At the Cobalt Club, there was a party going on that had the class and sound that could only be found during the early 1940's. Men dressed in grey and black suits and sat at tables with their elegant girlfriends, sipping drinks and listening to a hot swing band.
Lamont Cranston was there, with a Rita Hayworth-like redhead on one arm, and a Betty Grable-like blonde on the other. Both were enamored of him, and hung on his every glance and word. He had just returned from the Orient, but the social scene had welcomed him back as if he had never left.
At another table, young Dr. Charles McNider sat with an adoring brunette in an emerald green dress. Even with his specially tinted glasses, McNider was a figure of high style.
If one could take one's eyes off Cranston's companions, or off the swinging band, or even off the lovely cigarette girls who walked from table to table, one would notice a man standing at the bar. He wore a suit, but of a kind that was out-of-style. His mustache looked like something from the 1800's. His monocle, along with his regal bearing, marked him as a man of distinction, if not of the current fashion. He thought back on the days when he used to be the center of the party scene, as well as one of the major figures in crime in New York City. That was years ago, however. He had to find a source of steady money, or this would be the last time he would be able to go to the Cobalt Club.
Lamont was listening to the Betty Grable-lookalike chatter at him when he spotted Margo Lane from across the room. She wore a ruby red gown that was daringly cut, with a string of pearls to augment it. She was radiantly brunette and elegant, and one look at her kept Lamont's eyes on her the rest of the night, despite the attentions of his two dates.
Lamont excused himself from his female company in as polite a manner as was possible and walked over to Margo's table. She had been watching him, too, but she was not about to let him know this. She knew who Lamont Cranston was, and of his partying reputation. Even though his reputation preceded him, she still found something attractive about the rakish man.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Those two floozies not enough for you?"
"Not compared to an elegant woman such as yourself. You're Margo Lane, aren't you?" Lamont knew her from the many mentions of her name in the social columns in papers like the Daily Sentinel.
"I could be. But then, if I were Margo Lane, I wouldn't be wasting my time talking to a party boy like you, would I?"
Lamont chuckled. He liked her sense of humor, and the light in her blue eyes let him know that she was at least somewhat attracted to him. "Well, if you see Margo, let her know that Lamont Cranston would like to take her out sometime."
"I'll let her know," Margo chuckled, "but only because you asked so nicely."
Lamont enjoyed his return to New York's nightlife, but it gave him little satisfaction. He longed to fulfill his mission, to battle the forces of the underworld. And although the Maggia and other families were not as flagrant with their criminal activity as they had been before the repeal of Prohibition, crime was still rampant in New York.
He began to study the criminal underworld intensely. Whenever he could, he would speak to the police, reads every section of the newspaper every morning, to find out as much as he can about the patterns of the criminals in the city.
In the dimly lit stacks of the New York Public Library, he came upon a well-dressed middle-aged man who noticed the huge stack of criminal psychology books that Lamont was carrying.
"So you have an interest in crime, do you? I know things about crime that no book can tell you."
Lamont didn't need to use his mind-reading abilities too much to know that the man was telling the truth, and that his inquisitor needed money, too. An insider opinion on the workings of the underworld in New York certainly wouldn't hurt.
After a few months, Lamont learned a great deal from his new mentor. His mentor revealed himself to be Gentleman Jim Jowell, one of the foremost figures in New York City crime before the advent of the Maggia.
Gentleman Jim had been forced out of criminal activity by the increasing power of the Maggia and by his own disgust with the influx of drugs into the underworld. Gentleman Jim's influence in New York had faded with each member of his organization that was either gunned down or bought into working for the burgeoning Maggia.
But Gentleman Jim knew enough about his enemies to teach Lamont many things. Lamont learned about how the Maggia slowly worked its way into businesses that to all but those initiated in the ways of the underworld would think were perfectly legitimate. He learned about the layers of deception and the importance of loyalty to the families that were gaining a stranglehold over New York. To one so newly obsessed with justice, the knowledge of the corruption in New York City was shocking.
Lamont began to toy with taking on a new identity as a predator on the underworld. Even the darkest souls still had their shadows, and it was in these that he and his agents would lurk, and it was from the shadows that he would strike.
As the Shadow, he began to go after small-time crooks and neighborhood protection rackets. He enjoyed frustrating the forces of the underworld.
One winter night, in a private club, in a seedy corner of the city, six middle-aged men in their twenties and thirties sat around a table. On the table was a rich feast of Italian food: spaghetti, ravioli, fettuccine, and a delicious loaf of bread. The wine flowed as the men talked and laughed. At the center of the table was a charismatic, dapper young man.
"Well, boys, I have to tell ya, I'm pretty happy with the way things are going."
"Even with this new Shadow guy out there?"
"C'mere, Nunzio," the dapper man said. His loyal soldier did as he was told. Once Nunzio was close enough, the dapper young man whacked him lightly over the head.
"That's for interrupting me. You didn't think I knew about the Shadow? Well you're wrong! Now sit down! " Joey took a sip of his wine. "Yeah, I do know about this Shadow guy, and let me tell you, he ain't nothing. He ain't done too much yet, anyway, but I'm not going to give him the chance. He's just been lucky. We're going to take this Shadow and step on him!"
"Joey, can I talk now?" The smallest one of the six had a particularly subordinate look on his face. When Joey grunted his assent, the man began talking. "Some of our guys saw Gentleman Jim out at O'Riley's Market the other day."
"Gentleman Jim!" Joey exclaimed with a knowing chuckle. "That's a name I haven't heard in a while . . . and one that nobody's going to hear about anymore. Little Tony, you and Sonny get some of the guys together and find him on the way back home from that market. You know what to do."
The group dissolved back into laughter and rude jokes as the night went on.
It had been rather pleasant and worth the risk for Gentleman Jim to go out the last couple of weeks for groceries. Although Gentleman Jim was used to the finer things in life, after nearly being killed by the Silvermane branch of the Maggia, the little things in life were all the more enjoyable.
If he could be sure that nobody would bother him, he thought it would almost be a good idea to go straight. Maybe after he trained this Cranston guy and got all the money that he had promised, Jim would move out to California and get a nice place in one of the communities that was developing out there. It would be better to spend his later years in a nice dry climate anyway.
He kept daydreaming as he walked back to the secret entrance for Cranston's apartment building. A black Studebaker pulled up next to him on the street.
"Excuse me, do you know a guy by the name of Gentleman Jim Jowell?"
Gentleman Jim turned and looked at the men in the car. Two of them picked up tommy guns and instantly shot him to death. The gangsters kept shooting him until his corpse danced on the sidewalk.
The Studebaker sped away down a secret route that led quickly back through the alleyways to their hideout.
Gentleman Jim, the man who had taught the Shadow the fine art of detecting crime, was dead.
Cranston had been buying a present for his first date with Margo when he heard the shots ring out. There was his mentor, dead on the street, with thirty or more bullet holes in him. Even though he had not seen it happen, he had a feeling it was the work of the Silvermane family. He didn't think that Lamont Cranston could get any answers as to who shot Gentleman Jim, but the Shadow might.
It was time to go into action and take his revenge.
He called Margo and asked if they could get together later than he had planned. Lamont made the excuse of some last-minute business that he had to take care of, which was apparently enough for Margo. She was special, and definitely worth more of his time than the floozies he had been squiring around town.
That night, he assembled the Shadow costume that he had been perfecting. A black overcoat would allow him to carry his pistols without anyone seeing them, and it would allow him to carry other devices he might need. A red scarf would help cover his face, which he would disguise with the help of the skills he had learned in the Orient. A large fedora completed the costume, and lent him the aspect of a back raven of the night, out to haunt the dreams of the city's criminals.
He pressed his mystic ring to summon Moe the cab driver.
Within moments Moe's cab screeched up to the secret entrance to Lamont Cranston's apartment building. Like a black tongue of flame, the Shadow leapt into the cab.
"Drive . . . drive to 300 Mulberry Street . . . "
"You want me to drive into Little Italy? The Silvermane boys are going to be watching my every move!"
"You will DRIVE to 300 MULBERRY STREET and let me out."
Moe's voice became lulled and sleepy. "Yes, I will."
Moe dropped the Shadow off at 300 Mulberry Street, the hideout of the Silvermane family. It also happened to be the Happy Times Comedy Club, a spot that most of the people in Little Italy, either
" . . . that was no lady, that was my wife!"
The group of six gangsters chuckled at the comedian who was being paid to give them a personal performance. It was part of their reward for having successfully bumped off Gentleman Jim.
They were laughing so hard they barely noticed another laugh join them. It was a dark, sinister laugh, that seemed to issue from somewhere in the shadows of the room.
The voice kept laughing. The gangsters looked around for the source of the laugh. One of them, Sonny, pulled a pistol slowly from his coat.
"Who's there?" he demanded, pointing the barrel of the pistol in no particular direction.
The gang members jumped behind tables as the Shadow's bullets ripped into the walls. He fired so rapidly that they barely had time to react.
"The ones who killed Gentleman Jim Jowell will step FORWARD."
Two of the gangsters began acting nervously. How would anyone know that they had shot Gentleman Jim? As far as the others in the car had seen, there were no witnesses to the shooting.
"Who says we know anything about Gentleman Jim?" Little Tony called out boldly. He fit perfectly the stereotype of the diminutive crook with a chip on his shoulder, and he was afraid of nothing. "You come out here and show your face before you accuse us of murder in our own place."
The other gangsters gathered up their courage and pulled out their own pistols. A shadow seemed to detach itself from the dimly lit wall, then gather itself up into a ravenlike, cloaked form.
"Blow him down!"
But the gangsters had no time to do this. The Shadow flew amongst them, gunning them down with his automatic pistols. His bullets penetrated even the tables that two of the gangsters attempted to hide behind.
The Shadow stood in the center of the room, his twin automatic pistols smoking. He heard whimpering coming from behind the curtain.
"Please don't kill me, Mister! I'll do anything!"
The Shadow leapt to the stage and pulled back the curtain. He revealed the cringing form of the comedian who had been entertaining the gangsters.
"You will, will you? Well, then. You will go back to your employer, Joseph Silvermane, and you will tell him that the Shadow has struck. And I will keep striking, until I have removed every trace of his slime from this city!"
The Shadow heard a groan from behind a table. It was Little Tony. The Shadow walked over and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him up.
"And if I EVER see you in this city again, I won't be so compassionate."
With that, the Shadow dropped Little Tony and gathered himself up into his black, ghostly form, and disappeared into the half-light of the nightclub. The comedian slowly got up from where he was hiding, and made his way through the carnage in the club toward the exit.
The Shadow and Moe were driving back to Lamont Cranston's apartment building, passing over the Manhattan Bridge. About midway across the bridge the Shadow saw a well-dressed man standing at the edge, ready to jump off. The Shadow ordered Moe to stop the car.
Harry Vincent had tried hard to make it in the big city, but given the lack of need for his skills as a music teacher, he was almost totally out of money. The bottom of the East River seemed like the best place for a failure like him.
But that was before a ghostly hand pulled him back from the bridge's railing.
"Surely your life is worth more than that, my friend."
Harry turned to see the cowled visage of the Shadow facing him.
"Come with me, and I will give you a new life as one of my assistants. I will give you a new purpose, which I think is just what you need."
The Shadow handed Harry Vincent a ring with a ruby red stone.
"This ring will signal you when I have need of you.
"When I or one of my agents call for you, we will use a password. The password is this: 'The sun is shining, but the ice is slippery.' I will give you the first part of the phrase; you will give me the second part. Can you do that? 'The sun is shining . . . "
" . . . But the ice is slippery," Vincent replied.
"Be mindful . . . I will be calling on you soon!"
The cab stopped, and Harry got out. As the cab sped away into the Manhattan midnight, Harry looked at his ring, and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
On the other side of town, a museum curator readied himself to look in the crate that had just been delivered. He had a small notebook handy to record his observations. Surely, the speech he would give to the International Association of Archaeologists about the contents of this crate would get him noticed-maybe he would even get that position at the British Museum!
He blew the dust off the top of the crate, and then readied his crowbar. He could hardly wait to open the crate!
However, just as he was about to pry the top off, his assistant called him back into the office to show him an inconsistancy in the books. Little did the curator know that it would be a long while before he would ever be able to get back to opening the crate . . .
Continued in The Shadow #3! The Shadow investigates a murder mystery!
Portions of this issue were inspired by the Shadow pulp "The Living Shadow", originally published April 1931.