by Otto Penzler
MM
McEwen peered at Kent Atwell. “Is this true?” he demanded sharply.
“Certainly not! There is not a particle of fact in what is written there. I preferred not to let you see that paragraph, because it is all so preposterous. I refuse to be mulcted out of money that is rightfully mine, and I’m asking you to do something to protect me from this maniac who calls himself the Moon Man.”
“I can’t do a damned thing until he shows up and tries to rob you,” McEwen answered. “He says he’ll come tonight. Is there some way of my getting into your house without being seen?”
“Yes. I can tell you how. But am I to deliberately wait for him to come and—”
“If I may suggest it, Mr. Atwell,” Steve Thatcher spoke up quietly, “you had better follow the Moon Man’s directions to the letter. Get the money from the bank and put it in your safe as he directs. If he suspects that you’re laying a trap for him, he may not show up; but if you appear to be acting in good faith, we may stand a chance of grabbing him.”
“Exactly. He seems to know everything and be everywhere,” McEwen agreed. “If he learns, somehow, that you haven’t been at your bank today to withdraw that sum, he may stay in hiding. Our only chance of getting him is to have that money in the house—as bait.”
Steve Thatcher smiled.
“But what,” said Kent Atwell, “but what if your precautions fail, and the money is stolen regardless and—”
“You’ll have to take that chance. This is an opportunity to grab the Moon Man tonight. If we don’t make the most of it, he’ll get you in some other way, and you’ll be helpless.” Gil McEwen fixed the gentleman with a stern eye. “If you have no faith in what I’m suggesting, you shouldn’t have come to the police, Mr. Atwell.”
“Yes, yes—I agree!” Atwell answered. “I will go to the bank immediately. I’ll take the money home and put it in the safe. And you—”
“We’ll come to your house tonight, after dark. I’ll have enough men with me so that there’ll be no chance of the Moon Man’s escaping if he comes after that money. I’ll phone you beforehand, to make arrangements.”
“I’ll follow your instructions to the letter.”
Kent Atwell fumbled with his gloves and left. McEwen and Steve Thatcher waited a few minutes, then hurried from the theatre. McEwen’s face was twisted into a grimace of distaste.
“I half believe that what the Moon Man wrote about Atwell is the truth,” he said. “Damn— who is that crook, anyway? How can he know so much?” He started along the street at a stiff pace. “Tonight, Steve—tonight, unless something goes very wrong—I’ll grab him!”
“Where’re you heading, Gil?” Steve Thatcher asked quickly.
“I’m going to send a cable to the Saint Gobain factory in France. I’m going to find out who they made that glass mask for!”
Steve Thatcher’s eyes twinkled. Again— unseen by the veteran detective—he smiled.
Outside the windows of Police Chief Thatcher’s office hung veils of darkness. Inside, lights burned brilliantly. Detective Lieutenant Gil McEwen stood in the center of the room, facing a group of six men who had just entered in answer to his call. Each of the six was a plainclothes man.
“I’ve just made arrangements with Atwell,” McEwen was saying, crisply. “We’re going to slip into his house so we won’t be seen, in case someone is watching. We’re going to be damned careful about that. You’re to follow my orders strictly, and be ready to leave here as soon as I say the word.”
McEwen had chosen his men well. Each of the six was an old-timer on the force. Each had demonstrated, in the headquarters target gallery, that he was a dead shot. Each possessed a record of courage and daring.
As McEwen talked to them, the door of the chiefs office opened quietly. Sue McEwen sidled in, stood aside, and listened with intense interest. His eyes strayed to those of Steve Thatcher, who was standing beside his father’s desk; they exchanged a smile.
“This is our chance,” McEwen declared to his men. “We’ve got to make it good. If the Moon Man gets away from us tonight, God only knows if we’ll ever grab him. Wait downstairs.”
The six men turned and filed from the office. McEwen paced across the rug. Steve Thatcher looked thoughtful. The chief of police sighed and wagged his head.
“You’re all set, Gil?” Chief Thatcher asked.
“Yeah. You wait right by that phone, chief, in case of an emergency. And I hope when I phone you it will be to say we’ve got our man.”
Sue McEwen stepped toward her father eagerly. “How soon are you leaving, dad? I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
McEwen stared at her. “You’re not getting in on this, young lady!”
“Why not?” Sue asked. “If I go to the house with you it won’t do any harm, and I may be able to help. As long as I’m a detective’s daughter, I want to make the most of it.”
“How many times have I got to tell you, Sue,” her father sighed, “that this sort of thing is not for you? We’ve argued about it a thousand times. I won’t let you mix yourself up in police matters.”
“You forget,” Sue answered, smiling, “that I gave you the tip that helped send John Hirch, the forger, to prison. And didn’t I figure out where Mike Opple was hiding after he killed his woman? I don’t think I’m so bad at this. If you’ll give me a chance tonight—”
“Nothing doing!” Gil McEwen snapped. “You go home and go to bed!”
“Dad,” said Sue indignantly, “I’m not a child. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself. This Moon Man fascinates me, and I’m going to—”
“I think your dad’s right, Sue,” Steve Thatcher interrupted gently. “You’d better leave this to us. There’s no telling what will happen.”
Sue raised her chin defiantly. “It’s going to take more than an argument to stop me this time. I—”
The telephone jangled. Gil McEwen snatched the instrument off the chief’s desk. A voice twanged into his ear:
“This is Preston, downstairs, McEwen. You told me to let you know if a message came for you. There’s one coming in now!”
“Be right down!” McEwen answered quickly. He dropped the telephone and hurried to the door. “Answer to my cable coming in over the teletype!” he exclaimed as he hurried out.
Steve Thatcher’s eyes brightened. He hastened out the door after McEwen. They jumped down the stairs side by side, paced along the brick corridor, and squeezed into a little room. Inside it was a sergeant, a battery of telephones, a short-wave radio receiving set, and a teletype machine. The teletype was clicking and spinning out its yellow ribbon.
McEwen leaned over it and read the words as they formed:
POLICE HEADQUARTERS GREAT CITY-ARGUS GLASS SPHERE SHIPPED TO GILBERT MCEWEN GENERAL DELIVERY GREAT CITY-ST. GOBAIN.
“By damn!” gasped McEwen.
He tore the strip out of the machine. He glared at it. He said unprintable things.
“By damn! He ordered that mask under my name!”
Steve Thatcher’s eyes were twinkling. He had known what this cable would say. He had planned for this exigency. And he was enjoying the veteran detective’s discomfiture.
“Looks suspicious, Gil,” he remarked. “You’re not the Moon Man, are you?”
“Yah!” snarled McEwen. “He’s smart, isn’t he? He’s clever! Pulling a stunt like that—getting his damn’ glass mask made under my name! Wait’ll I get my hands on that guy!”
Steve Thatcher chuckled in spite of himself.
McEwen squeezed out of the teletype room. He hurried down the corridor to a door which opened into a larger room. His six detectives were there, perched on and around a table usually devoted to pinochle.
“Come on!” he snapped. “We’re going!”
The six men began trooping after McEwen. Steve Thatcher followed the veteran detective a few steps.
“You’ve got all your car will carry, Gil. I’d better follow you in mine. I’ll be along in a minute.”
McEwen nodded his agreement and pushed through a big door into the adjoining garage, with the six following him. Steve Thatcher looked up and saw Sue McEwen coming down the stairs. He turned to her.
“I want to come with you, Steve,” she said.
“Darling, I’m sorry. I’ll phone you as soon as there’s news.”
“But, Steve—”
He did not wait to listen. He did not like this insistence of Sue’s. It emphasized in his mind the painful disaster that would surely follow if it were ever learned that he, Steve Thatcher, son of the chief of police, was the Moon Man. He hurried out the entrance, turned sharply, and went into a drug store on the corner.
He slipped into a phone-booth and called a number which was unlisted in the directory, unobtainable by anyone, known to none save him and one other.
Two miles away, in the maze of the city, a phone rang. A stocky, broken-nosed young man picked it up. He heard a voice say over the wire:
“Hello, Angel.”
“Hello, boss.”
“Listen carefully. I want you to leave the car in front of the home of Kent Atwell at exactly five minutes before midnight tonight.”
“Sure, boss.”
“Don’t wait. Take a taxi back. Leave the car right in front of the house, and make sure nobody sees you do it. I’ll meet you at the usual place thirty-five minutes later.”
“Right, boss.”
“Wish me luck, Angel.”
Then the line went dead.
CHAPTER IV
THE TRAP IS SET
Nine o’clock. A sedan buzzed past the front of the home of Kent Atwell. It rolled on smoothly and turned at the next corner. Halfway down the block it turned again, swinging into the driveway of a dark house. It paused in front of the garage; and out of it climbed Gil McEwen and his six detectives.
Standing silent in the darkness, they waited. A moment later another car turned from the street and crept into the driveway. It braked behind the sedan. Steve Thatcher climbed out of it and walked to Gil McEwen’s side.
No one spoke. Leading the way, McEwen strode past the garage and pushed his way through a high hedge. Steve Thatcher followed, and the six men. They walked silently across the rear of an adjoining estate, and paused at a gate in the hedge. They listened a moment, then eased through.
They drifted like shadows to the rear of the home of Kent Atwell. McEwen knocked softly at the door. It opened; no light came out. McEwen, Thatcher and the six men entered. Kent Atwell closed the door, turned, and led them into a spacious library.
“Okay,” said McEwen without formality. “You alone, Atwell?”
“Yes,” said the gentleman. “My wife is away, and I’ve given the servants the night off.”
“Place all locked up?”
“Every door except the front, and every window. All the blinds are drawn.”
“Money in the safe?”
“Yes.”
Atwell crossed the room to a stack of bookshelves. From one the height of his head he removed a unit of four thick volumes. In the wall behind shone the front of a circular safe.
“Locked?” McEwen asked.
“No,” Kent answered as he replaced the books.
“Good. Now.” The detective turned. “We’re all going to keep out of sight and wait. First thing, I want to make sure there’s only one way for the Moon Man to get in—the front door. Steve, take a quick look around, will you— upstairs and down.”
Steve Thatcher circled the library, and made sure every window was locked. Stepping into the rear hallway, he determined that the bolt was in place. In the other rear rooms he repeated his examination; then he climbed the steps to the second floor and entered, in turn, each of the bedrooms. McEwen, listening, heard him moving about. In a moment Steve returned.
“All set,” he announced.
“Good. Where in this room can I keep out of sight, Atwell?”
Again Atwell crossed the room. He opened a door and disclosed a closet space behind it. It offered a large, comfortable hiding-place to McEwen. The detective nodded.
“Mr. Atwell, I want you to go upstairs and prepare for bed. Pretend that you are alone. I’m going to put a man in every room upstairs and down. Every window will be watched, and every door, in case the Moon Man tries something tricky. I’m going to stay here in the library and watch the safe. Understand?”
They understood.
McEwen signalled two of his men. He conducted them across the vestibule and into the two rooms on the opposite side of the house. Stationing one man in each, he closed the doors and went up the stairs with the others following. He waited until Kent Atwell went into the master bedroom, then assigned one man to each of the remaining rooms on the second floor.
Five doors opened. Five doors closed. Behind each of them a detective began to wait. Behind one of them Steve Thatcher listened.
He heard Gil McEwen go downstairs.
McEwen stepped into the library. He closed its doors. He strode to the safe, opened it, reached inside, and removed a thick pack of banknotes. He counted them—five thousand dollars. He put them back and closed the safe.
From his pocket he removed his service automatic. He examined it very intently. Crossing the room, he opened the closet door, moved a chair inside. Stepping in, he swung the door until it was within an inch of being closed. He sat, with his automatic in his hand, and waited.
The house was utterly silent.
The vigil had begun.
An hour passed.
Another.
Silently an automobile turned the corner of the street on which the Atwell mansion sat. Its lights were dimmed. It drew to the curb near the corner and its light went out. A hand reached for the ignition switch and clicked it off. The hand was that lovely one of Miss Sue McEwen.
The young lady settled down in the cushions and looked reprovingly at the Atwell residence. Its windows were dark, save for a few chinks of light shining through the draperies on one side of the lower floor. Inside, Sue McEwen knew were her father and her fiance and six detectives and an intended victim of the Moon Man. Inside, she knew, interesting things were almost sure to happen. She said to herself in a whisper:
“I won’t be left out!”
She opened her handbag. From it she removed a tiny automatic. It was a fancy little thing, with handle of mother-of-pearl; but it was deadly. In the hand of an expert shot it could spout death. Sue McEwen, by dint of long and arduous practice in her own back yard, under the guidance of her father, was by way of being an expert shot.
The minutes crept past.
A quarter of twelve.
The determined young lady looked and listened and waited.
Five minutes of twelve.
A soft whirr came from behind Sue McEwen’s parked roadster. She did not stir, but through the corners of her eyes she saw a coupe swing into the street. Its lights were out. It rolled along without a sound. And that, thought Miss McEwen, was strange.
The lightless car eased to a stop directly in front of the Kent Atwell home. One of its doors opened. A black figure stepped out of it and began to walk toward the farther corner. When it was halfway there another sound came from behind Sue McEwen. A second car—this time with its headlamps on and making no attempt to be quiet—purred past her. It was a taxi. It spurted toward the far corner and stopped.
The squatty young man climbed into it. The cab started up again. It swung around the corner and disappeared.
“I,” said Sue McEwen to herself suddenly, “am going to see what that’s all about!”
She started her engine. She spurted away from the curb—her tiny automatic lying in her lap—and eased past the dark car parked in front of the Atwell home. Should she get out and look it over? No; that would take time, and she wanted to follow that taxi; it might get away from her if she stopped now. She stepped on the gas.
At the next corner she swung left. And there, two blocks ahead, she saw the red tail-light of the taxi gleaming.
She followed it. It drove straight on. It was going toward the central business district of Great City. Just this side of the main thoroughfare it turned. When she reached that corner Sue McEwen also turned. For a moment the taxi was out of sight, but she picked it up again immediately. She was keeping well behind it. She was taking no chances.
“Something,” she thought, “is up.”
The taxi went on. Sue McEwen went on. The two cars, separated by two blocks, turned into a route that took them around the nocturnally popular section of the city. Presently the taxi was rolling into a region that gave Sue McEwen some uneasiness. It was dark, lonely, dangerous; and, after all, she was alone.
But she kept following that taxi. And suddenly she saw it stop.
It paused just past an intersection. The young chunky fare got out and paid the driver. Sue McEwen could not see his face. A moment later the taxi spurted off and, at the next corner, swung out of sight. The young man walked along the black street, turned and entered a “dog cart” in the middle of the block.
From the tower of the City Hall came the reverberations of a striking gong. The town clock was striking. It tolled twelve.
What, Sue McEwen wondered, was happening back in the Kent Atwell house? She could not guess. She wanted to keep an eye on that strange young man.
She drew to the curb, cut the ignition, and blinked off her dimmers. She waited. For twenty minutes she waited. And at the end of that time her quarry came out of the lunch cart and began walking away.
She started after him, cautiously. She saw him turn the corner. As she rounded the corner, she saw the young man make a quick move and disappear.
She saw that he had gone into the black doorway of an empty tenement.
She stopped. She got out of the car and, keeping in the deep darkness which flanked the buildings, slowly worked her way toward that doorway. It was empty now. The young man had gone inside. She listened and heard nothing. With the utmost care she eased the door open an inch and peered through. She saw nothing.