As the echoes of Birdie Crull’s footsteps came from the stairs, old Isaac Coffran rubbed his hands. His stooped shoulder trembled, a soft spasm of fiendish laughter shook his body.
“The Shadow!” His lips spat the words with diabolic malediction. “The Shadow! Hah-hah-hah!”
The laugh carried a sinister irony. A pitiless hilarity seemed to trail the old man’s bent figure as it slowly descended the stairway.
CHAPTER XI
VINCENT ESTABLISHES HIMSELF
The time was well past noon when Harry Vincent drove into the driveway that led to Blair Windsor’s pretentious home. His ring at the front door was answered promptly by a middle-aged manservant. At his request to meet Garret Buckman, he was ushered into a large parlor.
The man whom Vincent sought arrived a few minutes later. Garret Buckman was a genial individual — fifty years old, or thereabouts. His plump face beamed, and his hairless pate glistened. He approached Vincent with the outstretched hand of good-fellowship.
“Hello, Vincent! I’ve been expecting you. Had a wire from old Claude Fellows, yesterday. Great chap, Fellows. Old friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“That’s correct.”
“Any friend of his is a friend of mine. Glad you stopped in to see me. I want you to meet the other folks here. Maybe I can arrange for you to stay a while. You aren’t in any hurry to get along, are you?”