The Golden Circle

by Lee Falk

  In the doorway, a big moderately shaggy man was standing with an assortment of loose papers in his hand. This was Detective First Class VerPoorten. He knew better than to interrupt the lieutenant when he was in one of his thoughtful moods. He'd been waiting until Colma stopped contemplating the ceiling. "Got the ballistics reports, Lieutenant," he announced now.

  "The bullets match, don't they?"

  "Yep." VerPoorten eased into the office. "That .38 special was used to shoot Pieters twice in the chest."

  Lt. Colma put one knobby hand on the report on his desk which had started him thinking. "And the only prints on the damn gun belong to a woman," he said. "A woman who, so far, doesn't seem to have a record."

  "Yep," agreed the big VerPoorten. He dropped down into the only other chair in the room.

  "So, maybe Walker was telling me the truth."

  "Maybe."

  "But, then why did he and his dog jump off the damn train?"

  "Guilty conscience?" suggested VerPoorten. He fished a memo out of the sheaf of papers in his big fist. "So far there's been no trace of the guy. Nobody's spotted him, or his dog."

  After a deep drag on his cigarette, Colma said, "Those three women."

  "The ones this Walker guy claimed pulled the job?"

  "Those three women, yes. I should have followed up on that"

  "Oh, by the way." VerPoorten consulted another piece of paper. "A Miss Toshiko of the railroad reports one of her spare uniforms was stolen from that Chi to New York train last night."

  "Huh, that's jim-dandy," said Colma. "It's starting to look like Walker was giving me a straight story. Which means, VerPoorten, I had three members of the damn jewel ring riding on the same train with me and I let them get away."

  "Possibly four," said VerPoorten. "From what you tell me, this Walker guy didn't act like what you call an innocent bystander."

  "He may have had something else entirely on his mind," said the lieutenant. "I don't know."

  "Sooner or later," said VerPoorten, "some of their stuff is going to turn up. They can't keep sitting on a couple million bucks worth of stolen jewels."

  "They may not be. They could be fencing it."

  "We haven't dug up any evidence of that."

  Colma slapped the fingerprint report on his desk. "And we don't have anything on this dame who see

  to have shot Pieters last night. But that doesn't mean she didn't do it"

  reluctantly VerPoorten nodded his head. "Here's

  something else we ought to cover." He was studying

  another sheet of paper, a yellow one this time. "Mrs. Mott Smith "

  Mirs. Mott-Smith?" Colma stubbed out his cigarette. . . is going to attend a charity costume ball and rock concert in Greenwich Village this evening," explained VerPoorten. "She intends to wear the famous eye of Isis ruby."

  She's going to show up with the real thing, not a copy?"

  real thing," answered the big detective. "She says she feels prickly all over when she wears imitations and besides this is for a good cause."

  Problems. Everybody's got problems." Colma drank some of his coffee. "God, this stuff is awful this morning

  "Yep."

  "Okay, we'd better have somebody there to watch Mrs. Mott-Smith's bauble."

  The chipped black phone on his desk rang.

  "robbery division, Colma. Huh? Where was that?" Ho grabbed up a pencil, wrote quickly on a memo pad. "Ask them to follow up on this." Pronging the phone, he told VerPoorten, "Somebody saw Walker last night."

  "Good. Where was it?"

  "Up in Thornburg, sometime around three in the morning. Patrolman says a guy and ... and a big wolf broke into a clothing store."

  "What did they steal?"

  "Nothing. Walker took some clothes and left seventy-five bucks to pay for them."

  "He's commencing to sound less and less like what you call your ordinary criminal."

  "A wolf," murmured Colma. "The guy has to be some kind of acrobat to have made a jump off the damn train. And he's traveling with some kind of wolf dog."

  "Should make him easy to find."

  The lieutenant was frowning at the notes he'd made of the phone conversation. "He also seems to have been wearing a costume and mask."

  "You mean that's what he took from the clothing place?"

  "No, that's what he had on when he broke in. 'Some kind of close-fitting costume, boots and a mask,' ao cording to the patrol guy." Colma took another sip of the terrible coffee. '1 don't know, VerPoorten, this is starting to sound like a crazy one. I don't like these screwy ones."

  VerPoorten said, "We should be able to pick up Walker sooner or later. He's probably, him and his wolf dog, huddling under some overpass right now."

  "I wouldn't bet on it," said Lt Colma.

  CHAPTER SIS

  The Woolrich was a quiet and sedate hotel on Park Avenue in the East Thirties. By eleven o'clock the sun was shining brightly into the ninth floor room of the man registered as Devlin. He was a large, good-looking man, dressed, in a sedate English-cut suit which lio'd purchased not quite two hours ago in a Madison Avenue shop. He had the New York Times open on 11 ie rosewood coffee table before him. He had on dark glasses and, at about nine o'clock that morning, had acquired a small stylish moustache.

  He went carefully through both morning papers, pausing now and then to drink some of the orange juice from the small glass which rested on a white saucer near the edge of the table. He did all this with gloved hands.

  The Phantom had gotten into New York City a few minutes before nine that morning. He was alone, and liad arrived by bus. His faithful Devil he'd boarded nl a kennel a hundred miles outside New York, in a town where a helpful truck driver had set them down. You couldn't disguise Devil, so he'd have to stay safe u nd out of sight while the Phantom investigated the riddle of the golden arrow.

  The Times contained only a paragraph about the murder and robbery of Pieters. The News gave it more

  attention, and a photo, on page three. Neither newspaper account made any mention of the Phantom, under his Walker name or otherwise. Apparently Lt Colma wasn't giving the media that information just yet.

  Finishing the orange juice, the Phantom got up. "Let's start looking for the golden arrow girl," he said to himself.

  A dozen or so blocks from his hotel, in a narrow lane between two high-rises, was a small antique and jewelry shop run by a dapper seventy-three-year-old man named Goulet. The Phantom had dealt with him before, on previous visits to Manhattan, and he knew the little Goulet had a considerable knowledge of the j jewelry business, legitimate and otherwise.

  Goulet was alone in his small cluttered shop preparing himself a pot of tea. "Ah," he smiled as the Phantom strode in, "it is Mr...."

  "Devlin," said the Phantom.

  "Mr. Devlin, to be sure," said the little old man. "Time has hardly touched you at all, while myself . . . ah."

  The Phantom remarked on the wrinkled Goulet's appearance of robust vitality, then drew the golden arrow pin from his pocket. "What can you tell me about this?"

  Goulet reached under the counter, brought up a tin of tea biscuits. He pried off the lid, selected two thin biscuits and shut up the box. After placing the two biscuits beside his teacup, he stuck his jeweler's glass into his left eye. "Allow me to examine it, Mr. . Devlin."

  "I hear there's a fairly successful gang of jewel thieves operating hereabouts," remarked the Phantom while the little old man studied the golden arrow.

  "As always," said Goulet, "where there are jewels there are those who wish to acquire them."

  "You know nothing about them?"

  "A most interesting pin." He popped the glass from Ills eye and caught it in his free hand.

  Smiling at the old man's evasion of his question, the Phanntom asked, "The pin's not machine-made, is it?"

  "Ah, no. This is a handcrafted item. Most certainly," the old man assured him. "The metal is quite unusual, a gold alloy of some sort. Quite unusual."

&nbs
p; "Who made the pin?"

  Goulet set the golden arrow very carefully on the glass counter top. Picking up one of the tea biscuits, tin took a dainty bite. "At best I could but hazard a

  guess."

  "Hazard away." !

  After chewing meticulously on his tiny biscuit for almost half a minute, Goulet Said, "The craftsman you seek might just be a young man who operates a shop down in the Village. He calls himself Sweeney Todd, though that is quite obviously not his name. His is shop is located on Morse Lane, just off Bleeker."

  "And what makes you think this is his work?"

  Goulet brushed a minute crumb from his upper lip with his little finger before replying. "A man's style is as easy to recognize as his handwriting," he said, "to an expert. There are several signs which indicate this pin was fashioned by the young man who calls himself Sweeney Todd. I know, further, he is much taken with the idea of odd alloys."

  The Phantom asked, "Would you say Sweeney Todd is honest and upright?"

  "I was about to add a word of caution," replied the old man. "It might not be advisable to question Sweeney Todd too openly. No, I suggest you don't walk Into his place of business and ask him directly about the pin, if you understand my drift?"

  "That I do," said the Phantom. "Now what about the jewel gang we were discussing before?"

  "There is nothing positive I can tell you." Goulet poured tea into his fragile china cup. "However, I shouldn't be surprised if you learned more about it in the very near future. Yes, very near."

  "Thanks." The Phantom placed two folded bills on the counter, took back the golden arrow pin.

  'Thank you," said Goulet, not touching the money. "Do you have time for a cup of tea?"

  "No, but thanks."

  "Ah, perhaps some other time."

  Pocketing the golden arrow, the Phantom left the little shop.

  Sweeney Todd's Jewelry & Handcrafts Boutique occupied a wide brick-faced store on a short narrow street in Greenwich Village. The display window was filled with simple silver bracelets, bead necklaces and dangling medallions. Two lean young men in overalls and nothing else were coming out of the shop as the Phantom approached it. To the left of the doorway a frail old man with a substantial beard was bent over searching a wire trash container. He salvaged a mint condition copy of the Wall Street Journal and shuffled off reading its front page.

  Glass chimes tinkled as the Phantom opened the door and entered Sweeney Todd's. The big high- ceilinged room smelled of teakwood and a musky incense. From a speaker hanging on a rafter came very low Indian sitar music. There was no sales counter. An antique cash register, rich with Victorian filagree, was propped on a red painted apple barrel. The shop was empty of people.

  The Phantom roamed the bare wood floor. He found a tray of pins set out on an iron-legged table. There were pins based on the signs of the zodiac, pins using Egyptian motifs and pins inspired by a variety of other symbols and signs. But there were no golden arrows on display, nor were any of the costume pins made of exactly the same gold alloy as the one in his suit pocket.

  "I can see you," came a girl's voice. "In case you were thinking about pocketing something. Though, on second thought, you look too substantial for that."

  The Phantom turned toward a curtained rear door to see a pretty black girl step through. She was tall, utmost five feet eleven, wearing a sleeveless orange |n scy and tan corduroy bellbottom pants. There was n gold pin at her left breast but it was not a golden arrow. "You're not Sweeney Todd," said the Phantom.

  "You're very perceptive," replied the Negro girl as shecame nearer. "You always wear shades indoors?"

  "Not always."

  "Not that I don't know a lot of folks who do," said the girl. "You look too straight, though, to be one of that kind." She circled him, one hand on her chin, her elbow held in the other hand. "No, I'd say you were maybe in . . . well, maybe in communications. Except your hair isn't long enough and your tan's too good."

  "I do a lot of outdoor work. What's your name, by the way?"

  "Nita."

  "Nita," the Phantom repeated. "Well, Nita, I'd like very much to talk to Sweeney Todd."

  "Um." The pretty black girl looked over her shoulder at the old-fashioned Regulator clock mounted on one bare wall. "Not quite two o'clock yet. He's not even likely to be on his feet yet. And as to when he'll be dressed and presentable, who knows?"

  "He lives on the premises?"

  "Nope," grinned the girl. "Only me, me and a sizable army of cockroaches live on . . . the premises."

  "I'm anxious to see him," the Phantom said, "on business. Business which could benefit him." "Don't tell me you're selling insurance or something?"

  "No, I'm buying," he answered. "Could you give me his home address."

  "Nope, no way." She had her chin on her fist again and was making another circuit of him. "Tell you what."

  "What?"

  '1 know for a fact exactly where Sweeney Todd'll be tonight," said the girl. "I can sell you a ticket."

  The Phantom laughed. "Is he that tough to see, that I have to buy a ticket?"

  "He's working on the committee for the Artists' & Writers' Charity Ball & Folk Rock Concert," explained the black girl. "That's going to be tonight, starting at ten o'clock over in the Westlake auditorium on Houston Street. Seven fifty for a ticket. This way you'll be sure to see him."

  The Phantom took a ten dollar bill from his new wallet. "Okay, I'll try that, Nita."

  "I probably will be there myself," she said as she pulled the bill from between his fingers. "Hey, and you'll need a costume."

  "I think I can come up with something," the Phantom told her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The big, domed room was filled with people, soft shadows, and splashes of pastel fight. Six' iron pillars rose up to the ceiling. From a narrow balcony festooned with giant posters and blown-up photos a light machine was snapping flashes of pale yellow, crimson, and underwater blue down on the mingling, roaming, dancing crowd of costumed people. The air was hazy, Viuiously scented.

  The Phantom was in his tight-fitting costume and mask now. In the crowd of revelers at the charity function, he looked almost sedate and conservative. A sparsely clad jungle girl bumped into him, murmured, "Sorry, man," and drifted on to catch hold of I lie arm of a young man with a pumpkin for a head. On a dais at the room's far end, five young men writhed, struggling with their electronic instruments to bring forth a blues' tinged blare.

  A gorilla fell against the Phantom, causing him to step into a group of two girls and a black man. The Negro was got up as a gunslinger. The platinum- haired girl was chubby, disguised as a medieval queen. The other girl was dark-haired, oddly pretty. She was wearing a crisp ballerina costume, a lace trimmed domino. On the left side of her bodice was a golden arrow pin.

  This dark-haired girl smiled at the masked man. "I'm trying to figure it out," she said.

  "Figure what out?"

  "Who you're supposed to be?"

  "Some kind of superhero," suggested the black cowboy.

  "Beau is into comics," said the dark girl, "and sees everything in that light. But really . . . what?"

  The Phantom took hold gently of the girl's arm "Let me buy you a drink and we'll see if I can explain."

  "Okay, you're on. Bye, group." The girl took the lead, pulling him after her through the costumed crowd.

  "Hi, Mimi," called a passing clown.

  "Is that you?" asked the Phantom. "Mimi?"

  "Right. And you?"

  "You can call me Devlin."

  She looked back ova: her shoulder at him. "Okay, Devlin."

  Up ahead a half-dozen brightly garbed people were clustered around a tall thin old woman, who was dressed in a fairy princess outfit. She wore a narrow royal purple mask, with similarly colored patches of makeup on her wrinkled cheeks. Round her neck hung a glowing scarlet ruby.

  "Hey, look at that," said Mimi, slowing down to point. "The queen of the ball herself."

  "Who is
she?" asked the masked man.