Phantom Detective - Black Ball of Death

by Robert Wallace

  Somewhere behind the struggling men was a terrific crashing sound. The Phantom knew that the very heavy lift chain had swung back to hit the catwalk rail again. Then Vogel suddenly let go of the Phantom’s throat, moved his hand up across the Phantom’s face, and brought down a fist against the back of the detective’s neck.

  It was a rabbit punch and ordinarily would have finished the fight, but Vogel was weakening under the steady punishment of the Phantom’s blows. He lacked the proper amount of strength to make a maneuver like that fully effective. But it brought the Phantom down atop his opponent, and Vogel was quick to take advantage of this. He managed to raise his knees and with a mighty effort dislodged the Phantom.

  Vogel scrambled to his feet. He backed up, grinning wolf­ishly and wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with a grimy set of knuckles. He poised, ready to charge in and use his feet again. The Phantom struggled into a sitting position and started to bring up his gun.

  Vogel tensed for the attack, all his attention on the Phantom. He didn’t hear the heavy lift chain swinging back — not until it struck the rail beside him. He screamed, whirled about to avoid being struck, and put all his weight against the catwalk rail. The chain had already weakened it in two places; now it ripped through a third, no more than a yard from where Vogel was huddled in terror.

  Vogel felt the barrier give way. He saw the Phantom diving at him with both hands extended, but it was too late. Vogel’s scream grew shriller and shriller until the impact of his fall cut it off.

  The Phantom reeled a few steps clutching at a sturdy section of the rail. He was getting his strength and wind back quickly. By sheer accident, his plan had failed, and a man who might have told him much of the truth was dead. He’d risked his own life to expose Vogel as a killer — and very nearly lost it when Vogel proved to be a surprisingly good fighter.

  Somewhere in this vast building a telephone was ringing. It seemed miles away but it was insistent. The Phantom moved quickly down the steel staircase.

  CHAPTER XVI

  THOSE UNDER SUSPICION

  HURRYING into the office, the Phantom found the phone still clamoring. He picked it up, said, “Hello!” and his voice was the exact duplicate of Vogel’s. One of the Phantom Detective’s assets in fighting crime was his ability to duplicate voices. He’d made a study of it; and when he spoke now, Vogel’s closest friends wouldn’t have recognized the slight discrepancy.

  “Why did it take you so long to answer the phone?” the man at the other end of the wire asked. He sounded like Barker with the twisted ear. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything is okay,” the Phantom replied. “You don’t know how okay. I had a visitor.”

  “You didn’t let him go?” Len Barker shouted. “What did he look like?”

  “Now hold everything,” the Phantom said with a chuckle that matched Vogel’s. “I took him to the catwalk above the furnaces; and, you know, that guy jumped off and got himself smeared all over the cement floor.”

  “Good! Whoever he was, the man must have been dangerous. That was good work, Vogel.”

  “Good? Listen, it was much better than you think. Ask me who the guy was, the guy I knocked off. Go on — ask me!”

  “Cut the comedy,” Len snorted. “Tell me who he was.”

  “The Phantom Detective!”

  Len gave a hissing intake of breath. “Are you sure? Listen, Vogel, if you knocked off the Phantom you’ll get the biggest bonus of your life.”

  “I found the badge on him. The Phantom’s badge. And I’m not interested in any bonus, Len. I’m coming in on the ground floor of this racket. I’m taking my share.”

  “Go easy, Vogel,” Len said. “We don’t share; and — well, you know I’m not the only one in this business. I can’t invite you in, even if you bumped the Phantom off. But I can put in a good word for you.”

  The Phantom took a long shot, seizing the opening Len had just given him.

  “I know Bernie is in,” he said, “and somebody else besides. The real big shot. I want to meet him, Len. The big boy himself. Because I found something else on the Phantom. He was getting along in case. He knew plenty, and he wrote most of it down.”

  Len’s end of the wire was silent for a moment or two. Then the man with the twisted ear blurted, “I’ve got to take a chance. Be in the lobby of the Monarch Hotel in an hour. Look for either Bernie or me. And Vogel — if you’re kidding about finding some papers on the Phantom’s body, Bernie won’t like it. I won’t like it either, even if you did knock off the one man we were afraid of.”

  “In an hour,” the Phantom said. “And you’d better bring along somebody more important than Bernie, on account of I want to talk business. Big business.”

  The Phantom hung up, wondering if this trap was going to work. There were a lot of loopholes. Bernie, or the man behind him, might get suspicious and take precautions. They might be prepared to murder Vogel on sight — though the lobby of the fashionable Monarch Hotel was hardly the place for that. They’d chosen the meeting place well. Here, an unknown master-mind might casually saunter about, studying the man who claimed to have killed the Phantom Detective. Here, a dangerous person might be fingered for quick death soon after he left the lobby.

  The Phantom hurried out to where he’d left his car. On the way back, he stopped off at a small police station, identified himself, and told the desk sergeant where he could find the dead Vogel. He exacted a promise not to give the death any publicity for several hours.

  *****

  IT WAS a fast ride back, but the Phantom reached the hotel lobby about ten minutes before the appointed time. He purchased a newspaper at the newsstand, went over to a chair in a corner of the lobby, and sat there, surveying the whole place while he pretended to read his paper. He kept his face obscured enough so that he wouldn’t be recognized quickly.

  Promptly at the appointed time, two people he knew came across the lobby from the street entrance. One was Vicki Selden, and with her walked Hugh Royal, the artist who had put the Phantom on Vicki’s trail. When they were halfway across the lobby, Bernie Pennell, sleekly dressed and wearing his usual pearl-gray hat, pushed through the revolving doors.

  He took up a position near the newsstand, and his eyes roved over the lobby to the other. If he saw and recognized the Phantom he gave no sign of it.

  A bellboy, swinging out from the main desk, began paging Hugh Royal. The artist called him over, they talked briefly, and Royal excused himself to Vicki. He hurried over to a bank of telephone booths, stepped into one of them, and stayed there for about twenty seconds.

  Then he came out and returned to Vicki’s side. They talked a moment and finally walked out of the hotel. The Phantom glanced toward the newsstand and discovered that while he had centered all his attention on the artist, Bernie Pennell had quietly faded out of sight.

  The Phantom didn’t move for a moment or two. He sat there wondering if his little scheme had flopped, or if Hugh Royal had fallen into the trap but been warned off somehow, before the Phantom could spring it. At any rate, remaining here would be an utter waste of time; and the Phantom had important things to do.

  He returned to where he had left his car and drove it to the hotel where Vicki Selden now lived. She wasn’t in, but after a glimpse of the Phantom’s police badge, the desk clerk gave him a master key. The Phantom let himself into Vicki’s single room and spent fifteen minutes checking over her belongings. He had to be very certain about Vicki.

  When he finished this task, nothing looked disturbed; but he knew that if Vicki was involved with a murderer and some gyp game, no evidence of it existed in this room. He left the key with the clerk and then drove to the studio building where Hugh Royal maintained his studio. Vicki was just coming out — alone.

  The Phantom pulled in to the curb and called her name. She looked startled, seemed ready to start running. Then recognition came, and she smiled warmly. He opened the car door for her, and she got in beside him. The Phantom drove away, en
tered one of the large public parks, and finally came to a stop in a quiet spot. It was dusk now, getting a trifle chilly. Vicki moved closer to him.

  “I don’t want you to think I’ve been following you, Vicki,” the Phantom said, “but you were seen with Hugh Royal in the lobby of the Monarch Hotel a short time ago. You stayed only a minute after Royal received a phone call.”

  SHE smiled at him. “Phantom, I’m not holding anything back from you. I want Arthur’s murderer punished as much, or more, than you do. But I have to live too. I’ve nothing left but my career, and for months I tried to get on Park Sun­derland’s staff of models. Hugh Royal agreed to help me, and we were to have dinner with Mr. Sunderland tonight. He couldn’t come. That was what the phone call was about.”

  “I see. Then you returned with Mr. Royal — to his studio?”

  “Yes. He wanted to show me a magazine cover he’d painted of me. We intend showing it to Mr. Sunderland. It may impress him, we hope.”

  “And did Mr. Royal make this appointment very quickly, perhaps unexpectedly, so far as you were concerned?”

  “Why, yes. I told Hugh — Mr. Royal — where I’m living. He called me and said I must get right over.”

  “What time was that, Vicki?”

  “About four o’clock, perhaps a little after. He said he could give me only hour, and we were to meet in front of Hotel Monarch. Phantom, do you think Hugh is mixed up in this?”

  “I don’t know. Someone seems to directing the whole thing and employing the use of certain gunmen and at least one confidence man. They were after Arthur’s money without any question — and got it, too. Vicki, did Arthur ever talk to you about a man named Dr. Winterly?”

  “I think the name did come up.” Vicki frowned. “Isn’t Dr. Winterly, a scientist, an inventor of some kind?”

  “Yes. Arthur gave him twenty thousand dollars. Have you any knowledge as to why he turned this amount of money over to Dr. Winterly?”

  “Twenty thousand! But, Phantom, that was about all the money Arthur had. Arthur never mentioned that to me.”

  “Perhaps,” the Phantom said, “Dr. Winterly will be able to explain it. I’ll take you home now, and I think you’d best remain there. It might be safest.”

  She shuddered and linked one arm under the Phantom’s. “Hugh told me how this — this ugly looking man almost killed him. He was trying to find my address in Hugh’s files. You’re right, Phantom. They are after me. But I swear I don’t know a thing. Arthur was very reticent about this whole affair. I can’t help you very much, and if someone tries to make me tell what Arthur told me —”

  “Vicki,” the Phantom said, “we take chances in this game. Arthur took one and lost. In order to avenge him we’ve got to stick our necks out a little. Winterly may clear this all up, and you’ll be out of danger by morning. Until then don’t do anything. Just try to relax and get some rest.”

  He drove her to the hotel, watched her enter, and then telephoned Steve Huston. He assigned the redheaded reporter to take up a post in the lobby of the hotel and both guard and watch Vicki. The Phantom felt a bit easier about Vicki then. He started driving back to Lake Candle, where the whole network of murder and intrigue began.

  The Phantom’s assurance about Vicki might not have been quite so secure if he’d lingered a few more minutes. Long before Steve Huston arrived, Vicki emerged from the hotel, hailed a cab from the taxi line in front of the place, and gave an address. She settled back in the seat, smiling slightly in what seemed to be complete happiness.

  CHAPTER XVII

  KNIFE-MAN

  DRIVING at a steady clip, the Phantom Detective reached the north shore of Lake Candle soon after nine o’clock. He could have driven around the lake to Dr. Winterly’s place, but it might be a more revealing trip to go by boat. He parked the car near Sam Ruddy’s boat house. Almost at once the man came out to greet him.

  “Oh,” Ruddy grumbled, “it’s you. The New York cop. What do you want now?”

  “A boat,” the Phantom said. “On a rental basis. I’ll pay in advance.”

  “Dollar and a half an hour gets you a dry boat, mister. Pick out any one you like.”

  The Phantom made his selection, gave Ruddy a five dollar bill, and paused as he headed off to the boat.

  “Mr. Ruddy, have you seen Dr. Winterly or his man around lately?”

  “Both of ’em touring the lake this afternoon in that speed boat of his,” Ruddy declared. “He didn’t come over. Never was a sociable sort; and, anyway, I don’t like that man of his. Can’t trust him. Looks like seven kinds of a thug rolled into one.”

  “Nobody been near the Arden place since the murder?”

  “Not that I know of. Though it seemed to me that when Dr. Winterly and his man were riding the lake this afternoon, they spent an awful lot of time in that cove near Arden’s place. Time enough for ’em to have gone ashore.”

  “Thanks,” the Phantom said. “We’ll see what Winterly has to say about that.”

  The Phantom put one oar against the side of the dock, pushed off hard, and dipped both oars. He stopped, after five minutes of rowing, to turn and study his bearings. In the darkness, he had only the lights which came from Dr. Winterly’s place as a guide. He seemed to be in a direct line with his destination.

  It was about a twenty minute row across the lake, and when the Phantom estimated that he was about half-way there he heard the faint roar of a motor. It was a fast craft of some kind; and he recalled that Dr. Winterly had a sleek, high speed job, which Sam Ruddy said the doctor had been using only this afternoon.

  It was roaring closer and traveling without lights, which fact didn’t give the Phantom much consolation. That fast moving boat could split this muscle-propelled, flat-bottom craft in half. The roar of the engine grew louder; and then, suddenly, a powerful searchlight slashed through the darkness.

  It swept in a wide arc, flashed across the Phantom’s boat, and dodged back to center its full flare on the small craft and the man who leaned hard on the oars now.

  The oncoming boat seemed to be picking up speed, and it was undoubtedly heading toward the Phantom. He watched it for a few seconds and then reached under his coat for a gun. He plied oars hastily, shot out of the searchlight beam, but the bright finger shifted and enveloped him again. Then he knew they were going to try and run him down.

  He couldn’t see who was in the boat. The searchlight blinded him for one thing; but if the craft carried no lights at all, the black night would have been ample protection for its occupants. But that searchlight did help them to spot their target.

  The Phantom crooked one arm, quickly rested his gun hand against it, and drew a bead. The speed boat swerved as its pilot realized what the Phantom was doing. The gun cracked, but the searchlight stayed lit. Now the launch was getting dangerously close. The Phantom fired two more shots. This time the searchlight winked out to the tune of breaking glass.

  The Phantom knew that launch was aimed straight at the rowboat, and by holding its course was bound to smash into it. There wasn’t time to use the oars. He holstered his gun, stood erect, and dived over the side.

  The lake water was cold at this time of year. It knocked the breath out of him, for he dived deep. He was conscious of swirling water above as the motor launch slashed a path through the surface. The Phantom’s head bobbed to the surface.

  SOMETHING drifted against his shoulder; and he automatically started to dive, but checked himself. It was a piece of wood from the rowboat. The speed boat seemed to have struck it squarely amidships. And that craft was coming back. Someone aboard her had a flashlight, by no means as powerful as that searchlight the Phantom had shot out, but strong enough to illuminate the water and catch him in its beam if he didn’t act fast enough.

  The Phantom kicked up his heels and plunged down. But the pilot of that boat suspected the Phantom’s trick and was already turning by the time the Phantom’s head broke water again. The flashlight captured him. A gun cracked, and the Phantom
saw the water geyser close by his head. The launch was bearing down too. He took a quick breath and dived again.

  They played hide-and-seek with him for another five minutes; but the Phantom was a strong swimmer; he knew how to conserve his wind; and even while under water, he was moving quite rapidly toward the further shore. He’d shed his shoes already, but his coat clung to him with all the tenacity of glued paper. The gun in his shoulder rig weighed a ton. He reached the surface, and this time he wasn’t greeted by a flashlight, bullets, or the onrushing prow of a fast moving launch. He rolled over to rest and get back his breath and his strength. The launch motor was fading out somewhere to the north.

  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.