“I understand.”
Cranston shook hands with both Waddell and Noyes. Accompanied by Froman, he went to the porte-cochere.
The chauffeur must have seen him, for the big limousine pulled up from the driveway. As its headlights spotted the men by the door, Cranston’s shadow formed a long, weirdly changing shape upon the drive.
Froman, chancing to glance downward, was fascinated by the strange, vague streak of blackness.
Then the limousine was beside them. All traces of the oddly shaped shadow had vanished. The two men entered the door of the car. Soon the lights of Waddell’s home were obscured by the huge hedges that surrounded the millionaire’s estate.
Little was said as the limousine rolled Manhattanward. Froman told Cranston his destination — an address in upper Manhattan — and Stanley was instructed to drive there.
There was something ominous in the silence that hung within the luxurious limousine. Only the luminous spots of cigar tips showed that the two men were awake, each concerned with his own thoughts.
Though both were introspective, and neither gained an inkling of the other’s notions, it was more than a coincidence that both should have been thinking of one man.
For Lamont Cranston and Frederick Froman, though differing in plans and purposes, were concentrating deeply upon the activities of a single individual who had been a guest at the home of Tobias Waddell.
They were thinking of Marcus Holtmann, the man who had just returned from Russia.