No mention is made of The Shadow's radio show, something that usually got frequent mention in the early Shadow novels. But the system of emphasized words is used, this time over the phone rather than over the radio. The Shadow speaks an outwardly normal sentence, but gives slight emphasis to certain words that his agents pick up to reveal a hidden message. A cute trick that The Shadow used often in the early years.
Burbank appears in the story, but he's not hidden away in some room answering phones. Instead, he's the attendant at a lunch counter in Grand Central Station. He temporarily leaves his customers to make phone calls to The Shadow. Hmmm… That certainly doesn't seem very efficient.
Harry Vincent is the other agent of The Shadow who appears here. He has a fairly large role in the story, including getting caught and thrown into a death trap of classic proportions. It's the famous cell with the descending ceiling. He must speak and tell all he knows or be crushed to oblivion beneath the pressure of the slow-moving ceiling. Ah, we love the classics!
CHAPTER I. DEATH AT MIDNIGHT
A CHILLING night drizzle swilled through Eighty-first Street. It enshrouded the wizened figure of an aged man, pausing before a brownstone house. He leaned on a silver-headed cane and pulled the collar of his heavy coat closer about his ears. His thin, parched lips moved soundlessly in a continuous muttering.
The house, a relic of other times, even as the figure that stood in the darkness before it, loomed gloomily, like a mammoth mausoleum. The old man seemed to dread entering it. Fear shown on his mummified face.
Then, with sudden effort, he climbed the steps with a crablike, sidewise gait. His trembling finger pressed on the polished doorbell.
Presently the door opened onto a darkened vestibule. The old man entered a dimly-lit hallway without a word. The person who had answered the door was, judging from his manner of deference, evidently a servant.
Silently he took the old man’s coat and hat. Then he pushed aside a sliding door at the side of the hallway and stood in a respectful attitude as his master entered.
There were two men waiting in the room.