It was nothing but a mass of blackness. The impression still persisted.
Cleve shrugged his shoulders and left the box. He felt that his imagination was getting the better of him. Chinatown was strange enough, without giving way to fancies and odd qualms.
Yet as Cleve walked up the side aisle, beside the wall, he could not help but glance back at times. He seemed to sense someone gliding behind him. Yet each quick inspection revealed no one.
DARLEY and the others were waiting at the entrance of the theater. They walked slowly through the lobby, one man stopping to point to a picture of Foo Chow, whom they had just met. It was a full-length likeness of the Chinese actor.
Cleve’s eyes, moving to the right, stopped suddenly. There, on the marble panel of the lobby, was a long, mysterious shadow. It bore a striking resemblance to a man — to the man whom Cleve had seen that night at the Sun Kew!
It was the shadow of The Shadow!
A grotesque, silhouetted face — a black portion that was shaped like a large slouch hat — in every detail, Cleve saw the replica of the man whom he was seeking.
As though it possessed eyes that sensed Cleve’s gaze, the substanceless shape melted away. Cleve whirled, and was in time to glimpse a tall figure moving into the dark. The cloak — the hat — both betokened the departure of The Shadow!
For an instant, Cleve was about to spring in wild pursuit. Long had he sought The Shadow. This time, he must trail the strange man of the dark.
But Darley’s hand was upon his arm, and realizing that the committeeman was watching him, Cleve abandoned his desire. The matter of The Shadow was one that he chose to discuss with no one — not even Joseph Darley.