by Don Wilcox
Within the next two or three minutes a total of six different girls had entered the room through the barrage of electrical vibrations, and all of them, if Archie could believe his eyes, had turned invisible.
Six girls disappeared—six white cards materialized out of thin air and fluttered down to the table.
Everything was perfectly silent except for the beating of Archie’s heart. He could not catch his breath. In fact, he was under a nightmare paralysis. The electrical spray was still humming and snapping dangerously, and he had momentary visions of being extinguished by it.
Suddenly there were footsteps from the room beyond. The fan of electrical bars snapped off. A tall, straight man walked in briskly—Craig himself.
Before Archie could break out of his frozen state, Hamilton Craig picked up the six white cards, fitted them into a little leather-backed book, pocketed it and strode out.
CHAPTER III
Archie Becomes a Bookkeeper
Heedless of the dangerous door, Archie ran after the disappearing figure of Craig. He raced across the blue-lighted hallway, and followed through a luxurious dining room beyond. There he stopped, confused as to which of several doors Craig had taken.
The pursuit was a hopeless one. With a quickening sense of responsibility he added these rooms to his notebook charts. He would reconstruct the rest by guess. It was high time to get back to the Overton Employment office, by taxi.
The agent at Overton’s greeted Archie with a not too friendly, “Well, it’s about time. Five minutes more and we would have been closed. Go back to Booth 7. Craig is waiting.”
“Craig?” Archie gulped.
A moment later Archie was shaking hands with Hamilton Craig himself, and the slender, stern-looking business man was scrutinizing him with sharp black eyes.
“You sure do get around, Mr. Craig,” Archie mumbled.
“Sit down, Mr. Burnette, we haven’t much time to talk.”
Archie was skeptical. What sort of man was this? Was he not carrying six “magic cards” in his pocket? The weird events of the past hour were shooting through Archie’s brain like skyrockets. How could this handsome, black-mustached man sit there so coolly, fingering his check book with such a steady hand?
Archie presented his sketchy notebook report of the rooms and buildings he had surveyed. He apologized for the lack of accuracy.
“I didn’t go through the whole house on the east. I was sort of confused. After what happened—”
“Don’t mention it,” said Craig. “You made a good beginning. I can use you. I have looked over your employment record. You seem to be resourceful. I think you have about the right amount of nerve. It wouldn’t do to be too foolhardy.”
This was a dubious compliment, Archie thought. Also, it implied something ominous regarding the job.
Craig made out a check and passed it over. “Here’s an advance. You start at once. If you stick, the salary will be fifty a week.”
“I’ll be ready to go to work tomorrow.”
“You start this evening. I want you to go back to the Southwest Boulevard mansion and pick up a book.”
Archie frowned. He tapped the folded check on the table. “Pardon me, Mr. Craig, but just what sort of work is this?”
“You applied for a bookkeeper’s position, didn’t you? Well, that’s it. You are to be my bookkeeper. I will dignify you with the title of my personal secretary, sergeant-at-arms and night watchman. How’s that?”
“It sure sounds like a steady job. When will I ever have time for dates with my girl friends?”
“You have girl friends?” Craig was very serious.
“If I don’t have now, I will have as soon as I start earning.”
Craig gave a satisfied smile. “That’s fine. I’ve picked the right man, I’m sure. You will have a date every night.” Archie rose, feeling that he ought to be indignant. In the movies he had seen, men like himself would have torn up the check and said, “What do you think I am—a gigolo?”
In the moment of indecision Craig came to the rescue. “You are right. Money isn’t everything. Your personal honor is involved. We’ll make the salary seventy-five.”
“Thank you,” said Archie weakly. He accepted the new check.
“Now listen carefully,” said Craig. “My lawyer has warned me that I have thirty days in which to get married. Either that, or lose a small empire of apartment buildings. An inheritance clause, you understand. My uncle Jimpson had tricky notions.”
“Thirty days to get married in!” Archie regarded the celebrated bachelor with awe. “Gosh! Who’s the lucky lady?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I have been too busy to get acquainted with any women. In fact, I have had to take severe measures to protect myself—or, let’s be frank about it, girls make me nervous.”
“Well, of course, too many girls—” Archie was trying to be sympathetic.
“You see,” Craig continued, “a man of wealth like myself can never be sure that girls aren’t deceiving him. But I have hit upon an ideal scheme for getting acquainted. I have just acquired six prospective wives.”
“Six!” Archie gulped. Wasn’t that the number of girls that had come through the electrified door?
“Six—and what a bunch! Regular cards from what I have seen of them.” Craig gave a little contented laugh. “But the way I am arranging things I will be able to keep my distance. You will help me discover which is the—• shall I say, least objectionable one. So for the present you are to make no other dates.”
“Well, I will take their addresses,” said Archie dubiously.
“That won’t be necessary. Your bookkeeping procedure will make it very easy for you to keep tab on them. Their headquarters will be my own mansion on Southwest Boulevard.”
Archie gave a low whistle. The thought of six rival girls staying together in the same house sounded like trouble aplenty.
Craig rose. “That’s all. You are to begin by going back to the mansion at once. I want you to pick up a book for me. You will find it in the desk in the corner of the oak paneled reception room. Here’s a key.
“It’s a little brown leather-backed book. Be sure the book is snapped shut. I don’t want you to lose anything out of it. You see it contains six cards—”
“Yes, I know.”
“Oh, you know!” Craig’s penetrating eyes were searching Archie curiously. “Well, then, you know something about your bookkeeping job, all right, don’t you?”
Archie stammered, “I—er—I was in the next room when you came into your private office and gathered up the cards.”
“All right,” Craig smiled mysteriously. “Take the book home with you. Report to me at my downtown office tomorrow at nine. If time weighs on your hands between now and then, get out the cards and play a game of solitaire.”
CHAPTER IV
Archie Picks Up a Card
The doctors’ mansion and hospital buildings had been dreary and forbidding in the daytime; by darkness they presented a weird and fearsome aspect. Archie circled the block slowly.
He chided himself. There was nothing to be afraid of. He had only to enter the east mansion door, pick up the book and leave. What difference should it make that the doctor in the south wing had drawn all the blinds or that mysterious men were drifting along these sidewalks?
Archie sauntered up the steps. The dank smell of aging brick walls greeted him as he opened the door. The little dominoes of blue lights were glowing. His footfalls echoed through the hall rooms. He wasted not a step.
The desk drawer was locked, all right. He turned the key, opened the drawer. Yes, the little brown book was there. If Archie was surprised, it was because he remembered the haste with which Craig must have crossed this room a few hours earlier.
Archie recalled the details distinctly. He had not seen Craig pass through this room, but he had seen that mysterious gentleman thrust the book into his pocket and make his exit from his private office into this room. And by the time Archie had gathered up pres
ence of mind to follow him, Hamilton Craig’s footsteps had clattered on into the big dining room and beyond.
Archie could hardly believe that Craig had had time to stop and deposit the book and lock the drawer in passing. Much less had he had time to make a return trip before his appearance at the employment office.
“The guy must be a screwball,” Archie thought, but that didn’t help much. Here was the book, and his orders were to take it.
He opened it and counted the white cards. Six of them. He held them up to the light, one after another.
“Well, I’ll be damned! They are nothing but plain white paper cards.”
He packed five of them back into the leather folder. He bent down to pick up the one that had dropped to the floor. It slid along the floor just out of his grasp.
He glanced about. If there was a draft of air, he could not detect it. But now the card was floating upward. The sight sent chills tingling to his fingertips. He had better get it back into the book and get out of here.
He made a grab for it, but it was gone.
Then it happened. Before his eyes there appeared some filmy ectoplasm. Archie could not call it anything else because he did not believe in ghosts. The shadowy substance immediately filled out into something very tangible, not to mention beautiful.
“Well, hello,” said Archie, more than a little flabbergasted. “You’re one of Craig’s girls—”
“I beg your pardon!” The girl who had materialized before Archie’s eyes was a shapely brunette, garbed in the colorful Chinese costume she had worn in the architect’s parade float. There was a little anger in her snappy brown eyes. But Archie thought she was more bewildered than angry.
As for himself, Archie was a bit bowled over. “Gosh! Can Craig pick ’em!”
“Oh, Craig—that’s where I am. I had forgotten. Well, thank goodness I am out of that party. Which way do I—”
She turned and started for the door.
“Wait. Don’t hurry off. You must meet Craig.”
The girl hesitated. A chance to meet Hamilton Craig was something no girl could ignore.
“I ought to get home. I am a working girl, you know, and after all, I don’t even know who you are.”
“Allow me to present Archie Burnette, Mr. Craig’s secretary.”
Archie made a grandiose gesture.
To him this situation was something right out of the movies. He could not let this girl get away without finding out where she came from. And besides, he had his obligations to Craig.
“All right, I’m Hetty Hildreth,” the girl said, “and you may tell Mr. Craig I paid my respects.”
“Wait. Where do you work?”
“At the big photographers’ supply house on Twelfth and Main. I’m their top saleslady, if I do say so myself. You see I always carry a camera. There!”
Before Archie could say whether he liked it or not, she had taken a flashlight picture of him. But Archie liked it. He liked everything about this girl. However, he could think of only one good reason for detaining her.
“I will call Mr. Craig at once if you will just wait.”
The girl agreed, reluctantly. She could not imagine where the time had gone. She seemed to have been asleep, she said. The last thing she remembered was entering Craig’s private office with several of the girls, and she felt terrible over having intruded.
While Hetty Hildreth waited, Archie retreated into the dining room and looked around for a telephone. He might have had better luck in Craig’s private office, but he did not want to chance that doorway. What he needed most of all was a minute to collect his thoughts.
“I don’t dare let her get away,” he said to himself. “She’s one of Craig’s six cards. I wish to gosh I could put her back in the pack.”
There was no telephone in the dining room nor in any of the three rooms adjoining it. Archie kept mumbling to himself. What would Craig want him to do? There ought to be a book of instructions with this job.
“Who’s that?” Archie stepped out into the corridor. Three men were coming down the passage from another building. The tall man in the center was none other than Craig himself. His lips twisted beneath his black mustache. He was puffing hell out of a cigarette. There was no friendly light in his eyes for Archie.
“Wait a minute, fellows,” he muttered. Then to Archie, “What’s going on here?”
“Mr. Craig, I—you never told me you would be down here, too.”
“Didn’t I? That’s too bad. What are you doing here?”
“I got the book, like you told me.”
“Oh, I see,” said Craig, looking back at his companions who were waiting impatiently. “Well, you had better get out. It’s time this place was closed up for the night.”
“But one of the girls is here—I mean—it happened when one of the cards fell out. I think you ought to meet her.”
“No time now. Besides, I met her when I made up the float. Come along; we are closing up.”
Craig and his two companions hurried on, and the last Archie heard was a final echo of the same advice.
This conversation had taken him into the oak-paneled reception room, where Hetty Hildreth had made herself as obscure as possible. He turned to her apologetically. He guessed there was no time for sociability this evening.
“I should think not,” Hetty gasped. “They flew through like an express train. I was tempted to take their pictures, but—”
“Not afraid of my boss, are you?”
“No, but those other two fellows—they looked like gangsters.”
Archie laughed. “I guess Craig can take care of himself. Look—this is funny. There’s no way to lock this door. I’ll tell Craig about that the first thing tomorrow.”
They started down the steps, and Archie searched the street for a taxi. Somehow he knew it was wrong, but he could not think of any way out. He would take this girl home.
But before a taxi came along he found another pretext for delay. A well dressed, heavy-jowled man had just passed, and Archie retained an image of a brutal face, a monocle and a white bow tie. But now he was aware that that man was ascending the steps to the mansion.
“Now who could that be?”
“Didn’t you say you were Craig’s secretary?” Hetty asked. She seemed to be teasing him. “I would think you’d know the house guests.”
“I am just starting,” said Archie. “Seems as if Craig keeps open house. If you don’t mind, I’ll park you at this corner drugstore while I go back and investigate.”
“I won’t be parked,” said Hetty, “but I’ll go back with you. From the looks of things it must be a town meeting.” Archie saw that she was referring to another man who had just crossed to the yard from a parked car. He, too, was ascending the steps of the huge brick house.
“Of course, if you would rather put me in a taxi and send me home alone, it is quite all right.”
“Gosh! I’d rather have you come along,” Archie said, and wondering if he was revealing cowardice on his part, he added, “I mean you’re being a mighty good sport to go adventuring with me this time of night.”
“You don’t know me,” said Hetty. “I’m always on the lookout for good camera subjects. That bulldog with the white tie and the monocle—can’t you imagine me, coming into the. store with his picture?”
“You’re sure you’re not afraid? This place is a haunted house, if I ever saw one.”
“I shouldn’t be afraid as long as I’m with you. If you’re Craig’s secretary, it’s your business to know what’s going on.”
At the top of the steps Archie glanced back to make sure no one else was coming. Only two cars were parked between the street lights. Probably this was the lonesomest block in all the city.
Hetty walked in silently. Archie followed, and he was careful to close the door noiselessly.
CHAPTER V
Three Camera Subjects
In the reception room of the mansion the blue lights burned continuously. For a few rooms beyond th
e lights had gone on, one after another, as each of the men had crossed into the hospital building.
Archie had no intention of actually eavesdropping when he and Hetty set out to follow this series of lights. If he had considered it essential to keep his presence a secret, he would have searched for some master switch to cut off all these electric eyes that flashed lights on automatically.
But as he and Hetty came within earshot of the conference between the two men, they decided it would be wise not to intrude. These voices were discussing a matter which was evidently outside the letter of the law.
“My Gosh! They sound like a crime ring!” Archie whispered, as Hetty grabbed his arm nervously:
“We had better get out,” the girl whispered. “It is some kind of a business secret.”
But she clung to Archie’s arm and they continued to listen. Gradually they edged closer. Since entering the hospital building they had been in almost total darkness. Luckily the system of automatic lighting had been left behind. But it was odd, Archie thought, that these two men dared to meet in a lighted room and discuss their affairs in unguarded tones.
Presently Archie and Hetty found their way into a dark room in which furniture had been stored. Perhaps it had been a kitchen at one time, for there was a service window. A thin line of light filtered in from the adjoining conference room.
“There’s our man with the monocle,” Hetty whispered.
Archie tapped her hand as if warning her not to breathe. Together they peered through the narrow opening beneath the window, resting their arms in the deep dust on the ledge.
The conference room was lighted by a single desk lamp. The man in the swivel chair appeared to be waiting while his client read some papers.
The client, if such he was, was an elderly gentleman with an ivory-tinted walrus mustache, the ends of which trembled, betraying his nervousness as he peered at the paper.
“What a show!” Hetty whispered breathlessly. “What I wouldn’t give for a movie camera!”
Archie knew she was scared, though. He was putting on the bravery act, holding her hand to keep her from trembling. And yet he tended to shudder whenever he looked at the thick, brutal face of the man in the swivel chair.