Her flash showed the way through the lower rooms, and up an ornate staircase toward the second floor.
Cautiously, Ellen advanced, her heart hammering. Vivid imagery placed vague whispers of evil in the soft rustle of her skirt, the accelerated heart throbs in her temples. In the eerie silence, the big structure became a thing alive and acquired a voice. Not a single voice, but many.
At every vague sound, Ellen tensed to attention, stood stockstill like a carven image while her brown eyes bored vainly into the surrounding blackness. Repeatedly, she found herself thinking of Roge McKane, and wishing he were nearby!
The little adventuress hesitated a moment at the winding stairway, her hand on the cold balustrade, then started softly upward. Her silent examination had proven the lower floor to be empty of occupants at this late hour. She was looking for evidence, and the man behind the murders, Wade Lilmyer!
He, and he alone, could surrender up the incriminating papers, and the death gun which would clear the name of The Domino Lady! She must find him —
Each step upward brought an additional quiver to her youthful body, a fresh tremor to her pounding heart. But as she envisioned the lifeless body of beautiful Sybil Stevens, weltering in a pool of its own blood, her full lips thinned to a hard cerise line of grim determination. The thought buoyed her in the thrilling ascent into the unknown!
At last, she reached the level of the second floor. A bright pencil of light marked the keyhole of a door directly in front of the stairs! She glided silently forward; applied a cautious eye to the tiny opening.
The room beyond was empty of occupants at the moment. It was sumptuously furnished as a masculine den, or office, with a huge, roll-top desk set well to the rear of the place.
Ellen wasted no time, but tried the knob. No way of telling just how long the office might be empty, and she had work to do before the return of its occupants! The portal swung inward under the pressure of her hand, and she stepped quickly inside. In another moment her fingers were busy with a big green filing cabinet.
EYES and fingers working in perfect coordination, Ellen ransacked the files and trunks with thoroughness and speed, tossing aside anything which seemed of no immediate importance.
Drawer after drawer was invaded but success did not come to her, though she wasted precious moments in vain search. As she searched she shot occasional glances at the tiny watch on her wrist. She had so little time, and so much had to be accomplished! If success did not come within the next few moments it would be too late! It would be —
Suddenly, she uttered an audible little cry of surprise and delight. Her trembling hands shot out, manicured fingers snatching at a fat sheath of papers which had been secreted in the bottom of the lowest drawer.
They were heavy, official-appearing, and Japanese characters set them off as the ones stolen the night before from the headquarters of the Japanese Legation. Looking again, Ellen quickly located the Rob Wyatt blackmail files where they had lain directly beneath the Japanese documents!
Swiftly, she fanned the papers out on the surface of the big desk, studied them minutely. Here, indeed, was the very evidence needed to tie Wade Lilmyer in with the triple slayings, and send him to the place he deserved to be.
These papers, and the confession of Sybil Stevens which Ellen knew was already safely in the hands of the police!
And by the same token this indisputable proof would invalidate any charges that might have been possible against The Domino Lady! Here at last was Ellen’s vindication.
Hurriedly, she scooped the papers together in one big bundle, and slipped them into an empty portfolio taken from atop the filing cabinet.
Excitement caused her brown eyes to gleam even more brightly than usual and as she leaned over the desk her swollen bosom threatened to escape its meager confinement as it tossed with emotional stress. She made a pretty picture, indeed, as she finished her task, and swung around from the desk. Elated, and with triumphant blood singing a song of victory in her ears, she failed to hear a sound behind her, or see the big man who had softy entered the den!
“Caught in the act, eh?”
Breath trapped in her throat, and her piquant face blanching, Ellen swiveled on her stilted heels to look into the smiling face of Wade Lilmyer himself!
The politician was big money and power, personified; a well-groomed fashion plate who, in spite of a vulpine face, gave off a pungent scent of perfume.
He was rather tall, strong-shouldered, with long arms, and the effortless grace of a jungle cat. Ellen did not have to be psychic to comprehend that she was face to face with the political and underworld boss. Nor did it take Lilmyer long to convey the impression that The Domino Lady was face to face with grim and certain disaster!
Chapter 7: Wade Lilmyer Proposes
A POLICE car from headquarters slid to the curb with a scream of brakes and, a final blast of the siren. San Luis Place, a quiet thoroughfare, was soon filled with a crowd of the curious who had been routed out of their beds by the noisy arrival of the lawmen.
Detective-Lieutenant Tom Fentriss and his aides from the Homicide Bureau jumped from the car and shouldered their way through the humming crowd. The lieutenant’s Waltham stood at exactly thirty minutes past one.
“Purdue!” Fentriss hesitated at the doorway of the apartment house. He was forced to speak loudly to be heard above the tumult. “You’d better ask a few questions and see if anybody in the crowd knows anything. That phone call might have been a fake. We’ll soon find out.”
He met an excited superintendent in the hallway. Fentriss flashed his shield. “Know anything about a murder here tonight?” he growled.
The superintendent started, trembled. “A murder, sir?” he gasped, unbelievingly. “Why — why — no, sir! You see —” He gulped nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny neck like a buoy on a storm-tossed sea.
“Yeah, murder!” Fentriss’ voice was habitually gruff. We had a phone call saying a jane had been slashed to death in your building, Apartment Three-o-two. Know anything about it?”
He eyed the trembling man sharply.
“Three-o-two?” repeated the superintendent, wonderingly. “Why — why — that would be Miss Stevens’ apartment, sir!” His wide-eyed gaze flitted about the ring of hard faces that hemmed him in. “I — I know nothing of any murder. There must be some mistake. Miss Stevens was one...”
Fentriss interrupted by pivoting on his heel. “King!” he thundered. “You stay here with this bird while we go up and see what’s what. Come on, boys!”
Two steps at a time they ascended the stairs, halted only momentarily before the door of Apartment Three-o-two. Then they were inside looking down at the pitiful remains of Sybil Stevens, victim of a monster’s power and greed. Even Lieutenant Fentriss, hardened to murder as he was, was shaken by the sight of the beautiful white body, lying in a crimson welter.
“Touey, call Headquarters,” he said, turning momentarily away. “Tell ’em to keep this under cover. It might lead to something as startling as our phone caller intimated it might. If that info was on the up and up this case ought to blow the lid right off the capitol building in Sacramento!” He paused, chewed thoughtfully at the sparse brown moustache which adorned his upper lip. “Say, Touey, tell ’em to get the coroner up here, pronto!”
TOUEY nodded comprehensively as he made for the phone in the lower hallway. There was no explanation necessary; the girl who had called headquarters a short time before had hinted that this obscure murder was tied in with political dynamite which was due to blow the state inside out!
“Look, Tom!” Another detective extended a sheet of paper to Fentriss. It had been lying unnoticed upon the table to the rear of the murder room. The lieutenant straightened, looked at it, and his eyes went hard.
“Any you fellows know shorthand?” he asked, looking at his three aides, closely. “This was written in a hurry, evidently, and might give us the lead we need if we hurry. It’s signed by the dead
woman.” But the detectives were as ignorant of the mysteries of shorthand as was their commander. Fentriss swore, softly.
“All right, then, Cody,” he snapped, irritably. “Rush this down to Headquarters and let Macey have a shot at it. Phone me here just as soon as you can. Give me the low-down. Make it snappy, man! This is important!”
After the hurried departure, of Cody, Fentriss and his other men went over the murder apartment with a fine tooth comb, but without tangible results. The entire place was dusted for fingerprints. Strangely enough, they did not connect the black and white outfit on the bed with The Domino Lady, although they were familiar with the costume so publicized. Perhaps it was due to the fact that there were so many black and white ensembles in common use at the moment.
In an incredibly short time a detective called to the lieutenant from the lower hallway, “Telephone, Tom!”
Fentriss’ long legs had him to the wall phone in nothing flat. “Yeah? All right, Cody. Let’s have it!” he barked into the instrument. He listened intently for a few moments, grunting occasionally as he jotted down information upon a sheet of paper alongside the instrument. The muscles in his lean jaws were working, his eyes slits of gleaming determination.
“A confession, eh? The low-down on the girl’s murder, and information on the next step. Chaseview? Well, that’s outside my jurisdiction, but try and stop me! I still think this Domino Lady’s pulling a fast one, and she’s not going to get away with it! Whether she’s guilty of murder or not, I’d like to get my hands on her! She’s got plenty else to answer for. Tell the Chief I’m rushing out to Chaseview, pronto, Cody. Then, you get down here to take over. We’re leaving.”
Fentriss banged up the receiver.
“Boys,” he thundered to the assembled detectives, “that paper was written by The Domino Lady! She was here when the girl upstairs died. It gives the details of the Jap Legation job as she heard it from the dying girl. She put in the purported details of the Wyatt bump, and wound up by inviting us out to Chaseview, the home of Wade Lilmyer! She claims Lilmyer’s behind the whole thing from start to finish, and promises to prove it if we come out there!”
Detective Touey grinned, “Sounds like she’s screwy, Tom,” he said. “Why, Wade Lilmyer’s running for governor.”
“Don’t I know it?” broke in the lieutenant, impatiently. “But if there’s a chance of grabbing off this female pirate I’ll make a dozen trips to Chaseview! Of course,” he added, grimly, “there’s a possibility that there is something in what she claims! Let’s go, boys! King, you and Purdue better stay here, keep everything quiet. Cody will join you shortly. Come on, fellows.”
A moment later the big police car was heading for the open country, the siren blasting the way through the desultory early morning traffic.
FEAR, like an icicle, plunged into Ellen’s breast instantly as she faced Wade Lilmyer across the width of the room. His round eyes and his strange, triumphant smile reminded her greatly of Peter Lorre as he moved a pace forward, paused, a big revolver aimed directly upon her racing heart!
“So I have company, eh?”
The suavity of his tone was belied by the baleful glitter in his dark eyes, as Lilmyer surveyed Ellen from the heels of her evening slippers to the little black hat. “Now, if you’ll just drop the gun, and toss the portfolio upon my desk,” he suggested, with a wave of his heavy weapon.
After the first shock of his sudden appearance wore off a bit, Ellen was not particularly frightened. It was quite true that it was a more melodramatic situation than any in which she had hitherto found herself.
But Ellen had not been an adventuress for three years, using her keen wits at all times to avoid capture or death, without having learned how to take care of herself in any emergency. She shrugged resignedly, dropping the automatic and portfolio to the desk top. Then, she awaited his next move.
Lilmyer sensed her confidence, and tried to shatter it. “I’ve admired you and your nerve and your beauty for a long time. It is going to be most difficult to kill you, and call the police to remove a burglar I was forced to shoot down like a dog! After all, there are too few beautiful women in existence, and you are very beautiful, you know.”
His round-eyed smile was never-ending, his voice a deceitful purr.
Ellen said nothing. She realized that the politician knew she was wise; that her death was his only hope of salvation! Talk on her part could accomplish little. The full force of his threat penetrated her consciousness instantly, left her cold, calculating. The police should be here any moment. If she could stall long enough, she might save her life. Of course, capture by the authorities would mean long imprisonment, but —
Wade Lilmyer was speaking again in his purring voice while his dark eyes licked at her sensuous figure: “Of course, there is no particular hurry, my dear. You’re very desirable, you know. Perhaps we might enjoy a drink, and a bit of a good time together, eh?”
Ellen’s heart leaped with hope. A chance to stall, kill time! Her great brown eyes agleam through the slits in the domino, she spoke, softly, tantalizingly.
“But — but you couldn’t trust me without your revolver! And I’m sure our drink and good time would be spoiled as long as you held me at gun point!”
Wade Lilmyer snorted. “Since you’ve put your gun down, I can do likewise. I’ve yet to see the woman I couldn’t handle with ease, my dear! And, in case you get ambitious, I can throttle you with my hands just as easily as I can shoot you with this revolver! So, be warned.”
The still-smiling man did not raise his voice. He might have been talking about the price of the votes he was reputedly known to have bought. He had a sort of persuasiveness about himself, and an unawareness of his unsavoriness to his charming caller.
“But,” he pursued, casually, “why speak of such unpleasant things which must be quite evident to a woman of the world like yourself? Let’s talk of pleasant things, like yourself for instance, eh?”
He moved toward Ellen again, his eyes upon the rise and fall of her glorious bosom. The little adventuress felt she couldn’t stand to be near him. The thought that he might touch her just once was enough to cause her soft flesh to creep. She must talk — gain time.
“But why should you kill me, Mr. Lilmyer?” she breathed, desperately. “I could be of much use to you alive, you know. I’ve been around. You surely know of my reputation as a shadow whom the police have never even glimpsed. It seems to me that you could use someone like myself in your employ.”
“Perhaps,” he said, noncommittally.
“You could hold the fact of my being The Domino Lady over me as an assurance of loyalty, you know!”
“And you might come here to live, eh?” he suggested, suavely, his greedy eyes laving the white snowiness of exposed shoulders.
QUICKLY, he lunged forward. A single bound closed the distance between them, and he grasped Ellen’s right arm in the bruising clutch of his left hand. Lilmyer was a big man. Forceful resistance was out of the question. She could not call for assistance. Before the police arrived, he could have hidden the incriminating papers, and could then turn her over to the officers who had sought her for so long. In fact, the tall politician seemed to hold all the cards!
“The mask!” breathed her smiling captor in his deep purr, “would be more becoming if removed from your beautiful features, my dear! It is a shame to hide any part of such a beautiful creature as yourself!” He pulled Ellen close, raised his hand toward the little domino! Ellen’s heart froze within her tossing bosom. It was the most tense moment of her career!
Wade Lilmyer’s round eyes were upon the silken mask, and the beauty of Ellen’s moistly-parted lips, so close to his own.
He had not noticed the ornamental, pink carnation which was fastened high upon her evening gown! As he leaned forward, reaching for the domino, Ellen’s left hand moved almost imperceptibly into the folds of the cape. Immediately, a fine spray shot out from the imitation flower.
It struck Lilmyer’s f
ace with a swishing sound, and was transformed into an ambient cloud about his dark head! One whiff, and the big politician staggered, slowly sank downward to the rug at her feet! A favorite trick of The Domino Lady, and one which she was certain would assure peaceful slumber for her erstwhile foe for several minutes!
The little adventuress was moving precisely and swiftly now.
Holding a handkerchief to her nose until the fumes had evaporated, she quickly secured velvet tapes from the drapes over the large French windows. Using these with expert ease, she rolled Lilmyer over upon his stomach, and tied him hand and foot.
Exultantly she turned to the desk and secured the portfolio. She fanned out the incriminating papers on the top of the desk, stood back and surveyed her handiwork with a grim little smile. That had been a close one, all right! But again her quick wit and resourcefulness had pulled her out of a tough spot! She picked up the little automatic, turned to leave. But, before going, she tossed a small black card atop the fanned out documents. On it, in white ink, was her customary salute: The Domino Lady’s Compliments!
Abruptly, she tensed. Outside in the Lilmyer driveway, a siren wailed raucously, and skidding tires whined along the concrete! The police had arrived!
Ellen stiffened, paused a moment in indecision, one hand fluttering upward to her heart. A tiny, crackling tremor rippled along her shapely spine. The police would come directly to this room, since it was the only one which boasted illumination at this late hour. And she knew there was but the single exit which led out almost directly upon the stairwell! She was hopelessly trapped! Given an additional few minutes and she could have made a getaway, but now —
Heavy feet ascending the stairs! With an effort, Ellen fought down the feeling of panic. Hurriedly, she flew to the single door, and turned the key in the lock! That might hold them off a few minutes longer —
Chapter 8: The Domino Lady Triumphs
The Domino Lady Page 15