The Black Ball Of Death

by Robert Wallace

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Arden used to come here?”

  “All the time.”

  “With dames.” Chip made it a statement rather than a question. She nodded.

  “I’m trying to tab a blonde he was friendly with. A girl named ‘Vicki.’ ”

  The hat checker laughed. “What do you mean – blonde? He had a different one every time he dropped in.”

  She broke off. Dorlan waited for the same, “Sorry, I don’t know her,” which he had got all along the line. But she didn’t say that. Instead, the high lustered nails stopped their tapping, and the long lashes lowered over eyes which suddenly became thoughtful.

  Watching, Chip felt a tingle. He had been disappointed in place after place. It was almost too good to believe that this girl would tell him anything.

  “Vicki might mean Victoria, mightn’t it?” Her tone was as thoughtful as her eyes. “Mr. Arden was with a girl – a blonde – one night two weeks ago. She lost her cigarette case. She thought she might have left it here. She gave me her name and address so we could notify her if it turned up.”

  Chip’s hands tightened along the edge of the counter. He had it!

  “Fine. Victoria – Vicki – sure. Let me have the full name and the address she gave you.” He folded the bill in half and dropped it in her tip dish.

  “Wait a minute. I don’t know what I did with it.” The girl began tapping again. “Let me think. I – she stood right where you are. Mr. Arden gave her his pen. One of those you fill with water so you can write under ink. I gave her a piece of the wine list. What did I do with it?”

  Dorlan’s anticipation began to dwindle. He said nothing to disturb her thoughts. She leaned under the counter and rummaged around. She looked through a couple of magazines and a library book. Twice she shook her head, dusting off her fingers.

  “Guess you’re out of luck. I don’t remember -”

  “Can’t you recall her name? Victoria – what?” Chip leaned across the counter. “Give it all you’ve got. You must know. Victoria -”

  He put impact into his pleading, and the girl turned away. From a steel locker she took a tan leather handbag. She opened that and held it to the light. The next instant she dipped into it and came up with a folded piece of paper.

  “Here it is! In my other bag – the one I haven’t used lately.”

  “Let’s have it.” Chip reached. The paper felt real enough to let him know he had actually obtained what the Phantom had to have. He glanced at the round, girlishly scrawled name and address, and shoved it in his pocket. “Thanks. You’ve been a big help. The cigarette case never was found?”

  “Not here.”

  Outside, Chip let the writing he had read form into words. The name on the torn piece of wine card was Victoria Selden and the address was Central Park West. A telephone number was included.

  At the corner, Chip Dorlan debated. It was close to one o’clock in the morning. But that didn’t mean too much. He knew the Phantom would want to handle Arthur Arden’s blonde girl-friend alone. So Chip reluctantly dropped the idea of riding a cab to Central Park West and the address she had jotted down.

  Instead, he continued on to the first drug store he found and a telephone booth in its rear.

  There he called Frank Havens. The newspaper publisher was always available when the Phantom was on a case. Tonight was no exception. Havens’s familiar voice greeted Dorlan over the wire.

  “I don’t know where the Phantom is,” Havens said. “He’s been at Headquarters up until a couple of hours ago. Let me have your message, and I’ll see that he gets it.”

  CHAPTER XI

  STUDIO 9

  EXACTLY at nine o’clock the next morning, the Phantom walked into the anteroom of Frank Havens’s office, high up in the Clarion Building.

  Miss Marsh, the publisher’s secretary, gave the Phantom a distrustful glance as he moved over to her desk. She didn’t like his looks particularly. Somehow she had the impression he was a broken down newspaperman about to proposition her boss for a job.

  The Phantom said, “The name is Gray. Mr. Havens expects me,” and Miss Marsh snapped to attention.

  One of the most rigid rules of the office was that anyone giving the name of Gray was to be admitted instantly to Mr. Havens’s sanctum. For months, the Phantom in his various disguises had used that name. Miss Marsh had her own ideas concerning the identity of the ubiquitous “Mr. Gray”, but was careful never to voice them. She was fully aware that the man who paid her the generous salary she received every Friday was the one who pressed the button to bring the Phantom Detective out of the mists of obscurity.

  The Phantom walked into Havens’s sumptuous office.

  “One arrest.” The Phantom shrugged. “A small time character, working for a man higher up who gave me the slip yesterday afternoon. The small timer’s name is Daniel Fordyce. Neither his prints nor his picture has a listing.”

  The Phantom dropped into a chair. Interested, Havens said, “That’s what kept you at Headquarters so late.”

  “Gregg’s men worked Fordyce over for hours. He stuck to his story. He doesn’t know anything. A month ago someone who calls himself Pennell approached him and put him on his payroll. He was to open a mail-order business, selling novelties, on the third floor of a building in the West Thirties.”

  The Phantom shrugged as he stopped speaking. Frank Havens leaned back in his swivel chair.

  “Gregg’s holding him?”

  “On a Sullivan violation, technically. I’ve had Fordyce locked up until I can pour some light into the case. He may be lying, I don’t know. Anyway the Inspector will keep him away from shyster lawyers until he hears from me.”

  “What do you make of Arthur Arden’s murder?” Havens queried bluntly.

  “I haven’t begun to uncover even the hint of a motive,” the Phantom said, frankly. “From what I’ve run into so far, I know that there’s a deep-laid, well-constructed plot back of his killing. Someone with brains and intelligence has been at work. Neither Fordyce, nor the others I’ve encountered can be called ‘underworld’ or the ‘gangster’ type of criminal. Which indicates there is a certain gloss to the case that takes it out of the usual, subterranean-crime category. Despite,” he added, “Arden’s penchant for Broadway.”

  “Chip called early this morning.” Havens reached for a memo, handed it to the Phantom, and repeated Dorlan’s telephone message.

  The effect was almost electrical. The Phantom was on his feet instantly.

  “So Dorlan found her! Splendid.” He ran an eye over the name and address Havens gave him. “This is the girl Matthew Arden said was friendly with his son. The one I’m sure had a cocktail with Arthur shortly before he was shot. A girl who dropped her gardenia out on the driveway of the lodge.”

  “Chip didn’t do anything about it,” Havens said. “He didn’t check the address or the telephone number.”

  “Good. I’ll get after it at once. I have a feeling -” the Phantom smiled tautly – “that Miss Victoria Selden is going to turn on some of that light I mentioned a minute ago!”

  *****

  THE address on Central Park West was in the upper Seventies. A four-story, bulge-front, aristocratic-looking private house was wedged in between tall apartment buildings on either side. The Phantom, stepping out of a taxi, had the impression of glimmering windows, expensive curtaining, and a well-polished bell close to double vestibule doors. His brief ring brought a neat, colored maid in a starched uniform.

  “I’d like to see Miss Selden,” the Phantom said. “This is a personal matter.”

  The maid ushered him across a rug-strewn length of parquet and into a well-furnished reception room. She left him there and went on. The Phantom was examining a painting on the wall when he heard footsteps coming in. He wheeled around, anxious for a glimpse of the blonde Miss Selden.

  Instead, he found himself confronting a gray haired little woman dressed completely in black. Her hair was modishl
y arranged on her well-shaped head. Old-fashioned jewelry was at throat and wrist. The frothy white of a handkerchief showed from the edge of one black sleeve.

  “My maid,” she said, her voice cultured and quiet, “tells me that you are calling on Miss Selden.”

  “That’s right.”

  The Phantom waited. The woman went on, “My name is Mrs. Wayne. This is my boarding establishment. Miss Selden has been a guest here for several months. But she’s no longer with me. She left yesterday morning.”

  The Phantom looked directly into Mrs. Wayne’s eyes. They met his gaze steadily. “Let me have the details, please. This is police business. You’ve probably read of the Arden murder in New Jersey. Miss Selden is wanted for questioning in connection with it.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Wayne looked startled.

  “What were the circumstances of her leaving?”

  “She – Miss Selden told me she received a telegram from her father – from somewhere in Minnesota. She seemed very much upset. She said her mother was ill, dangerously ill. She had to go to her at once. She paid me what she owed up to yesterday morning, and I called a cab for her. I – I had no idea -”

  The Phantom’s brow wrinkled into thought lines. Abruptly, he said, “What do you know about Miss Selden? Was she employed? Did friends come here? Do you know any of their names?”

  “I know hardly anything at all about her.” Mrs. Wayne breathed harder. “She was employed, but I never knew where. I don’t pry into the private lives of my guests.”

  “Friends?”

  “They didn’t come here – ever. I know different men brought Miss Selden home and left her at the door. But I never knew any names, or who they were.”

  “How about telephone calls?”

  “She seldom made any. A few times a week she received some.”

  The Phantom’s mouth tightened. He took a quick step away from Mrs. Wayne, his mind clicking with thought. He wheeled around, as an idea struck him.

  “When she first came here, you must have asked her for references.”

  “That is my custom,” the woman told him.

  “Good.” The Phantom’s face cleared. “Then you must have Miss Selden’s on file.”

  “I have.”

  To back up his authority he showed Mrs. Wayne the badge he had retrieved from the porcelain-topped table in the room where he had nailed the narrow-shouldered, gravel-voiced Dan Fordyce.

  The woman nodded and excused herself. She came back after a few minutes with an alphabetically arranged letter file. From the S‘s she took out a sheet of paper.

  “This is what Miss Selden gave me. I made the usual telephone calls and received an excellent recommendation from both the bank and the gentleman whose name is written here.”

  “I’ll take that.” The Phantom folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “If you hear anything from Miss Selden, communicate immediately with Mr. Havens at the Clarion.”

  With a word of thanks he bowed himself out.

  *****

  PICKING up a taxi at the corner beyond, the Phantom opened the paper. The first name was that of the National Trust Company on Madison Avenue. He gave it to the driver as a destination. Then he glanced out of the rear window, through force of habit.

  The twisted-eared Len and the thin-faced Pennell were still in circulation. The Phantom knew they would be more interested in him now than ever. Bullets out of the woods at Lake Candle hadn’t stopped him. Neither had a length of sash cord, nor Dan as a watchdog. He knew that Pennell – and whoever directed the activities of the man in the pearl-gray hat – would redouble their efforts to cut him down before he moved further into the complications of the murder case.

  But no one was trailing him.

  The manager of the National Trust saw the Phantom immediately. To his questions, he said, “Miss Selden usually keeps a balance of about six hundred dollars on hand. I believe she’s a model. She came in once with a magazine. Her picture was on the cover, painted by an artist named Hugh Royal.”

  “She hasn’t notified you of a change of address?”

  The manager picked up a desk telephone. He asked someone the same question, waited a minute or two, and said, “No, there’s been no change of address.” He added, “Odd. Miss Selden gave Mr. Arthur Arden as a personal reference when she filled out her card here. And Mr. Arden was one of our depositors, too.”

  The Phantom didn’t waste time. He seized that information avidly. “I’d like all of Arthur Arden’s canceled checks. Have them delivered to Mr. Haven’s office at the Clarion as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll do that. Anything else? I might add that Arden’s balance was rather low. Merely a few hundred dollars.”

  The Phantom nodded. Matt Arden had told him as much, and it was no news. But what held his attention was the second name on the paper with which Mrs. Wayne had supplied him.

  Vicki Selden’s other reference was the same Hugh Royal the bank manager mentioned in connection with her magazine cover picture. And this Royal, the Phantom found when he went down the Rs in the telephone directory, had a studio in the Hotel Trois Arts on East 49th Street.

  It was a lofty, slender edifice, inhabited mostly by illustrators, artists, and radio and theatrical people. But not the small, struggling variety. The names of the tenants were tops in their respective professions.

  The lobby was modernistic in design with a quantity of black glass and mirrors. The Phantom, at a pickled pine desk, asked an immaculately groomed clerk if Hugh Royal was in.

  “He is. He had a caller a few minutes ago. Studio Nine. You can go right up.”

  The Phantom left the elevator on the ninth floor. There were evidently three studios to each story. Royal’s was at the end of the corridor. A chime-bell sounded musically at the touch of the Phantom’s thumb.

  He waited. No one came to answer his ring. Again he put the chimes to work, and again there was no response.

  Had the clerk made a mistake? Had Royal gone out? It was when he was asking himself the second question that the Phantom saw something that sprayed a quick nerve current through him.

  On the plain gray rug that. paved the corridor was a smear of red. It looked like a paint stain. But it wasn’t. The instant his finger touched it and came away with a slight ooze, the Phantom knew it was blood.

  His master-key slid out of his pocket and went into the lock of the door. That clever contrivance, invented by a Viennese locksmith, never failed. Swiftly, he adjusted the mechanism on its shaft so that its flanges spread, fitting accurately into the wards and tumblers of the latch.

  He gave it a turn; listened to the click; and, opening the door, walked into a north-lighted studio.

  A man in a white shirt and blue slacks lay face down on the wide planked floor, half under an easel on which a picture had been started!

  CHAPTER XII

  WORLD OF BEAUTY

  BEFORE the door had swung shut, the Phantom was on a knee beside the recumbent figure. The blood had gushed from a cut over the man’s left ear. It had trickled across the wooden floor, and the smear on the hall rug had come from a heel that had stepped in it.

  The Phantom felt a wave of relief. Under the fingers he pressed over the large neck artery, a strong pulse beat. The man had been knocked out temporarily. Even as the Phantom knelt beside him, he could see the tug of his eyelids trying to open.

  There was a bathroom adjoining the studio. The Phantom soaked a towel in cold water. He washed the head cut, made a compress of wet towel and laid it over the man’s face, then raised him and carried him over to a couch.

  In another minute or two, during which the Phantom put into practice his knowledge of first aid, Hugh Royal showed signs of coming out of it. He choked, deep in his throat. Then he moved his arms and legs, and his eyes opened wide. Royal peered up at the unfamiliar face above him.

  “Hey, what’s the idea? Who are you?”

  “Take it easy, Royal” The Phantom pulled a chair around beside the couch. “I st
opped in to see you on business. No one answered my ring, so I came in. You were over there, decorating the floor. Better let me get you a drink.”

  Royal sat up, gingerly exploring the left side of his head with a cautious finger. “I wish you would. Bottle in the closet yonder. Glass in the bathroom.”

  He took the bourbon straight. Color began to come back to his good-looking face. Glancing up at the Phantom he smiled wryly.

  “I don’t know who you are, but you picked the right time to drop around. Thanks. I’m okay now.”

  Quickly, the Phantom introduced himself, using the name of Gray and showing his badge. Royal, a man in the late twenties, listened without comment. When the Phantom finished, and asked him what had happened, Royal said, “My front doorbell rang. I was working on a picture – from a photograph. I opened the door, and a man came in. Funny looking guy. He had a -”

  “Twisted ear?”

  Royal stared. “That’s right! How did you know?”

  “Just a guess. Go on. What did he want?”

  “Information.”

  “Concerning,” the Phantom said dryly, “a Miss Victoria Selden?”

  Royal stared at him again, blankly. “Looks as if you know all the answers. Yes, he wanted to know where he could get in touch with Vicki. Said it was of the utmost importance. I don’t hand out my models’ addresses to anyone who drops in. I told him as much, and he got tough. Told me to give it or else -”

  “So you took the ‘or else.’ ”

  “It looked like a blackjack. I saw it coming, and tried to duck. After that the birds sang until I opened my eyes and saw you.”

  The Phantom nodded. With narrowed eyes he glanced around the studio. So Len had been there – Len with a sap up his sleeve. Len trying to tab Vicki Selden, too.

  To the Phantom, the fact was significant. Pennell – or the one he worked for – must have known about the blonde girl’s visit to the lodge. They must have realized she was with Arthur Arden a short time before the shooting. They, the Phantom reasoned, wanted to know what Arden had told her – if anything.