Shadow 001 - The Living Shadow

CHAPTER XX A LETTER FOR HARRY

“MR. VINCENT?”

“Yes.”

“This is the clerk at the desk. There’s a letter here for you. Shall I send it up to your room?”

“Right away.”

Harry Vincent opened the door of his room and awaited the arrival of the bell boy. This was quick action.

He had visited Fellows shortly before five o’clock, and had been instructed to return to his room at the Metrolite Hotel to await orders. It was now only half past seven.

The letter arrived. It was in a long envelope which bore no return address. Harry opened it at the writing table, and saw that it was in the simple code he knew. The figure “1” appeared at the bottom.

He read the message with ease, for only a few letters had been substituted. Yet there were enough to make the note unintelligible to any one other than Vincent.

His reading was accomplished with care.

“Report to the Excelsior Garage,” the message read. “You will find a taxicab there in your name. Put on the uniform that is in the back seat. You will find another note in the pocket. Lose no time.”

Harry stared at the message and read it a second time. Then he blinked his eyes. The writing was slowly disappearing. In a few seconds it had gone!

He held the paper close to the light.

Not the slightest trace of any ink remained.

Harry dropped the sheet of paper in the wastebasket. Now he knew what had happened to the letter that Fellows had been reading in the insurance office. He also appreciated what Fellows had meant when he had remarked that it would be unnecessary to destroy any messages that he might receive.

Harry had not yet eaten dinner, but he did not wait for that. He looked up the Excelsior Garage in the phone book, found that it was located on Tenth Avenue, and took a taxi in that direction.

He dismissed the vehicle some distance from the garage. It was obvious that he was to pose as a cab driver, and he did not know whether or not taximen hired the cabs of others during their leisure hours. Probably they did. Nevertheless, he could avoid any complications by arriving on foot.

He entered the garage and mentioned his name.

“So you’re the fellow that has the cab,” said the attendant. “It’s been waiting for you for a couple of days. All fixed up and ready to go.”

“Where is it?”

“Over in the corner.”

Harry found the cab and looked in the back seat. He saw the uniform and felt in the pocket. The note was there.

He turned on the light in the cab, opened the envelope, and read another message with substituted letters.

“Come to Wang Foo’s before ten o’clock. Drive past. Circle the block and drive by a second time. Then park around the corner at the end of the street. Keep the cab out of sight, but loaf near the corner and watch down the block.

“When you see a Chinaman come from the tea shop, hurry back to the cab and be ready to pick up a man who will he coming from Wang Foo’s. If he does not arrive within one minute, drive down the street and watch for a passenger at the other end. The man may go the opposite way. Take him where he desires and remember his destination. Watch the meter. Collect.”

A notation following the message gave Wang Foo’s address. This was important. Harry had been to Wang Foo’s - he remembered the visit all to well - but he had been taken by a round-about way, and until now he had no idea as to the exact location of the place.

He was due before ten o’clock. That would give him time to get some dinner. He dressed in the cab.

The driver’s uniform fitted him well. He noted a picture that looked something like himself and bore the name Harry Patman. That would be well to remember. The first name was his own.

Evidently the person whom he was to pick up would be a stranger who might suspect something wrong if the card were not in its place.

Harry picked up the note, which was lying on the seat, and observed that the writing had disappeared. This reminded him that it had borne the number “2,” so he took a blank diary from his suit and crossed out the first and second days of January. That seemed a good way to keep a record. Then he folded the suit and put it under the back seat.

It was his first experience at the wheel of a taxicab. He knew the streets of New York fairly well, and did not worry about the traffic; but he felt strange in his disguise.

He saw a lunch room on Tenth Avenue. He parked his cab and had dinner.

There was plenty of time before he was due at the corner above Wang Foo’s. Harry did not particularly relish the thought of loitering too long in that section on the border of Chinatown. Neither did he care to drive about in the cab. He might have to argue with prospective passengers who would not be satisfied with his statement that the empty cab was engaged. So he lingered in the lunch room after he had finished eating.

Gauging his time for the trip to Chinatown, Harry set forth in the cab. He kept to the streets and avenues where traffic was not heavy and drove rather slowly. He passed several persons who shouted and whistled for his services, but paid no attention and kept on his way.

It was eight minutes of ten when he reached his destination. He rolled slowly down the street in front of Wang Foo’s and felt his nerves tingle as he passed the front of that grim, foreboding building where he had so narrowly escaped death.

He circled the block in accordance with the instructions of the message and rode by the tea shop a second time. Then he came back to the corner above the building and parked the cab in a convenient space.

There were not many persons on the street. The district was dismal and forlorn. But the few who passed - among them some Chinese - paid no attention to the man in the cab driver’s uniform.

The night was a trifle chilly. Harry walked up and down the street beside the cab, swinging his arms. His action was natural, and, as he reached the corner, he swung around in a casual way so that he could catch a view of Wang Foo’s tea shop.

He continued his patrol for half an hour. It became monotonous. He expected some sign of the mysterious Chinaman each time he reached the corner. But he was constantly disappointed.

Harry began to count the number of turns he made in his short walk. Ten - twenty - thirty - and still the same monotonous patrol. But he kept on, back and forth.

Eleven o’clock went by. Then half past eleven. It was approaching midnight, and the pretended taxi driver still continued to pace the sidewalk.