The Phantom Detective - The Dancing Doll Murders

by Robert Wallace

  “Crooks?”

  Van nodded again, picked up the black-masked doll, wrapped it quickly in a piece of newspaper, and stuffed it in his repairman’s tool kit. He turned toward the door. The janitor tried to stop him.

  “You can’t leave, feller, till you’ve told the cops everything.”

  Van pushed him aside. “I’ll see them when I get downstairs,” he said.

  The long black sedan of the Homicide Squad was drawing up to the curb when Van reached the lobby with the janitor following, still protesting that Van couldn’t leave.

  Van suddenly stopped and adjusted the black mask over his eyes.

  FARRAGUT came through the door accompanied by a group of plainclothes men, and started at sight of Van. “You here, Phantom?”

  Van explained briefly what had happened, how he had traced down a secret extension wire, been ambushed by one of the murder group, and had had to kill him. Farragut frowned and stared at him sharply when he’d finished.

  “You gave us a big scare, Phantom,” the inspector growled. “When you disappeared from Blackwell’s Place last night my men found a rat named O’Banion there, knocked out cold. You weren’t on deck and we figured you’d been kidnapped. The boys worked over O’Banion with a rubber hose. He broke; but all he told us was the name of a garage that burned last night. He claims he doesn’t know where his gang is now, what these killings are all about or who’s behind them.”

  “He doesn’t,” said Van grimly. “Somebody who’s keeping himself in the background is engineering things and handing out cash. We’ve got to find him.”

  “Any suggestions as to how we can do it?” Farragut asked skeptically.

  Van drew out the shriveled orchid and held it before the startled eyes of the inspector, “I found this upstairs. It may tell me something. I’m going to work on it anyway. I’ll get in touch with you in a little while.”

  In twenty minutes Van was bent over a table in the secret laboratory of Dr. Paul Bendix, His face was intent. There was a glass case before him which looked like a small, gold-fish aquarium tipped upside down. Beneath it was a white blotter, and on this the shriveled orchid lay.

  Van lighted a Bunsen burner under a small retort, clipped a piece of rubber tubing to the retort’s nozzle. This he attached to an inlet valve at the side of the case. Steam began to blur the inside of the glass. Van let the white vapor swirl in and humidify the air for about ten minutes till tiny droplets of moisture gathered on the shriveled petals of the orchid and the flower began to uncurl and expand.

  But it was still a withered thing, brown and hardly recognizable as the fragile blossom it had been. And now Van, working swiftly, began an apparent miracle of science. The steam bath had been given to soften and moisten the fibers of the orchid. He followed it by clipping the outside end of the rubber tube over the nozzle of a small cylinder of gas.

  He turned a valve, and this time sulphur dioxide instead of steam filled the case. The pungent, acrid vapor flowed around the orchid minute after minute. Under its influence the flower began to show new life. The plant cells deep in the tissues expanded. The gas molecules penetrated moistened fibers. The orchid swelled, and the withered petals commenced to uncurl and straighten.

  Van kept up the revivifying process until the orchid had almost returned to its former shape. It was still stained, but here and there spots of its original color had been brought back.

  He shut off the gas flow, sucked the sulphur dioxide out with a vacuum drainer, lifted the case, and removed the orchid. He had spent time in the tropics studying air plants in their native haunts. He was an authority on many kinds of wild, cultivated, and hybrid orchids. He examined the salvaged bloom under a powerful handglass and saw certain characteristic markings.

  The flower had been a startling, flamelike orange mottled with vivid blue. It wasn’t one of the common Epidendrums, Cattleyas or Cymbidiums grown so much in greenhouses. Those blue markings against an orange background constituted a lucky break for the Phantom. For the orchid was Calanthe aureus, the rare and beautiful bloom originally from the sweltering jungles of French Indo-China. Few florists raised it. It sold at outrageous prices to customers who wanted something luxurious and novel. As much as fifty dollars might have been paid for the single blossom Van held.

  He rose and paced the floor in tense excitement. He had worked swiftly because he remembered the words of the “Chief.” There was a “job” in the cards tonight — another murder. Van had hopes of checkmating the killers. And this orchid was his lead. For it seemed more than likely that he could learn who had bought it. Even the most exclusive florists in the city surely didn’t sell such high-priced blooms every day.

  Van left the laboratory, made quick phone calls, and his hopes were at once heightened. Only two florists in New York raised Calanthe aureus. One reported that he hadn’t sold any for over a month. The other said he’d sold only a dozen in the past two weeks. He promised to check up after Van, posing as a writer of feature articles for a horticultural magazine, said he’d like to talk to him.

  THE search seemed more hopeful when Van reached the store of the florist. Two of the orchids had been sold to debutantes from the best families, society girls who surely would not be mixed up with crime. Even at that Van meant to investigate them, for he never took things for granted.

  But first he wanted to get a slant on the person to whom the other orchids had gone. The florist said she was a night club dancer named Dolly DeLong. What seemed to Van a red-hot lead.

  “Her gentleman friend is very generous,” said the florist enthusiastically. “He asks for the most expensive orchids I have. He pays fifty dollars apiece for them just like that!” The florist snapped his fingers.

  “Appreciates the best things, eh?” There was an ironic gleam in Dick Van Loan’s eyes. “Do you happen to know his name?”

  “Not his last name. On his cards he merely writes ‘Blackie!’ He has the orchids sent to Miss DeLong’s hotel.”

  “Fine!” said Van. “I’ll be pleased to interview her. Her comments on the beauties of Calanthe aureus will make excellent publicity. ‘Glamour Girl Creates Vogue for Rarest Orchid!’ Your sales should go up. You have her address, of course?”

  “Just a moment.”

  The florist went through his files and handed Van a slip with the name of the dancer’s hotel on it. It was the Chatterly. Van said thanks, took the slip, and hurried away. His hunch, backed up by logic, told him he was on the trail once more. But it might take time to reach the end of it — and time was precious. For the black forces of death were getting ready to strike. Help seemed advisable. He phoned Frank Havens of the Clarion.

  “Van speaking,” he said. I want you to do me a favor.”

  The publisher gasped. “Good God, Dick! I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Where have you been? Farragut told me he’d run across you. What happened out at Blackwell’s place? How did you keep from being murdered?”

  CAN’T explain it all now,” said Van quickly. “I want to prevent another killing. Every member of the Caulder family, I think, is in danger. One of them, I don’t know which, is slated to die tonight. I want you to let Steve Huston help me. Get him to go to the Hotel Chatterly and make guarded inquiries about a singer named Dolly DeLong. Tell him to be careful, but learn everything he can — particularly who her gentleman friend is, the one who sends her expensive flowers. The girl at the switchboard should be able to give him facts about her phone calls if Steve handles her right. I’ll meet Steve at the hotel and phone you later.”

  He started to hang up, but Havens’s excited voice stopped him.

  “Hold on, Van! There’s a call coming in from Inspector Farragut right now on another wire.” There was a brief pause, then Havens spoke again, his tones harshly rasping.

  “Damn right about the Caulders! Farragut wants to see you. He says Mrs. Tyler, the niece, has just been handed one of the dancing dolls!”

  The Phantom swore and his clamping fingers whitened around
the phone.

  “That means murder!” he muttered softly. “Ask Huston to get to work on the Dolly DeLong slant alone for the time being. I’ll go see Farragut right away!”

  Detectives filled Mrs. Tyler’s big West End apartment when Dick Van Loan arrived. He had disguised himself as “Rodney Post” special investigator to the district attorney’s office. Only Farragut and Steve Huston knew that he was the Phantom. There was an air of tense uneasiness in the place. The woman who’d been marked as the Chief’s next victim seemed the least excited of all. But that, Van felt certain, was only a pose. He studied her covertly. It seemed to him that under her slinky beauty she possessed a shrewish disposition and feline claws. And her voice — it was low, husky, affected as she spoke to him.

  “You seem different, Mr. Post, from these detectives!” she confided. “It’s a nuisance having them about.”

  Van answered grimly. “If they keep you from being murdered, that’s all that counts,” he told her.

  “Murdered!” The woman shivered. Van saw haunting shadows of fear deep in her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  He pointed to the dancing doll that had come in a parcel post package. It lay on the drawing room table staring up at the ceiling with its blank wax face. Its features had been molded into an exact reproduction of Mrs. Tyler’s. The same straight nose. The same high cheek bones. The same arrogant, willful, slightly exotic mouth. And there was a black thread tied around the shapely throat.

  “That can mean only one thing,” Van said. “The murder method this time is to be strangulation.”

  Mrs. Tyler put her hands to her throat. It was white and soft, and Van saw a tiny pulse throbbing in it. She laughed shakily.

  “If you do as we say,” said Van, “I think we can protect you. If you don’t you’ll take your life in your own hands.”

  The woman drew in a gust of grey vapor from her cigarette. She laughed again. Two detectives stood on opposite sides of the room watching her. The butts of the automatics they carried in armpit holsters showed inside their half open coats.

  The air was charged with tenseness. The threat of death seemed to hang heavy in the room in spite of the precautions taken. Menace tapped with unseen ghostly fingers against the windows that shut out the night. Down the hallway, Inspector Farragut’s voice rumbled steadily as he gave last minute commands.

  Mrs. Tyler pressed a button, and nervous steps sounded as her maid, Marie, entered — the only one of her servants Farragut had allowed to remain. The girl’s pallid face showed terror.

  “Bring cocktails, Marie.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  When the maid returned five minutes later with a shaker and glasses, Van noticed a furtive, excited look in her eyes. She set the tray down. Van caught a brief glimpse of a bit of white paper tightly clenched in her palm. She kept it concealed, poured a Martini, and managed to pass the paper along with the liquor to her mistress. Mrs. Tyler’s fingers closed eagerly around the note.

  Van’s heart beat faster. What was the woman up to?

  She pretended to use her compact, retiring to a couch in the room’s corner, and Van saw her surreptitiously spread out the paper the maid had brought. She read it quickly, slipped it stealthily inside her dress while Van’s thoughts raced. What was this secret billet-doux she found so exciting? Who was it from? He made a gesture of impatience and approached her.

  “That paper? I’d like to see it, Please!”

  Mrs. Tyler gasped and quick anger flamed in her cheeks. Van smiled sardonically. “It’s my business to watch people. I saw Marie give you a note.”

  The woman spoke haughtily.

  “Remember that this is my apartment and that Marie is my maid.”

  Van nodded. “Right — but the police can’t do their best work without your cooperation. This is no time for secrets.”

  SHE raised her eyes. They met Van’s challengingly. “I don’t like to be spied on. You’re no gentleman after all.” She drained her cocktail glass, rose, and swept out of the drawing room disdainfully.

  Van shrugged. Her arrogance was stupid. But there were detectives stationed all over the house. It was up to Farragut’s men to watch over her, too. He turned to question the maid, and at that instant Mrs. Tyler’s voice sounded down the hall, raised in complaint.

  “No, I won’t have it! I want to be alone!”

  Van jumped up. He saw an embarrassed detective step out of the kitchen door, and gesture helplessly. “She says she wants to mix another cocktail and that I’m in her way.”

  Van was puzzled. Why did Mrs. Tyler seem determined to jeopardize her life? Had some emotion stronger than fear made her forgetful that she was in danger every moment she was alone?

  Farragut came and called to his man. “Where’s Mrs. Tyler?”

  The detective shrugged. “Right there in the kitchen. She’s mixing a drink and told me to get out. Says she can’t move without tripping over my big feet.”

  “Never mind what she told you Stay in there with her.”

  “Yes, sir.” The detective started back to his post, and Mrs. Tyler, inside the kitchen, slammed the door.

  Dick Van Loan leaped forward. He pushed the detective aside, pounded on the door. “Don’t be a fool, Mrs. Tyler! We’ve all of us warned you! Every second you’re alone you’re risking your life!”

  A contemptuous laugh was the only response the woman made.

  Van listened. He couldn’t hear the rattle of ice in the cocktail shaker or a gurgle of liquor. There was no sound for several minutes, then Mrs. Tyler moved stealthily across the room and raised a window. They could hear the sash weights whisper.

  “Great Scott!” snapped Farragut. “What’s she doing? Is she mad? Has she lost her sense?”

  As though the night itself were giving answer, there was a sudden harsh and horrible scream. It was muffled, choking, hideous, an animal cry of primitive terror. It was cut off by a knifeblade of silence — a silence more terrible in its portent even than that weird cry. And then they heard a peculiar drumming noise as of human feet beating an unearthly tattoo against the floor.

  OPEN up! Good God — what’s happened?” Inspector Farragut was twisting at the knob with shaking fingers.

  But Dick Van Loan said nothing. White-faced, he drew back and launched his body straight at that locked door. It was heavy, massive. All the doors in this luxurious apartment were made of hand-finished oak.

  It withstood the first lunge of his hard, well-muscled body. He drew back, lunged again. The door groaned this time, but the lock and the hand-wrought hinges held. And all the time, coming faintly to Van’s ears like a hideous, far-off funereal drumming was the clatter of Mrs. Tyler’s feet.

  The sound stopped suddenly, and a vacuum of silence lay like a shroud behind that stubborn door.

  Panting, Van ran for a chair, returned with it, and smashed at the panels savagely. He broke through one, reached in with a trembling hand, and snapped back the lock. Farragut was beside him, whitefaced, as he bolted through. And a cry came from the inspector’s lips.

  “Good God — she’s gone!”

  It was true. Mrs. Tyler, willful society beauty, was nowhere in the kitchen. But the window was open, and the night air that came through it carried a warning of death.

  Van was the first to reach it. He thrust his head out. There was a courtyard outside the kitchen, its bottom ten stories down the clifflike face of the big apartment building. And, as he peered below into the shadows, he saw a huddled shape.

  He turned away, feeling sickened. “Come,”was all he said.

  They plunged down the hall to the elevator, took it to the basement, and hurried outside.

  Mrs. Tyler lay as she had fallen, her upturned face still coldly beautiful, but her skull fractured. She was stone dead. Van’s eyes dropped from her face. He tensed suddenly, knelt down beside her, and the inspector gasped in am­azement. For there was a cord of black rawhide about her white throat, drawn tight, cutting into the flesh. A piece of
it, nearly fifty feet long, lay in a snaky coil be­side her. Van lifted his head.

  “The roof!” he barked. “Send men up there. Some one dropped a noose over her neck, snared her when she leaned out the window. After she was unconscious he pulled her through, let go of the line, and she fell.”

  The inspector shot a harsh question at Van before he turned to give orders to his men. “What in hell was she leaning out of the window for? I don’t understand it!”

  For answer Van’s hand reached inside the dead woman’s dress for that mysterious note. He found the paper without delay, unfolded it, and ran his eyes over the paper’s contents.

  CHAPTER XI

  DESIGN FOR DEATH

  MRS. TYLER’S death lure was a love letter from a man who signed himself “Henry” and who asked the society beauty to send him a line.

  “I’m damned if I get it,” barked Farragut. “I don’t see what this has to do with murder.”

  “No?” Van’s voice was sardonic. “It has everything to do with it, Inspector! It was because of this note that she locked herself in the kitchen. The stubborn fool!” He added that bitterly. “She played right into the killer’s hands. He must have known of her intrigue. He planned things with diabolical shrewdness this time. Why in Heaven’s name didn’t she show me the note when I asked her to?”

  “What are you talking about, Phantom ?”

  “This note,” said Van. “I tell you it was murder bait — the lure used by the killer.”

  “I still don’t get it! He asks her to write to him. Why the devil didn’t she? Why did she want to stick her head out the kitchen window?”

  “When she did that she had already written to him!” Van said grimly. He stared upward into the darkness for a mo­ment. Then, “Let’s go back upstairs, Inspector. I think I can show you something.”

  Back in the kitchen again, Van went to the fateful window, reached out, and felt along the ledge, then beckoned Farragut to his side.

  “Just as I thought,” he said, pointing to a small open box on the outside sill, and a string leading away from the window. “Apparently Henry has an apartment directly across the court. He and Mrs. Tyler exchanged notes via this pulley device.”