The Shadow Box — Virginia Coffman

INTO THE NIGHT...

How can a woman live happily and plan a normal future when the man she expects to marry may not be the man he claims to be... and may not be sane? -- Margaret asked herself these and other frightening questions as she faced the eerie darkness of the old chateau. The Shadow Box -- the huge old place was called that because every face it presented to the world concealed a different actuality. And the realities grew more and more sinister... as if she had entered a country where oppressive night reigned eternally, and from which no outlander ever returned.

Christian St. Var and Denis Bourdon -- had they literally switched identities? Which was the artist; which the aristocrat? Why was her future husband unable to relieve the fears that tormented her? The questions grew and grew as the blackness seemed to weave tangible tentacles around her...

A DATE WITH DEATH?

Denis Bourdon was getting into a big, black, carefully ancient Rolls-Royce, surrounded by the odd trio that had flushed him out of the restaurant. The car drove away. If this was a kidnap attempt, I thought weakly, it was pretty brazen…

Margaret Farrell had been determined not to become involved with the mysterious man who called himself Denis Bourdon. But now she had no choice. He had disappeared completely, and was very possibly dead. Margaret was the only person with a clue. And she was alone in a strange country, with no one to turn to for help -- and she wasn't even sure Denis Bourdon was the man he claimed to be!

Margaret had many questions, and the answers -- if any -- lay within that strange chateau called the Shadow Box. Danger was there, too, but Margaret had to face it bravely…

EDGE OF FEAR…
I saw him first at the sidewalk café in the little village of St. Var. I should have known from the first minute he smiled at me in that special way, with the crinkle under his eyes, the way his mouth curved so unlike his cousin's, but sensitively, affecting me in a way I could scarcely admit even to myself.
Christian St. Var, the man was supposedly insane.
I should be very much afraid of him. I was not -- but I wondered, puzzled over the disappearance of Denis Bourdon. I was not afraid -- but I was uneasy…