by Don Wilcox
Archie glanced around the reception room. Verrazzano had cornered two more visitors with his perfume case, and none of them saw what happened to the usherette in the center of the room. The last of the steamy image faded into the air.
Poor Grace! The insults she had picked out of her uncle’s careless talk had been too much for her, Archie realized. By this time he knew the secret of these mysterious metamorphoses.
Any overwhelming crises were what caused these girls to revert to cards.
Whiskey Phil stood as motionless as a lightning-struck tree for a full thirty seconds. Then he caught Archie by the arm to feel his muscle.
“Talk about a wallop! Man, you don’t know your strength. For a minute you had me seeing blindspots.
He looked around as if wondering which exit his niece had taken, not realizing that Archie was packing her away in a leather booklet.
“Tell her to look out for herself,” said Whiskey Phil, groping down the steps outside the door. “And she needn’t worry about me. I’ll be all right as soon as I find a bar.”
Patsy, the red-haired usherette with special talents for scrapping, was not among those present on this particular morning.
Her absence was inexplicable. The matron and some of the other girls remembered that she was last seen talking with Hamilton Craig late the previous evening. But no one had heard her speak of leaving for the night.
Now it was mid-forenoon and Craig’s office door had not yet opened. Archie knocked. There was no response, so he turned a key and walked in.
Hamilton Craig had evidently left early for his downtown studio. If so, he had neglected to leave a list of instructions on his desk. As a rule, he would call Archie in and deliver the day’s orders in person.
Archie’s senses were on the alert. The too, too realistic dream of last night’s murder by moonlight filled his black mood. He had meant to put some point-blank questions to Craig before any such trifles as rent bills or carpenters’ jobs could intrude.
Beyond Craig’s office were his living and sleeping rooms and his private entrance on the north. Archie ventured into the rooms, after receiving no answer to his knock.
Craig’s bed had not been slept in. Archie returned to the private office, picked up the telephone, and called the architect’s studio.
Hamilton Craig answered. Archie gave a gasp of relief.
“Anything wrong, Archie?”
“If you’re all right, there’s nothing wrong,” said Archie. “I missed seeing you this morning, and when I looked through your rooms just now I decided you must have been out all night.”
“Oh, well, that’s nothing,” Craig laughed. “It could happen to anyone.”
“Not that it’s any of my business,” said Archie, “but do you have one of the usherettes with you?”
“Er—am I supposed to have?”
“Well, the matron and I have accounted for only five this morning, and they say you were talking with Patsy last night—she’s the missing one.”
Craig laughed, not too comfortably. “Kinda putting me on the spot, aren’t you?”
Archie wasn’t at all satisfied with Craig’s evasive answer. “All right, I’ll assume you haven’t seen Patsy since last night. I’ll send out a search party.”
“Better do that. If she’s herself, there’s no reason to be worried. But if she’s changed back to a card, anything could happen. You can’t watch those cards too closely.”
Archie wanted to know whether Craig would come out early that evening, and as strongly as he dared over the telephone, he suggested that the air was full of trouble. But Craig’s responses were exasperatingly indefinite. Archie hung up and walked out.
He walked into the court.
The fragrance of shrubbery and the bright faces of hollyhocks did nothing to lift his mood. The beauty of these surroundings was to him the camouflage of a trap. He was moving through the territory of his enemy.
He forced himself to walk leisurely, to seem unconcerned. But the arcade of the old hospital building formed an almost complete rectangular enclosure around him. In this moment he could understand the terrors of the claustrophobe.
At the other end of the curved path was Marcus Drake. Archie pretended not to see him, but the snip, snip, snip of the pruning shears could be heard anywhere within the court. A first-rate actor, that man Drake. As he jogged along one might easily believe his whole heart was in this garden.
Archie drew a long, tense breath as he slowly circled the well. His eyes missed nothing. The stone railing had been showered by the garden hose in recent hours. Thin, muddy streams could be seen at the concrete base.
On Archie’s third time around the well, he discovered a slight break in the surface of the ground a few feet beyond the base. In his dream, a steel tool had been tossed to the ground. But no longer was that gruesome event a dream. He was coming to grips with reality at last.
Presently he saw Marcus Drake trudging toward him. He pretended not to see. He was interested in looking down the well, as any curious visitor might be.
“Don’t fall in there, boy.” Drake started to walk on past. Then he turned back. “If you see your boss any time soon, tell him I’d fix this place up if he’d allow me my expenses. Nothing I like better than puttering around in a garden.”
“I’ll mention it to him,” said Archie.
“Maybe you’d like to see the plan I’ve made.”
“Not now, thanks.”
Archie peered down at the black water some forty feet below. When he looked up, Marcus Drake was beside him. “Look,” said Drake, “those straggling bushes are dying out. We ought to cull them out and plant new ones. I can’t stand the sight of anything dead.”
“I’ll mention it to Craig,” Archie repeated. He tried to walk away, but the bogus gardener followed along beside him.
“There should be a few catalpas sprinkled around, too. I’ve got a symmetrical arrangement worked out.” Drake caught Archie’s arm and started to lead him off to the right. “It will just take a minute or two to look at this plat.”
“No, thanks, I’m busy.”
“Hell, you can’t be that busy.”
Archie glanced at his watch. “I’ve got an appointment.”
“What time?”
“Eleven. I’m five minutes late.”
“Important people are always ten minutes late for appointments.” Drake tightened his grip on Archie’s arm. “The chart is just inside that door.”
“Well—”
At that moment someone called to Archie from the office. He was wanted on the telephone. He broke away from Drake’s hold and almost ran across the court.
To his surprise the call was not from Hamilton Craig. It was the low, drowsy voice of Philip Parker—Whiskey Phil. Now what could he want?
“I been thinkin’ Burnette—” Whiskey Phil was considerably more intoxicated than when he had left an hour before—“you’re a good guy, Archie Burnette. Why don’t you come around to the tavern and have a drink on me? Maybe I got somethin’ interesting to tell you.”
CHAPTER XIV
Craig’s Double Personality
By the time Archie reached the tavern it was too late.
“He’s gone now,” said Whiskey Phil. “There was a guy in here you should have seen. He and Mac and that other bum, what’s his name—yeah, Krug—they was swappin’ lies. And this guy was darn good.”
Archie couldn’t make anything, out of this talk. He should have known better than to let this drunken sot lead him away from his work. And still there was something wise in Whiskey Phil’s manner. He was making grotesque faces as he talked, drawing his circled eyes in an exaggerated wink.
“How was this stranger so good?” Archie asked.
“He was a great story-teller, my boy. He kept Mac and Krug in stitches for half an hour.”
“Is there anything remarkable about that?”
“Awful funny to watch. Just like the snake I saw at the Zoo. Ever see that snake coil up and
blow his neck and spring? That’s the way this guy would tell a story. His neck would keep blowing all through the build-up. Then all of a sudden—snap—he come out with the point. He had those boys rolling on the floor.”
Archie shrugged. He guessed he had better get back to work. But Whiskey Phil tapped him on the wrist.
“This guy—oh, come back some time and you’ll get to see him. All right, run out on me. You can’t ’predate a nice dirty place like this. You and Craig have got to go tearing up all this low-down block makin’ it over for respectable people. That’s a devil of a way to do. Next thing you know you’ll be lighting that inner court up with spots and invitin’ the public in for softball or somethin’.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“Well, if you do, here’s the man that’ll fix you up with flood lights.” Whiskey Phil began to scribble on a piece of paper. “His name’s Ben Dodge. Now how the hell do you spell it?”
“I think you’ve got something there, Parker.” Archie placed a hand on the drunken man’s shoulder.
Archie walked back to the office thoughtfully. Benjamin Dodge was the electrician who had inspected the wiring a few days earlier. It was odd that this dissipated man at the bar should know about him. But apparently he knew a great deal.
Flood lights over the court—that would be the very trick to put an end to these bad dreams.
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Archie said to himself.
Entering Craig’s private office, he called the downtown studio.
“Hello, Mr. Craig. I’ve got to see you right away—huh?”
“This isn’t Craig,” came the sharp-edged voice. “He’s out. Any message?”
Archie hesitated. He would have sworn that the first “hello” was Craig’s enunciation. But this raw twang was not familiar.
“This is Archie Burnette at the Southwest Boulevard Apartments. I’m going to spend some of Craig’s money and I wanted to warn him. When will he be back?”
“Couldn’t say. When he left he spoke of taking the day off. Do me a favor, will you?”
“What is it?”
“He’s had a few business calls here at his studio,” said the voice. “If he should drop in out there, have him phone me at once; will you?”
Archie promised and hung up.
Without further ado he took action on Whiskey Phil’s ingenious suggestion. He called Benjamin Dodge and ordered a battery of flood lights for the court.
The lights would be expensive and Hamilton Craig might not approve. “But he can’t do any worse than fire me,” Archie said to himself. “And he can’t any more fire me than he can evict Dr. Silverhead. I’m too near the inside track.”
His next thought was to urge the tenants to make use of the lighted court in every way possible. Lawn chairs, a drinking fountain, card tables—perhaps even a croquet ground—such improvements would lift this ground right out of the enemy’s hands, and there could be no more of these ugly dreams.
But Archie was destined to crash into the immovable Marcus M. Drake long before any of these various improvements could be effected.
“You’re scheming something,” Hetty said to Archie, lunching with him that noon. “I wish you’d keep me posted on what’s happening. I do want to trust you, Archie.”
“You’ve got to trust me, Hetty. I’m plunging on my own now. Things are happening too fast for me to wait on Craig. Besides he’s always in a fog.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If I talk with him here he never remembers what he last told me at the studio. If I talk with him down there I have to repeat to him what he’s said here before he can get his bearings and talk with me.”
“That’s strange. He must be a good business man.”
“I can’t figure him out.”
Hetty looked up suddenly. “I just thought of something. I’ll bet Craig is a sick man.”
“Sick? Not that I know of. Why?”
“Otherwise why would he let this awful Dr. Silverhead and Drake stay on? He must be depending on the doctor for something.”
“There might be something in that,” Archie mumbled. Indeed, there was something. Hetty was hitting closer to the truth than she guessed. But the doctor’s invisible choke-hold on Hamilton Craig was not to be confided.
“Tell me,” said Hetty, as her imagination raced along with this new hypothesis, “is Craig the same when he’s downtown? Are there any differences in his personality, his pep, his habits or anything?”
“Come to think of it,” said Archie cautiously, “he is a little different. He always seems more nervous here—chain-smoking and pacing the floor.”
“Doesn’t he pace the floor of his studio?”
“Not that I recall. He’s usually very calm. He doesn’t smoke. He’s generally thumbing through the stub of a check-book.”
“We’re on the right track, Archie!” Hetty exclaimed jubilantly, and he had to make a face at her to remind her their talk was confidential. She went on in an intense whisper. “Here’s his whole case in a nutshell. Every morning on the way to work he takes the doctor’s medicine—vitamins or something—”
“How do you know?”
“I’m just guessing. But look: That makes him full of vim and vigor and business poise and everything, and all the troubles around here are trifling—”
“I wish I could believe that,” Archie groaned.
“And he forgets them. But by evening the effect of the medicine has worn off and he lapses into his sick, worried self again—”
“And takes his troubles seriously. Your theory is very pretty, Hetty. But I’d a darn sight rather talk business with him here than down at the studio. If he’s sick, I wish he’d stay sick long enough to do some house-cleaning around here.”
“I wish I didn’t keep changing back into a card,” said Hetty wistfully. “I’d do some more spying. I’d find out how often he reports to Dr. Silverhead. That may be where the men were taking him last night.”
“What men?”
“The same two that led him away the first night I was here—you know, the night watchmen—Mac and Krug. I just happened to see the three of them pass the foot of the stairs last night.” Archie got up from the table abruptly. He made a swift circuit of the reception room and Craig’s private office and returned to the dining-room to Hetty.
“Nobody’s located Craig yet,” said Archie. “And until we find him we don’t have a hint as to where that hot-tempered red-head has gone.”
“Patsy? Is she gone?”
“Hasn’t been seen since last night. She was last seen talking with Craig. When the two men led him out you didn’t see her, did you, Hetty?”
The girl shook her head. “N—no. That is—wait a minute. It does seem to me that Craig was sticking a white card in his coat pocket.”
CHAPTER XV
Three in a Tunnel
This tunnel was as black as death.
Archie groped along on his hands and knees. Again he snapped the flashlight on for a quick glimpse of the dusty walls and ceiling.
It was amazing that there were no tracks through this underground passage.
Now he proceeded through the pitch-blackness, taking care not to brush against the walls. But when he coughed from the dust he felt certain that no one heard him. This trail evidently led away from the haunts of Marcus Drake and the doctor. The entrance from the basement storeroom had been well concealed.
Perhaps this underground passage had been a hiding-place during some war in the past. Archie had not come upon it quite by accident. He had been searching for the past three hours for Hamilton Craig. The absence of tracks convinced him that he had lost the trail.
Could he be sure that Hamilton Craig was a prisoner of Drake and his henchmen?
That hint had come to him through Whiskey Phil. Archie marveled at how much he had gambled on the hunches of this drunken man. The suggestion of Craig’s captivity had come shortly after lunch. This time Whiskey Phil had be
en seen staggering along the curb in front of the mansion, and one of the usherettes had suggested he should be given the bum’s rush down the street. Archie had gone after him. As he suspected, Whiskey Phil had some news.
“ ’Snone of my bizhness,” said Whiskey Phil, sitting down on the curb, “but looksh to me like they’re bein’ ’stravagant, fixin’ up so much food on that tray. Mush be they’ve got ’n awful important prizhner to feed.”
Whiskey Phil had grumbled on in this vein. He thought the prisoner might be a king or a senator—“or it could be some big-shot arch-iteck.”
“There’s someone else missing,” Archie had confided. “One of the usherettes has been gone since last night. Maybe that tray of food—”
“Prob’ly some big-shot arch-iteck,”
Whiskey Phil repeated. Then, as if he had done his good turn for the day, he gave Archie a farewell wave, tipped his hat to the lamp-post, and staggered away.
On the strength of that suggestion, Archie had spent the afternoon rambling through the central rooms of the old hospital. He had taken pains not to disturb Drake and the two henchmen in their afternoon council. As long as he had dared, he had listened in, undiscovered. They were plotting for their next victim.
That eavesdropping experience had been a revelation to Archie. He got the conflict that was rising between Drake and the two thugs . . . Mac and Krug were ready to move out. They were sure that things were getting much too hot around here for their health. But the egotistical Drake was so much intoxicated by his own cleverness that he thought he could stay on.
Drake’s argument was that the doctor with his eccentricities and his mask of genius was the perfect shield.
“All we have to do is to keep pulling the wool over Craig’s eyes,” Drake insisted. “Tease him along, make him think that some million dollar investments are just around the corner. He’ll keep right on playing ball.”