Another very good shadow story. This story starts out with a man named Henry Windsor who is talking to Frank Jarrow about Henry's brother, Blair. Apparently Henry is in danger, but before Frank can tell him everything someone shoots and kills him. It all makes it look like Henry was the one who killed him, though.
A Detective Griffith comes to investigate the scene of the murder. A small piece of paper is found that might be a clue. He figures out a lot of other things and appears to be a detective with keen powers of observation and analysis. Griffith is killed by a fake reporter, the murderer from ch. 1. Some background of Fellows is given. Fellows talks to Lamont Cranston and begins to doubt that he is the Shadow.
The Shadow investigates where the murder took place, then checks out the morgue and begins to put things together. The Shadow talks to the real Lamont Cranston and explains how he uses Cranston's identity, then persuades the real Cranston to leave for a trip to Europe the next day.
In one of the typical twisty things that happen in Shadow novels, the Shadow
disguises himself as a crook (Reds) and talks to another crook (Spotter) who realizes the it's the Shadow he's talking to. A trap is set up to kill the Shadow, but the real Reds shows up and is killed instead.
Birdie Crull and Issac Coffran talk. Crull is the one who killed Windsor and Griffith.
Spotter meets a crook involved in counterfeit money. The Shadow is there watching them. The Shadow is disguised as a burglar. A federal agent shows up, but the real crook gets the drop on him and destroys the phoney bills that could have been used as evidence. The Shadow saves the agent, but other agents chase him, thinking he's a crook.
Harry Vincent misses two messages from the Shadow delivered in radio programs. He ends up captured by someone.
Spotter meets Tiger Bronson an underworld overlord. Later, the Shadow searches Bronson's rooms. Bronson wants to set a trap using Spotter at Loo Look's opium den. The Shadow shows up and there's a furious battle. Tiger Bronson meets his end.
Harry Vincent gets beat up (he seems to spend a lot of his time getting beaten up). He ends up meeting someone named Issac Coffran who is an archenemy of The Shadow!. Harry ends up being tortured in an iron-maiden type of device.The situation gets a lot worse for Harry and a would-be rescuer, but the Shadow shows up in time to save them.
The crooks get away, but then decide they need to return to kill the Shadow and make sure the other two men are dead so there would be no one would could testify against them. There's a lot of furious action towards the end, with the criminals paying the price for their crimes.
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