guard made his exit.
Still playing the part of Mike, The Shadow trudged along a road that led
from the huge walls of the penitentiary. He reached the end of a trolley line.
A car was waiting there; but The Shadow did not enter it. instead, he took a
side road, cut along a path, and reached a parked coupe.
Long fingers opened the suitcase. Out came the black garments. A soft
laugh echoed from The Shadow's lips as the tall form entered the coupe. The
motor started. The car pulled away.
THE SHADOW had played a simple but effective game. Less than two hours
ago, Mike, the guard, had left the prison. He had gone downtown, changed his
uniform to civilian clothes at Caffrey's boarding house, and had continued on
his way.
Twenty minutes after Mike's departure, The Shadow had arrived disguised as
Mike. He had entered the penitentiary; had remained there long enough to make
his observations. Like the man whose part he had played, The Shadow had left
for the night. His ruse had succeeded to perfection.
Why had The Shadow paid this visit? Why had he risked the trip through
guarded gates and walls into a cell buried deep in the formidable prison?
The answer came hours later, when a light clicked in a pitch-black room.
White hands appeared beneath the glow of a bluish lamp. A rare stone, The
Shadow's girasol, sparkled upon a finger. The Shadow was in his sanctum.
Two folders appeared upon the table. These were records which The Shadow
had obtained from his secret archives. One bore the name of Ferris Legrand. The
Shadow opened it. Clippings and other papers came to view. The Shadow studied
them.
In his vast accumulations of crime data, The Shadow kept records of
thousands of cases. Crooks galore were labeled more thoroughly in his files
than they were by the police. Through extensive memoranda, The Shadow kept
track of criminals and their associates. He was always ready when new
developments of old crimes threatened to occur.
The study of the first folder ended, The Shadow turned to the second. This
bore the name of Slade Farrow. The first object that showed when the file opened
was a photograph of the man who occupied the cell with Ferris Legrand.
Sam Fulwell - Slade Farrow. The initials were the same. The latter name
was the correct one. Clippings were lacking in this folder. Letters, however,
appeared with differing dates. The Shadow's laugh came softly through the
sanctum.
These facts that concerned Slade Farrow were known only to The Shadow.
They gave all the details of the man's association with crime. They reached the
point where he had gone to jail, preserving his alias of Sam Fulwell.
The Shadow closed the second folder. His hands produced a map. A long
finger followed a thin, curving line that represented a railway on the
large-scale chart. The finger stopped upon a small city: Southfield.
WHITE paper appeared with blue ink. The Shadow's hand began to write. It
inscribed a letter in odd characters, a simple but effective code. The ink
dried; The Shadow folded the paper carefully and quickly inserted it in an
