The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

by Otto Penzler

  Meekly, Don Diavolo asked, “Inspector, now that Miss Collins and I are in the clear, may we go?”

  “In the clear? What makes you think that?”

  “We don’t have the diamonds and you can’t make an arrest unless—”

  Suddenly Detective Sergeant Brophy exploded, “Inspector, I’ve got it. Diavolo’s suitcase! After we ran out into the hall, he came out and took a gun from it. I’ll bet he put the necklace inside!”

  “Suitcase!” Church leaped to his feet. “Why the hell haven’t I heard about—” He was across the room and through the door. When he came back with the case, he was grinning. “Feels as if he has the necklace and all the silverware in the house in it. I guess this settles your hash, Mr. Dia—”

  He pulled the case open and stepped back in amazement as Larry Keeler stood up, stretched, looked up at the Inspector and said, “Thanks. I was beginning to think I’d been forgotten.”

  Church, recovering, reached out, grasped the back of Larry’s collar in a big fist and lifted the dwarf out of the suitcase. He dropped him outside and bent to examine the case.

  “Nothing,” he said once more, and then turned on Diavolo. “What—what is the meaning of this?” he demanded, pointing at Larry.

  It took Diavolo several minutes of fast talking to explain, but he finally managed to get his point across. Inspector Church was still not at all sure he believed a word Diavolo said. As long as he couldn’t find the diamonds, however, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

  “Keeler,” he snapped. “You were watching that door every minute?”

  Larry nodded.

  “You heard the voice and saw the door slam?”

  Larry nodded again.

  “And what did you see?”

  The little magician flipped a coin on the palm of his small hand, and made a pass above it with his other. The coin vanished.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nobody at all.”

  Church snorted. “Brophy,” he ordered, “Get these magicians out of here! They give me a pain.”

  Diavolo jerked a thumb at his two companions. “Come on. Before he changes his mind. Mr. Belmont, I’ll return your check since I don’t seem to have been successful in preventing the theft.”

  Belmont waved his hand. “Forget it,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault. If the Inspector hadn’t trampled up that—”

  Church said, “And you clear out too, Belmont! I’m sick of the sight of you. Brophy, I’ll start on the servants now.”

  Don grinned. “I’ll send the check to the Police Benefit Fund for Retired Inspectors,” he said as he went out.

  To Pat and Larry as they drove away from the Belmont estate, he said, “I feel sorry for the Inspector. He’s really up against something this time.”

  Larry answered “Any theories, Don? I’ll admit I’m buffaloed.”

  Don nodded. His face in the moonlight was hard and tight. “I’m beginning to get one, Larry. And I don’t like it.”

  Pat stared straight ahead, saying nothing. She was wondering where her brother had been during the last hour. Don Diavolo wanted very much to know that also. He pressed heavily on the gas and the powerful red car roared through the night, streaking back toward Manhattan.

  When they hurried into the house on Fox Street, Don called, “Chan! Any word from Horseshoe?”

  From the living room, the Horseshoe Kid’s voice answered them. “Yes. Cuss words, all of them.”

  Horseshoe was lying on the divan, an icebag on his head and a tall glass of straight Scotch in his hand. “I’m a lousy dick,” he said. “I was casing the 106th Street joint when some fink sneaked up behind and conked me one. I don’t know just how long I was out, but it was long enough. I got a locksmith down the street. Told him I’d been knocked out and rolled for my dough. Took him back to the house I’d been watching and he got the door open for me. I went through the house. Nobody home. I’m sorry.”

  “What time was this?” Don snapped.

  “About fifteen minutes after I phoned you the last time, just before you headed for Belmont’s. I tried to phone out there and get you, but some copper had taken over the switchboard and he wanted my name, address, occupation, and a dozen references, so I hung up on him.”

  “This,” Don said heavily, “is too much.” He turned to Pat. “Try not to worry, Pat. Maybe it isn’t as bad—” He broke off and swore. “I’m going to town on this case starting now. You get to bed, Pat. Tomorrow’s going to be a darned lively day. And I’ll need your help. That’s an order. Go on, Chan! Put something in a cocktail shaker and bring it in here. We need it.”

  But the cocktail didn’t help a lot. Don was still scowling thoughtfully when Horseshoe and Larry left a short while later.

  He still wore the same scowl the next morning when he went to the theater. And he saw another scowl just like his own on the face of the man who waited for him there. The man was pacing nervously back and forth at the stage door. His face brightened as he caught sight of Don.

  “Mr. Diavolo,” he said quickly. “May I see you a moment, please? It is extremely urgent.”

  He shoved a white square of cardboard at Diavolo. It bore the name Julian Dumont and across it was written, “This will introduce my secretary Victor Perry.”

  There was one detail about the card that Diavolo didn’t care for. The ink that formed the printed name, Julian Dumont, was not quite dry. When Don rubbed a surreptitious finger across it, the name smeared.

  He took a closer look at the man before him. Mr. Perry was a slender, open-faced individual with a disarming smile and quick, sharp gray eyes. He was smartly dressed and he talked with a confident, business-like air. The only other thing aside from the card that bothered Diavolo was the faintly feminine intonation and gesture which Mr. Victor Perry used. It wasn’t quite what he would have expected from a secretary employed by a man like Dumont.

  “My employer needs your assistance,” Perry said. “A matter of the utmost importance. We have had a most distressing morning. Mr. Dumont finally thought of you.”

  “Dumont,” Diavolo asked. “The president of the Dumont Chemical company?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Perry said. “And he needs your assistance, very badly. A matter of the utmost importance. Perhaps if we could talk privately?” Perry looked around at the elderly stage doorman who eyed them across the top of a morning paper. Its headlines in enormous type read:

  INVISIBLE MAN SCORES AGAIN BAFFLES MAGICIAN AND POLICE

  Historic $320,000 Necklace Stolen in Impossible Theft

  Diavolo nodded. “My dressing room,” he said.

  Mr. Perry said nothing further until they were behind Don’s closed door. Then he talked rapidly.

  “I have here a blank check payable to you,” he stated, taking a blue slip from his billfold. “I am authorized to fill it out for any reasonable amount that you name if you can come to Mr. Dumont’s assistance immediately.”

  Diavolo raised an eyebrow. Two financiers waving checks at him in as many days! Perhaps he was wasting his time in the theater after all.

  “Sounds interesting,” he said. “Just how can I help your employer?”

  “By opening his safe,” Perry said. “Mr. Dumont is, as you may have heard, a rather eccentric man. Last night he changed the combination on his private safe. He unfortunately did so without informing me. He also neglected to make a note of the new combination. He prides himself on his memory, which I am sorry to say is not nearly as good as he likes to think. And this morning, finally, he is having to admit as much himself.”

  “He forgot the combination, Mr. Perry?” Don asked, his glance sharpening.

  “Exactly.” Mr. Perry smiled slightly. “I am almost pleased. Perhaps it will teach the old gentleman a lesson and so make my own job less irksome. His eccentricities are a bit annoying at times.”

  “Yes, I can see they might be if this sort of thing happens very often. But why me? Tell him to get Courtney. If anybody can open your employer’s safe, he’s th
e man.”

  “We thought of that, Mr. Diavolo. But we found that Mr. Courtney is out of town and will not be back until tomorrow. The safe contains some very important business contracts which must be signed and delivered without fail before noon. Mr. Dumont knows of your remarkable escape work and it occurred to him that opening the safe would be a small matter for The Great Diavolo.”

  Don thought, “Oh oh. Flattery too.” Aloud he asked, “What make of safe?”

  “A Holmes & Watson. Their No. I Double Dial Bank Lock.”

  Don did a few rapid mental calculations. He liked the story even less than he liked Mr. Perry and Mr. Dumont’s freshly inked card. Don had come to the theater early to make some adjustments in a piece of apparatus that had not worked too smoothly during the last show the day before. Chan and Pat weren’t due for another hour.

  “Yes,” he said after a moment, “I’ll come. If you’ll wait one moment.” Quickly Don went into his dressing room and closed the door. He hurriedly threw off his business suit and slid into the scarlet evening clothes he wore in his act. He also took a quick look at a phone book. Then he returned to Mr. Perry.

  Don grinned inside as he noticed Perry’s face fall perceptibly on seeing the costume.

  “I thought I had better change now,” Don explained. “My first show is at one twenty and opening a safe of the type you mention is no cinch. I might be pressed for time on my return.” This story was as thin as Perry’s but Don knew the man couldn’t very well contradict him.

  “What is Mr. Dumont’s address?” Don asked then, taking a sheet of notepaper from the desk. “I’ll leave a note for my assistants in case they should need to reach me.”

  “Eight-eighty-four Riverside Drive,” Mr. Perry replied, smiling once more.

  But Diavolo didn’t bother to mention that address in the note that he addressed to Chan. “Get Woody, Horseshoe, Larry, and Karl. Stand by for further orders. I’ll send the cabdriver back for you. I’m wearing the red evening clothes so the trail from there on should be easy. Ask Horseshoe if he ever met a bird whose name is probably not Victor Perry. He uses Cirou’s Rose d’Amour perfume.”

  Don didn’t include the Riverside address because the phone book had told him that Julian Dumont lived on East 62nd Street!

  He sealed the envelope, wrote Chan’s name across its face and left it on the desk. Then he stood up, picked a glowing cigarette from midair with an expert gesture, opened the door to the corridor and said, “After you, Mr. Perry.”

  Chapter IX

  The Synthetic Millionaire

  When the taxi drew up before an apartment house on Riverside Drive, Don Diavolo looked at the address and the corners of his mouth curled in a faint smile. It was not only not Dumont’s address; it wasn’t even the address to which Perry had told him they were going.

  Don smiled because, palmed in his right hand with a folded five dollar bill was a note which he had written, unknown to Mr. Perry, at the same time he wrote the message for Chan. This second note read, “Driver: Return at once to Music Hall. Ask for Miss Collins or my assistant Chan. Tell them to what address you took me. They’ll give you another five spot. It’s a matter of life or death. Thanks.”

  As Perry paid the driver and started to lead the way up to the door, Don flipped his note into the driver’s lap, gave him a wink, and immediately engaged Perry’s attention with a question.

  “I thought you said Eight-eighty-four Riverside? This doesn’t seem to be—”

  Perry looked at him with skillfully raised eyebrows. “Eight-eighty-four? Oh no, you misunderstood. I said eight-forty-eight.”

  “Oh,” Diavolo said. “My mistake.” He spoke as if it were of no importance, but now, suddenly, he was beginning to realize just how important this little change of address really was. His quick eyes had caught sight of a familiar figure standing at the bus stop on the corner—one of the Inspector’s men. And, as they passed through the lobby, he saw still another writing a letter at a desk in the lounge. That was when Don remembered where he had seen the address 848 Riverside Drive before—in yesterday’s papers, given as the home address of Nathan Ziegler!

  Perry put a key in the door of Apartment 12 E. A butler came toward them as they entered, a large man whose otherwise immaculate uniform was a trifle short in the sleeves and whose right hip pocket bulged interestingly.

  Diavolo took off his hat, handed it to the man, getting as he did so a quick glimpse at the small mirror which he carried fixed to the inside of the crown. This was a useful conjurer’s gimmick of his own invention that often supplied him, as it did now, with interesting bits of information. He distinctly saw Mr. Victor Perry, behind his back, give the butler an almost unnoticeable nod.

  Don Diavolo was as certain as he had ever been of anything that his interview with Mr. Julian Dumont was going to be something to remember. He felt a warning, wholly instinctive tension tug at his spine, and the skin on the back of his neck went suddenly cold.

  Mr. Dumont was a distinguished looking, gray-haired man with nose-glasses and a small VanDyke. He looked a lot like the pictures of the wealthy chemical-company president that Don had seen now and then in the papers, but, by this time, Don was inclined to be suspicious. He thought he detected one or two minor flaws. But his apparently relaxed body gave no indication that he was prepared to send it into instant action. That sort of inner tautness covered by the deceptive appearance of ease was part of Diavolo’s stock in trade.

  Dumont nodded at him across the top of the broad desk in his study. “I’m delighted to meet you, Don Diavolo,” he said. “I’ve seen your act often. I particularly like your marvelous handcuff and straitjacket escapes. They are really uncanny. I’ve a little problem here.” He waved his hand toward the large safe that stood in a small alcove off the study. “Mr. Perry has explained our dilemma?”

  Diavolo bowed. “Yes. He tells me that it is locked and that you seem to have mislaid the combination.” Don approached the safe and pretended to examine it. He squinted at the shiny dial so that the light from the window fell on it obliquely. And he saw what he had hoped might be there. Fingerprints—one of which was a thumbprint cut diagonally by the now-familiar line of a scar!

  Then Diavolo turned and, as his eyes quickly surveyed the room, he saw one other thing. A cigarette box on a side-table, a small black rosewood affair whose cover bore the inlaid initials: N. Z. So, Diavolo thought, that’s that. Ziegler’s apartment. The question would seem to be: Where is Nathan?

  Dumont said, “Well, Mr. Diavolo. Do you think you can open it for us? I must get those documents out by noon, without fail. That gives you half an hour.”

  Don was thinking that it would be just about that before Chan and the others could possibly arrive. He decided he’d better do a bit of stalling. Just to see what would happen, he threw a bomb.

  “I’m afraid it will be difficult to open it that soon,” he said. “Mr. Perry told me that this was a Holmes & Watson No. I Double Dial Bank Lock. But I find that it is their 1930 model. I assumed you’d have one of the more recent ones. I’ll need a few instruments that I didn’t bring. If I may phone my assistant.”

  He moved toward the phone, but Dumont swiftly raised his hand. Perry took a swift step forward as Dumont said: “Our phone is not working. It’s been an extremely unfortunate day. Mr. Perry can go down to the lobby and make the call for you if you think it is necessary. But I’m afraid your assistant would not be able to get here in time—”

  “No, perhaps not,” Diavolo said, afraid of just that. He knew it was useless to send Perry down. He doubted if the man would phone at all. Don turned again toward the safe. “Well,” he said slowly, “I’ll have a go at it, but I won’t promise—”

  Somewhere close by there was a sudden rapid, frantic pounding on a closed door and a girl’s voice screamed, “Let me out, you—”

  Diavolo heard the butler’s quick footsteps in the hall, he heard a door open and the sound of a quick scuffle. The girl’s voice stopped abrup
tly.

  He saw Perry frown and he heard Dumont say:

  “My daughter, Mr. Diavolo. Since her mother died a few years ago, she has developed psychopathic symptoms to such an extent that she cannot be allowed out of her room. Paranoic delusions of persecution. Perry, perhaps you had better phone Dr. Llyons. She seems to be worse this morning.”

  “I’ll have him come at once.” Perry nodded quickly, and left the room.

  Don Diavolo turned to the safe, conscious that Dumont’s eyes were boring a hole in his back. These boys were first-class actors and fast thinkers. The act was almost good enough—but not quite. Yesterday’s newspapers, Don remembered, had stated that Nathan Ziegler had a daughter with whom he lived. The picture behind the false front that Dumont, Perry, and the butler were putting up was beginning to emerge. It was an unpleasant picture tinged with distinct overtones of peril.

  Don didn’t care for any part of it. He particularly disliked the fact that Julian Dumont had never once raised his right hand above the top of the desk behind which he sat. Don was sure that he didn’t need X-Ray Vision to know that that hand was holding a gun. He had a healthy suspicion, too, that the butler was just outside the door holding another of the same in his hand. Don also had a gun, but he realized that getting the drop on these men was growing to be rather like trying to catch a train that has left the station ten minutes before.

  Diavolo turned the big dial of the safe thoughtfully. Since this had something to do with Nathan Ziegler, it also concerned the Invisible Man. That being true, the game these boys were up to was big-time stuff, and they would very probably shoot at the first false move.

  It might be a good idea not to make any just yet. Don could see only one thing to do at the moment—stall, if possible, until reinforcements arrived, or until he got something that was half way like a break.

  Don’s hand went to his pocket. Dumont’s arm at once raised perceptibly. Don, watching for it out of the corner of his eye, suppressed a grim smile as he produced a metal screw clamp, a length of string, and a chamois watchcase. The latter held an ordinary watch which, after Karl Hartz had worked on it, now served an unusual purpose. It no longer told the time, but instead was capable of giving information of quite another sort. Karl had removed the mainspring and attached a small projecting arm to the main wheel. The slightest touch on this arm caused the second hand to vibrate wildly. It was sensitive to deviations of less than one-thousandth of an inch—one-tenth the thickness of a sheet of paper.