“Afraid I can’t help you much on that.” Sunderland put his glass back down on the table. “I’d like to do it, of course, but I simply don’t know enough about Hugh Royal.”
The ringing of the phone at the other end of the room was loud and insistent in a little moment of silence. Sunderland rose and went toward the phone.
“Excuse me, please,” he said.
He picked up the phone, listened a moment, and then talked in such a low tone that even the Phantom’s keen ears could not distinguish the words. Then Sunderland hung up and came back to his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“That was Hugh Royal,” he said slowly, as he sank down into the chair. “Judging from the way he spoke, he was excited and in a hurry. He asked me not to mention his name if anyone was here. He said he was leaving as soon as possible on an urgent business trip. He wanted to know if Vicki was here or where he could locate her.”
“You told him where to find her?” the Phantom snapped.
“Naturally.” Sunderland looked surprised. “Why not? After all they are good friends.”
“Don’t be so sure of that!” The Phantom got up quickly, his eyes fixed on Sunderland’s face. “If Vicki wanted Hugh Royal to know where she is now, she would have told him herself. I’m afraid you made a bad mistake in giving Royal her address, Sunderland.”
“But why?” demanded Sunderland. “I don’t understand.”
“Because Royal will murder Vicki if he gets the chance,” the Phantom said grimly.
“No!” Sunderland half rose from the chair, and then sank weakly down again. “And I gave him her address!” He wiped his hand across his forehead in a gesture of despair. “He’ll go there at once. What will we do, Phantom?”
“Don’t worry,” said the Phantom. “I’ll take care of it.” He moved hastily toward the door and then glanced back over his shoulder. “I can assure you that nothing will happen – to Vicki.”
Sunderland just sat there until he heard the door close behind the Phantom. Then he rose swiftly to his feet, went over to a window, drew the curtain back a trifle, and peered down at the street. He waited patiently until he saw the Phantom come out of the building, wave to a taxi, and get in when the cab stopped. The taxi rolled away and disappeared in the Fifth Avenue traffic.
“I really should have been an actor in stead of a business man,” Sunderland said as he turned away from the window. “I seem to possess quite a bit of dramatic ability.”
He went into his bedroom, whipped off the blue dressing robe and hastily buttoned his shirt at the neck. He put on a tie, changed from slippers to walking shoes, and then went back into the living room. Then he walked over to what seemed to be an antique secretary. It swung out under the proper manipulation, to reveal the surface of a fairly large safe.
Sunderland spun the combination, opened it, and nodded contentedly at the sight of the stacks of bills inside.
“I was getting rather tired of New York anyway,” he said. “A vacation will do me good.”
He closed the bag again and left it standing on the floor as he re-locked the safe and swung the secretary back into place. A feeling of uneasiness swept over him as he glanced at the chair in which the Phantom had been sitting. Had there been a double meaning in those last words the Phantom had uttered just before he left so hastily, Sunderland wondered.
“I can assure you that nothing will happen – to Vicki,” the Phantom had said.
Merely words of assurance to an apparently worried man – but why had there been that slight pause before the Phantom said the girl’s name. Had that meant the Phantom could not offer the same assurance to others – and Park Sunderland had been one of those.
“Rot!” Sunderland muttered. “I’m getting jittery over nothing.”
In the stillness that hung over the apartment the sound of his own words were comforting. He dismissed the uneasiness with a shrug as he went back into the bedroom. He put on his coat, packed another small bag with necessities, and finally took a.38 automatic out of a bureau drawer, pumped a bullet into the firing chamber, and set the safety at the ‘off’ position. He put this into a side pocket. Then he went back to the window where he stood watching the street again.
After twenty minutes of waiting that seemed like hours he finally saw a sleek sedan pull up to the curb in front of the apartment building. The door opened, and Bernie Pennell stepped out. Pennell stood on the sidewalk long enough to light a cigarette, and then he tossed away the empty pack and got back into the car.
“It’s about time he got here,” Sunderland said as he turned away from the window. “I’ve got a hunch we’d better hurry.”
CHAPTER XXII
END OF THE TRAIL
MOVING hastily, Park Sunderland found the uneasiness was again with him as he put on his hat, and took a last look around the apartment before he picked up the two bags. He had been quite comfortable here, and he half regretted leaving – perhaps for good.
He picked up the bags and walked to the entrance door. When he reached it he put down one of the bags and switched off the lights. The darkness startled him, and as he glanced back there seemed something almost terrifying about the blackness behind him.
“I’m getting out of here!” Sunderland said. He opened the door, picked up the second bag, and stepped out into the hall. Then he closed the door and heard the lock snap into place. He rang for the elevator and waited impatiently for it to ascend. Finally the car door slid open, the elevator operator smiled as he saw Sunderland. The tips had been good from this man.
“Going away, Mr. Sunderland?” the boy asked as the head of the model agency stepped into the car and it started down.
“Just for a few days, Tom,” Sunderland said. “Business trip.”
He was suddenly impatient, but he tried to keep the curtness out of his voice. He had always maintained a friendly attitude with the employees of the big apartment house during the time he had lived there.
“Nice weather for traveling,” Tom said.
“Fine.”
The elevator stopped at the ground floor, and Sunderland got out. The door closed, and the car went up again as someone rang. Sunderland saw the lobby was deserted, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He did not know exactly what he had expected to find, but he was glad there was no one there.
Sunderland walked rapidly through the doorway, crossed the sidewalk toward the sleek black sedan. He had almost reached it when something hard jabbed him in the small of the back, and he was sure it was the barrel of a gun.
“There’s no need to hurry, Mr. Sunderland,” said the voice of the Phantom. “You’re not going very far.”
Sunderland dropped the bags and whirled, his hand darting toward the gun in his coat pocket. He had the gun half drawn when he saw the Phantom standing a few feet away covering him with an automatic.
“That would be a foolish move,” the Phantom said. “In fact the action I’d expect from a guilty man.”
Sunderland quickly pulled his hand away from his pocket; the gun there untouched. He stared at the automatic in the Phantom’s hand.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why do you feel that you need a gun to stop me, Phantom?” A thought appeared to strike him. “Vicki! She’s all right? Royal didn’t kill her?”
Park Sunderland’s acting might have seemed convincing if Bernie Pennell hadn’t decided to make a break for it at that moment. Darting from the sedan, he had his gun out and firing. One of his bullets whistled dangerously close to the Phantom.
The Phantom sent a warning shot over Pennell’s head. Pennell backed away, and Chip Dorlan and Steve Huston moved in from front and rear to cut him off.
“We’ve got you, Pennell,” the Phantom called. “Don’t try to get away.”
For the moment the Phantom had taken his gaze off Sunderland, and that was all the chance the man needed. Throwing himself to the sidewalk Sunderland swept out his gun, triggering it at nearly point-blank range at where the Phantom stood
.
But the Phantom was no longer standing there! One move ahead of Sunderland, the detective had lurched to one side even as the swindler was firing. One neat shot sent the gun spinning from Sunderland’s fingers. The man was at his mercy for a finishing shot, but the Phantom held his fire.
“I told you that Vicki was quite safe,” the Phantom said. “But I didn’t say that you were.”
Forced to the cover of a stone stairway Bernie Pennell saw what was happening to Sunderland. A single volley of warning shots from Huston and Dorlan were enough to convince him resistance was futile. He threw down his gun and came out, hands raised in the air.
“I give up!” Pennell shouted. “I’ve had enough.”
Steve Huston held his gun directly under Pennell’s nose and, at a nod from the Phantom, ordered the man back into the sedan he had just fled. Chip Dorlan covered the move.
Sunderland also got into the car. The Phantom tossed the two bags in the rear and climbed in. He seated himself beside Sunderland on the back seat. Chip Dorlan guarded Pennell. Huston took the wheel, and the sedan moved away fast – to disappear around a corner just as police rushed to the front of the apartment, attracted by the shots.
“Thank you for assembling all of the loot, Sunderland,” the Phantom said, nodding to the bags on the floor as the car sped downtown. “Pennell has more money which he got from Douglas Hoag. I imagine Pennell sounded very gratified over the phone when he called you, though probably disappointed when he learned I was there. He expected me to be dead by this time.”
“I’m beginning to believe you just can’t be killed, Phantom,” Pennell said sullenly. “How did you get back into that building?”
“We won’t go into that now,” the Phantom answered. “But I must admit, Pennell that you pulled a smart trick in using that spotlight which Sunderland had rigged up so that he could examine his models’ features under a strong light.” The Phantom turned again to Sunderland. “Of course I knew Hugh Royal hadn’t phoned. That was Pennell, saying things had gone off fine, that he had Hoag’s money, and everything was set for the pair of you to light out for parts unknown.”
“And back at my apartment I thought I was a good actor,” said Sunderland disgustedly. “You almost convinced me that Vicki really was in danger from Royal.”
“We’ll go to Police Headquarters, Steve,” the Phantom said.
“That’s where I’m going,” said Steve.
“Pennell, I think you’re a rather lucky man,” said the Phantom.
“You call being caught like this lucky?”
“In your case – yes. Because I think Mr. Sunderland was going to accept the money you conned out of Hoag, kill you, and make a neat getaway alone. Sunderland was certain everything was well in hand. That I didn’t suspect him, and I did suspect Hugh Royal and was on my way to get Royal before he could murder Vicki Selden. Of course I didn’t go very far, because I knew Sunderland was our man and not Royal.”
Sunderland tried a bit of bravado. “Phantom, I doubt you can prove anything against me. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know Pennell was a crook. I came here to meet him so I could invest some money in a wonderful new metal. He demanded cash, and that accounts for what is in the bag.”
“All that loot?” the Phantom derided. “By the way, if any of it is missing, we’ll know. Because I’ve a list of your models through whom I can locate your con-game victims and verify the amounts they lost. Your models unwittingly selected the victims. The victims were men they told you about, Sunderland. Those models of yours were unknowingly your best stock in trade for this con-game.”
Pennell didn’t seem to be listening. “Yeah – yeah, Sunderland had a gun,” he muttered, “and I never knew him to go heeled before. He wasn’t afraid of being caught. We both thought we were in the clear until tonight.” The dark man’s voice hardened ominously. “Yeah, he was going to double-cross me!”
“Keep quiet, Pennell!” Sunderland shouted. “Keep your mouth shut!”
The Phantom laughed. “It isn’t necessary to try and hush him up now, Sunderland. I’ve suspected you for some time. Ever since my first meeting with you when you helped me to locate Vicki Selden. When you learned that Maxine Hillary, one of your models, knew Vicki and where she was hiding, you sent Len Barker to trail her. Only you and I knew Maxine would contact Vicki. Certainly Len didn’t know – until you told him.
“Then you sensed the trap I set from the factory in New Jersey. Instead of falling into it, you sent Hugh Royal and Vicki to the hotel where one of your paid killers had demanded that you meet him. You thought I might be on hand too. Hugh Royal was trying to place Vicki with your firm, so he was eager to have you meet her, and they strolled into the trap. Then you phoned them, so they’d leave in a big hurry – to meet you elsewhere – and make it look as though Royal was tipped off and was running for it.”
Pennell had followed very little of this. He was still musing aloud. He looked back at the Phantom.
“I’m sure Sunderland was going to kill me,” he said. “I’ll talk if you guarantee I don’t go to the chair.”
“I promise nothing,” the Phantom said. “The chair is where you will undoubtedly land because you killed Arthur Arden and Dr. Winterly, to say nothing of the attempt on my life. Besides I don’t need your confession.
“Arden made a date to meet you at the Lake Candle lodge. When you found out he was wise to your scheme, and that he knew that Dr. Winterly wasn’t capable of inventing anything, you murdered him, got away across the lake in a stolen motor boat. You came back later, after Arden’s body had been found, to spy on me.
“Later, you took a few shots at me while I was rowing across the lake. You had a car parked on the other side, not far from Dr. Winterly’s place, and you used that to drive to New York in. But on the dock, you discarded an empty cigarette pack. You threw away another near the spot where you left your car hidden, and just a few minutes ago you dropped a third empty pack on the sidewalk. All three packs were twisted before being discarded. Twisted in exactly the same manner.”
“Sunderland made me kill Arden,” Pennell cried, all his courage gone. “He’d have killed me if I refused!”
“You fool, Pennell!” Sunderland shouted. “Keep still!”
The Phantom smiled. “Sunderland, you’re all done. So long as your organization held together, you were safe. But now it’s tumbled, and you’re standing all alone in a nice round spotlight of guilt. You needed money. Your agency didn’t pay well enough to satisfy your lust for big things. I found evidence of that in your office.
“Certainly you sent Pennell and Len to kill Dr. Winterly. That was because I’d told Vicki I was going to see Winterly, and you made it your business to contact her and make her talk about me and the crime I was investigating. She is quite innocent, of course. She believed you were curious only because the wrong publicity might affect the contract you dangled before her.”
Steve Huston turned a corner and headed for the curb. He stopped, got out, and held both doors open.
“Gentlemen,” he said happily, “come along, and see your new home. Complete with running water, cement floors, uniformed attendants, and – barred doors.”
Later, the Phantom emerged from Police Headquarters. He had listened to Pennell’s full confession, but he didn’t feel elated. There was satisfaction in having broken up a huge swindle racket and in bringing a pair of murderers to the justice they deserved, but he knew better than to gloat or plan a rest for himself.
Every moment of the day and night a new crime was committed. Some of these would reach tall proportions, involve sudden death and greed and avarice. There was no more rest for the Phantom Detective than for the newest member of the Homicide squad.
However, and he smiled a bit in contemplation, there might be a short time during which he would again be Richard Curtis Van Loan… during which Frank Havens would concentrate on publishing his newspapers and Steve Huston and Chip Dorlan perform their duties as reporters… a few
short hours or days before some twisted mind concluded that it was superior to that of any other brain, and crime began to weave its web of death.
***
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The Black Ball Of Death Page 15