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Weird Tales
Part One
Vol. X, No. 2
August 1927
Part Two
Vol. X, No. 3
September 1927
Conclusion
Vol. X, No. 4
October 1927
Custom eBook created by
Jerry eBooks
December 2017
CHAPTER 1
THE POCK-MARKED MAN
“ALAN, that man has followed us here! Look!”
Alan Buell glanced guardedly in the direction indicated by the frightened blue eyes of his dancing partner. He saw two men seated at a table edging the dance floor. The one nearest him did not appear extraordinary—just a plain man-about-town, middle-aged and a bit portly—the kind one meets at every turn in Chicago’s places of amusement. The other presented a striking figure. He was tall and broad-shouldered and sat with the erect carriage of a soldier. A black, square-cut beard hid the lower part of his features, accentuating the prominence of his aquiline nose, above which his heavy eyebrows met in a straight line. In his piercing black eyes as they swept the room was the look of one accustomed to command.
Alan’s eyes returned to those of his troubled fiancée as the intervening dancers shut the black-bearded man from view, and he smiled slightly.
“I don’t know that we can do anything about it, Doris, “he said. “This is a free country, you know, and we’re in a public cafe.”
Doris Lee pouted prettily.
“I wish you would be serious for just one minute, Alan. You know that man has stared at me across the orchestra pit all season. I haven’t been able to enjoy the opera one bit on account of him. Now he grows bolder and follows us to this cafe. Of course he hasn’t done anything one could openly resent, but I’ve noticed his covert glances time and again, and I’m afraid.”
“Perhaps,” replied Alan, dryly, “he thought you were staring at him and was trying to confirm his suspicions.”
“Alan Buell, you are exasperating tonight. If you could only realize how I feel. Why, I fairly shudder every time we pass that table.”
When they passed the black-bearded man again Alan looked at him with unconcealed ire. He was lazily lighting a long Oriental cigarette, the while he attended the animated conversation of his companion.
The music stopped with a raucous syncopated wail and they returned to their table.
“If that man makes you nervous let’s go somewhere else,” suggested Alan.
He summoned the waiter and asked for the check.
“I don’t believe I care to dance any more. My nerves are in shreds. Take me home, please.”
As they made their way between the tables many admiring glances were cast on Doris by the late diners. Alan noticed them, and although he had always been proud of her sparkling beauty, somehow he resented the attentions paid her at the moment. Ho looked sharply at the black-bearded man, but that individual still appeared absorbed in the conversation of his pudgy companion.
Pausing to don his topcoat at the check stand while Doris walked slowly ahead, Alan suddenly heard a scream of terror. He ran forward, hatless, an awful fear gripping his heart. The doorman, resplendent in blue and gold braid, lay on the floor, blood trickling from a gash in his temple. Beyond him two men were dragging
Doris, kicking, struggling and screaming, into a waiting car!
Alan reached the running board with a frantic leap, just as the car started. He wrenched at the handle of the rear door but found it locked. A brutal, pock-marked face glared out at him. Beyond that face he saw Doris still struggling with the second man. In desperation he smashed the glass with his bare fist, and reaching within, grappled with the man with the pock-marked face.
The second abductor, seeing his companion in danger, suddenly whipped a blackjack from his pocket and brought it into play. At the first blow Alan hung on doggedly, but at the second he toppled from the now rapidly moving car, rolled over and over, and struck the curbing with a crash. Then came oblivion.
CHAPTER 2
THE MYSTIC SYMBOL
WHEN Alan Buell regained consciousness he was propped against the curbing, supported by two men. One was short and rotund of body, with a pink, babylike face. The other was a huge, burly individual with a bristling, iron-gray mustache and a half-concealed twinkle about his eyes that belied the frowning brow.
“Feeling better, boy?” he asked.
“I feel all right,” responded Alan, weakly attempting to rise. “Where’s Doris?”
“Whoa! Not so fast, lad, not so fast,” said the big man, restraining him. “Rest for a minute or two. Then we’ll let the doctor decide whether you leave in an ambulance or a taxi.”
“Is Doris safe?” he asked, still struggling to get up.
“Don’t know yet,” replied the big man, and there was a note of kindness in his voice despite its gruffness. “Four flivver squads are chasing the kidnapers, and the police all over the city are on the lookout for them. They ought to run them down soon.”
A coupe stopped near them with shrieking brakes, and a slender, grayhaired man carrying a surgical case stepped out.
“You made good time, Doc,” boomed the big man.
“Not so bad, Chief,” was the reply. He stopped beside Alan and examined him with deft, exploring fingers.
“No broken bones, only a few bruises and scratches,” he announced. “The left hand seems badly lacerated.”
For the first time Alan became conscious of the fact that his left hand pained him severely. The fingers were tightly clenched and ragged cuts smeared with half-dried blood showed on the knuckles.
“Looks as if you had been teasing a wildcat, “said the surgeon, moistening some cotton with the fluid from a bottle taken from his case. “Relax those muscles, man. Give your blood a chance to work for you.”
Alan opened his fingers stiffly. As he did so a small, glittering object fell from his grasp, clattering to the pavement.
“With a grunt of surprize, the big man retrieved it, then examined it curiously while the doctor dressed the injured digits. Presently he handed it to his shorter companion.
The latter, as soon as he saw it, showed intense amazement.
“My God, Chief!” he exclaimed; “what is such a symbol doing here?”
“Know what it represents?”
“Not in modern society. It’s like a voice from the tomb. I once studied——” He hesitated and looked significantly at Alan and the doctor. “Tell you about it later.”
“All right.” The big man took it from him, turned it a few times under the light, and dropped it in his vest pocket.
“Guess you’ve been holding Out on us, lad,” he said, when Alan, his hand swathed in bandages, was assisted to his feet. “I think you had better come along over to headquarters.”
“Who are you, anyhow?” asked Alan.
“I’m McGraw. This man is Hirsch, head of our fingerprint department. The man who dressed your wounds is Dr. Brown.”
Alan had real much of the activities of Chief of Detectives McGraw, and now recognized him as the subject of numerous photographs published in the newspapers when particularly striking exploits of his department had been brought to the public notice.
“Guess I should have recognized you before, Chief,” said Alan, “but my head was sort of fuddled from the blackjack.”
“Used a blackjack on you, did they?” said the chief good-naturedly. “Didn’t know whether you got those bumps before you fell or when you lit.”
�
��I wouldn’t have fallen so easily without them.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t, lad. Witnesses said you put up a pretty stiff fight, but they couldn’t see the clouts you got in the cab. My car is parked down by the cafe. We’ll get it and drive to headquarters.” The drive to headquarters, only four blocks distant, was a matter of minutes, but they seemed like hours to Alan, impatient for news of Doris. As he alighted from the car, his head still reeling from the blows of the kidnapers, it seemed that he was experiencing a hideous nightmare—that he must presently awaken to find it all a dream. When they reached the outer office the voice of the chief addressing a pale, slender young fellow industriously pounding the keys of a typewriter, recalled him to grim reality.
“Any news of the kidnaped girl, Jamison?” he inquired.
“Nothing yet, Chief.”
“Come into my office and bring your notebook.”
They followed the chief into the private office. He waved them to seats, unlocked his desk, raised the roll top and sat down heavily. From a lower drawer he produced a box, and offered some thick black cigars to all in turn. Jamison politely refused and Hirsch took a cigar. Alan looked at the stalwart Havanas with some misgivings.
“Have a smoke,” said the chief. “It’ll quiet your nerves.”
Somewhat in doubt about the effect on his nerves, Alan complied.
McGraw tucked a cigar far back in his cheek, lighted it, and leaned across the glass-topped table. Jamison rapidly thumbed the pages of his notebook, stopped, and held his pencil in readiness.
“Your name and address,” said McGraw.
“Alan Buell, 18 Circle Court,” he replied.
“You’re not the son of Will Buell, the importer?”
“Will Buell is my father.”
McGraw turned to Jamison.
“Put down ‘Buell & Son, Importers, West Kinzie Street.’ ”
The chief toyed for a moment with the small glittering object that had dropped from Alan’s hand.
“Who was the young lady with you?”
“Doris Lee, my fiancée, daughter of Professor Lee of Evanston.”
“Where did you get this?” The chief leaned forward suddenly and thrust the glittering object under Alan’s nose. It was a flat, square piece of beaten gold with a small ring, to which were attached a few links of chain. On one side a burnished convex disk stood out in relief. On the other was a raised figure of a throne surmounted by an eye.
Alan looked puzzled.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I never saw the thing before. What does it represent?”
“You know well enough what it represents or you wouldn’t have tried to hide it from me.”
“But I didn’t try to hide it.”
“What?” The chief scowled unbelievingly at him across the table.
“I think he’s tellin’ the truth, Chief,” Hirsch cut in. “Looks to me like he tore it off one of the kidnapers in the fight and had a kind of death-grip on it when they knocked him out.”
“Maybe you’re right at that. It looked suspicious the way he clutched it and then dropped it on the pavement. There are so many secret societies these days a man doesn’t know whom to trust.”
“I can assure you that I don’t belong to any of them,” said Alan with some show of spirit.
“I believe you, lad, but you know it’s the business of a detective to examine every possibility. I suggest that you jump in a taxi and go home now. We will notify Miss Lee’s parents and do all we can to save her. You’re not in shape to be of any help around here and a night’s rest will do you good. I’ll ring you up as soon as we get news of the girl.”
CHAPTER 3
A CLUE AND A TRAP
THE next morning Chief McGraw, his after-breakfast cigar tucked snugly in his cheek, drove up before headquarters and was about to step out of his car when he saw something across the street that caused him to pause in astonishment. Then, quickly leaping out, he crossed to where a cab was parked near the curb. He peered inside and saw Alan Buell, still in evening clothes, his head bandages awry and those on his hand presenting a rather soiled appearance, curled up on the cushions, sound asleep. He addressed the driver, who was nodding drowsily over the wheel.
“Where the devil have you been all night?”
“If you’d ask me where we ain’t been I could tell you better,” replied the driver. “Are you a friend of dis guy?”
“I’m McGrow of the detective bureau.”
“Holy cats! We didn’t do nothin’ but drive around, east, west, north and south. He slipped me fifty bucks and kept me goin’ first one way, then another. At six bells this mornin’ we’re clear to the city limits on the north side and I asks him where to. He says come back here. When we get here he’s poundin’ his ear just like you see him, so I park the car and wait for him to wake up. He’s still got about ten bucks worth of service comin’.”
“All right. Let him sleep. I suppose he’ll want to see me when he wakes up. I’ll be in the office until noon.”
“I’ll tell him, sir, when he wakes up.”
An hour later McGraw looked up from the stack of reports on his desk as Jamison entered.
“Mr. Buell to see you, Chief.”
“Show him in.”
Alan Buell, still in disheveled evening clothes, entered and took the chair indicated by the chief. The latter anticipated the question on his lips before he could speak.
“Sorry, lad. We have no news of Miss Lee yet.”
Alan’s face fell and he sat for a moment in sorrowful silence. When at length he spoke, there was a glint in his eyes and a determined set to his jaw.
“Chief, I wonder if you would do me a special favor?”
“What favor, lad?”
“I’d like a job—and an assignment to this case.”
McGraw removed his cigar from his cheek and stared at the youth in open-mouthed amazement.
“Why—er—I don’t know. Most of the men on my force have done their turn in the harness before they were promoted to this work. But what about your father and your business?”
“That’s all fixed up. I ’phoned Dad a few minutes ago and he told me to go to it if—if it would help to relieve my feelings. I don’t care about the pay—would rather that you wouldn’t pay me—but I’ve simply got to find Doris.”
“Hum. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make you a special officer. You can consider yourself hired, and your first orders are to go home and clean up and rest up. Drop in after lunch and I’ll start you off.”
PROMPTLY at 1 o’clock Jamison ushered Buell into the office of the chief. McGraw looked up from a pile of reports he was scanning.
“Take a seat, lad,” he said. “Send Rafferty in, Jamison.”
Buell sat in silence while the chief shuffled the papers before him. Presently Rafferty came in. He was short, about five feet five inches, but powerfully built, with bulging neck muscles, broad shoulders and long, capable-looking arms. The scattered freckles on his merry Celtic countenance matched the copper hue of his hair and eyebrows. He walked with a rolling stride that suggested recent acquaintance with the deck of a ship. His age could not have been more than twenty-seven.
“Dan, this is Mr. Buell, the new man I told you about,” said the chief. “Mr. Buell—Mr. Rafferty.”
As the two men acknowledged the introduction, Buell noted the viselike grip of those strong fingers and reflected that Rafferty would be a mean antagonist in a rough-and-tumble.
“Jamison will sign you up and give you your badge and equipment,” continued McGraw. “Rafferty has his orders and will show you the ropes from then on. Good luck to you, lads.”
Some minutes later, with a badge pinned to his vest, an automatic resting snugly against his hip, and Dan Rafferty shuffling along beside him, Detective Alan Buell went to work on his first assignment. Rafferty had the curious gold ornament he had torn from the man with the pockmarked face, and a list of jewelry stores they were to visit.
“Th
e chief says to show this to all the joolers an’ try to find out where it was bought and by who,” said Rafferty. “A moighty slow job he picked fer a couple av young bloods that craves excitement.”
“You are fond of a fight, I take it.” Buell noted the husky build of his companion.
“No more and no less than any thrue Irishman. Wrestlin’ was me dish in the navy. I held the middleweight belt av me submarine squadron whin I was discharged. Me joints are gettin’ rusty wid lack of exercise on this job.”
“How long have you been on the force?”
“About six months this time, though I wore the harness a couple av years before I jined the navy, and divvil a bit of fightin’ have I seen.” There was a look of genuine regret in his blue eyes. “If we could only meet up wid them lubbers that ran off wid yer girl, now, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“It wouldn’t,” agreed Buell heartily.
A thorough canvass of the loop jewelry stores, taking the rest of that day and all of the next, failed to yield a single clue. Three more days spent in calling on the outlying stores and pawn-shops were fully as discouraging.
The end of the third day—a rather strenuous one—found them in that part of the city on the south side known as the “Black Belt.” They had just completed a thorough interrogation of an “Uncle” who loaned money on, bought and sold everything from the gaudy gewgaws so dear to the hearts of the neighborhood gentlemen of color down to second-hand underwear, and were making their way to the corner for the purpose of boarding a downtown street-car, when a large limousine backed slowly out of a garage, blocking the sidewalk for a moment.
Buell glanced casually at the limousine as it glided out before him, then looked again with a surprized gasp of recognition, as the driver shifted his gears and whirled away. Grabbing Rafferty by the arm he pointed excitedly in the direction of the departing automobile.
“Look!” he cried. “There’s the kidnaper’s car!”
“The divvil!”
Rafferty whisked pad and pencil from his pocket and took down the license number.
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