Not till he was certain that there was no guard prowling around the grounds did Van move forward. He had the instinct of the hunter who feels that he is getting close to his game. A false step now and they might break cover. He remembered how the gang had left and set fire to the garage. That must not happen again, or he might never be able to solve this sinister riddle and bring the Chief to justice.
For almost fifteen minutes Van skirted the outside of the house. He dared not turn on his flash. There might be eyes watching. Like a blind man he touched the walls he came to, oriented himself with corners, studied the location of steps. He went around three times, before his eyes, grown almost as sharp as a cat’s in the darkness, made out one tiny sliver of light.
It came from a minute chink in a shuttered and curtained basement window. It could not have been seen five feet away. But Van was closer than that, three feet, and he was watching for just some such thing. It told him what he wanted to know. The strange activity behind the closed doors and windows of this mansion was concentrated down stairs. He would not have to risk entering above and moving across sagging, squeaking floors that would betray his presence.
He left the chink where the light showed, stole along the side of the big house till he came to what he felt sure was a furnace room door. For his hands, reaching down to the ground in the darkness, reading signs, came in contact with bits of broken clinkers and angular pieces of coal, And now, for a brief instant, he switched on his slender, fountain pen flash; and he was relieved to see that the door had had an old-fashioned lock and that there were no footprints in the soil around it.
The lock gave him trouble, however, not because jt was elaborate, but because it was rusty. It wouldn’t yield till Van spilled benzine from his cigarette lighter into the oxidized mechanism. He did the same to the hinges, got the door open at last, and stepped into a black, icy room. The cement floor told him he had been correct in his surmise. And in a moment, hands before him, he came in contact with a boiler.
Then once again, across many feet of Stygian darkness, he saw a faint glimmer of light. It was low down this time. It seemed to come from under the crack of a door. Van’s heart sounded a muffled drum-beat of excitement as he moved ahead stealthily in the gloom.
And then he could hear men’s voices! Faint at first, a mere quavering rumble. Louder as he came close to the door. They were in the room beyond, that was certain. But the door seemed thick; and when Van, after several seconds, risked using his flash for an instant again, he saw that it was made of metal. Not only that — whatever lock there was seemed to be on the inside.
But his flash, sweeping across the wall of the room he was in, revealed to Van that age and dampness had taken effect. He glimpsed a spot where plaster had spilled from the intervening partition where the bricks looked loose. He stole to it, worked tensely for a full minute and got one brick out. Instantly light made him squint as it came across six inches of air space from a wide crack in whatever substance formed the partition’s opposite wall.
He couldn’t see the whole room beyond, but putting his eye close, he could see enough to puzzle him and hold his rapt attention. For lights gleamed on water. There was a dank, stagnant swimming pool directly in front of the tiled face of the partition where Dick Van Loan stood.
Gathered at one edge of it was a group of men, many of whom he had seen before. Bowers was there, with his evil, black-browed face. The same pallid hopheads who had accompanied Van from Blackwell’s. The man they called “Doc,” with his glittering glasses and his thinning hair that made his high forehead taper up in devil’s horns. And Blackie Guido, looking out of place with his fine clothes in this motley gathering, except that his face was stamped with criminality like the faces of the rest.
Others moved into Van’s line of vision as he watched, gunmen and human gorillas with the build of riverfront thugs. A man with a depraved face and long spiderlike arms who looked as if he might have been the monster who had strangled Mrs. Tyler.
Van watched lynx-eyed, and sensed that something was about to happen. He had arrived just in time apparently. For Blackie Guido looked at his watch, then said to Bowers in a voice that Van could hear distinctly:
“Get your men out of here and keep ‘em out. Go into the billiard room. I’ll come in when I’m through. I gotta talk to the Chief. And remember — I ain’t saying he won’t raise hell at what happened in the garage.”
BOWERS’S ugly face looked scared suddenly. “I don’t get it, Blackie. How can you talk to the Chief here? The door to the furnace room’s bolted shut. All the windows are nailed. You say you’re gonna lock yourself in. Where does the Chief come from? Is he really comin’ himself, or does he just call you?”
“Beat it!” said Blackie. “Scram! And you better start worryin’ about what’s gonna happen to you.”
Bowers shuffled off toward the door into the next chamber, beckoning the others with him. Van saw them dart half curious, half fearful glances at Blackie Guido, as though he had some sort of supernatural powers. And Guido seemed to take a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that he was being mystifying. He looked at his watch again.
“One forty-five,” he snapped. “The Chief is due in five minutes; scram, all of you.”
He strode after them, locked the door into the billiard room, then Van saw him go to the wall. He reached down behind a piece of loose molding, did something that Van couldn’t quite fathom. After this he came and sat down in a chair directly in front of the pool. Van felt his own scalp grow tight when he saw that Guido was staring fixedly down at the black, oily water. What did it mean?
In five minutes Van got his answer. The pool’s surface grew strangely agitated. Sluggish bubbles came up as though some hellish devil’s brew were being concocted. And then water broke around the black, monste-like dome of a man’s helmeted head. Van saw outlines of a diving suit below the helmet. He knew in that instant of frozen wonder that he was looking at the Chief!
CHAPTER XIII
THE CHIEF’S ORDERS
HERE was the unknown being whose crafty brain had already arranged three murders and attempted two others! Here was the killer who prefaced death with music, whose wax manikins with their tinkling tunes led men and women to their graves in a Danse Macabre.
Van watched, and felt at that moment that he was peering into a nightmare world of fantastic horror. For there was something utterly devilish about that round, black, up-thrust head. There was weirdness in the way the man was poised there just above the water, and in the whole manner of his appearance so late at night in the musty, ruined seclusion of this ancient house.
Blackie Guido seemed to feel the spell of the strange presence, too. His arrogance had left him, dropped off like a discarded cloak. He had grown visibly paler. His hands were clenched nervously around the arms of his chair.
The helmeted head turned toward him. The single round glass in front goggled at him like the inhuman eye of some giant crustacean. A voice, as sepulchral as though it came from a tomb and blurred by a buzzing diaphragm in the helmet’s top, sounded.
“Your report, Blackie!”
The Phantom, listening, trained to recognize and remember people’s voices, was at a loss now. Somewhere it seemed to him he had heard inflections like those of this goggled monster. But the distortion of that buzzing diaphragm was cleverly calculated to throw anyone off the trail.
Blackie Guido was trembling. “Svendal got the woman all right. Your plan with her worked out smooth as butter. She fell for the bait. Svendal roped her and pulled her out of the window right under the cops’ noses. Svendal’s the best guy for a strangle job there is in the country. He’d choke his own mother for an extra ten bucks. If only all the other boys were as good — I guess you know we’ve had some tough breaks, Chief?”
“Yes!” There was some contempt, reproval, menace in that single word.
“They did their best, Chief — honest! The only guy I really blame is Bowers. He had the Phant
om trapped and let him go. I warned him to look out, too. He shoulda been more careful.”
“Yes!” said the helmeted man again. “And how about O’Banion and the other hopheads? They let one man, that same Phantom, get the best of them! And how about Joe Vanzanni whom you posted in your apartment to kill the Phantom?”
“You know about that, Chief?”
“I read of his death in the afternoon papers. Do you think I didn’t know where you lived under the name of Warburton? It was plain that the Phantom had traced your private wire, that you arranged for his death without consulting me, and that Vanzanni slipped up, just as Bowers did in the garage. I rather thought you’d show better judgment in your choice of employees, Blackie! I’m paying for the best — and I expected to get them.”
“There wasn’t time to get in touch with you when I tried to bump the Phantom. I tried to call Hog-face back, and when he didn’t answer, I thought there was something fishy in the air. So I got things all set just in case. It looked like a sure bet. I don’t know why Joe slipped up. It’s the Phantom that’s made it tough for us, Chief. Otherwise —”
“You’re sure he hasn’t followed you here?”
“Sure. I took everything away from the studio. The Phantom didn’t help himself any by bumping Joe. You’re the only one that knows I called myself Warburton. I don’t know how you found out —”
“How about that girl? Women are your weakness, Blackie! They’ll give you a free ticket to Hell yet.”
GUIDO’S Adam’s apple was bobbing and he looked positively sick.
“Listen! I — she — Nobody knows a damned thing about her except you. And, Chief, if that dame started to spill anything I’d smash her face in. I’m gettin’ fed up with her, anyway. I shouldn’t wonder —”
The Chief laughed sardonically.
“All right, Blackie. But just remember that every time one of your men makes a slip he’s fashioning another nail for your own coffin. You don’t know who I am; but I know who you are and all about you. If you fall down on the job I hired you for, the electric chair is waiting. It kills people dead, Blackie, dead as roasted rats.”
“I ain’t fallin’ down, Chief! As for Bowers — that guy’s already on the spot.”
“You might weed out a few other incompetents along with him and cut the payroll down,” said the Chief coldly.
“Sure! I’ll do that,” Blackie said eagerly. “I’ll have Doc give those two hopheads a dose they won’t wake up from. And now — maybe if you’d trust me a little more, Chief, I could work better. A guy can’t do his best batting in the dark. How many more of the Caulder family do you figure on getting rid of? And what’s the dope behind it?”
The Phantom listened, his heart almost stopping. This was what he wanted to know, too. He’d thought of drawing his automatic, thrusting its muzzle through the crack in the wall tiles, and sending a bullet straight at this sinister, unknown killer. But even supposing he was justified in doing it, he realized as soon as the impulse came that it would probably be futile.
A man as canny as the Chief, who had taken such pains to preserve his incognito and achieve self-protection, would have that diving suit lined with some sort of bullet-proof armor surely. Only a direct hit in the helmet goggle-glass would be effective. And under the circumstances that was a target too small for even the Phantom. So he waited tensely for the Chief’s answer to Blackie’s question.
That sepulchral voice sounded again. “You are not so very bright, Blackie. Has it never occurred to you that if the whole Caulder fortune fell into the hands of a man as spineless and easily frightened as Reggie Winstead it would be a simple matter for us to get it?”
“Blackmail, you mean?”
The Chief, Van noted, didn’t answer directly. He laughed harshly. “Winstead’s brother has been murdered,” he said with a mocking inflection. “One of his cousins is already dead. If the others were out of the way, if he were the last remaining heir, he’d be utterly spineless in the face of intimidation. To save his life he’d part with any amount of money.”
“So that’s the layout?” said Guido quickly.
There was a brief pause, and again the Chief was evasive. “Use your own judgment!”
“Aw, listen! I’ve played square with you. I’m only askin’ —”
‘Quiet!” The helmeted head was turned toward Guido with a fixity that seemed to freeze him. He remained silent, cowed, while the voice went on, “Don’t dare to question me nor try to penetrate my motives! You’re being paid handsomely for your services — more than you are worth. Your men failed to get Simon Blackwell. Until you rectify that error you certainly can expect no confidence from me.”
“I’ll do it, Chief! I’ll see that that old buzzard gets enough lead in his belly to sink him to Hell. Or I’ll get rid of him any way you say. What do you think —”
“I’m tired of thinking for you. How you get Blackwell is up to you. But get him! I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow night. If your report isn’t satisfactory —” The Chief didn’t finish. His head and shoulders began sinking below the surface of the stagnant, icy pool, and the goggle-glass in his helmet, up to the very moment he disappeared, remained fixed on Blackie Guido with malignant meaning.
When the last bubble had ceased coming up, Blackie rose fiercely. His face was working. His black eyes blazed. He was in a wicked temper. He threw open the billiard-room door.
“Bowers!” he called thickly. “I wanta see you a minute!”
The lumbering, black-browed face of the gang lieutenant appeared in the door.
“Did yer see the Chief? What’d he say? Any ord —”
Bowers’s sentence ended in a choking cry. Those were the last words he was destined ever to utter. For Blackie Guido had drawn a gun with such lightning speed and ferocity that the Phantom could barely follow it. Six reports made blasting echoes in that high-ceilinged room.
Van, between shots, could actually imagine he heard the slap of the bullets against Bowers’s body. The big man pawed at his chest and stomach. His jaw dropped open as though in gaping surprise. All six shots seemed to have struck him. He thudded down on the tiles like a falling porpoise and lay hideously still.
Blackie pocketed his gun. His face was still working, but there was a thin, sadistic smile on his pale lips. The murder of Bowers seemed to give him grim satisfaction. Others of the gang came crowding into the room. Blackie walked up to Bowers’s still form, kicked it.
“Some of you heels take this carrion away!” he snarled.
WHEN they had dragged Bowers’s corpse out, Blackie turned suddenly to the man called Doc.
“Doc, I wanta see you! All the rest of you mugs scram and leave us alone!”
Doc, with his glittering glasses and satanic face, cringed back in terror. He seemed to think he was going to be murdered in cold blood, too. But Blackie gestured magnanimously.
“Not yet, Doc! You’re okay as long as you make good. Bowers had it comin’ to him. The big ox fell down on me. And” — Blackie lowered his voice, but Van could still hear him — “we don’t need Symie and that other hophead any more. They’re liabilities. Next time you give ‘em the needle, be generous.”
Doc smiled, relieved obviously that Guido’s murderous anger had spent itself on Bowers.
“I’ve got something that will do the trick more surely than a mere overdose of dope,” he said huskily. “A little arsenical compound of my own invention. I’ll mix it with the morphine. Those boys are as good as dead.”
“Fine! You’re an educated feller, Doc. You’ve got brains and you’ve had plenty experience. Now that Bowers is out I think I’ll make you my number one sidekick. We’ll get along swell as long as you do as I say.” Guido paused a moment, riveting his hard, black eyes on Doc’s face.
Doc grinned till his features became a leering death’s-head. “You’re the boss, Blackie. What I like to do is oblige.”
“Okay. Then I wanta talk to you about something. We’re in a tough spot
— all of us. We don’t know who the Chief is. He knows us. If it hadn’t been for the big dough he offered I’d never have got my neck into this. But dough don’t do a guy any good in the hot seat. How do we know the Chief won’t double-cross us?”
“We don’t!” said Doc, still grinning.
“Well, it ain’t funny!” snapped Blackie. “We gotta find out more about him. We gotta get ready to put the brakes on.”
“How?” The grin had faded from Doc’s face. Guido had been thinking of that, too.
SOMETHING the Chief said put me wise! He was handing me a line. He made out our job is to bump all the people who’re gonna get a slice of the Caulder dough except Reggie Winstead. Then he said we could shake down Reggie. But that sounds phony to me. By the time all the others are six feet under Reggie will either skip out of the country or hire enough private detectives so an army couldn’t get to him.”
“Well,” said Doc, “maybe he was handing you a hot-air highball.”
“Yeah, maybe he was — and I figure he had a reason for doing it!” Guido’s eyes gleamed, and he smiled suddenly with a look of vicious cunning. He thrust his face close to Doc’s, spoke so that Van could barely hear him. “How do we know the Chief ain’t Reggie Winstead?”
Doc started, drew a hand slowly over his high, peaked forehead. Then his head bobbed.
“A good bet, Blackie! Brothers have killed each other before. Cain bumped Abel, didn’t he? You say Winstead seems like a fellow who’s afraid of his own shadow; but maybe that’s just an act. Maybe the Chief is Winstead. Maybe he plans to use you, get the other heirs killed off, get all the money himself, then see to it that you and all the rest of us land in the chair.”
Blackie Guido swore furiously, clamped his fingers on Doc’s arm.
“If that’s his game, he won’t get away with it! We’ll get some of the boys to watch Winstead and put the heat on him if they find anything suspicious. We’ll find out somehow whether Winstead’s the guy. And, meantime, before tomorrow night, we’ve got to see that Blackwell gets his. If we don’t, and if Winstead isn’t the Chief, we’ll all be through.”
The Phantom Detective - The Dancing Doll Murders Page 10