by Jerry eBooks
“Remember her poor broken body, Karl?”
He was quite calm now. He turned and walked to the old-fashioned, drop-leaf desk, fumbled around, and started back.
“Yes,” he said in level tones. “I remember very well. I am surprised at the accuracy with which you described what you saw, radio spirit—except I did not bump her head! A bad guess, Mr. Spirit.”
A nasty automatic suddenly appeared in his hand. It was pointed squarely at me.
“Well, Mr. Radio Spirit, with your toes sticking out, come from behind that curtain! Or, being a spirit, perhaps bullets don’t bother you! I’ll count three and find out. One—two—”
I stepped out. A shiver frisked briskly down my spine as I realized where this action would lead. I knew I’d overplayed my hand. I’d won only to lose.
“Oho! The spirit materializes into the gentleman who has been so interested in my movements of late.” He grinned, baring yellow teeth, and moved closer.
SO he spotted me tailing him. And now he had me dead to rights. I’d muffed it like the chief had prophesied, only this was my own fault. If I had but listened to him and let him put Kelly in the room. . . .
Hoftman went on: “Step here, Mr. Spirit, and remove that wicked-looking little weapon in your waistband. Thumb and forefinger, please, on the butt! . . . Drop it in that chair. Now turn around!”
He stepped close and fanned me, the gun boring hard in my back. He reached down and pocketed my pistol and retreated. I faced him.
“You’re a rat, Hoftman, a wife murderer!”
He smiled in an evil lip contortion. “Do not think, Mr. Spirit, you will draw me off guard with anger. . . . Yes, I killed my wife. But your carelessness tripped you. Did you think you could get away with this?”
“Bumping me will trip you!” I shot back.
“So just I and the radio spirit know how my wife was killed?” His voice was ominous in its purring tone. “You are illegally In my house, so I can shoot you. But that might cause the police to renew suspicions which are now dead. I believe yon would make a fine hit-and-run victim. A good blow on a dark street and you would be beyond causing me further embarrassment. Yes, that is the best way. Coma, march ahead of me to my garage.”
“Wait! This is one time you’re wrong, Hoftman. You can kill me, but you’re headed for the hot squat. I’ll convict you when I’m dead.”
The sincerity of my voice jarred him.
“You are bluffing, my friend.” While we were talking my mind had been doing the double quick. I saw but one way I might trap him, and I would have to turn up my lone ace-in-the-hole to do that. And it would still be a thousand-to-one chance I was beaten, no matter how carefully I played. But if this failed, everything would be lost. Hoftman would knock me off and probably go scot free. It would be necessary to pretend fear, and a little bluffing might help. I decided I’d risk it.
“Hoftman, I’ll make a bargain with you. If I tell you how to save yourself, will you promise to free mat I won’t be able to get a conviction, for it’ll be my word against yours, and you know what that means.”
“You interest me. You Bound convincing. Go on.”
“Is it a bargain?”
“You are in no position to dictate. I shall decide that after I hear what you have to say.” His voice was steel-cold.
I DID not press the point. I had his curiosity aroused. And I was sure he would not keep his word, even if he gave it. In fact, my only hope was that he—Well, I took a deep breath and plunged in. It was going to be sink or swim.
“Did you ever hear of a light-valve, Hoftman?”
“Light-valve? Are you foolish in the head? What is a light-valve? What has it to do with whether I kill you or not? That is a trick. You are trying to gain time for some reason. Come!”
“Wait! A light-valve is an electrical gadget placed in front of a tiny slit in a sheet of metal. A pickup microphone is connected with the valve. When the voice, or any noise, strikes the mike it makes the current vary, and so causes the light to waver in intensity. If a photographic film is run behind the slit, the varying intensities of light record the sound picked up by the mike. Is that clear?”
“Yes, yes! I begin to see where you are leading. You are more clever than I thought Go on.”
“That la the original principle of the. sound movies. Well, I had a radio engineer rig up a small, special recording unit, for voice only, and stand it in the base of your radio cabinet.”
“I see. And you want to bargain on that?”
“If you kill me, the engineer will get that little black box, and it will convict you—unless I phone him at a certain time he is to rush out here and pick it up. So while you are out killing me, you will lose. I bargain that you take the film and, in return, give me my life.”
He leered at me. “My friend, I was right. You are stupid, very stupid. I will not only take the film, but I will also take your life!”
“You dirty dog of a murderer! I hope he comes in and gets it while you’re bumping me off!” I shifted my weight forward.
“Your hope is wasted. I will take it with me—new.”
HE moved with rapid strides to the radio console and swung it around with one lag hand. I watched him carefully. He bad taken my bait But all the while, he kept his sharp eyes on me—and the automatic trained square on my belly. He shot a short glance in the cabinet, as though suspecting a possible trick.
“You spoke the truth, my friend. But we shall quickly remove this danger before your engineer returns, and then—” He smirked, stooping and groping inside to tear out the unit.
“Stand where you are!” he barked as I moved, “Do not think I am going to grow careless and let you attack me while I—”
Wham!A contortion twisted his face as he was thrown heavily against the wall. The automatic clattered to the floor. I jumped Id and caught a quick jiu jitsu hold as he reeled.
Throwing his arms behind him, I snapped on my cuffs and picked my .38 from his pocket. Then I slammed him into a chair and—
Crash!Glass and wood splintered.
I pivoted and covered the doorway. Kelly rushed in, gun out. He panted: “Begorra, Matt, are yuh okey?”
“Sure, you big stiff. Where did you blow from?”
“Out in th’ garage—chiefs orders. I heard the racket an’ come bustin’ in thinkin’ yuh might be needin’ help, but I guess yuh don’t, huh?”
“I’d have felt a damn’ sight better to see you before that rat stuck his mitt on eight hundred volts! The music was out, and in his hurry to play safe and knock me off, he forgot that the juice was on. Keep your eye on him, Kelly, while I get this film he was after.”
“Faith, look close with that tricky stuff, or ye’ll be keepin’ him company.”
“I’m pulling the ping, Kelly. By golly, it was easier to get Hoftman to stick his hand in here carelessly than it was to sell the chief the idea to try this flim-flam!”
DEATH IN THE DARK
Theodore Tinsley
A man walks into his home and vanishes! Can Carrie Cashin track down the dues in this new kind of snatch racket!
CHAPTER I.
DEATH TRAP.
IT was hard to see clearly ahead through the rainy darkness, so Aleck was driving carefully. He kept both hands taut on the wheel.
The road was narrow and unpaved. It curved crookedly through the hilly countryside of northern New Jersey. Rain had made the dirt road spongy-soft, almost as slick as grease. Occasionally the sedan skidded and recovered.
Aleck’s eyes gleamed with the eager expression of a man confronted with a tricky puzzle. His face tilted briefly toward Carrie Cashin.
“I’ve heard of plenty of guys who walked out of their homes and vanished without trace,” he murmured.
“But this is the first time I ever heard of a guy who walked into his home—and presto!—where the heck is he?”
Carrie Cashin laughed softly.
“That’s exactly why we’re out on such a dismal night,”” sh
e said. “The case sounds like the kind I enjoy. The voice of our client over the telephone was frightened—and yet, not frightened. I got a distinct impression she was hoping we wouldn’t take the case.”
Carrie looked exactly like Little
Red Riding Hood. She was wearing a crimson cellophane slicker with the hood pulled loosely over her chestnut hair. Her short tweed skirt disclosed a pair of slim, girlish legs.
But Aleck knew that under the tweed skirt was an efficient little palm gun, tucked discreetly into a garter holster. He also knew that the “CASH AND CARRY DETECTIVE AGENCY—You Pay and We Deliver!”—was a grim reversal of the name Carrie Cashin. She had built the agency to one of the most successful enterprises in New York.
Aleck drove the sedan cautiously ahead through the torrent of rain.
Suddenly, he gave a faint exclamation. His gaze lifted to the rear-vision mirror. He had heard the pulsing roar of a fast car somewhere behind him.
Still out of sight beyond the last turn in the road, it seemed to be rushing onward at reckless speed. In another instant, it plunged into view.
It rounded the curve with a wide skid, from which it barely recovered. It raced past the slowly moving sedan. With an oath, Aleck swerved perilously close to the ditch. Then the reckless automobile was gone with a whoosh! like an express train. Its red tail-light vanished like a crimson firefly around the curve ahead.
ALECK’S mouth twisted with anger at such insane behavior on a winding mud road. He exclaimed:
“I wish I’d caught a glimpse of that guy’s face! I’d like to punch him in the nose!”
“I’d like to have seen his face myself,” Carrie murmured. “He was bent low over the wheel and he was wearing a peaked cap. The car was a blue Buick. Last year’s model. Jersey plates. The first two of his license numbers were a 7 and a 4.”
“Why the hell was he in such a hurry, I wonder?”
Carrie laughed suddenly. Aleck had rounded the curve ahead and the mystery car was again visible.
It was skidding to a quick halt directly in front of a grade railroad crossing at the foot of a long hill.
“One of those impatient fools who tries to beat trains,” Carrie said.
“It didn’t do him a damn bit of good,” Aleck growled.
The upraised zebra-striped arm of the railroad gate was dropping horizontal in front of the halted car. The gate-tender, in a black slicker and a dripping felt hat, was turning the crank that lowered the arm. Aleck rolled slowly down the hill.
“I’m going to pull alongside that reckless idiot and tell him a thing or two!”
But a sudden, unexpected happening spoiled Aleck’s intent.
The driver of the Buick yelled something to the gate-tender. Instantly, the man reversed his cranking. The wooden arms lifted momentarily and the Buick scudded past the crossing. It sped away.
By the time Aleck reached the railroad, the gates were again lowered. The employee in the black slicker had hurried off with his kerosene lantern, toward a wooden shack well to the left of the road.
“Looks like it pays to have gall,” Aleck fumed.
Carrie didn’t reply.
She was staring at the crossing. There was only a single track. The rails were badly rusted. Weeds grew high between the ties. There was no sound of an approaching train—and Carrie realized suddenly there wasn’t going to be any train!
She jerked her tweed skirt upward for an instant to the tops of her silk stockings. The palm gun which she always carried slid from her garter holster.
“Stay here,” she told Aleck curtly.
“What’s the idea?”
Carrie flung open the sedan’s door and backed into the warm, pelting rain.
“It’s a trick of some sort. There’s no train coming! This railroad looks like an abandoned spur. The driver of that Buick speeded up in order to tip us off to the gate-tender. The gate-tender let him through and stopped us! I want to know why?”
She darted across the road, a slim, resolute figure in her red cellophane slicker,
CARRIE could see no sign of the gate-tender as she crept along the cinder path that bordered the track. Bushes almost covered the path. They swayed in the storm, deluging the girl with spattering, wet drops. The wind tugged at Carrie’s transparent slicker.
Suddenly, she saw the yellow glow of a lantern. It seemed to be beyond the gateman’s dark shack. The man was evidently crouched in the pouring rain.
Carrie tiptoed around to the back. Her palm gun was level and steady. She sprang suddenly forward to cover the man from the rear.
There wasn’t any man! His lantern was standing alone on the ground.
The next instant, a stunning blow crashed against the red cellophane hood that protected Carrie’s head from the lash of the rain. Her piled chestnut hair saved her from a cracked skull. But she crumpled in a heap, dazed and limp.
The gate-tender had leaped from a clump of bushes. A handkerchief mask clung sopping wet to his face. Eyes glared murderously at his limp victim from slits in the cloth. He bent with a creak of his long black slicker and grabbed Carrie.
He dragged her into the dark wooden shack.
Carrie was still paralyzed from the blow on her head. She lay on the floor, unable to move. She could hear the scrape of the man’s feet, then the rasp of a lighted match. The match flame was blown out almost instantly.
The masked man darted outside for a moment and returned with the lantern. He left it standing on the floor. He also left the shack door wide open as he fled.
Carrie wondered dazedly why her assailant hadn’t tried to kill her. She had caught a glimpse of a gun sagging in his raincoat pocket, but he hadn’t attempted to draw it. She was puzzled by the open door and the lighted lantern the man had left behind. Surely he must realize that in another moment or two Aleck would come racing to find out what was wrong!
Then Carrie smelled the smoke.
IT roused her from stupor. She crawled dizzily to a narrow crack in the floor. A thin spiral of gray was ascending. The acrid smell was that of a powder fuse! Carrie couldn’t reach the writhing red spark below the crack. Fear clutched at her heart as she realized what it meant.
Reeling, she gained her feet. She stumbled into the pelting rain. The man in the black slicker had already raced across the weed-grown railroad track. He had turned for an instant, and he saw Carrie. His rubber-clad arm jerked up with a gun.
But he didn’t pump bullets toward his swaying victim. He fired upward at the rain-swept sky. Then his mouth opened in a shrill cry.
It was the knifelike scream of a woman!
It rose in the darkness, edged with counterfeit terror. Then, with a quick whirl, the masked woman in the concealing black raincoat and slouch hat, who had pretended to be a railroad gate-keeper, vanished from sight.
Carrie heard a distant yell from Aleck. The pistol shots and the shrill scream of terror had reached his ears. He was racing pell-mell toward the wooden shack where a lighted lantern glowed through the open doorway.
Carrie gasped at the thought. She ran desperately to head Aleck off. She was clear-headed now. She realized that both Aleck and herself were meant to be blown to bits.
Twenty feet from the shack, Carrie plunged head-on into Aleck. It was the only way to stop him. He swayed on his heels and she whirled him fiercely.
“Get back! Quick!”
He didn’t understand. She had to drag him along with her.
“Down!” she shrilled. “Flat on your face!”
They had reached the road. Aleck stared at Carrie as if she had gone suddenly mad. She thrust her leg between his, tripping him. They both rolled headlong.
Behind them the black night split apart in a dazzle of flame. The roar was deafening. Shattered planks from the gateman’s shack whizzed overhead like chunks of shrapnel. Then there was queer, buzzing silence through which could be heard dimly the hiss of the rain.
There was no sign left of the detonated shack. Where it had stood was a blackened h
ole in the earth.
CHAPTER II.
MAN ON THE ROOF.
ALECK helped Carrie to her feet. He raced across the road to their stalled sedan. There was a lick of flame on its roof. One of the blazing embers from the explosion had landed atop the car. But Aleck reached upward from the running board and scooped it off before it could do any damage.
“Raise those crossing gates and let’s get out of here,” Carrie ordered. Her voice was calmer. “I don’t want to be answering questions when people get here. I want to ask a few—as soon as we get to our client’s house.”
Aleck cranked up the wooden arms and slid again behind the wheel of the sedan. Two of its windows were cracked, but nothing else was wrong. The car crossed the railroad and whizzed up the long hill on the other side.
Carrie explained tersely what had happened.
“I think,” she concluded, “that two people—the man in the Buick and the woman disguised as a man—are extremely anxious to keep us from investigating the disappearance of Clarence Baylor. So anxious, in fact, that they attempted murder as a last resort to stop us from conferring with Baylor’s frightened daughter.”
She added hastily: “Snap on your bright lights!”
The sedan was still climbing the long dirt hill that led onward from the railroad. In the white glow from the headlights, the broad tire treads of the fleeing Buick were clearly marked in the wet earth. Presently, the marks curved to the side of the road. The blurred pattern showed where the driver of the Buick had jammed on his brakes.
“That’s where the girl in the slouch hat and the black slicker rejoined her confederate,” Carrie murmured quietly. “My guess is that the trail will probably lead us straight to the Baylor home.”
The location of the house had been described over the telephone by the missing man’s daughter. Kate Baylor had said it was the first house to the left, about three miles from the railroad crossing. The tire marks of the fleeing Buick disappeared presently. The soft dirt road had changed to hard macadam. But Aleck’s jaw was grim as he turned into the driveway that curved through the spacious grounds surrounding the Baylor home.