Timothy replied, his voice even.
'I - I hate to call off our chess game, but I'll probably be closeted with
my friends for some time in my private den. As an old friend, I know you'll understand and excuse me.'
The millionaire was extending his hand with a cordial smile, but with a definite hint of dismissal in his manner.
Timothy, however, lingered. So did Bruce. So did Charles, the butler. The lawyer kept watching the son unobtrusively; Bruce's face was blandly innocent.
It was impossible to tell whether Bruce was worried or merely bored by this talk of business and visitors.
Silence descended on the room. Dixon's gray head kept lifting alertly while he murmured inconsequential things to the lawyer. Timothy knew that his friend was listening for something. He knew what that something would be - the sound of the doorbell. He decided grimly to delay his slow departure until he had a chance to see this Hooley and his friend, Snaper.
Charles began to remove the chess pieces from the board and repack them in
their box. Suddenly, he started nervously and his tremulous hand upset a bishop
and a knight.
The quick cry of a brazen gong echoed through the silence of the living room.
Some one was impatiently ringing the front doorbell.
CHAPTER III
THE VANISHING SON
CHARLES straightened with the habitual woodenness of a servant and left the room.
Bruce gave his father a quick, unreadable glance and picked up a magazine from a side table. He sat calmly down in a leather chair, flipping open the magazine pages with a casual hand. Timothy was conscious that the son's eyes were staring covertly at him above the top of the spread periodical.
To the lawyer's relief, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.
Charles stood for an instant in the doorway, bowing formally.
'Mr. Lamont Cranston,' he said.
If The Shadow, as Cranston, was aware that his visit was unexpected he gave no sign of it. Smilingly, he approached the puzzled millionaire, held out his hand.
'How do you do, sir? I believe you know me, Mr. Dixon. If not by personal acquaintance, at least as a fellow art enthusiast. I came to-night, hoping for the privilege of viewing your collection of Chinese pottery. I have a letter with me from the curator of ceramics of the Museum of Art, and I trust -'
Arnold Dixon had recovered his scattered wits. Color came back into his pale face. He forgot everything except his pride in the collection that had made him nationally famous in art circles.
'Lamont Cranston? Of course! I'm delighted to meet you! I've read your monographs on the ancient Oriental methods of glazing porcelain with a great deal of interest. I disagree with some of your theories and perhaps I can explain why, when I show you some of the older specimens of my -'
'Aren't you forgetting, father, that you expect other visitors to-night?'
a voice said, dryly.
The Shadow turned to observe the calm young man who had laid his magazine aside and was rising lazily to his feet.
'My son Bruce,' Dixon said, with a quick smile. 'And this is Mr. William Timothy. My lawyer and an old friend.'
The Shadow shook hands with both. He gauged their appearance as accurately
as he had that of the millionaire. Dixon was ill at ease, frightened. The lawyer
was alert, very much interested. Bruce was pretending to be bored, but that was
merely pretense. Behind the vague surface of his blue eyes was a bright inner gleam that indicated repressed annoyance.
'Too bad Mr. Cranston has had his trip out here for nothing,' Bruce said quickly. 'I'm sure he would have enjoyed seeing those lovely Ming vases.'
'I'd be glad to wait,' The Shadow said, smoothly.
Arnold Dixon hesitated. He was torn between his desire to get rid of Cranston and his childish eagerness to show off his collection to a man who understood their rare value.
