CHAPTER I
ALL was pitch-black in the seance room. That blackness was weird, like an invisible jelly that held all present in gluey imprisonment.
Only the moans of Madame Mathilda filtered through that gloom. Madame Mathilda was the medium and when she moaned, it meant that a materialization was likely to occur.
Hence the sitters in the seance room were tense, with one exception. Lamont Cranston was unperturbed. Cranston liked darkness - the blacker the better. When blackness became absolute, it saved him the inconvenience of wearing the black cloak and slouch hat that ordinarily enabled him to blend with dusk or gloom.
Which, in two words, meant that Lamont Cranston was none other than The Shadow.
Now Madame Mathilda was moaning louder, with accompanying tremolos that produced a ventriloquial effect in the darkness. Gasps sounded here and there among the sitters; they thought they were hearing spirit voices.
Space, direction, sense of proportions, were apt to fade from a person’s mind during a seance held in total darkness, but not in Cranston’s case.
To Cranston, this was just an overstuffed parlor on a side street a few doors east of Central Park. It contained the usual quota of about a dozen clients who came here in hope of witnessing spirit manifestations; plus a few strangers of whom Cranston was one.
The other strangers included Police Commissioner Ralph Weston and Inspector Joe Cardona. Cranston knew their exact location in the darkness, particularly that of Cardona.
Parked on the other side of the medium, Cardona was supposed to grab a ghost if one arrived and Cranston was expected to do the same from his flank. Turning on the lights was to be the province of Commissioner Weston, who was stationed near the door.