Finally, the Phantom crawled up on Dr. Winterly’s dock. He lay there, prone and exhausted, for five minutes. His mind worked smoothly, and he wondered how those killers had known he was at the lake. Of course, they might have preceded him there, or even been there all the time. Sam Ruddy might have signaled them somehow, or someone back in the city could have phoned that the Phantom was on his way to see Dr. Winterly.
The Phantom got up, wrung water out of his trouser legs and his coat, and splashed along the dock in his stocking feet headed for the house which was still illuminated. He paused again, within yards of the place, and drew his gun. He shook water out of it; hoped the weapon would still work despite the soaking it had received; and with the gun in fist, he moved up to the door of Dr. Winterly’s place.
He didn’t knock, just pressed down the black iron latch, pushed the door open a foot, and stood there listening. He could hear raucous breathing, like that of a man in a deep sleep. He opened the door wide, stepped through, and crossed the room. He found the snoring man. It was Luke, a brutal looking figure even in sleep. He lay on a couch, his left hand gripping an empty whisky bottle which had spilled over onto his chest. His right hand dangled off the side of the couch, fingers resting against the floor and more than two inches from that ugly knife he’d carried in his belt. There was something different about that knife now. It was well-stained with blood.
The Phantom moved into the next room. He closed his eyes and winced at what he saw. If Dr. Winterly had known anything, he’d never tell it.
Not with his throat slit from ear to ear.
HIS body was still warm. Dr. Winterly had been murdered not more than thirty or forty minutes ago. The Phantom went back to where Luke was sleeping off what seemed to be a drunken stupor. He checked the man’s pulse. It was very low, not the pulse of a drunken man, but of a heavily drugged one. There was some blood on the tips of the fingers near that knife.
The Phantom began a methodical search of the premises. In a small laboratory where Dr. Winterly had worked, he found some weird looking apparatus setup. There were notebooks well filled with notes, but none of them seemed to make any sense. It was almost as if Dr. Winterly wrote everything down in some clever code.
The Phantom examined the apparatus; and, while he knew a great deal about the science of chemistry, he’d never seen such a unique conglomeration of retorts, flasks, beakers, and distillation tubes. This apparatus couldn’t possibly serve any useful purpose, for one item contradicted another. The Phantom stepped back and studied the lab bench for a moment while a new idea filtered into his brain – an idea which required confirmation, but he would have bet on the fact that he was right.
This was work for the sheriff, and after the Phantom was satisfied that a further search would gain him nothing, he left the place and headed north toward another house where he knew there was the only telephone on this shore. He’d noticed the wires there upon his first visit to the lake. He found a pair of shoes in Dr. Winterly’s closet which fit him reasonably, and he appropriated them. Then he started for the neighboring dwelling.
There were lights on in this house, too, but only at the front of it, away from the lake. The Phantom knocked on a screen door. He heard heavy steps approach, and the inside door opened a crack.
“This is a police matter,” the Phantom said. “I’ve got to reach Sheriff McCabe at once. I want to use your telephone.”
“Come in,” the man said, and opened the door wider.
The Phantom stepped into the room. He saw the look of horror cross the face of the man who stood before him. The Phantom started to turn and reach for his gun, but he was too late. They’d set the trap well, menaced the owner of the house, and forced him to let the Phantom in.
A gun barrel crashed down on the back of the Phantom’s skull. He staggered backward. The hand trying to pull his own gun free was sluggish. His brain reeled, things were getting misty. He clutched at the side of a table. Another hammer-like blow struck his head. He went down on one knee, still clawing at the table for support Then he pitched forward and lay still.
He was never totally unconscious. When he heard the owner of the house shout in horror a few seconds later, he knew they were attacking him too. Then someone kicked the Phantom in the ribs, and he heard a groan. It seemed to come from miles away. The kick was repeated and so was the groan. This time he realized it came from his own throat.
He was grasped by the collar and lifted into a sitting position. Someone slapped him hard across the mouth. It didn’t even hurt. He was past the stage of feeling pain. Those blows on the head had numbed him from head to foot.
He didn’t know who’d sprung this trap on him for his eyes refused to function. Then he was on his feet – standing up, at any rate, though there were men on either side of him holding him there. He was urged forward. His legs wouldn’t work, so he was simply dragged along. Cold night air helped some to revive him, but he didn’t show it. His eyes functioned properly again, but it was dark now, and he couldn’t see his captors. He was certain there were only two of them.
THE darkness faded, and then there was bright light He was inside some building. He slitted his eyes and knew it was Dr. Winterly’s place. Apparently, they intended to kill him here, and somehow let Luke take the blame for his death too.
“Let him fall,” someone said.
The Phantom slid to the floor, but collapsed so that his head twisted sideways and he had a momentary glimpse of his captors. One was Bernie Pennell, still wearing that jaunty pearl-gray hat. The other was Len Barker, with the twisted ear, and his left arm in a sling.
“Here is the setup,” Bernie said. “I’m going back to town and rig us an alibi. We don’t know how much the Phantom knew, or guessed and maybe told someone, so we can’t take chances. If we’re picked up, we want our alibis intact.”
“Okay,” Len said. “So long as I get to knock off this guy, I’m satisfied. He winged me, and nobody gets away with that. I can take the launch across the lake and swipe the Phantom’s car. The launch shipped a little water when we crashed her into that rowboat, but I think she’s shipshape.”
“Good,” Bernie said. “But we’re taking no chances. Remember what happened to Vogel. For one split second he must have forgotten to watch the Phantom, and – he got killed. The same thing will happen to you if you relax. But I figure if we lock him behind that cellar partition – in the old wood bin down there – he can’t get out unless he knocks down the door or the wall. But you’ll be outside and ready for him. Give me an hour and a half before you kill him, and then I’ll have fifty men who’ll swear both of us were in town, miles from here, at the time the medical examiner says the Phantom died.”
“That thick headed servant of the Doc’s takes the rap,” Len said. “That’s the way we figured it, Bernie.”
“Yes. Use Luke’s knife on the Phantom. Make it look as if there was a fight down in the cellar, and just leave Luke where he is. The stuff we put in that bottle will keep him under for another three or four hours. By the time he wakes up, somebody will have found the Doc and the Phantom. Luke won’t know what happened except he got drunk.”
“An hour and a half,” Len said. “Okay. That’s plenty of time, but help me bring the Phantom out of it before you go. When he gets it, I want him to see it coming.”
They lifted the inert Phantom and shoved him into a chair near a small table. Bernie threw a glass of water in his face, and Len adopted a method he liked even more.
He began slapping the Phantom until he groaned and opened his eyes.
It required several minutes before he was able really to get his bearings. Both men covered him with guns. Len walked over and picked up the knife from the floor beside Luke’s couch. He stuck his gun under his belt, held the knife by its tip and took an envelope out of his pocket. He walked over and dropped this on the table beside the Phantom.
“Okay,” Len said. “Read that, and you’ll know just what this is all about.”
The Phantom reached for the envelope. Len’s. knife made a hissing sound as it whizzed through the air. Its point hit the envelope squarely in the middle, about three or four inches from the Phantom’s fingertips. It quivered there while Len laughed loudly.
“That’s a sample of what I can do with a blade, Phantom. A little sample of the way you’re going to get it. Okay, Bernie, let’s put him in that wood bin down in the cellar. Then we check watches, and I’ll wait here for ninety minutes before I bury the knife in the Phantom’s chest and head back to town myself.”
CHAPTER XVIII
DR. WINTERLY’S SECRET
NOT ENOUGH strength remained in the Phantom for him to resist when they seized and shoved him to the cellar steps. Bernie opened the door; and Len, with a laugh, pushed his helpless prisoner downstairs. The fall almost robbed the Phantom of his senses again.
He was pushed and propelled to a narrow door made of slats, set about two inches apart. It opened on creaky hinges, and a weakling could have pushed the door off its frame. This was one-third of the cellar, a bin created of these slats which reached to the ceiling. Wood had been piled up here, and the walls of the bin were only meant to keep the wood orderly. The floor was of dirt and felt cool against the Phantom’s cheek.
He knew he had plenty of time. Bernie departed soon after they closed the rickety door and shoved a stick of wood through the hasp which held it shut. Len tipped a shaded, strong electric light bulb so that it acted as a floodlight and penetrated into the deepest part of the bin. Len had a chair tilted against the wall. An upturned barrel acted as a table, and he laid a gun on it with the knife beside it, its point off the edge of the barrel so the weapon could be quickly seized and set into motion.
The Phantom crawled over until he reached the wall. There he pulled himself into a sitting position and took stock of his circumstances. They didn’t look too good.
His head was clearing though, and the assortment of aches and pains abating. He looked limp and helpless, but there was strength in his muscles by now, and he was thinking hard.
To get out of this virtual cage, he had to crash down the door. An easy task but not with Len seated just opposite with a gun and a knife, both ready to use on him. No matter how fast he acted, he couldn’t possibly be fast enough to prevent Len from moving in. The slatted walls and door of this bin would impede the Phantom just enough to permit Len to get set.
The Phantom reached up with one hand, secured a grip on one of the slats, and hauled himself into a standing position. The board under his hand cracked and then sagged from its moorings. The bin was ready to collapse.
“Come on out, Phantom,” Len said. “All you have to do is bust the door down. Or the wall, if you like. Any wall. Just come out and see how it feels to get a knife buried in your chest. I don’t miss with a knife, Phantom. And I’m no dope like Vogel must have been. You got him, but you won’t get me.”
The Phantom walked unsteadily to the door and watched Len intently. The killer’s hand moved down toward the knife, fingers grasped the tip of it. The Phantom merely put his hands on the slats of the door and stood there, peering between them.
Len. reissued his invitation. “Step out, Phantom. Sure, it’s easy. Give the door a shove. It’ll fall right down – and so will you.”
He laughed, relishing his own idea of a joke. The Phantom merely watched without comment. There was a way out of this, somehow. There had to be. Barker was, to all appearances, much smarter than an average pug, but he could bested in a battle of wits. No man who lived by crime could possibly possess a superlative amount of cleverness or mental brilliance. Len’s mind was wily, shrewd, fast to react perhaps, but somewhere in his makeup was a weak point. Phantom had to learn it.
“Why did you use a gun on Arthur Arden if you’re so handy with a knife?” he asked blandly.
Len laughed. “I’d have used a knife if I’d been there. But what’s the difference? He’s just as dead.”
“Very true,” the Phantom replied.
Len hadn’t tried to evade that question. He possessed a very direct way of thinking. Why not take advantage of it?
“You’d better have a good alibi for that night, Len,” the Phantom said. “Bernie has one, but have you?”
“Try and bust it,” Len grinned. “I’m a whiz at alibis.”
“They can be broken,” the Phantom said slowly. “A false one, at least.”
“Ours ain’t faked for that night,” Len assured him, and indirectly told the Phantom that Arthur Arden’s murder had been committed by the man who engineered this whole series of crimes.
What was just as interesting, to the Phantom’s present way of thinking, was the fact that Len had no idea he’d given so much away in that brief statement.
THE Phantom’s right hand closed around one of the four inch wide boards forming the wall. He slowly applied pressure. Nails squealed. The board began parting from its moorings, and Len’s hand darted toward the knife again.
The Phantom let go of the board. One half hearted yank could free it. He glanced at his watch. In fifteen minutes, Bernie would have fashioned the alibi for himself and for Len, who was to be the actual murderer. When the time came, Len would force the Phantom at gun point, out of the bin, upstairs to the room where Luke was sleeping off his drug-induced coma. Then the knife would make its last flight. When the Phantom was found, Luke’s prints would be smeared all over the knife blade and handle.
No one else’s would be there, and Luke would have no story at all.
Whatever was to be, the Phantom realized he must force Len to use the knife first. There was no dodging a bullet, but a knife might be parried or ducked. Len only had one arm. He might be reached before he could seize the gun. The Phantom had to make the first move. He approached the door, leaned against it, and let his hand rest upon the board he’d already worked half loose.
“I don’t think you’re so hot with a knife,” the Phantom said. “I think I can take you, Len. I think I will.”
Len smiled complacently. “Any time, Phantom. Any time at all. Just push that door down.”
The Phantom braced himself, set his shoulder tight against the door and shoved. At the same time he ripped the loose board free. The door caved in. Len was on his feet, holding the knife by its tip and drawn back over his shoulder. His arm snapped forward. The blade came hurtling straight at the Phantom in as accurate a throw as the Phantom had ever seen.
He was on the move too. There was no chance of evading the blade, but he was bringing up the width of board and thrusting it into the path of the knife. The blade hit the board, sliced through it, ripped a gash in the Phantom’s wrist, but stopped there.
With a wild yell Len reached for the gun. He had been too certain that the blade was going to slice its way home. He’d never missed. He couldn’t at this incredibly short distance. Len’s mind was set on that score. It required a split second or two to change it, and during that second or two, the Phantom was coming at him.
The Phantom hurled the board with its knife sticking through it. Len, hand on his gun, had to duck or be struck by the missile. When he straightened, a fist was whizzing toward his face. It struck, full on the bridge of Len’s nose. He screamed. He started to bring up the gun, but blood blinded him.
A hand came down on his wrist, almost breaking it. The fist smashed him again, in the same spot. He felt the gun torn out of his grasp. Again he was struck, this time just below the chest. It doubled him up. He took a few waddling steps backward, encountered the wall, and then his whole body was snapped erect as a punch landed against his chin.
Len slowly sank to the floor, back still against the wall, so that he sat there, glassy eyed and moaning. The Phantom, breathing hard, nearly exhausted, straddled the chair which Len had abandoned. He trained the gun on the half conscious thug.
The gun shook badly.
The Phantom managed a grin. If Len had succeeded in putting up much of a fight, he’d have won. The Phantom’s experience in the lake,
evading the speed boat which Bernie and Len had been using as a murder weapon, had robbed him of much of his strength. Then the blows he’d been given, practically finished the job.
Gradually the gun steadied though, and as Len came out of it he found himself staring down the length of its barrel. Len shuddered and tried to push himself through solid masonry wall.
CHAPTER XIX
CON GAME
VERGING on hysteria, Len gazed at the gun in the Phantom’s steady hand with eyes that were filled with terror. His knife was gone now, and he was no longer the ruthless killer he had been just a few moments ago.
“Don’t shoot,” he pleaded, his voice shaking. “Don’t – I’ll tell you all you want to know. Don’t kill me!”
“I don’t intend to unless you force me to shoot,” the Phantom said slowly, and he could not keep the contempt he felt for this groveling creature in front of him out of his tone. “As for what information you know, I don’t need it. I know this is a con game. I know the suckers are fed a line about some new kind of metal.”
“That’s right,” Len said. “You’re smart, Phantom. You know all the answers.”
“A new kind of metal that will revolutionize industry,” the Phantom went on as though Len had not spoken. “Confidence game metals are like that – the greatest thing ever discovered but they never actually turn out that way at all. I know that factory is a front for your operations, and that Bernie Pennell is outwardly head man. But someone else is behind him.” The Phantom’s voice hardened, and his eyes were fixed intently upon the face of the man who stood in front of him. “Who is he? Who is the boss of the whole thing?”
“I don’t know.” Len groaned, the terror still with him. For a man so eager to kill he was terribly afraid of death. “You must believe me – you’ve just got to believe that I don’t know.”
The Black Ball Of Death Page 12