Chapter I — The Shadow Acts
The glittering lights of Paris were a glorious sight from the window of Suite 15 in the Hotel Barzonne. But the man who sat beside the window had no interest in the spectacle. He was an American of dignified appearance — a man perhaps forty years of age.
Resting on the table at which the man sat were small piles of newspaper clippings, and neatly tabulated typewritten sheets. The man assembled them deftly.
As he worked, a strange, mysterious gem gleamed upon the third finger of the left hand, its light producing weird, changing colors.
The gem was a girasol — a fire opal of rare value. There was no other like it in the world.
The stone was a clue to the identity of the man who owned it; but no one had ever learned that clue. The gleaming girasol was the property of the mysterious man called "The Shadow!"
Comparing one stack of clippings with a corresponding sheaf of typed papers, the man at the table laughed softly.
The clippings and the data referred to an amazing murder case in Germany. They told of an unsolved mystery. With them was a small item that mentioned the finding of a body in the Seine. It had not been identified.
Neither newspapers nor police had connected that body with the murder in Germany.
They did not know that the drowned man and the German murderer were one and the same. Nor did they know that the drowning had not been accidental; that a fiend of crime had encountered just retribution. These were facts that only The Shadow knew!