Except for its driver, the last cab seemed empty, but it wasn’t. Riding in it was a figure cloaked entirely in black.
That passenger could only be The Shadow!
CHAPTER VIII
CENTRAL PARK boasts perhaps a dozen miles of driveways which form what has been termed an informal pattern.
If Phil Harley had heard the term “informal” thus applied, he could well have regarded it a synonym for “confusing” because the pattern became exactly such.
All the drives were winding affairs that had a habit of being one-way, though they seemed too broad for that. Hence cars were passing one another in a puzzling and unorthodox fashion, at least from the stranger’s viewpoint.
There were traffic lights at places where none seemed needed; these were to let pedestrians or horse-back riders cross the drives, though Phil didn’t realize it. Mixed with the stream of automobiles were occasional carriages or hacks, forming part of the general procession.
Keeping track of direction was impossible, particularly at night. The passing scene was frequently blacked out by slopes, even cliffs that flanked the drive, with plenty of attendant trees. Emerging after a long curve, Phil could not tell on what side of the park the various tall buildings were located when he saw them again.
Not only the lights in Central Park, but those around it became a kaleidoscopic whirl and as for tracing things by watching the crossings of the driveways, that was impossible too. Many of the drives forked apart or flowed into one another and they crossed the underpasses on bridges that couldn’t be distinguished in the dark.
One thing, however, was certain.