by The Vampires
“You intended to kill me?” asked the Phantom.
“That was his intention,” she said scornfully, waving the 114
gun toward Hermann. He had opened a thin gold case and was nervously lighting a cigarette with a gold lighter.
“Don’t smoke in here,” she snapped.
He hurriedly stamped on his cigarette.
“Not your intention?” asked the Phantom.
“Not then,” she said. “I wanted to wait, to find out more about you. But they overruled me. That’s the last time that will happen,” she snapped.
“They?” said the Phantom.
“Hermann and his stormtroopers,” she said, again scornful. “His bully boys. You’ve met most of them. Are any of them stili on their feet, Hermann?”
“Oh, shut up,” he said peevishly.
“Do you mind telling me who you are?” said the Phantom.
She snorted. “Of course I mind. That’s what I’m asking you.”
“What difference does it make, Greta?” said Hermann. “Shoot him and be done with it.”
“Shoot him and be done with it,” she mocked. “How did you ever get to be a colonel with that brain? This man may have an organization behind him, and know more about us than we think.”
“Impossible.”
“Impossible? Look at his costume. Like the one in that old story. Why does he dress like that unless he knows?”
“What old story?” said the Phantom, fascinated.
“ ‘The Witch of Hanta and The Masked Stranger,’ also called Phantom, as if you didn’t know,” she said. The gun, his gun, remained pointed at him.
“Greta,” said the colonel, suddenly strong again. “I’m still in charge of this operation. I demand that you use that gun now, at once, on him.”
“And who put you in charge” she shouted, angry.
“You know very well. The will named me,” said the colonel.
“Who cares about that old paper now? You’ve made too many mistakes. You’re too slow, too stupid.”
“How dare you talk to me like that? Have you no respect?” shouted Hermann.
“You let Gerhart and those fools almost ruin our business. This is our business,” she shouted, waving her gun at the crates. For the moment, yelling at each other, they had almost forgotten the Phantom. He chose that moment to pick up the crate and, holding it before him, dashed at the woman.
“Greta!” cried Hermann. “No—DV-1—don’t shoot!”
She hesitated. Maybe the command did it, or the crate ji labeled DV-1. Whatever the cause, that moment’s hesitation gave the Phantom the time he needed to cross to her. He drove the flat crate directly at her head so that she threw up her hands instinctively to protect her face. In a flash, the Phantom grasped her wrist as she fired. The bullet exploded into the rock ceiling. He dropped the crate, then twisted her wrist, forcing her to her knees. In the same movement, he took the gun away. It had all happened so quickly, Hermann had not moved. To Hermann and the woman called Greta, the Phantom moved unbelievably fast.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the hard breathing of the man and the woman. Now it was her turn to whimper. She had fallen to her knees on the | rocky floor and it hurt. Then she began to swear, produc ing foul language from such beautiful lips.
“You idiot,” she muttered at Hermann. “If you had shut up—”
“I’d be dead,” said the Phantom.
“Correct,” she said, getting to her feet.
“How many in your gang, outside of you two?”
They did not reply. She rubbed her knees and looked at It Hermann.
“I want a cigarette,” she said coldly.
“I asked you a question.”
Hermann looked at him arrogantly, then folded his arms, saying without words, “Make me talk if you can.”
Greta was more explicit with her string of obscenities.
The Phantom whistled softly. Devil came out of the | darkness. Close to two hundred pounds and six feet from nose to tail, he seemed monstrous in this cavern. His long j white fangs gleamed.
“Devil is a wolf. He is trained to kill his own meat. He is hungry. He will kill and eat what I tell him to kill and eat.”
Hermann and Greta looked nervously at Devil. She tried to laugh.
“Expect us to believe that?”
“We are not fools,” said Hermann.
The Phantom waved his gun toward Hermann.
“Go, Devil,” he said.
Devil leaped at Hermann. Hermann screamed as the force of the leap knocked him to the floor. Devil stood over him, front paws on his chest, jaws open wide—wide enough to take in Hermann’s whole head.
“No, no,” he cried, terrified.
“Stop him,” shouted Greta.
“Answer my question,” said the Phantom.
“What question?” gasped Hermann, Devil’s hot breath blowing in his face.
“How many in your gang?”
“Uh, thirteen. Get him off.”
“Thirteen, counting you two?”
“What?” gasped Hermann, nearly fainting.
“Not counting us,” said Greta, terrified too.
“Here, Devil.”
The wolf left the fallen man and walked to his master, then turned so that his pale-blue eyes watched the man and woman. She started toward the man to help him get up.
“Stay where you are,” said the Phantom. She stayed.
Thirteen, he thought. There had been the first man at the church, then the two including the bartender Gunda, left in the torture chamber with Chief Peta, the guard here, Sergeant Malo, now dead, and the four riflemen in and about the office next door. That made nine. And two more, Hans and the fat one, left with Roko the farmer. That made eleven. Two left.
“Where are the others. Buying real estate?” said the Phantom.
Greta glared at him. The colonel got to his feet, and felt for his cigarette case.
“I’m waiting for the answer,” said the Phantom.
The colonel looked quickly at Devil.
“Yes, buying real estate.”
“Go on.”
“A farmer up the valley, being stubborn.”
“Like Roko.”
“We have no interest in that real-estate idea. That was their idea, Gerhart and the others. They weren’t satisfied,” said Greta.
“They didn’t have the imagination or the knowledge. They didn’t realize what this all meant,” said the colonel, waving his hand at the rows of crates.
“Let’s start with the real estate. What were they after?” “Let them tell you,” said Greta curtly.
“Greta—I believe that is your name?”
“How brilliant of you to discover that.”
“I intend to discover a great deal more tonight. I’ve many questions. I want honest answers. Is that clear?”
That amused her. She looked at the colonel and snorted. “Honest? He doesn’t know what the word means.”
He scowled and did not reply.
“I want honest answers from you, too.”
“I’m not interested in telling you anything.”
“This is not a law court. You will tell me exactly what I want to know,” he said quietly.
“How do you expect to make me do that?” she said. “Put me on the Rack, or in the Iron Maiden?”
He knew what she was doing. Playing for time. The ! other two men could return at any moment. Doubtlessly, they were armed.
“The Iron Maiden? An interesting idea. Glad you mentioned it. I hadn’t thought of it,” he said calmly, visualizing the hollow metal torture instrument, the female form with the interior spikes. “You’d just fit in there.”
She stared at him. Was he joking? Impossible to tell from his flat tones. Impossible to read anything on that masked face with the unseen eyes, a face like a stone statue. Then she changed her mood as effortlessly as the | moon coming from behind a cloud. She smiled and her voice was soft and alluring.
“Please, who are you?
How did you know about the witch and the masked stranger? Please, tell me about ijj yourself.”
“I am asking the questions,” he said sharply, ignoring 1 the invitation in her voice. “I want to get into those crates, but first, let’s clear up this real-estate story.” '
She folded her arms on her chest and looked at him stubbornly. “I know nothing about that and care less,” she said.
“I think you know everything that goes on here,” he said.
She stared at him without replying. She appeared to be challenging him, to see what he would do.
“I want answers. We don’t need the Iron Maiden. We have Devil.”
At the sound of his name, Devil looked at his master 118
who pointed toward the woman. The wolf walked slowly toward her. She stared at the pale-blue eyes and the long shining fangs, and shrank against a crate.
“What do you want to know?” she gasped.
Devil had that way with people. He was so big and shaggy he terrified them. Poor Devil, thought the Phantom. To be so misunderstood. He was trained to attack criminals and hold them. He would never use those sharp fangs on a human except in self-defense. Now, he sat before her, his long red tongue hanging over his open jaw, and panted softly.
“We’re going to get into those crates, especially DV-1, but first let’s clear up this real-estate buying. I don’t believe your thugs are interested in farming. I don’t think you and the colonel are. What’s this all about?”
“Tell him, Hermann,” she said, without taking her eyes off Devil.
“I have no interest in the matter. Let him ask Gerhart,” he said stiffly.
“Gerhart is one of the two in the valley with the stubborn farmer?”
The colonel barely nodded.
“And the other one?”
“Wolfgang.”
“When Gerhart and Wolfgang return, I will question them. You are here. You will tell me what you know.” “Believe me, I have neither knowledge nor interest in their stupid venture,” he said loftily.
“Not true,” said the Phantom calmly. “When your two thugs, Hans and the fat one, tried to force Roko to sell, you were waiting in the car for them.”
The Phantom hadn’t been able to make out the men in the car at that time, but it seemed like a good guess. It was. The colonel flushed.
“I waited, true. But I had no interest or knowledge.” “Devil,” said the Phantom quietly, looking at .the colonel. Devil walked slowly to the colonel and sat before him, his jaws open, his red tongue lolling out of his jaws.
“But it was all their idea. I don’t know the details,” cried the colonel, staring at the big wolf.
“Never mind the details. Just tell what you know.”
“Ask her. She knows more,” he said desperately, still reluctant to give in.
“Don’t try to hide behind my skirts,” said Greta, amused by the colonel’s fear.
“Not a good place to hide,” said the Phantom dryly, glancing at her scanty miniskirt.
“You noticed my legs,” she said with a slight smile. “A good sign.”
“Talk,” said the Phantom to the colonel.
“I heard what you told him earlier. You wanted me as part of the deal,” she went on. “We’ll talk about that later.” She smiled more broadly.
A tough-minded woman, he told himself, able to flirt with a gun pointing at her.
“Colonel, Hermann, no more delay. Talk.”
Devil yawned. His wide-open jaws could almost engulf a man’s head. The colonel looked down that throat and began to talk.
“I detailed Gerhart here three years ago for caretaker duties,” he began. “He was the only one among us with scientific training.”
“What kind of scientific training?”
“Geology.”
“Go on.”
“During his off-hours, he made several surveys of the area, using instruments and techniques with which I am not familiar since I have no interest in scientific matters, being more concerned with the humanities, music, literature, and—
“Let’s get back to Gerhart.”
“As you wish,” said the colonel, annoyed at the interruption. “Gerhart reported his findings to me. They were, of course, preliminary and required verification of a substantive nature which we were to receive later.”
“May I sit down,” said Greta, obviously bored with this recital. The Phantom nodded. She sat on the edge of a low platform on which crates were stacked.
“But even with the verification, I refused to be a part of what I considered a foolhardy venture, even, one might say, a red herring. I refused to be diverted from my main purpose. I have followed that principle all my life, to choose a goal and stay with it.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, get on with it,” muttered Greta. “But Gerhart and Wolfgang and Hans and the others were not to be denied. They smelled riches, they said, something they could understand, not like this,” he said, waving his hand at the crates. “How could (hey be ox peeled to understand what we have here. They’re low born ignorant-peasant types.”
“Gerhart and Wolfgang are not low-born peasants,” said Greta, rocking cross-legged on the platform.
“Perhaps not to you, considering your background,” he said nastily.
“Thank you very much, Herr Count von ” she began in a mocking voice.
“No!” said the colonel sharply, shutting off her mention of his name.
The Phantom was listening patiently. The colonel was obviously trying to avoid coming to the point, again playing for time. But certain facts about these people were emerging from this rambling discourse. It was time now to get down to it.
“Okay,” he said, using an Americanism he had picked up from his sweetheart, Diana Palmer. “What did Gerhart discover here in his scientific surveys?”
The colonel was about to answer, either vaguely, or to the point, when Devil suddenly perked up his ears and tensed, looking toward the dark office through the open doorway. There was a sound of footsteps, then voices.
“Where’s the light?” said a heavy man’s voice.
The colonel and Greta were alert, looking toward the doorway for Gerhart and Wolfgang. If they could only call out to them, warn them. The Phantom had moved at once to the wall alongside the open door. Greta opened her mouth, starting to speak.
“Shh,” warned the Phantom. Devil was now in a low crouch on the floor.
“Colonel,” called the same deep voice. “Colonel.”
“Maybe they left,” said another man’s voice.
The Phantom pointed to Greta and the colonel.
“Guard,” he said.
Devil turned silently to them, remaining in his low crouch, his jaws open now, his great fangs glistening. The sudden change in the big animal was apparent to the man and woman. He was poised to attack if they moved. They felt that. They remained rigid.
“What’s the matter with' the light in here?” said the voice out of the dark office. That was the bulb in the ceiling fixture that the Phantom had smashed.
The Phantom pointed to the colonel and said softly, “Call.”
“Hello,” said the colonel in a cracked voice.
“Colonel, where are you?”
He looked at the Phantom who nodded. He licked his dry lips and said, “Here.”
“Do you know the light in this office doesn’t work?” said the voice, growing louder as the man approached the doorway.
“You should have seen that guy’s face when I started to bite his neck,” continued the voice with a laugh.
“How about his wife when I went for her? Man, was she something!” said the other voice deeper in the dark room. The first man reached the doorway at that point, and saw the colonel and Greta facing the crouching wolf, an unexpected sight in the pale light. He was a big husky man wearing the familiar broad hat and black cape. He was grinning.
“Hey, what—?” he started to say. An iron fist swung from the side. The impact was so hard that he blacked out before
he could utter a sound.
“Wolfgang,” cried the other voice from the dark office. He evidently saw his companion fall, and turned to run the other way. At the same time, he drew his gun.
“Hold,” said the Phantom to Devil as he raced through the doorway, bent low so that he was only waist-high. He knew that coming out of the lighted chamber, he was a visible target in the doorway. The man in the dark room had time to get off one shot that missed the Phantom by a hair’s breadth. Then he was knocked to the floor with a flying tackle.
He was a strong man and he managed to struggle to his feet. This attack in the dark by an unknown assailant was terrifying, and his fear increased his strength. But he was no match for this quick opponent. A hard blow in his stomach doubled him up and a second smash on the jaw ended the fight. The Phantom picked him up and hurled him through the doorway where he landed with a crash on top of the other man lying there.
The Phantom strode through the doorway, stepping over the two men. The colonel and Greta had remained in their places, held by a crouching Devil. They stared at the masked figure, stunned by this violence. They looked at the two big men on the floor, for whom they had delayed and procrastinated—their last hope. The Phantom stood before them and he seemed to loom gigantically in this pale light. His voice was deep and cold as though it came from a dark cave.
“Now, we will really talk,” he said. And they both knew there was no more question about that. The time had come.
(“The cold voice of the angry Phantom can freeze the blood,” —old jungle saying.)
Chapter 20
The two men on the floor, Gerhart and Wolfgang, hadn’t moved. Their heavy breathing filled the room.
“They’ve both got that thing on their faces, like Malo and that bartender,” cried Greta.
The bluish mark, the Sign of the Skull, was clearly visible on the jaw of each man. “What is that thing?” Greta continued, an edge of hysteria in her voice.
The Phantom ignored her question. “I’m looking for rope, but I don’t see any. That baling wire will have to do. Bring it to me.” The colonel obeyed, getting the wire which was wrapped around a wooden frame.
“I’ve left your people spilled all over. Time to bring a little order here,” the Phantom continued. There was a box of tools on the air conditioner. He rummaged in it until he found what he was looking for, a wire-cutter. The man and woman watched, fascinated. In his skintight costume, he was an incredible figure. And they had been hunting him?