Margo's query was split by a gasp that combined amazement with horror. In reply, Cranston nodded.

"Clyde Burke is covering for the Cla.s.sic," he explained. "They're letting him include a secretary's services on his expense sheet. You're elected, Margo.

The car was stopping in front of the Cla.s.sic building. Looking up at the offices of New York's most sensational newspaper, Margo repressed a brief attack of jitters. Since Clyde was going to Stanbridge Manor, Margo couldn't very well refuse. Both Clyde and Margo happened to be agents of The Shadow; what went forone, went for all.

Lips tightened, Margo stepped from the limousine. As the door swung shut, she turned and let her face relax into a smile, as she queried: "What about you, Lamont? You'll be there, won't you?"

From the moving car came a strange, suppressed tone, the echo of a weird, sinister laugh that didn't seem to issue from Cranston's immobile lips, though it could have come from nowhere else. The limousine had turned the corner before Margo Lane realized the full significance of that sibilant token.

It meant that if Stanbridge Manor proved lacking in family ghosts, it would none the less receive a spectral visitant.

The Shadow!

CHAPTER VI.

AT THE MANOR.

BY daylight, Stanbridge Manor looked decrepit rather than fearsome, yet Margo Lane disliked the place the moment she saw it. The house was ugly, its sprawly wings out of proportion to its low two stories. Rather than improving the architecture, the watchtower made it look worse, for the tower itself appeared to be something that had been stuck in place as an afterthought.

Even when Clyde Burke drove his car under the porte-cochere, Margo felt no sensation of dread. She thought she would experience it when they went into the house, but the interior proved to be quite pleasant. In the afternoon, the great hall caught the full sunlight and looked very cheery, while the burning logs in the fireplace added a cozy effect.

Clyde was affably received by some fellow reporters, who promptly introduced him to Dr. Torrance. Next came the members of the Stanbridge family and to Margo they were somewhat disappointing. Gustave looked like a man who was only slightly worried; Jennifer seemed a kindly old lady; while Roger was quite as affable as the reporters. Certainly there was nothing sinister about any of the three, at this first meeting.

As for Wiggam, the former caretaker showed every mark of integrity, while Hector, attired in a fresh white coat, was all that a family servant should be.

Margo was beginning to take the ghost hunt very lightly, when Clyde introduced her to the chief partic.i.p.ant, the celebrated Dunninger.

Instantly Margo was impressed.

There was something about Dunninger that promised results. He was a tall man, with dark eyes that fixed steadily on everyone he met. He seemed to be weighing this house in terms of people, as a preliminary to his search for ghosts. When he spoke, his tone was firm, direct. He was asking questions concerning the house, its history, and the reported manifestations, as though such queries were vital to the coming probe.

Finished with questions, Dunninger opened his investigator's kit and everyone crowded up to view its contents. Dunninger explained the purpose of various items as he placed them on a table.

FIRST there was a steel measuring tape, for checking the exact dimensions of rooms and pa.s.sages, the initial step for uncovering secret hiding places inold houses. Along with the tape went b.a.l.l.s of string and sticks of varicolored chalk, to aid the same general purpose, since measurements could be made with string, particularly around corners, and chalk marks used to identify the points of measurement.

There were some heavy fish weights, by which the string could be transformed into a plumb line, for vertical measurements. Another very useful item was a carpenter's level, Dunninger explaining that in certain houses, a slight tilt of a floor could account for a considerable s.p.a.ce at the other side of the house.

To ill.u.s.trate this, Dunninger used a pencil and a sketch pad, also part of his equipment, to make a long V lying on its side, one arm of the V representing a down-slanting ceiling, the other an uptilted floor above it. He had run across just such an arrangement in another old house that he had investigated.

Next, Dunninger produced a flask of mercury and poured the silvery liquid into a small bowl. Apparently the mercury was to serve as another agent for determining levels, but Dunninger explained that it had an added purpose.

Placed anywhere in the house, the mercury could be watched for tremors. Should it show any, it would indicate that someone was moving along the floor in that vicinity, thus making the mercury vibrate.

It was evident from Dunninger's accent on the word "someone" that he was thinking in terms of something more substantial than a ghost. This was proven when Dunninger brought out three pairs of huge felt slippers, large enough to slide over a person's shoes. He stated that should occasion demand, he would let some of the reporters put on the slippers and move to certain portions of the house.

Travel in such slippers being absolutely noiseless, this would be a perfect way to trap a "ghost" that happened to be a human prowler.

There were many other things in Dunninger's kit: brush and graphite for developing fingerprints; movie cameras geared for remote control; other cameras for still pictures, fitted with odd gadgets; all the materials, even to black curtains, needed for dark-room development; also packages containing films of special type.

If any ghost, living or dead, hoped to slip past Dunninger, it would be living up to its spooky reputation and more.

About ready to set up his equipment, Dunninger took time out to draw a rough floor plan of Stanbridge Manor. Having already gone over the premises with Dr. Torrance, he was able to make a very satisfactory sketch.

On the ground floor, the great hall was the central apartment, serving as a living room. Entering from the front, there was a stairway directly to the right, going up to the second floor. In the deep left corner of the living hall was the doorway leading into the dining room. Around through the dining room was a door leading into the kitchen, which was directly behind the hall, but not connected with it. From a corner of the kitchen, back stairs went up to the second floor.

So much for the left wing of the house. To the right of the hall, apa.s.sage went under the stairs and ran directly into a much longer pa.s.sage, set at right angles to the first. This long pa.s.sage ran the full length of the house, from front to back. Starting from the front, there was a door on the right, leading into an overstuffed parlor, seldom used.

Near the rear of the pa.s.sage, on the left, was a door into a storeroom, which had once connected with the kitchen, but which had been part.i.tioned off, with a very solid and permanent wall. Farther back was a doorway on the right, leading into a music room behind the parlor.

Both parlor and music room had been living quarters when the Stanbridge family was larger.

At the very end of the pa.s.sage was another doorway on the left. This led outside and it was the back door that Jennifer used when she made her pilgrimages to the cemetery.

Now the important feature of all this was that no one entering the back door could possibly reach the second floor except by coming through the great hall, either to reach the front stairway or take the long trip around through the kitchen to gain the back stairs. In brief, the entire wing on the right was isolated from the rest of the ground floor.

ON the second floor, the stairs coming up struck right into a pa.s.sage, except for a little hallway just to the left of the stairs, where there was a small writing table and a cloak rack. This pa.s.sage ran above the rear of the great hall below.

There were two doorways on the left, opening into bedrooms above the great hall. There were two on the right, one into a bedroom over the storeroom, another into a bedroom over the kitchen. At the end was a door into a small bedroom above the front half of the dining room. The pa.s.sage took a turn and led to an isolated bedroom, reached through a door on the left, at the very end of the pa.s.sage. This was Hector's room, over the back half of the dining room.

A few other features were important. First, the back stairs came up between the two bedrooms over the kitchen and storeroom respectively. Above the pa.s.sage of the ground-floor right wing was the stairway leading up to the tower. Also, there was a room above the ground-floor parlor, covering the front half of the pa.s.sage as well.

There was no rear room upstairs, where the right wing was concerned.

Instead, there was a second-floor veranda, reached from the rear windows of the front room. Only it was impossible to reach the veranda by that route, because all of the windows were barred, as with the rest of the house.

This was called the Green Room and it was a guest room, as was the Blue Room at the other end of the pa.s.sage. The two front rooms belonged to Gustave and Roger respectively. The room above the kitchen was Jennifer's. The room just over the storeroom was a show place. It was called the Colonial Room because it had belonged to the original Stanbridge and was still furnished in its original style.

HAVING pointed out every feature of the floor plans, Dunninger stated thathe would next check the dimensions, with the reporters aiding him. He first inquired if any of the residents knew of any secret places in the house, only to receive emphatic headshakes from Gustave and Jennifer.

The only Stanbridge who looked doubtful was Roger. He remarked that he had left the manor at the tender age of twelve, when sent to boarding school, and had not returned until recently. But Roger had always believed that the old mansion must have possessed its quota of secret rooms or pa.s.sages. Unconvinced to the contrary, Roger stared hard at his brother and sister as he commented that he believed there were such hiding spots.

"An old wives tale," snapped Gustave, testily. "As the owner of Stanbridge Manor, I should know!"

"Say rather an old nurse's tale," inserted Jennifer. "I remember your old nurse, Roger. She feared the ghosts of this manor and tried to convince herself that they did not exist. So she blamed it on the house, making the absurd claim that people could sneak around through the walls."

Roger looked at old Hector, who shook his head as if he believed neither in ghosts nor pa.s.sages. That left only Wiggam to whom Roger turned appealingly.

"What do you think, Wiggam?"

"I really don't know, sir," replied the old caretaker. "Whatever we Wiggams know or believe, always comes directly from the head of the Stanbridge household."

"And I happen to be the head of the family," stormed Gustave. "Did I ever mention ghosts or pa.s.sages to you, Wiggam?"

"Never, sir," returned Wiggam. "I can take oath to it."

Gustave looked around the group triumphantly. Turning on his heel, Roger went through the arch under the front stairs to reach the pa.s.sage leading to the storeroom. When he returned, the reporters had finished measuring the great hall, under Dunninger's supervision.

Roger was carrying a hammer and chisel, while lesser tools were poking from his pockets. Giving Gustave a sharp look that included Jennifer, Roger addressed the group.

"If you find any suspicious spot," declared Roger, "you are welcome to tear it open, in wall, floor or ceiling. I have already spent money in repairing the mansion and I am willing to stand any further expense."

Handing the tools to Wiggam, Roger suggested that the reporters continue with their measurements, to which Dunninger agreed. He was busy at present marking chalk lines along the fireplace, so Roger turned around and conducted the reporters to the right wing of the house.

Margo went with them to write down the measurement. They started with the pa.s.sage, where Roger asked Clyde for a piece of chalk, to mark the floor at each length of the tape. The chalk proved unnecessary, because the tape stretched the entire way, registering the length of the pa.s.sage as forty feet, six inches.

Returning the chalk to Clyde, Roger took the tape into the parlor and placed the tape end against the front wall. Clyde drew the tape box to the rear of the room and checked the distance at exactly twenty feet. Eagerly Rogersuggested that they measure the music room, to learn how the two tallied.

They tallied exactly. The music room was just twenty feet from front to back. The extra six inches of the pa.s.sage accounted for the wall between them.

"Nothing wrong there," decided Clyde, while Margo was writing down the data. "What comes next, the storeroom?"

Nodding, Roger stepped into the storeroom, only to turn back and plant the coiled tape in Clyde's hand.

"You measure the storeroom, Burke," suggested Roger, "while I go around to the kitchen and tap the wall. The two rooms used to connect, years ago.

Gustave said they were walled up so the house could be heated more easily. I want to know if he is right."

Clyde had just finished measuring the storeroom when Roger began to thump the kitchen wall, which sounded solid enough. The next step was to measure the kitchen and check the combined length by the breadth of the great hall. Seeing the tool box in the storeroom, Clyde looked for another tape, but there wasn't any, so he decided to continue the measurements one by one.

It was a slow process, but Dunninger didn't seem to mind. He was busy, not only with chalk and tape, but with other items that he intended to place about the house. As they went through the mansion, making careful measurements, they kept crossing Dunninger's path, and Margo gained the idea that the psychic investigator preferred to keep the others occupied while he was preparing special arrangements of his own.

Something special would certainly be needed. Storeroom and kitchen had checked properly with the great hall, less another six inches for an intervening wall. Upstairs, the measurements were clicking in the same exact style. Dusk was approaching and so far there wasn't a thing wrong with Stanbridge Manor.

It seemed that Dunninger, the ghost hunter, would have to wait until the spooks appeared, before he could begin to track them. Ghosts weren't apt to arrive until after dark, a thought that gave Margo a trifling shudder.

What repressed the shudder was Margo's recollection that The Shadow, too, would visit Stanbridge Manor after dark!

CHAPTER VII.

HOUR OF GHOSTS.

THE conductor of the evening train stared at the ticket which bore the name "Willow Glen." Next, he took a close look at the man who had given him the ticket. The man was calm-faced, distinguished in appearance, even to evening clothes.

The conductor decided that this pa.s.senger must have come from New York and changed to his present attire in a drawing room on board the limited before he transferred to the branch train at the junction. This supposition was justified by the fact that the pa.s.senger carried a sizable suitcase with him.

Noting the conductor's stare, the pa.s.senger lifted his eyebrows in slightly questioning fashion.

"Excuse me, mister," said the conductor. "I was just wondering if you'd picked the right station. Willow Glen is a picnic grounds. People don't go therein evening clothes, even in the picnic season."

The calm pa.s.senger smiled.

"Don't you ever have pa.s.sengers to Willow Glen at this time of the year?"

"Had one the other night," admitted the conductor. "Only he was an old fellow with s.h.a.ggy hair. Looked like he was going over the hill to the poorhouse. That's where the road from Willow Glen does lead, come to think of it."

Lamont Cranston let his lips straighten.

"I know," he declared calmly. "That is where I am going, too."

It didn't sound logical to the conductor, considering that Cranston represented wealth, both in manner and attire. As if to change the subject, Cranston suggested: "Tell me some more about the old man."

The conductor gave a better description than he realized. Not for a moment did he suspect that the old man of the other night could have been Carl Dorthan, whose picture had appeared in many newspapers.

Like most everyone else, the conductor believed that Dorthan was dead, so cleverly had the embezzler covered up his tracks, leaving a scapegoat named Goodwin to take the blame for his crimes. Yet the conductor, despite himself, was describing Dorthan, at least to Cranston's satisfaction.

s.h.a.ggy hair stood for a wig, in The Shadow's language. A m.u.f.fler would suffice to cover Dorthan's rather conspicuous chin. The crouch was just another symbol of faked age on Dorthan's part. Most important, however, was the conductor's statement that the "poor old fellow" kept gripping his satchel like everything he owned was in it.

That stood for the hundred thousand dollars that Dorthan had carried with him to his rendezvous at Stanbridge Manor, the place where The Shadow hoped to also uncover a couple of other swindlers named Crispin and Freer.

"I'm glad to hear about the old man," declared Cranston, with a solemn nod.

"He happens to be my uncle."

The conductor gawked.

"Your uncle!"

"That's right," a.s.sured Cranston. "An independent old chap. Doesn't like it because I've been supporting him. So every few months he packs up and scuds for a poorhouse. Clever, the way he chooses them, but I always find him.

"My office keeps contact with all the poorhouses in the country. We notify them whenever my uncle disappears. When we locate him, I have to call personally to collect him. He won't go home with anyone but myself."

The locomotive was whistling for Willow Glen. The conductor shook his head as he pulled the bell cord for the stop. Picking up his suitcase, Cranston clapped a hand on the conductor's shoulder.

"Next time you see my uncle," suggested Cranston, "just say to him: 'Ebenezer Throckmorton, your nephew, Clarence, won't like it when he learns you've run away. Go right home or I'll have to tell him where you are.' That will send him."

The conductor was still nodding, when the train stopped. He saw Cranston alight, look about, then lay his suitcase aside to light a cigarette as though expecting a car to come for him from the poorhouse.

As soon as the train pulled out, Cranston opened his suitcase and disappeared into the cloaked personality of The Shadow. A low laugh stirredthe darkness, as The Shadow put the suitcase under the station platform. Then, with only a slight swish to mark his departure, The Shadow started along the path that led to Willow Glen, with a by-route to Stanbridge Manor.

MEANWHILE, Dunninger had completed his preparations at the mansion. The last place examined was the watchtower, where the alleged ghost had appeared.

But there wasn't anything wrong about the tower. The landing at the head of the stairs was solid under foot and the tower itself was innocent. After drawing the landing door shut, Dunninger examined it and agreed that it had probably been properly barred.

The same applied to the door at the bottom of the stairs. After closing it and sealing it with special tape that formed part of his equipment kit, Dunninger stepped into the old Colonial Room, to examine the antique furniture.

Wondering what the furniture had to do with ghosts, Margo soon learned that the answer was nothing. It merely happened that Dunninger was interested in antiques and was taking a short recess from his ghost-hunting activities.