Had Marquette thought further, he might have realized that The Shadow's
heroic efforts were all on Chet's account; that justice could better be served
by letting an innocent man remain at large, rather than having him become the
victim of a frame-up that enemies unknown had planned.
SINCE such fine points slipped past Vic Marquette, it wasn't surprising
that Chet Conroy failed to consider them at all. For Chet hadn't seen even the
beginning of The Shadow's amazing circuit of the factory yard. At present, Chet
was attributing his escape to his own resourceful ability.
Chet was a mile away from the Pyrolac factory, perched between two of the
box cars that the switcher had hauled through the closing gate. He'd simply done
the obvious thing. Needing those cars as shelter, he'd grabbed a handrail when
he saw that the short train was gathering speed enough to pass him. Clutching
the grab iron, he'd hauled himself between the cars, hoping he wouldn't be seen
when the train went through the gate.
Clattering cars had drowned the gunfire in the yard. Chet didn't know that
the guards near the gate had dashed inward to start shooting at someone else. At
present, Chet considered himself quite safe where he was. The switcher was late
from the factory, hence its cars were being kicked onto the waiting freight
without further waste of time. Not being informed of the excitement back at the
Pyrolac plant, none of the brakemen bothered to inspect between the cars that
had come from there.
Chet kept crouched when the freight rattled from the yard. The train was a
fairly long one, but except for the box cars from the Pyrolac plant, it was made
up mostly of empties. Keeping low, Chet wasn't noticed by the pin puller who had
coupled on the loaded cars, but he still stayed crouched.
This train was going in the wrong direction. The crew had "horsed her
over," reversing the whole train in the yard, so it was going back past the
Pyrolac factory. With the lighted buildings heaving in sight, Chet was ready to
hit the dirt on the other side of the track if a roving searchlight decided to
pick up the passing freight along the railway line.
But the searchlights were still busy inside the plant. The clatter of the
train's increasing speed was music to Chet as he went by. He was glad when the
train reached blackness past the corner of the final building, even though it
meant farewell to the place where he had worked so long and liked so well.
Thick blackness this. Too deep to remind Chet of the fleeting blotch that
had looked so singularly human. So far, Chet hadn't begun to think in actual
terms of his rescuer, The Shadow. If he had, he might have realized that this
passing freight could prove useful to The Shadow, too; that the fringe of
darkness just beyond the Pyrolac buildings was the place where a cloaked
passenger would logically swing on board the full train, exactly as Chet had
taken refuge among the shunting cars.
THERE were other things for Chet to think about. First, that sabotage job
back in the plant. Knowing that he hadn't manipulated the needler that was in
his safe, Chet recognized that the machine must be a blind; hence his mind
reverted to the idea that the Pyrolac had been doctored during processing.
That theory exploded itself.
