The crafty-faced Spotter noted that the huge spot of blackness was no longer on the floor, now that the pawnbroker had arisen.
“Get going, Spotter,” warned Birch. “I’ll let you out as we go upstairs. The others will be here soon. I want to unload before midnight if I can. Pay me your split as soon as you finish passing these.”
The pawnbroker put the remaining counterfeit bills in a box, and covered them with paper. He and Spotter went upstairs. Birch turned off the light as they were leaving. Then, as an afterthought, he switched it on again.
“Duke will be here soon,” he said to Spotter. “No use in my blundering around in the dark.”
A full minute went by after the two men had left the cellar. Then a shadow began to grow on the floor. It extended from the coal bin in the corner.
Had Spotter been there, he would have screamed with fright; for from the blackness of the coal pile emerged a tall figure, clad entirely in black, cloaked beyond recognition.
The strange phantomlike being advanced softly across the cellar. It crouched beside the box where the counterfeit bills had been placed.
The cloak and hat dropped, and a man of medium height arose from the spot. He was attired in rough, ill-fitting clothes, with a shapeless dirty sweater to give him every appearance of a typical hoodlum.
Spotter would not have recognized the man; but he would have known the voice. For the roughly clad fellow laughed in a low, sinister tone.
His laugh, soft though it was, echoed weirdly from the basement walls. It was the laugh of The Shadow — The Shadow whom Spotter believed to be dead!