The Black Ball Of Death

by Robert Wallace

  The Black Ball Of Death

  Robert Wallace

  Ripped from the pages of the Fall, 1949 issue of "The Phantom Detective" magazine, here is the complete lead novel (including illustrations) – The Black Ball of Death! Marked for murder, the Phantom tackles the puzzling “eight-ball” mystery – in which a sinister clue at the feet of slain Arthur Arden is a harbinger of further violence! Exciting pulp action!

  Robert Wallace

  The Black Ball Of Death

  A book in the Phantom Detective series, 2008

  CHAPTER I

  FATAL SLEEP

  STEVE HUSTON, ace reporter for the Clarion, heard the Cadillac’s powerful engine choke and miss. Twice, on the way back from the newspaper convention in Baltimore, the car had acted up. Now, close to midnight, again it sounded as if about ready to stop entirely.

  Frank Havens, wealthy owner of the Clarion and a string of coast-to coast newspapers, roused himself. His gray eyes turned in Steve’s direction. “Same thing?”

  Huston, small, redheaded, and wiry, nodded. “I guess so. I’m no mechanic, but I’ve got a hunch the timing’s wrong, or the generator isn’t working.”

  “Where are we?”

  Steve glanced out of the open window beside him. The road they were on was some alternate route back to New York. Havens, who didn’t like traffic, had told him to take it. In the moonlight it stretched away between open farm fields, woods, and general desertion.

  “We’re somewhere in lower Jersey.”

  The motor caught, pulsing rhythmically, and Havens relaxed on the upholstered seat. But Steve wasn’t deceived. Twice since they bad left Baltimore the car had performed in that same manner.

  Figuratively he kept his fingers crossed while he glanced at the electric clock on the dash.

  In fifteen minutes it would be midnight. Havens wanted to get back to Manhattan in a hurry. The two-day convention in Maryland had kept him from his desk in the Clarion Building. Steve knew a terrific amount of work demanding his attention had piled up there.

  Under the gas pedal his foot rested on, the reporter felt the power begin to drop off again. They were near a crossroad. In the moonlight he had, a glimpse of signposts, white against the dark. He coaxed the engine, which had begun to miss and sputter, as far as the intersection.

  He stopped there, Frank Havens sitting erect again.

  “I don’t think we’re going to make it,” Steve said. “It’s getting worse instead of better. We haven’t passed a garage or a gas station for miles.”

  “What do the road signs say?” The publisher opened the glove compartment and took out the flashlight he always carried there.

  Huston opened the door, stepped to the signs. He used the flash briefly.

  “Lake Candle is three miles straight ahead. Morristown is thirty-eight, and Bear Hill is twenty-five.”

  “Lake Candle?” Havens fingered his close-cropped gray mustache. “That sounds familiar.”

  He seemed to ponder while the reporter gingerly tried the gas treadle to see what would happen. The engine. was still running, but only on two or three of its eight cylinders. He let it idle, waiting for further instructions from the man beside him.

  “Of course!” Havens spoke suddenly. “Lake Candle – that’s where Matthew Arden has his lodge! I knew it had a familiar sound. I’ve been there several times. Arden is one of my oldest and best friends.”

  Steve Huston nodded silently. The name rang a bell in his memory. Matthew Arden, he recalled, had once been an important person in the legislative affairs of the country. He had held several diplomatic posts before becoming Attorney General in an administration two decades ago.

  While he was linking Matthew Arden’s name with the man’s background, Havens had an inspiration.

  “We’ll try to make Lake Candle, Steve. If I remember correctly, Matt Arden spends a lot of time at the lodge at this time of the year. He may be there now. Even if he isn’t, there’ll be someone around who’ll telephone a garage, see that we get fixed up.”

  Huston let the brake off and started again. The Cadillac rolled, protesting violently. The engine backfired and rattled, but the wheels went around. Limping along, they covered the distance at a pace that made three miles seem like a hundred.

  Ahead, Steve caught the glimmer of a lake in the distance. A road to the left curved down to it. Havens supplied directions while Steve followed them, not sure which minute the big car would call it a night and quit cold.

  Another road, going in between thick woods, crunched under their tires. For a quarter of a mile the Cadillac nosed along through walls of darkness. Frank Havens, peering through the windshield, said: “This is Arden’s private road. The lodge can’t be too far now.”

  Another few minutes and Huston heard the crackle of gravel. They were on a driveway lined with high banks of rhododendron. What little moonlight sifted through the interlaced branches of the trees gave the reporter a glimpse of the slate roof and tall chimneys of a building set sharply to the left of them.

  He stopped the car, cutting the motor with a turn of the key and a sigh of relief. Havens switched on the flash and got out.

  “Let’s see what luck we have, Steve.”

  Beside him, Huston skirted the rhododendrons. In the faint glow of the moon they gave the place a sort of funereal touch. Coupled with the dense tree growth and thick underbrush, they gave Arden’s lodge all the seclusion anyone could ask for. The trouble was, Steve told himself, a kind of melancholy gloom hung over the surroundings.

  He could feel it settle over him like a pall. He didn’t know why but his nerves seemed to react oddly. Usually, nothing somber affected him in his reportorial career he had become accustomed to varied settings and situations, some of which were not conducive to mirth and cheer.

  But this place, Steve told himself, did things to his imagination. Or maybe the strain of keeping the Cadillac alive had jarred his nerves to a tension that had left him tightened up to an unusual pitch. But whatever it was, the sprawl of the lightless building he and Havens faced when they penetrated the green shrubbery’s barrier, did nothing to ease his feelings.

  It was a stoutly timbered, casement-windowed, two-storey affair. A terrace paralleled the south side, dropping away at its west end to allow a view of Lake Candle below the cliff on which the lodge had been built. Down there Steve saw a white boathouse, a dock jutting out into the water.

  He moved his glance back to the lodge. Havens went briskly up the flagged walk that led to its beamed front door. The publisher used his flash to find the bell. He put his thumb over it; and, far inside, Steve heard its shrill, insistent ringing.

  A MINUTE or more passed. No one came to open the door. Havens pressed the bell again. Still there was no reply. He reached for a heavy iron knocker. That awoke thunderous echoes, but failed to bring anyone to open the door.

  With a shrug Havens stepped back from the broad, low step. “How are you at housebreaking, Steve?” he asked.

  Huston stared. “I’ve never done any, but I’ve covered plenty of cases where it was accomplished. You mean – we’re going in?”

  “Exactly. There’s nothing else to do. I’ll explain to Matt when I see him. How about the windows?”

  “Casement, metal frames.” The reporter shook his head. “Too tough. I’ll look around and see if there is an easier way.”

  He found what he wanted on the north side of the lodge. There, a small conservatory with ordinary windows looked out over the edge of the cliff. Steve went back to the Cadillac and got a screwdriver. Using that on the latch that fastened the end window, he managed to pry the lock open and raise the sash.

  Frank Havens followed him over the sill and onto a green, tiled flo
or. A door opened from the conservatory into a sitting room. The publisher, puffing slightly from his exertion in climbing in, found a switch, and turned on lights in several lamps.

  As the electricity glowed, Steve grew familiar with the fact that, after all, while no one had come to answer the bell, the lodge wasn’t deserted. It had the smell of occupancy. The faint aroma of tobacco hung on the listless air. A warmth that Steve traced to the embers of logs in a fireplace, was pleasant after the cool of the outside night.

  He noticed a silver cocktail shaker with two glasses beside it on an end-table, while the luxury of the room began to impress itself upon him. Fine paintings were on the walls; the antique furniture, time-mellowed, was worth a fortune.

  But he didn’t have full opportunity to appraise the furnishings. Havens, impatient, had gone out of the room and into the main hall. Steve followed, while his employer snapped on lights en route.

  “Must be a telephone around somewhere,” he heard the publisher saying as he flicked on the electricity in the various rooms along the hallway.

  Following, Huston tagged along until they reached a door at the end of the hall. Havens opened it, fumbled around for the switch, and Steve – coming up beside him – blinked in the sudden cold shine of lights in fixtures designed to throw their rays upon the green felt of two pool-tables, one on either side of the large, square, wainscoted room they peered into.

  Havens’s glance went around it in search of a telephone. He saw it at the same moment Huston did. A black, plastic instrument in a wall niche on the opposite side of the room. The publisher started toward it. He took several forward steps, froze to a stop, and gave a startled, strangled exclamation.

  Steve Huston understood the next second. Following Havens’s horrified stare, the little reporter saw what had stopped his boss.

  A MAN lay on his back in the shadow of one of the pool tables. It was a tall, slimly built young man, wearing a tan linen coat and blue slacks. His posture was one of repose, as if he had slipped down to the floor and dozed off. But Steve, as his strained eyes moved over the recumbent figure, realized that the aspect of slumber was false.

  It was sleep, but one from which the man would never awaken.

  Proof of that was visible where the linen coat gaped at the chest. The white, open-throated sports shirt was splashed vividly with the same ominous, red stain that puddled the rugless floor beside the body. Huston needed only another quick glance to notice two things.

  One, the fact the man they peered at had been shot through the chest and apparently had been dead for some time. Coming in on him as they had, brought a fantastic recollection of a hospital term to Steve’s taut mind. That was the abbreviation for the expression ‘Dead On Arrival’ used in emergency ambulance calls. DOA, as they called it.

  The other thing that held Huston’s attention was a pool ball from one of the tables – a black ball with a number in a white circle. That, grotesquely, was placed beside the dead man’s feet.

  It took Steve a split second to realize the sardonic significance of the pool ball’s position. The corpse was directly behind the eight ball!

  “Arthur Arden, Matt’s son!” – Frank Havens’s smothered words came out of a silence that seemed to shriek in Steve’s ears. “The telephone – get the police, Steve! This is – murder!”

  CHAPTER II

  THE PHANTOM!

  TWENTY-FIVE miles north of Lake Candle, a late session of bridge was winding up at Tall Tree, the home of Clayton Marsh, a retired railroad executive whose aim in life, Richard Curtis Van Loan had come to believe, was the snaring of week-end guests for the sole purpose of playing cards with them.

  Marsh, an inveterate bridge fiend, had written several pamphlets on the subject. He fancied himself an authority on the game. The stakes meant nothing just so long as he could put some of his theories into practice and, between hands, deliver post mortems on how the cards should have been played or how expertly they had been played – by him.

  Van, a New York socialite, wealthy in his own right, had never been a guest at Tall Tree before. As he glanced at his watch he decided he would see that it never happened again. Bridge was all right in small quantities. But to be forced down at a table and made to play for more than four solid hours was a chore that had little appeal.

  Marsh, with a gold pencil, began to total the score. Van Loan, helping himself to a surreptitious stretch while he smothered a yawn, glanced at the others around the table to see how they were taking it. His recent partner, the elderly Matthew Arden, seemed numb. The former US. Attorney General, who played a shrewd, mathematical game, rubbed his eyes as if to get the fog out of them, while a horse-faced Englishman who had been Marsh’s last partner, poured himself a stiff brandy and soda.

  Through the quiet of the pine-paneled card room, Van heard the far off tinkle of a telephone. Then the sleepy voice of a servant answering it.

  Clayton Marsh completed his addition. He stared at the score pad, frowning. As if in disbelief, he checked back over the figures. Finally he looked across at his partner.

  “What do you make it, Hackett?”

  “Van Loan’s top man. Wins everything.” Hackett took a long drink and rattled the ice in his glass. To Van, he said, “I don’t mind telling you, old chap, you’re a bit of a wizard at the game. I’ve played plenty of bridge, but I’ve never seen anyone get top score out of a lot of bad hands. Marvelous!”

  Marsh’s frown deepened. He was a man in his middle fifties, slightly heavy from lack of exercise. He had pale, shrewd eyes. They focused on the handsome profile of Dick Van Loan, speculatively.

  “I had no idea you were such a worthy opponent, Dick. I don’t recall ever having played with you before.”

  “I play occasionally.” Van moved his wide shoulders. “I don’t profess to be an expert. I was just lucky tonight.”

  “Yes, of course. Luck. I’ve often said that luck is at least sixty percent of every played hand. The technique of bidding, as well as of a stubborn and scientific defense -”

  About to launch into another lecture, Marsh stopped when his butler entered the room and coughed apologetically.

  “Begging your pardon, Mr. Arden is wanted on the telephone.”

  Arden got up. He was about six feet, a partially bald, loosely built man with an aristocratic face and a certain amount of dynamic impact despite his years.

  “Who would be calling me at this hour? It’s almost one o’clock.”

  “In the lounge, sir,” the butler said.

  Arden left the room, and Van Loan shot some seltzer into a convenient glass. He added a pair of ice cubes as Clayton Marsh began talking again, and Hackett hastily replenished his own glass.

  Marsh was still droning away when Van saw Matthew Arden return to the room. A glance was enough to straighten Van Loan in his chair. The former Attorney General’s face was ashen. His big hands seemed to tremble as he came in quickly.

  Marsh broke of! as he caught a glimpse of Arden’s expression.

  “Matt! What’s happened? Are you ill?”

  “That call -” The big man seemed to have difficulty getting it out “It was from my place at Lake Candle. The – Sheriff McCabe – he wants me to come down immediately. My son’s there – dead!”

  He reached for a chair for support. Marsh and Hackett, as if stupefied by the news, peered at him speechlessly. Van, on his feet instantly, said:

  “Let me drive you down, Mr. Arden. My car’s outside.”

  “Would you? I’d be grateful.” Arden drew a deep, gasping breath.

  In less than ten minutes Van had his sleek black sedan on the main cement highway that ran south through the New Jersey hills. On the front seat beside him, Matthew Arden sat in an apathetic huddle. There was no conversation as the fleet car sped along through the night.

  None was necessary. Van knew the thoughts of the man beside him. He didn’t want to intrude upon them. Conversation, he decided, was superfluous at a time like this.

  While
he drove, Van Loan pieced together all that he knew about Arthur Arden. He had had a brief acquaintance with the young man. He knew that Arthur, inheriting his mother’s estate upon her death, was well known around the hot spots of New York. Arden’s son had the reputation of being a spender and a playboy.

  Van remembered him as a good-looking youth, slenderly built, with a rakish, carefree personality of the kind that appealed to women. And he was dead? Van’s brows drew thoughtfully together.

  In a short time the north end of Lake Candle was visible from the highway. Matthew Arden stirred himself and gave directions where to turn. But they were hardly necessary. As Van Loan headed into the private road leading to the lodge, he saw the bright shine of floodlights, local police cars, figures moving through the gloom.

  They were stopped halfway down the road. Arden identified himself and, with Van beside him, hurried into the lodge.

  More of the constabulary were on the terrace and in the house. But Van hardly saw them. Through the lamplight in the long, beautifully furnished living room his gaze fell on the stockily built, gray-headed Frank Havens.

  Van Loan stared, puzzled. Havens was one of his closest friends. The publisher had been a friend of his father, too. It was the Clarion’s owner who had made a protege of Richard Curtis Van Loan, advising him in financial matters growing out of the vast estate Van’s father had left him. Now, to find the newspaperman at Lake Candle, well after midnight, was a surprise that made Van hurry over to him.

  “Mr. Havens! Don’t tell me the Clarion is featuring a split-second coverage of what happens when it happens?”

  The publisher swung around, equally surprised at seeing the tall, trim Dick Van Loan confronting him.

  “What are you doing down here?” He asked the question, his eyes narrowing queerly, an enigmatic expression crossing his square, dignified face.