The seven dollars in Harry's wallet was about sufficient for the railroad fare; in with his change were some silver dollars that he always carried. So he engaged a berth and was soon asleep, for the throbbing in his head ceased when he lay down.
* * *
Morning found Harry Vincent in the Pennsylvania Station in New York. He registered at the Metrolite Hotel, had breakfast, then set out for the office of Claude Fellows, the insurance broker in the Grandville Building.
Fellows greeted Harry with a cordial smile.
"I am glad you arrived to-day," he said. "I have something to discuss with you."
Harry watched the chubby-faced insurance broker as the man went to a filing cabinet. His connection with Fellows was a simple one. The insurance broker was The Shadow's detail man. Giving instructions and receiving reports seemed to be his entire work.
Fellows returned to the desk with two clippings. One was from a newspaper in Trenton, New Jersey, the other from a journal in Richmond, Virginia.
Harry read them. The first was an account of the strange disappearance of a commercial artist named Arthur Hooper; the other told of the mysterious vanishing of J. Howard Longstreth, a druggist.
"Note the similarity of those two items," remarked Fellows. "Both men left suddenly. They stated that they would be back within two or three days, yet neither has returned. Hooper left Trenton, slightly over two weeks ago; Longstreth left Richmond just about one week ago.
"You could transpose the names of the men, yet the facts would serve for both cases. A strange coincidence, isn't it?"