She was back in Middletown. The truth of her father's suicide was explained, for the first sheet of his last note had been found in Bronlon's home. The girl's friends had all returned. She had forgotten the past.
Why not? Hubert Salisbury's story had been substantiated by the finding of the secret passage. The young man was free — and he and Martha Delmar celebrated his release by a wedding. It was among the many gifts received that Martha observed the strange token. A beautiful clock — the finest of all the gifts — stood upon the mantelpiece. It had come without the donor's card. All wondered who had sent it; and only Martha knew.
For in the evening, when the lamps above the mantelpiece were lighted, the tall clock threw an odd, mysterious shadow on the floor before the fireplace.
It was the shadow of a tall, slender form that terminated in the silhouette of a face with a hawklike nose, the broad brim of a slouch hat above the profile.
It was the shadow of The Shadow! Like the flashing girasol, a symbol that Martha Delmar could never forget, it told, more graphically than words, the identity of the donor who had sent the valuable gift. Martha looked at the shadow often. It brought back a weird memory. It spoke of that eventful night when The Shadow himself had come in response to her call.
The Shadow! The man of retribution!