by Otto Penzler
A rubber suction cup was also affixed to the back of the watch case so that the watch could be attached instantly to any smooth surface—such as the face of a safe. Don screwed the metal clamp on to the knob that threw the bolt within the lock once the combination had been dialed. From its outer end, by means of the string, he hung a heavy brass poker which he found by the fireplace.
Then he put the watch-micrometer in position on the face of the safe so that the weight pulled the outer end of the clamp down against and just touching the smaller projecting arm that issued from the watch.
Then, slowly, drawing out the process as much as possible, Don Diavolo began to turn the safe dial so that the inner combination wheels revolved one at a time. It is mechanically impossible to make these wheels so exactly alike in diameter that such a safe-opening micrometer is not able to detect some difference.
As each wheel revolved, Diavolo, his eyes on the watch dial, waited for the tell-tale quiver which would tell him that the slot of one wheel had lined up with the bolt. Then the ultra-sensitive hand twitched as he turned the third inner wheel. Looking at the dial, he saw that it read seven and knew that this was the third number in the combination for which the lock was set.
Then, he began again, rotating each inner wheel in turn except the third, and watching until his micrometer should tell him when another wheel had lined up. He took his time, and his eyes fell now and then to the more ordinary watch on his wrist that counted off seconds rather than fractions of an inch. Fifteen minutes more of stalling would be necessary before he could expect Chan.
Don got another quiver, this time on dial number five. The fifth number on the combination was twenty-four.3
At that moment, Don, listening intently to every sound in the room behind his back, heard footsteps followed by Perry’s voice. It wasn’t quite the same voice. The polite smiling tones had gone from it completely and left a harsh, hard residue.
“This guy’s pulling our legs,” it said. “He’s wise. He gave Louie this note.”
Chapter X
Memory Is Murdered
Don Diavolo felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured suddenly down his back. His hands dropped from the safe dial and he turned on his heel slowly.
The taxi driver stood beside Perry, an automatic in his hand, his small, piglike eyes as cold and emotionless as glaciers. The muzzle of the gun, from where Don viewed it, was a perfectly round black hole. It was utterly motionless.
Dumont looked at the note that Perry gave him, read it aloud and then growled at Perry. “He rumbled you on the way up. I hope you can explain it to the boss. He isn’t going to like—”
“I’ll take care of him later!” The voice was in the room; there was no doubt of that. It was low-pitched—too low to have come from outside. Don had been waiting for this. It was the voice of the Invisible Man!
Perry’s face was two shades whiter. The taxi driver licked his lips nervously, but it would have taken Don’s sensitive micrometer to detect any motion in the hand that held his gun.
The voice spoke again. “Dumont, put your gun on the desk!”
Dumont’s hidden hand came up and placed an automatic on the blotter. Dumont got to his feet and moved hastily to one side.
Except for St. Louis Louie, all eyes were on the gun. And then, like a movie scene dubbed in by one of Hollywood’s trick photographers, the gun slowly tilted upward to a vertical position. The movement continued; the gun rose in midair, its nose pointing at Don Diavolo. Two feet above the desk it stopped and hung there, not as steady as the gun in Louie’s hand, but, because the man who held it was invisible, twice as menacing.
“All right, Diavolo,” the voice said then. “Get busy. Your friends, you see, won’t be coming. You don’t need to stall any longer. Open that safe.”
Don’s eyes had a light of understanding in them now. He was beginning to understand the Invisible Man’s methods. But he wasn’t in any position to make use of the knowledge.
“And I wouldn’t advise you,” the voice went on grimly, “to try to destroy the interesting apparatus you have set up. I am an excellent shot. And St. Louis Louie is a perfect one. You may have ten minutes. Time him, Dumont.”
“And if the safe isn’t open by then?” Don asked, his eyes watching for the break it didn’t look as if he was going to get. The chill had spread from the back of his neck, reaching its icy fingers to his whole body.
“A good shot practices constantly. Neither Louie nor myself have done so yet today. If the safe isn’t open …”
“Never mind,” Don said shortly. “I get it. You don’t need to talk like a bad play.”
Diavolo turned to the safe and again began his careful turning of the dial. “And you don’t need,” he added, “to continue calling Glenn Collins Dumont. A man with a scar on his thumb should always wear gloves.”
He heard Dumont, behind him, gasp. The Invisible Man said, “You’ll work faster if you don’t talk. Perry, make ready to clear out of here.”
Don was working on the last combination wheel, when Dumont said, “You’ve got one more minute.”
His voice, Don noticed, was unsteady and it no longer sounded like Dumont’s. The Invisible Man apparently noticed it too. “All right, Dumont,” he said. “Take your gun. Go outside and get ready to put on your act for that dick downstairs as soon as the others come out.”
Don looked over his shoulder and opened his mouth to speak. He said, “Glenn—” and then St. Louis Louie cut him off.
“Okay, big boy.” His words came flat and expressionless from between his teeth. “If you want what I got, go right on gabbing.”
The Invisible Man’s voice came again. “Half that minute is gone.”
The second-hand on the micrometer moved the last time. Don Diavolo knew that once that safe was open, his usefulness would be ended. But he still wondered what was in it that they wanted so badly.
Hurriedly he took the watch from the safe face, set the big dial at zero and began. Four turns to the left, eighteen to the right, seven to the left, twenty-six to the right …
Don felt the intent eyes on his back. The dial stopped at the final number, and Don held his breath as he turned the knob to which the clamp was still fixed. He felt the bolt move over. He started to pull the safe door outward.
Perry’s voice said, “Okay. Move over.”
Don moved and Louie’s gun followed him as if it was a piece of steel seeking a magnet.
The butler, standing in the door, came forward as Perry opened the safe. He carried two suitcases which he laid open on the floor. Perry began taking out the contents of the safe and transferring them to the grips. Don’s eyes widened.
He saw a rock crystal cross whose face bore religious emblems in wrought gold and translucent blue enamel. He saw a shell-shaped, green jade cup set upon the carved figure of centaur, and several cases containing miniatures. There were other objects too—paintings, books with ancient bindings, jeweled watches, several pieces of Sèvres porcelain, a small tapestry—but the cross and the cup Don thought he recognized. They answered the descriptions of the ones stolen from Ziegler’s shop!
Diavolo couldn’t understand why those things should be in Ziegler’s safe but he had no time to puzzle that out just then. The cold voice of the Invisible Man hung again in the room, its tone triumphant now—and inflexible.
“The magician knows too much. Louie—”
Don’s hand jerked as it began the swift move toward his gun. He wasn’t going to stand there and take the blast from the gunman’s gun without any back talk at all.
His hand never reached his gun.
The butler’s hand, blackjack raised, had started its downward motion first. A thousand fiery points of light whirled before Don’s eyes, scattered, and dropped swiftly into blackness.
The magician’s body crumpled and dropped.
The disembodied voice gave one more command. “Throw him into the safe. Lock it. And get going!”
The butler
hesitated a brief moment, then lifted the limp, scarlet-costumed figure and dumped it inside the dark interior of the safe. Perry was thorough. He changed the combination, slammed the heavy, foot-thick door, threw the bolt and whirled the dial. Then he smashed the micrometer.
Had Don Diavolo been conscious and able to use the controlled breathing methods that he used in some of his underwater feats, the air within the safe would be breathable for as much as two hours. But he was unconscious and breathing at a normal rate. Under these conditions the air would last a half hour at the most.
The best safe-blower in the country couldn’t get that door open in under an hour. Even if he did, the blast would be fatal to the man inside. The only practical existing way to get into the safe now was through a knowledge of the new combination, something that was itself locked within the head of one man—Perry.
Then, in the lobby downstairs, a hitch occurred. Dumont was not successful in holding the attention of the waiting detective. St. Louis Louie had to use his heater. But the detective, as he fell, managed one shot in reply. He missed Louie. His bullet entered Perry’s head just below the right eye, tunnelled upward through the mental filing system of nervous tissue and made its exit just behind and above the left ear.
A certain series of eight numbers in a certain sequence, the combination of Nathan Ziegler’s safe, was as utterly lost as if it had never been.
Chapter XI
Into Thin Air
Colonel Ernest Kaselmeyer, manager of the Manhattan Music Hall, was sputtering colored fire and throwing off streams of sparks like a two dollar Fourth of July pinwheel.
“Diavolo!” he thundered. “I’ve got his name in lights clear across the front of this theater! Letters six feet high! Last night he does not give his last show. I had to return four hundred admissions! He should go on in five minutes—and none of you have the slightest idea where he is! Maybe I should go back to managing a flea circus! Magicians! Bah!”
Pat, Mickey, and Karl listened to his fulminations without paying attention to the words. They all turned expectantly each time there were footsteps in the corridor outside. Their faces all fell together each time as the steps went on past.
Karl was at the window, his eyes, behind their thick lensed glasses, fixed on the flow of traffic before the stage door in the street below. “I knew something like this would happen sooner or later,” he frowned. “That driver should have been back ages ago. I’ll wait another ten minutes, then I’m going to get Church after Belmont.”
“Belmont?” Mickey asked. “Why him?”
“Because Don had me examine that check Belmont gave him. I found his fingerprints. His right thumb matches the thumbprints on the note the Invisible Man left at Ziegler’s!”
“I’m going to phone the Inspector now,” Pat said. “He might be able to pick up a clue at the house on 106th Street. If Glenn—” Her voice broke on his name, but her chin was firm as she went toward the phone.
Chan Chandar Manchu, who had just replaced the receiver after vainly trying to locate Horseshoe, Larry, and Woody, said, “I’ll get him for you, Miss Pat.”
But he failed there too. Inspector Church was, at that moment, roaring up Riverside Drive in a police car whose screaming siren was loud and angry. The report of a gun battle in the lobby of the hotel at 848 West End Avenue had just come in.
Chan had not been able to reach Woody Haines because that gentleman was talking to the detective stationed outside the hotel on Riverside Drive. He had gone there to get an interview with Nathan Ziegler, seen the dick and stopped to question him. The detective was telling him that the art dealer had asked for police protection after the robbery, afraid that the Invisible Man might not be satisfied with the haul at his shop, but would attempt also to steal certain valuable art objects from Ziegler’s own private collection.
Woody was listening to this when they heard the shots from inside. As the detective drew his gun and sped toward the lobby, Woody noticed something that the dick missed. He saw a taxi come around the nearest corner on two wheels and slide to a grinding stop before the building. “A getaway car,” Woody murmured. “Maybe, just in case—” He turned quickly and signaled a cruising taxi down the street.
A moment later, St. Louis Louie, the butler, and Dumont, the latter white-faced and shaken, ran out and piled into the cab.
Woody leaned forward in his seat. “Follow that cab, Mac,” he commanded. “If you lose it, I’ll have your scalp.”
“Lissen, buddy,” the driver said. “Why should I stick my neck out? Those mobsters mean business. If they see us tailin’ ’em …”
“What they’ll do won’t be half as bad as what I’ll do if you don’t,” Woody cut in. “Keep your lip buttoned, your chin up, and step on that gas!”
The driver looked back over his shoulder straight into the nose of the .32 Colt that Woody held in one big paw. He carefully noted Woody’s bulky shoulders and All-American arms.
“Okay, boss,” he said, his eyes round, “Play like I didn’t mention it.” The taxi leaped forward with a grinding clash of gears.
The two detectives were being loaded into an ambulance when Church’s car skidded to a stop before the hotel. The Inspector and Sergeant Brophy hit the pavement, running. They collected a frightened hotel desk clerk as they sailed through the lobby and an elevator shot upward, carrying them toward the Ziegler apartment.
The clerk opened the door with a master key and the two detectives rushed in. Their search at first was fruitless. The hall, living room, and study were quite empty. Church, in passing, gave the big safe a suspicious glance, noticed that it seemed undisturbed and securely locked, dismissed it from his mind and went on.
It was Sergeant Brophy who found the body.
“Bathroom door’s locked,” he called. “Get that clerk in here.”
When the clerk’s key had thrown the bolt and Brophy, gun ready, had pushed back the door, they saw Nathan Ziegler’s body, stiff with rigor, lying on the cold tiles. There were three bullet holes in his chest.
“Sergeant,” Church started, “Get headquarters and—”
It was then that he heard the muffled thumping sound. He turned toward the two bedroom doors. One was locked.
The clerk’s shaking hand fumbled with his key. Church shoved him aside to unlock the door himself.
A girl lay on the bed, her feet kicking desperately against the footboard. Her ankles and wrists were tied with adhesive; a towel was pulled tight across her mouth and knotted behind her head. Her wide black eyes were filled with horror until Church drew a knife and began to cut the towel. Then they flooded with tears of relief and her taut body relaxed.
Sergeant Brophy turned to the clerk, “Get the house doctor!” The clerk left at a run and Brophy dashed for the phone in the study.
Inspector Church removed the gag from the girl’s mouth, cut the tape that held her wrists, and then stiffened. He dropped his knife and ran.
Brophy’s voice had come back to him from the study, saying, “Fancy meeting you here! Put your hands up, Diavolo!”
As Church galloped into the study, Brophy said, “He must have been hiding in here, Inspector. And he opened the safe while we were in the bedroom. Another minute and he’d have been gone.”
The safe door was wide and Don Diavolo was supporting himself with difficulty, leaning heavily on his hands on the desk. He was drawing fresh air into his lungs in great draughts.
“Handcuffs, Brophy!” Church ordered. “And watch him. If he tries to go invisible on us, shoot!”
Diavolo shook his head and gave them half a smile. He inhaled another long breath of oxygen and said, “I wasn’t trying to get into the safe, Inspector. I just got out. Look at the door.”
Church looked. “What the hell!” he exclaimed.
The plate on the inner side of the safe door that covers the locking mechanism had been removed, exposing the combination wheels inside. The plate, its screws, and a knife with a broken point lay on the safe floor.
Don Diavolo rubbed the bump on the back of his head gingerly. “They knocked me out, Inspector, and locked me in. I pulled out of it just in time, broke off the point of my knife and used it as a screwdriver. Once the plate was off I could manipulate the wheels with my hands. It’s much easier to get out of a safe than into one—provided you aren’t unconscious. The air in that place nearly put me under again before I got the bolt to slide over.”
Church looked at Don and then back at the safe. He scowled undecidedly. Then he shook his head. “Clever as usual. But I’m not so sure. This could be some more of your blasted misdirection.”
“Inspector,” Diavolo said wearily. “Please! You think of the damnedest—Who is that?”
Don motioned toward the doorway where the girl stood, the cut adhesive still dangling from her wrists and ankles.
The girl, staring at Don Diavolo, said, “And he murdered my father. I saw him!”
Don gasped at her. “I—I murdered your father? When did that happen?”
“Last night,” the girl said, trembling with emotion. “Dad had just changed the combination of the safe and he was locking it. You came in with two other men. One of them grabbed me; you and the other went into the study. You were wearing those red clothes and a red mask. I—I heard you tell my father to put his hands up, and then I heard him slam the door of the safe. You swore, and then—”
The girl could go no further. She sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing.
“Church,” Diavolo said, “Ask her what time last night.”