He moved stealthily along the passage, flashing his light. The Chief had come this way, for the black length of the severed air line snaked along beside Van. Then Van stopped suddenly, peered ahead, half expecting another murderous attack.
But what he had seen was only the heavy, steel-plated diving suit lying like the skin of a deep-sea monster on the passage floor. The chipped glass of the lolling helmet seemed to stare up at Van resentfully. There was a big tank of compressed oxygen beside the suit, and the air line led to this.
VAN hurried on. Where had the Chief disappeared to? Where did this passage end?
He discovered shortly. His light made wavering shadows on the damp floor as he strode along. The corridor went straight ahead for almost a hundred feet, then dipped down. Van heard the thin wail of a police siren, heard wheels rumble overhead, and knew he was passing under the street.
His jaw set grimly. The Chief had taken amazing pains to keep his identity hidden from his men. The passage curved to the right, down, and up again. It ended at last in a short flight of crude stone steps.
There was a locked door at the top of them, but Van got it open. He came out in the cellar of another house. The rear door of the cellar was swinging wide. It led into a backyard. The Chief had obviously made his escape this way. For there were unlatched gates through several yards, then a short alley leading into another block that paralleled the one in front of the mystery house.
Van knew now exactly how the strange murderer had stolen in and out. But the knowledge came too late to help him. The Chief had made his get-away and would never return.
Van hurried back to the deserted mansion behind the high brick wall. Police cars were parked two abreast in the street. A half dozen prisoners, one with a broken arm, were being herded into a patrol wagon that stood at the curb. Two more came out on stretchers and were shoved into a car that would take then on their last ride to the city morgue.
But these were not all. Van, still in the disguise of Blackie Guido, used the diamond and platinum badge of the Phantom to get through the cordon of grim-faced cops and reënter the house. When Farragut saw the badge, and realized that this swarthy, hawk-nosed man was the Phantom, he swore explosively.
“Damn it, man! We thought you were in here. We heard the shots in the gymnasium. We thought you’d been killed.”
“I was in the gym,” said Van quickly, and he told what had happened. The inspector’s dour face tensed with amazement. He drew off his hat, ran a trembling hand over his bald head.
“Then you lost out, too, Phantom! That devil gave you the slip. This didn’t turn out to be such a hot clean-up. I let three of his men get away.”
“Three?”
“Yes. They hid in the left wing of the house, shot their way to the street after most of my boys were inside. We didn’t even get a look at them.”
Van strode outside again, stared closely at the prisoners and the two corpses.
“I’ve got the Chief’s key man in a place of mine ready to hand over to you,” he said to Farragut. “He’s promised to turn State’s evidence. But one of those who slipped by you tonight was as bad as any, a fellow they call Doc. I can give you a good description of him and the two others; but it may not do much good.”
“It will,” said Farragut. “We’ll round up every damn’ mother’s son of ‘em in this murdering mob.”
The Phantom nodded grimly. His eyes were bleak as he stared at the inspector. “Even if you do you still won’t have the Chief. As long as that devil’s loose the members of the Caulder family won’t be safe. This case won’t be over either. Better keep men posted to guard Moxley, Gray, Winstead, and Esmond Caulder — Blackwell, too, if you can find him. My hunch is that we haven’t heard the last of the Chief yet!”
The Phantom was right. Less than twenty-four hours later the tinkling tocsin that warned of murder sounded again. Van was in Frank Havens’s office in the Clarion Building talking over the details of the case when Farragut phoned. Havens answered the call. Van saw his knuckles whiten on the receiver as his fingers clenched.
The publisher listened, said, “Yes, he’s here, I’ll tell him,” then put down the phone and faced Van with blazing eyes. “Farragut’s out at Esmond Caulder’s. He says Caulder got one of the dancing dolls in the late mail a half hour ago.” Havens’s voice rose. “Can’t that hellish murder fiend even leave a dying man alone!”
Van’s fist clenched at his side, too. He drew in a quick gust from the cigarette he was smoking, then savagely tossed it away. He tried to speak composedly.
“I heard the Chief say that old Caulder might have to be given a push into the Great Beyond,” he said.
“It’s like a nightmare,” groaned Havens. “This thing won’t stop till every last member of the Caulder family’s dead. It’s Esmond Caulder next, then Gray probably, then Winstead if the poison he swallowed hasn’t already killed him. The last bulletin from the hospital said he was still alive.”
“I’m beginning to think Blackwell was wise,” said Van softly, “to run away.”
Havens clutched him. “Wise! There’s more behind it than that. Frankly, Van, doesn’t all the suspicion in the world point at Blackwell?”
“Suspicion — yes. But the law needs more than suspicion to send a man to the chair. Do you realize, Frank, that in all this sinister business we don’t know one damn’ thing really about the Chief? His men slipped up, bungled things; but the Chief made good every time.”
The publisher nodded quickly. “It’s even possible that when you ‘saved’ Blackwell out at Channel Point it wasn’t necessary. If Blackwell’s the killer the attack of those hopheads was only a sham. After the cunning the Chief’s shown I’m ready to believe anything. And we mustn’t forget that the clue of the clay that Squires brought here pointed straight at Blackwell. Maybe Farragut’s interpretation of it was right after all.”
Van only shrugged. He had a feeling suddenly that the answer to the whole hideous riddle was in sight — just around the corner if he could only reach it. He grabbed his hat.
“I’ll call you later. I’m going out to Caulder’s to see if I can help.”
CHAPTER XVII
NIGHT ATTACK
SWIFT as he had moved, though, Van was too late. Disaster came quickly. Something fell at the feet of two detectives patrolling the Caulder lawn as Van’s taxi swung into the drive. The thing thudded down into a patch of dry leaves on the north side of the house in sight of the windows of the sick room. It made a sound like a hissing snake.
Van didn’t hear it above the taxis crunching tires. Not till he paid his fare and got out did he notice that flashlights were winking in the gloom.
He called a question. But the detectives were too preoccupied to answer. Van hurried toward them. As he got nearer he saw them standing tensely, peering into the surrounding darkness. Then suddenly that darkness was ripped apart by a terrific explosion. The whole night seemed to be split wide open. Red and orange flame mushroomed out. The air was filled abruptly with a deafening cacophony of sound, with acrid smoke and flying particles of dirt and metal.
The two detectives never knew what struck them. For the spitting thing that had landed at their feet was a bomb, a grenade, and it exploded so close that t heir bodies were literally torn to pieces. The lurid glow lighted up the whole side of the house. The night became a bloody horror. Van was hurled flat, knocked unconscious, his face streaked with mud and gore. And when the darkness settled again, the section of lawn which the two men had been guarding was left exposed.
Inside the house, in the big drawing room, Inspector Farragut dropped the dancing doll he’d been examining. Hell itself seemed to have broken loose outside. But Farragut had presence of mind enough to think instantly of the sick man upstairs. This explosion out on the lawn could mean only one thing — the way was being cleared for the attack on Caulder.
FARRAGUT left the drawing room, plunged across the big, old-fashioned entrance hall, and headed for the main flight
of stairs. Before he reached the first landing another explosion sounded in the house itself, a detonation so terrific that the wind of it struck Farragut like a giant’s fist. The crash was in the hall directly above, near the door of Caulder’s bedroom.
It hurled Farragut back down the stairs. He went bouncing, sprawling to the very bottom, landing with his glasses broken and his body bruised. He lay for seconds too dazed to move. Then he picked himself up, grabbed his automatic. Face white, set, and bleeding from a cut made by his broken glasses, he started up the stairs again.
But the hall above was filled with choking vapor. Behind this foglike wall a shot suddenly sounded. Then Farragut heard a clatter of running feet at the other end of the upper hallway, and cursed fiercely, knowing there was a rear set of stairs.
The sound of the footsteps died away. Farragut, gripping his gun, thrust resolutely into that pall of smoke. But it confused him, blinded him, and he spent nearly three minutes opening the doors of empty rooms and batting against walls.
When the vapor began to clear a little he saw a reeling figure coming toward him. A man with a bloody face, staring eyes, and arms that waved frantically lurched down the hall. It was Caulder’s male nurse, his coat torn, a bruise on his cheek, a two-inch cut on his forehead pouring blood. His white lips opened and a creaking sound came from them. “Fire!”
Farragut smelled more smoke then, and saw suddenly that there was a wavering, lurid glow coming from the sick room door.
“There’s an extinguisher in the bathroom,” gasped the nurse. If I can get it —”
The man lurched on. Farragut ran toward that lighted doorway. It had been shattered by the second grenade. The panels were cracked and the door sagged on its hinges. Worse still, the bomb had set fire to Caulder’s bedclothes and to draperies in the room.
Flames were shooting up in a dozen places. Farragut lurched toward the bed where a figure lay, stepped back gasping as flames singed his eyebrows, then gathered up a blanket and began beating at them. One patch of flame had crept close to Caulder’s face. The inspector concentrated on this.
He was helped in a moment by the nurse who came back clutching a red fire extinguisher. The squirting chemical did the work better than Farragut’s blanket, which put the flames out in some places, but fanned them in others. In a moment the blaze in the bedclothes was out. They turned their attention to the draperies. Farragut snatched the extinguisher from the nurse’s hands.
“Look out for him,” he snapped, jerking his thumb toward Caulder. “See if he’s alive.”
The nurse, weakened from loss of blood, stumbled faithfully toward the bed. While Farragut put out the last of the flames, the nurse tipped back Caulder’s head and gave him a stimulant. Caulder’s grey hair was singed, his face blackened with smoke, but his heart was still beating. The nurse gave a cry of thankfulness, then collapsed on the floor with his bloody face lolling inertly beside his patient’s bed.
It was five minutes later, after Dick Van Loan had picked himself up painfully and entered the house, that the nurse recovered enough to talk.
His words came tremblingly.
“After the explosion outside,” he said, “I heard someone coming along the hall. I went to the door. It was a man, a stranger. He lifted his arm and threw something when he saw me. I ducked back and dropped flat in time to escape being blown to pieces by the second grenade.”
“Did you get a good look at him?” Van asked tensely.
‘Yes, He had a handkerchief over his face, but I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. I can see them yet. They burned right through me. He came up the servants’ staircase in the rear and escaped the same way. He thought the bomb he’d thrown had killed me, for he came right into Mr. Caulder’s room. I was too dazed to move for a minute. A piece of wood had struck me here in the forehead. Then I saw him deliberately touch a match to the bed and the draperies, and I remembered the gun Mr. Caulder had asked me to carry at the time these terrible murders first began. I drew it and shot the stranger. My hand was shaking so that I don’t think I hit him; but I scared him away.”
“Yes,” said Farragut. “He was running.” The inspector turned and gave an order to Sergeant Nelson. “Watch every door and window. Caulder’s still alive and that devil may have nerve enough to try coming back.”
The nurse shook his head. “If Mr. Caulder’s death was what he wanted, he won’t need to come back. This shock will finish Mr. Caulder.”
Dick Van Loan agreed. “To a man in his condition those two explosions and that fire should be as fatal as bullets.”
The family doctor came and confirmed the Phantom’s words. Caulder was very low, his heart feeble and irregular, the spark of life already flickering.
“He may go any time now,” said the doctor. “At most I would say he can’t last a week.”
Farragut spoke fiercely. “You hear that, Phantom! The murderer has succeeded, after all.”
“Yes,” said Van bitterly, “it looks so.”
He didn’t reproach Farragut for not seeing to it that his men were more wary. There was no use in reproaches now. But the inspector’s detectives had fallen for that trick of the exploding bomb out on the lawn which had killed two of their number. The others had left their posts, and during that time there had been plenty of opportunity for a killer to make his entry.
THE door at the bottom of the back stairway led to a side porch. It was now unlocked, swinging open, and there was no chance of finding footprints out on the tight, frozen sod of the lawn.
“I agree that the Chief probably won’t come back here,” Van went on. “But we can expect him in other places. Double the guard around Winstead’s room in the hospital, Inspector. And I advise you to place armed men in the cells next to Moxley’s up in the pen, too. The Chief might bribe some fellow prisoner to kill him.”
Van turned then and picked up the dancing doll which had come to Caulder’s house in the late mail like the others. He examined it. Again the Chief had given notice of the murder method he planned to use. For the doll’s wig and clothing had been singed in a dozen spots. Van shuddered. The faint smell of that burned hair was almost like roasting flesh. Except for the courage and quick thinking of Caulder’s nurse that odor would now be permeating the whole house.
The Phantom spoke suddenly.
“With your permission, Inspector, I’m going to make a thorough dust examination of the house. That explosion stirred up enough of it, and this crime differs in one respect from all the others. The Chief, according to the story we’ve just heard, worked alone. He came alone, flung his grenades, and set his fires. We have reason to believe we know just which way he took into the house and out. That’s why a dust collection and analysis is indicated. I’ve got the necessary equipment. I’ll go get it, come back here, and go over every inch of floor space the Chief must have traveled.”
Farragut nodded. “It’s okay by me, Phantom.”
Van borrowed a police coupé, drove it himself back to Dr. Paul Bendix’s laboratory. He had already turned Blackie Guido over to the inspector. The man was now warming a cell in the Tombs.
Van took a bulky apparatus down from a shelf. It was a vacuum cleaner, but of no ordinary kind. Its mechanism was almost silent, in spite of its super-powerful motor. There were over a dozen different shaped nozzles which could be used to collect dust from every conceivable location in a room.
And, instead of one dust bag, there were a dozen small ones, with blank tags on them. More and more the scientific examination of dust was becoming an aid to criminology. And the Phantom, as usual, had the very latest gadgets.
He hurried back to Caulder’s home with his equipment and went over every inch of the route they had reason to think the killer had taken. The sick man had been removed to another room; because the broken windows on the north side made his former bedroom uninhabitable. Van went in that, too.
It was filled with detectives, but they moved aside respectfully to let the Phantom work. The thin hum o
f his strange vacuum cleaner sounded minute after minute. He went at it systematically, even opening the doors of several closets and thrusting one of his nozzles inside. No telling where dust might have been blown to in that violent explosion. Each time he got a sample from a different room or closet he took the dust bag off, tagged it, and fastened a new one on.
He left the Caulder home with enough dust to occupy him for several days. It might even take him a week to look through the millions of particles with the aid of microscopes and chemicals.
But it was the sort of work the Phantom loved when he wasn’t engaged in violent action. He would turn the white light of science on the macabre trail of the Chief. He left word with Frank Havens to call him at the Bendix laboratory if anything new developed.
IT was forty-eight hours later that an item in a late edition of an afternoon paper caught Van’s interest:
PRISON AUTHORITIES WILL ALLOW CONVICT
TO VISIT DYING RELATIVE
Those were the headlines. The item went on to state that the warden of the State penitentiary had received a request from Judd Moxley to be allowed to make a short visit to his cousin, Esmond Caulder. Caulder had expressed a wish to see his relative before he died.
There was a picture of Moxley. Van was impressed by his striking resemblance to the rest of the Caulder family. He had the same square jaw and high cheek bones as old Esmond. The same look of arrogant independence. In making a decision on his request the prison board had taken into consideration the fact that Moxley’s sentence would be up shortly.
Van studied Moxley’s face for a long time, then strode back to his microscopes and worked more feverishly than ever. It was plain that Moxley would be in greater danger out of jail than in. The thought that another murder was possibly brewing brought home to Van the need of haste. Soon, some way or other, he must have his reckoning with the Chief.
For two hours more Van isolated and examined particles of dust. Then at last he bent over the lens of his microscope in tense excitement. Tiny tell-tale outlines showed on his slide — outlines that he had seen somewhere before in the past week.
The Phantom Detective - The Dancing Doll Murders Page 13