This gem — a girasol — was The Shadow’s own talisman. Like him, it was mysterious, baffling and ever changing in its appearance.
Those finely shaped hands produced a sheet of paper and laid it upon the table. That paper told a story. It proved that Inspector Zull had missed his guess when he thought that The Shadow had overlooked the evidence which had been taken from the studio of Richard Harkness.
The paper was the top sheet of the pad which Zull had pocketed!
There were indentations in the paper — marks made by the pressure of a hard lead pencil. A small envelope came into view. The fingers opened it and a black substance poured upon the paper.
The fingers spread the finely ground powder over the surface of the sheet. A flick of the hand swept away all but a thin film of graphite. The marks showed plainly, now, like the tracing of carbon paper. Telltale marks!
Upon the paper was a partly finished sketch of a man. It was not enough to give a clew to his identity, for it showed only the head and shoulders, and a face hidden by a folded handkerchief that served as a mask.
But the paper showed something else — not quite so plain as the sketch. It revealed a rough diagram that indicated a flight of steps, a passageway, and a section of a wall.
The Shadow studied the diagram. He traced it upon a sheet of paper. Then his hands — they alone were visible beneath the light — began another diagram drawn from memory. It was a ground-floor plan of the old Galvin mansion.
The hands held the diagrams side by side. Their points of similarity were evident.
The plan which The Shadow had discovered from the telltale marks corresponded in its chief details with the ground floor of the building which The Shadow had visited — that night when Betty Mandell had seen him in Theodore Galvin’s study!