The Golden Circle

by Lee Falk

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Phantom lifted the trapdoor an inch. The back pantry was dark. He heard many feet hurrying through the halls, crossing and recrossing the floors above. "The moving out operation continues," he said to himself.

  He eased up into the small closetlike room. Canned goods, packaged cake mixes and jars of jam stood on the shelves around him, along with six flat bottles of mineral water. Some light was coming in from the partially open door.

  Out in the big kitchen a girl was hurriedly packing utensils into a cardboard carton. She had a pistol thrust in the waistband of her cocoa colored slacks. Her back was to him.

  Without a sound the Phantom eased into the kitchen. He came up behind the girl, put one hand over her mouth and pressed the fingers of his other hand to her neck. In less than a half minute she passed out, and started to slip down toward the linoleum floor.

  He caught her, withdrawing her gun as he did. Carrying the unconscious girl into the pantry, the Phantom tied and gagged her with two dish towels.

  Another girl went rapidly by the kitchen, but she didn't look in. The Phantom waited until she'd scurried around a bend in the hall. He then sprinted to the door of Beth's office. He tapped three times.

  "Yes, what is it?"

  Pushing into the room, the Phantom said, "No outcry, please, Beth. Sit right there and keep both hands in view." He closed the door quietly behind him. His borrowed pistol pointed directly at the gaunt woman.

  "You," she gasped. "You're . . . you're dead."

  "In another country, far from here," he told her, "they call me the Ghost Who Walks."

  Her eyes narrowed, her breath grew shallow as she watched him approach her desk. "You're not a ghost," she said, noticing his wet clothes. "You're simply damn clever. Very well, what do you want, Walker?"

  "You."

  '1 don't under...

  "Not for myself. For the police."

  "So you really are nothing but a cop?"

  He scanned the room, the gun still covering Beth. "Those drapes should do." He reached over, tore one down. "Here, Beth, rip it into strips."

  "What are you up to?"

  "Rip," he repeated.

  Obeying him, she said, 'If they get me I'll see to it they get Mara."

  "Hands behind you." He took one of the lengths of strong cloth, tied her wrists together behind her back. 'Yes, I imagine they'll arrest Mara."

  "You'd allow that to happen? I had the notion you were found of dear Mara."

  Tightening the knots, he said, "It's much too late for Mara."

  Beth laughed. "And too late for your little pet, Mimi, too."

  "I don't think so."

  "Ah, so you resc...."

  He used another strip of drapery as gag.

  In the second drawer on the left-hand side of the desk rested his twin .45 automatics, along with his wallet and money. He returned them to himself. "Now let's let the police know where they can find you." He reached for the phone which sat on a round table beside the desk.

  Before he touched it, shooting began outside the house.

  Moments earlier Mara had gone into the huge separate garage which stood to the left of the old Victorian house. She selected a green station wagon and drove it around the wide gravel driveway toward the front entrance. Two other girls had cars parked near the door and were loading them with household goods. This evacuation plan had been worked out, along with several alternatives, months ago. The inner circle of the golden arrow had leased two other properties on Long Island. The girls would now split up and head for these two spots. Until tonight no one but the ruling six had known the new locations. So there was no danger of Nita or Connie, or Beth's favorite, Helga, being able to betray them.

  The blonde Mara honked her horn, waving the girls forward. She wanted to park the station wagon directly in front of the door. It was time for her and Beth to go into the basement storeroom and get their cache of stolen gems and valuables.

  While Mara waited for the girls to start their respective cars her fingers drummed on the steering wheel. She felt an unpleasant coldness inside herself, pain clutched at her stomach for a moment. "He must have gotten away by now," she said aloud. "He couldn't have drowned. He must be all right."

  The curving gravel driveway ahead was clear. She guided the wagon up to the entrance. "After all, I told him to get as far from here as he could," she continued. "There's no reason to expect him to come back at all."

  She switched off the ignition, set the emergency brake. "And he probably had time to save Mimi, too. The two of them . . . the two of them went off together more than likely. Yet I had the feeling, I really did, he might come back. To see me, to say good-bye if nothing else."

  She stepped out onto the gravel. A cold gust of wind swooped out of the forest and swirled rain and tatters of fog around her. Mara happened to look toward the misty wood. The wind had cleared a space in the mist. For an instant she saw a man standing there. A heavyset man in the uniform Of the local police.

  Mara pulled her pistol from under her coat. She fired it three times in the air. Then ran into the big house, crying, "The cops! The cops are herel"

  There should still be time to get down and save some of their loot. Then escape through the underground tunnel to the beach. The police probably weren't smart enough to have stationed men down by the ocean.

  The keys to the storeroom were in Beth's little office. Mara ran there while girls ran and shouted throughout the house.

  The two girls who'd been outside tumbled into the hall in her wake, slamming the big oak door shut

  Mara hit Beth's door with one narrow shoulder. "Beth, we've got to "

  She found Beth tied and gagged, sitting upright in her desk chair. There was no one else in the room.

  The giant woman made angry mutterings behind her gag.

  "Who did this?" said Mara. She glanced down at the rug. There were damp footprints there. "Was it

  Walker?" She moved to Beth's side, worked at the gag and finally got it off. "Was it?"

  "Who in hell else do you think it was?" asked Beth, after spitting flacks of cloth out. "Now get my hands undone. What was that shooting about?"

  "The cops are in the woods. We're going to have to go out through the basement," Mara told her. "Either that or fight it out."

  "Thanks to your dear friend, Walker, I've lost precious minutes."

  "Where did he go?"

  "Out the door when he heard the shots."

  To herself Mara thought, "I want to see him again."

  But she never did.

  VerPoorten was halfway through his chocolate bar when the shooting began. He'd stationed himself in the woods toward the rear of the old house. The lieutenant was up front somewhere, going over the details of the raid with the local boys.

  The big detective hurried through the rest of the candy before taking his .38 from its holster. "The lieutenant's right," he reflected. "This is a crazy one. A whole mansion full of girl jewel thieves. It's a lulu."

  He hunched his wide shoulders, tugging the turned up collar of his plastic raincoat tighter around his neck. "These things are handy okay, but not very warm. I don't think I'd like to live this close to the Sound. Must get fog like this all the time I bet and . . . hey!"

  A shadow had moved through the mist from the house to the wood. VerPoorten judged the person had entered the trees about twenty feet away from him. He began moving in that direction.

  Twigs, leaves, and brush crackled as he stalked the shadowy figure. It was tough to keep from making noise out here.

  Tut the gun away," ordered an even voice.

  VerPoorten felt a gun at his back. "We've got the place surrounded." He holstered his own weapon.

  "That's what I wanted to make sure of," said the Phantom. "You'll find one of the leaders of the group tied up in the office near the kitchen once you get inside. The stolen jewels are down in the basement."

  Turning his head carefully for a second, the big detective g
ot a glimpse of the man behind him. "Dark glasses at night, in a rainstorm," he said. "You must be Walker."

  "And you must be VerPoorten," replied the Phantom. "I've heard the girls talk about you. So Lt Colma is in on this raid."

  "He sure is," said VerPoorten. "Sooner or later he's going to catch. . .. He got an odd feeling on the back of his neck. Turning full around he discovered he was talking to no one.

  Walker had vanished silently into the fog.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lt. Colma coughed. His mouth was near the bullhorn loudspeaker and the cough was amplified, echoing against the front of the looming old house. He lowered the bullhorn to cough again, "Damn fog," he muttered, "always makes me clog up." He waited a few seconds before raising the speaker to his lips again.

  "Ladies," he began, "this is the police. We ask you to please vacate the house at once. Come out the front door in single file."

  There was no immediate response. Then all the lights in the golden arrow headquarters went out.

  Colma ducked down behind the car he'd been standing beside on the lawn. "All escape routes are checked and blocked," he announced. "Be sensible and give up."

  The stocky lieutenant was close enough to the mist shrouded house to hear one girl call to another, "Where's Beth, where's Mara?"

  "I don't know!"

  "They've skipped. Deserted us!"

  While this was going on a window on the second floor was suddenly smashed out. A police spotlight hit it before the last shards of glass had flickered down to the ground. A rifle cracked three tunes.

  One of the shots thudded into the hood of the car which was shielding Colma, "Jim-dandy," he said.

  The local policemen, planted behind other cars, returned the fire.

  A girl screamed. Then a figure slumped forward over the windowsill. The rifle came spinning down through the beam of one of the police spots. The wind fluttered the slumped girl's dark hair.

  Now the wide oak door of the big house began to open inward. Lt. Colma leveled his gun at it over the hood of the car.

  A white cashmere sweater was waved. "No more shooting." called one of the golden arrow girls. "We want to give up!"

  "Come on out then," ordered Colma through the bullhorn. "Hands high, no guns."

  The dozen local men dotting the area began to close in on the house, watchful and cautious.

  The door opened fully to allow the girls to begin their slow march out.

  While Colma watched, VerPoorten came trotting up. "Hey, lieutenant," he said, catching his breath. "I saw him, just now."

  "Who?"

  "Walker."

  "What? He was here after all."

  "Yeah, only not locked in the cellar," explained VerPoorten. "He was out in the woods over there."

  "Where is he now?"

  "He got the drop on me. Before I could do anything he was gone like what you call a will-o'-the- wisp."

  "Huh, that's jim-dandy." The lieutenant walked closer to the house.

  "He told me he tied up one of the leaders of the gang and left her in there for us," said VerPoorten.

  "He also mentioned the loot was stashed down in the basement someplace."

  "You two had a nice friendly chat." Colma pushed by the girls as they filed out. "Where's this dame supposed to be tied up?"

  "Office by the kitchen someplace," said VerPoorten, going in after the lieutenant.

  Colma switched on his flashlight. "Kitchen's back there."

  They looked into Beth's office. It was empty. Strips of torn drape were scattered on the floor. "She got loose."

  "Apparently." Colma located a door to the basement. He shone his flash down the raw wood stairs.

  A thin girl of about nineteen was huddled next to the switch box at the foot of the stairs. "Oh," she said.

  "Come on up, miss. Everybody's surrendering up here."

  "This is what they told me to do," she said. "My part of the plan. Turn off all the lights on signal."

  "Okay, you can turn them back on." Colma started down.

  "I only joined this thing two, or three, I guess, months ago."

  "We'll take that into consideration." He patted her arm, removed the pistol from her hip pocket. "Go upstairs now, miss."

  "Yes, sir."

  Colma showed the girl's gun to his partner. "Saturday night special." He dropped it into a bulging overcoat pocket "Did Walker mention exactly where . . . quiet"

  From some distance came a scraping sound. Door hinges creaked.

  Colma crept cautiously across the stone cellar floor, 146

  entered a long corridor. One bare lightbulb provided the illumination.

  A lean woman in coveralls moved across the end of the hall, carrying a heavy black metal box.

  "Stop right there," shouted Colma. This is the police."

  Beth entered another hallway, one which forked off this one. She kept going.

  When Colma and VerPoorten ran by the room she'd come out of they saw the blonde Mara sitting on the floor amidst a scatter of jewel cases and chamois bags.

  "Don't try to use that gun," Colma told her.

  "No," she said in a listless voice. She let the weapon slide from her hand. '1 won't."

  "Where'd she go?" he asked.

  To the underground river," replied Mara, pointing.

  "Stay with this one," Colma told his partner.

  He turned down the corridor Beth had taken. Down at the end a door hung open. He went toward it at a run.

  Before he reached the doorway three shots sprayed out of the opening. "Get the hell away from me!" cried Beth from inside the door.

  Colma threw himself to die ground. He was still a dozen feet from the open door. He heard a trapdoor being yanked up. The rushing sound of the hidden river came out to him.

  After waiting ten seconds he made a crouching run past the doorway. He caught a glimpse of Beth poised at the lip of the opening in the floor. He got off two shots before he was past the door.

  After another ten seconds he moved back toward the entrance.

  There was no one in there now.

  Colma went to the edge of the trap, with caution, and squinted down. He saw nothing but black water rushing by. Kneeling, he directed the beam of his

  flashlight through the chill hole. There was no trace of Beth down there.

  Resting on the planking beside him was the black metal box. Colma flipped the lid up. The box was crammed full of diamonds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Mimi hesitated, then came running out, from under the shelter of the shingle porch roof of the little general store. She ran across the small neat front lawn, around the white metal flag pole and up to the idling Renault. "Where'd you get this?"

  The Phantom had leaned across the seat to push the passenger side door open. "Found it in the woods. As I recall, from a torn: of the garage the other day, it's one of yours."

  "Yes." Mimi climbed in. "Beth's favorite, in fact. I think they used it on the ill-fated caper tonight."

  Pulling away from the general store, the Phantom said, "I noticed a raincoat in the back seat."

  The dark girl shrugged. "I guess I'll stay in this wet stuff awhile longer," she said. "I wonder what the car was doing in the woods."

  "It was parked in a cluster of pines some distance off the road and a good way from the house," he said. "Mara and Beth must have hidden it there when they got back from the job in New York. Mara told me they'd sneaked up on the house, in case the police were waiting for them."

  'You wouldn't think they'd have left the keys in it."

  "They didn't. There are other ways to start a car."

  "You sure you're not a master criminal in disguise? You do seem to know a lot of underground stuff."

  "The police have arrived, by the way."

  The girl sat up. 'I thought I heard some kind of shooting. I guessed it was probably Beth taking pot shots at you," she said. "Are we safe? I mean, will there be roadblocks?"

  "It's unlikely,"
the Phantom told her. "We'll stick to back roads, though."

  "Where are you heading?"

  "For Manhattan. And you?"

  Mimi smiled. "I thought I'd ride along with you. If that's okay."

  "Made up your mind what you're going to do?"

  "Not exactly, no," she admitted. "I've been thinking maybe I ought to go in and give myself up to Lt. Colma and turn state's evidence, or whatever it is you do. Then I also get the feeling I'd like to go away entirely. Forget New York and everything about it for a while."