He was heavy-set, and slightly bald. He weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and the chair in which he was sitting was almost invisible beneath his bulk.
“Ah!” The man’s voice was suave, and melodious. “You are Mr. Vincent, eh? I am Mr. Marmosa — Frank Marmosa. You have come here as I asked you, eh?”
“Yes. I received your wire yesterday afternoon.”
“Sit down, Mr. Vincent. Let me talk to you. I am glad that you have come, and I think that you will like it here.”
There was a chair opposite the desk — a chair crowded into the extreme corner of the tiny office. Harry Vincent took his place there, and looked quizzically at Frank Marmosa.
There was a real friendliness about the big man beyond his suavity. Vincent sized him up as a man who could be trusted, with reservations. Marmosa was presumably of Italian ancestry, but one could not have judged his nationality without knowing his name.
“My telegram surprised you, eh?” chuckled Marmosa, as he studied Harry Vincent. “Well, my boy, it was just by a chance that I learned of you.
“I have been waiting for two weeks to hear from my friend Barutti, in New York. I had asked him for a man to work with me here. I received no reply, until night before last, when Barutti called me up by long distance. He told me to wire you in Michigan; that you would be the man I needed.”
A SUDDEN light dawned on Harry Vincent. Now, for the first time, he understood the connection that had brought him to Chicago.
He had suspected that the hand of The Shadow was behind this mission, for Vincent was a trusted agent of the strange man whose name carried terror to the minions of gangdom. But he had never before heard of Frank Marmosa, and only the mention of Barutti gave him the inkling that brought realization of the situation.