by Lee Falk
He could leave the house now, phone his information to the police. But the Phantom wanted to remain here, to keep an eye on things, until the police arrived. He knew he'd still be able to get away then. Previous experience had taught him that.
Now he had to find a way to mail the letter to Lt Colma. Leaving his room, the Phantom went through the house and out to the rickety stairs leading to the
KITCHEN
going somewhere?" asked Beth, from the door of the kitchen.
"Stroll on the beach." The letter was safely concealed in his coat pocket
"I suppose we can trust you to do that," said the gaunt woman through the gray screen door. "Only Stay out of the woods, they're not very safe for roaming."
On each side of the old house were several acres of woodland, birch and maple. This area of Long Island was still sparsely settled, a major reason why the golden arrow circle had picked it
"I'll stay out in the open." the Phantom promised.
The wind on the beach was colder today. It sprinkled fine grains of sand against the dark lenses of his masking glasses. The Phantom knew there was a country club about a mile along the beach. He figured he'd be able to slip in there for a moment and arrange to get his letter mailed.
Tangles of dry seaweed crackled in the wind. The briney water slapped at the sand.
A half mile from the house, on a stretch of otherwise deserted beach, the Phantom encountered a freckled eleven-year-old boy. The boy was engaged in an intense attempt to master the art of fly casting.
When he noticed the Phantom he said, "Hi Do you know anything about this?"
The Phantom did, and he spent fifteen minutes giving the boy some pointers on the use of his fishing pole and gear.
"Hey, I really appreciate this," said the boy.
"You can do me a favor," said the Phantom. "Is there a mailbox near here?"
"Not too near. You have to climb up over there and
walk to the post office, about a mile," the freckled boy said. "I got to pass by there. Can I do something?"
There was no one else near them on the beach. "Sure, you can mail this for me." The Phantom handed him the letter.
"I got to head for home about now anyhow," said the boy as he took the letter. "I think it must be about lunchtime. I can mail this for you on the way."
"Thanks. I appreciate it"
"Maybe I'll see you around here on the beach some other day."
"Maybe," said the Phantom. He watched the boy, go trotting away across the fine yellow sand.
And up in the woods, unknown to the Phantom, someone else watched, too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The evening of the meeting of the full membership a storm began. Thunder rumbled across the dark sea, lightning crackled in the forest surrounding the old house on the cliff. The windows on the ocean side of the place clattered, a screen door came unfastened and flapped wildly against the side of the house.
The Phantom paced an irregular path across the nig in his room. This was the day he'd told the police lo come. "Colma is sure to act on my letter," he said to himself. "He must have it by now."
A tapping sounded on the door.
"Yes, come in."
Nita opened the door. 'You're to come with me. Right now." There was a pistol in her hand.
"Is this any way to treat a fellow member?" he asked, giving the black girl a grin.
She did not respond. "They want you downstairs."
"Meeting about to start? I thought I had a half hour yet."
"Maybe you've got no time at all," she said.
Another girl, a big redhead he'd never seen before, shuffled into the room. "Where does he keep them?" she asked Nita.
"Frisk him first."
"I get the feeling you've lost your faith in me, Nita,"
the Phantom said. His twin automatics had been returned to him by Mara the day of the Steiner jo He wore one of the guns now in his waistband, th other was in his bureau.
"Here's one of them," grunted the big red-hair girl when she found the one he was wearing.
"Any sign of the other one on him?"
"Naw, he's clean otherwise."
"Stay here, see if you can find the other gun. Ill take him."
"Is this all part of my initiation?" the Phantom asked on the staircase.
"It's part of what they told me to do."
He was taken to the big meeting room. Once again the circle in the center of the room was glaringly lit. This time the desk was occupied. Beth, her bony hands folded, sat behind it. Standing to the rear of her, half in shadow, was Mara. The blonde girl lowered her eyes when the Phantom entered the circle of light
During the days he'd been a guest in the house he'd come to know its layout fairly well. He knew there was another doorway behind Mara. It was something to keep in mind.
"Sisters," began Beth, "you see before you the man you have allowed to join the organization. I needn't remind you that I, alone of all the membership, was opposed to this man from the start. It is evident. . . ."
'1 was coming to the meeting anyway, Beth," cut in the Phantom. "You didn't have to send for me with an armed escort"
"You will remain silent" ordered the gaunt woman. "This is not a court of law, buddy boy. You'll find you have no rights here whatsoever. It's much too late to try to say anything in your defense. Nor will anyone care to listen, I am sure, once they have heard this!" From a pocket in her severe black suit jacket Beth produced a letter.
As she slapped it on the bare desk top the Phantom recognized it as the one he'd given to the boy on the
beach two days before.
Beth jerked his letter out of its envelope, snapped
t open. "It begins 'Dear Lt. Colma' and concluded with a name which is now, unfortunately, familiar to us all. It is signed by Walker."
There was a sharp inhalation of breath on the part of many of the girls in the dark tiers of seats.
"And now I'll read, in all its traitorous detail, this letter which Walker saw fit to write to our old friend en the New York Police Department's robbery div...."
The Phantom sprang ahead. He shoved the heavy desk straight into the seated woman. She gasped, tumbled over out of the chair. The gaunt woman fell hack against Mara, knocking the blonde girl off- balance.
The Phantom was running. He sprinted free of the circle of light just as a shot was fired. Nita probably.
The door was where he remembered it. He yanked It open, and catapulted into the dark corridor beyond.
Lightning flashed close outside, illuminating the hallway and showing him where the one window was.
"After him," Beth screamed in the big meeting room. "Stop him, kill him!"
Glass erupted out into the stormy darkness as the Phantom went sailing through the window.
He landed on his side in mud and brush. He pushed himself upright with a thrust of one powerful arm.
Once more lightning flared, filling the forest to his right with glittering white light, The Phantom ran in that direction.
Someone was at the window he'd dived through in his escape, crying, "Stop! Come back here! Or we'll shoot you down!"
A pistol barked twice.
The Phantom kept running.
The rain slammed down through the dark labyrinth which was the night forest. At frequent intervals lightning danced and sizzled through the treetops. Even with the boom of thunder and the roar of the stormy sea below the Phantom could hear his pursuers. At least a dozen women, he judged, had come into the forest after him.
They came trampling through the forest, fanning out, swinging flashlights. "Beating the bush for me sure enough," the Phantom said to himself.
They were urban people, city girls for the most part. They knew little about hunting or tracking. The Phantom was certain not one of them could get within five hundred feet of him without his being aware of it He guessed also that Beth would expect him to head as far away from the old house as possible, as fast as he could.
; Grinning, he decided against that course. He would double back, head straight for the cliffside house and then circle behind it and go up through the woods on the other side. The road to town ran a quarter of a mile above the edge of the wood. Once in town he'd call the local police. There wasn't time now to let Lt Colma in on this. With any luck Beth and her hunting party would still be thrashing around in the forest looking for him when the law arrived.
The Phantom eased silently through the corridors of high straight trees, aiming himself back toward the old house. Lightning flashed and he stiffened against the wide tree trunk.
When blackness returned he moved on. There didn't seem to be anyone nearby. Far off, muffled by the thick rain, he heard Beth shouting. "Shoot, him on sightl I want that man dead!" But she was a good way from him, heading in the direction she assumed he was going.
The Phantom moved toward the seaward of the
forest, his course paralleling the cliff edge. He stopped suddcnly. A girl was stumbling over fallen branches mid brush not far off.
From a crouching position he saw, when lightning next lit up the night, Mimi walking slowly some fifty feet away. She had on a black raincoat several sizes too large and was carrying a flashlight and a handgun.
When the dark returned he could still keep track of her by the glow of the flashlight tip. She stayed by I ho cliff edge, then stopped to look out in the direction of the sea.
"Maybe she's reluctant to track me down," the Phantom thought. "Well, so long, Mimi."
The girl was moving again. He could fell by the bob of the flashlight.
In silence the Phantom resumed his move back toward the house. He wouldn't pass closer than thirty feet to the girl.
There came an odd rumbling sound, a damp crumbling sound. Mimi screamed.
The Phantom halted. He remembered Mimi was tfood at pretending. She might be faking an accident to draw him out.
Lightning showed him she was not pretending. A piece of the cliff, weakened by the heavy rain, had broken away. There was no sign of Mimi along the edge at all.
He ran toward the broken place.
Mimi's flashlight was a tiny red dot on the beach lliree hundred feet below. The Phantom cupped his hands to his mouth to call into the driving rain. "Mimi, Mimi, where are you?"
A faint voice answered, "Here," then added, "Is that you, Walker? For pete's sake get away and leave me. I'll be...."
More loose earth went galloping downhill.
"Mimi, you still there?" "Yes, but this darn root I'm clutching to for dear life is getting looser by the minute."
More lightning came, showing the Phantom where I the dark girl was. She hung by both hands from al thick gnarled tree root which protruded out from the side of the broken cliff. Her black coat flapped around! her and the front of her was smeared with mud and | dead leaves.
The Phantom estimated she was twenty feet down.1 "Not bad," he told himself. "Could have been three! hundred."
The lightning had also showed him a way to reach I the dangling girl. There was a whole network of heavy tree roots exposed now. Roots from some of the trees J over in the woods, meaning they should be anchored! soundly enough
He let himself over the jagged edge, gripping a sturdy root
"No, no, go away," pleaded Mimi. "I can climb up by myself, eventually. You've got to get away."
"Relax. We'll both get away." He worked his way, mountain-climbing-style, down to a position just above! the girl.
"I didn't really want to find you. So I thought...."
"Quiet now." He slipped one arm around her, under I her arms. "Let go of that thing you're holding on to. I've got you." He lifted the girl up with one arm until she was beside him. "This root here, the one my hand's on. Grab hold."
"Okay. I've got it."
"Start climbing. It's strong enough to hold us both. IH be right behind."
"I thought I was helping you and I've only. . . ."
"Onward and upward," he urged.
The girl began pulling herself up, hand over hand, j She made it to safe ground, crawled a few feet more
and knelt there, breathing heavily through her open mouth. "Thanks, Walker."
the Phantom climbed over the edge and stood beside her.
| "I should never have trusted you," said a voice in the darkness.
Lightning came once again. There was the blonde Mara standing ten feet away. She pointed her pistol at the Phantom and fired.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Detective First Class VerPoorten inclined his head toward the steamy window of the little Chinese restaurant. "He's the third, and last," he said, rattling the sheaf of memos and notes in his big hands.
Lt. Colma shook another teaspoon of sugar into his tea. He squinted across Morse Lane. "Sweeney Todd's Jewelry & Handcrafts Boutique," he said. "Huh. Let's hope we get more out of him than we did from those other two."
'It could be this Sweeney Todd character is the guy who made the golden arrow pins. Our sources narrowed it down to only three guys."
"So, we'll talk to him." The robbery division lieutenant lifted up his tiny teacup. "Still nothing on Walker and that wolfhound of his?"
"Nope, but it's being looked into, I'm told."
"I take it the Long Island boys haven't cracked the Stevensport jewel heist yet."
"Not that I've heard," replied VerPoorten. "They promised they'd let us know as soon as anything breaks."
"I don't figure Walker. First, I thought he was a jewel thief and a murderer, then I decided maybe he wasn't," said the lieutenant. "Now it looks like he was along on that little caper out on L.I."
"Him and a gang of dames," said VerPoorten. "Could be they teamed up, had a merger."
"And he used his name," said Colma. "I'm Walker, he tells everybody at the party. He must have realized that as soon as the theft was noticed he'd be suspected. Still, he practically advertised himself."
"Maybe he's trying to tell you something."
"Huh," said Colma. "Maybe he is. But what?"
"Or it might be," suggested the big detective, Walker isn't his real name at all, so he doesn't care."
"Jim-dandy." The lieutenant clicked down his empty i up. "I can never get used to tea. Let's go see this Todd guy." ,
Glass chimes tinkled when the two of them entered thee shop.
Sweeney Todd himself, with an old-fashioned feather duster protruding from the hip pocket of his striped bellbottoms, was lighting a stick of incense. "Yes, gentlemen. Something in costume jewelry perhaps?"
Colma showed him his identification. "Colma, robbery division," he said. "You, Sweeney Todd?"
"Yes, I am," replied the bearded young man. "Is there some sort of trouble, lieutenant?"
VerPoorten shuffled through his wad of papers. "Take a look at this."
Sweeney Todd dropped the match he was holding to reach out for the drawing. "Not a very good sketch, is it?" he remarked after briefly glancing at it and handing it back.
"We have reason to believe," VerPoorten told him, "you designed a series of pins very similar to this."
Chuckling briefly, Sweeney Todd shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not. I don't do anything that crude." He gestured at some of the items on display.
Lt. Colma had been watching him for the past
minute or two. He frowned, asking, "You were at the charity ball the other night, weren't you?"
"Charity ball? I don't think I under. . . ."
"The masquerade ball at the Westbeth auditorium," said Colma. "That charity thing. You were dress as Satan. I remember noticing you in the crowd."
Sweeney Todd chuckled. "Wrong again, lieutenant You ought to have your computers tuned. All the info you have on me is cockeyed." Turning away, ho started dusting some of the display stands.
"Take another look at this pin," Colma said to the young man's back.
Turning to face the two policemen, Sweeney Todd said, "I know my own work. And I know I. . .
"I think," Colma said to VerPoorten, "I'd
like to talk to this guy down at headquarters for a while."
"Will you come along with us, please," the big detective said.
Sweeney Todd was holding the rough sketch. "There's no need for that," he said, studying the drawing. "Matter of fact, I think I can give you a tip on this after all."