by Lester Dent
Nace grinned wryly. “You’ve got one thing I like.”
She blinked. “What’s that?”
“Nerve!”
He went into the room where the orange light had burned. He had not yet taken the time to search it thoroughly. Under the window where Reel had escaped stood a large window-seat chest.
Nace opened the chest lid.
Cr-a-c-k! went his pipe stem.
He swore a deep thumping oath in his chest. Then he called, “Have you seen Hoo Li tonight?”
“I know no one by the name of Hoo Li!” she replied.
He went back and untied her. “In that case, I’ll show him to you!”
He led her in and showed her what was in the window box. He knew by the way that she gulped and began to tremble that she had not known what was there. No actress was that good!
Hoo Li lay in the box. He was knotted grotesquely—that is, his body was. For he was quite dead. Upon the moon features were five grisly purple splotches, a tiny puncture in the center of each. It was as though a sinister, poisoned claw of bones had grasped.
Nace indicated the green skeleton leg which had been upon Reel’s chest, and which Reel had flung at him.
“That must have killed the Chinaman,” he said dryly. “Reel took it off the body when he wanted to play dead. He played dead to fool me, of course. He wanted to stick around and see what that rumpus in the hall was, and he figured playing dead was a good way to do it.” Nace frowned at the girl. “That’s what happened, wasn’t it?”
She shuddered. “I guess so. I was really a prisoner, and got away! That much is the truth.”
Nace went down into the basement. He found wires that obviously had been used to bind the girl. He came back.
“I believe you,” he said. “Now, what else do you know?”
“Nothing.”
“You came back from Europe with all this crowd three weeks ago. What were you doing in Europe? And what is this green skull thing they want?”
She shivered. “I wish now that I had not called on you for help.”
“Why did you?”
“I was afraid Reel was going to kill me.” She shivered again. “He would have, too.”
“You made a deal with him a minute ago?”
“No.” She sounded earnest. “I merely let him go. He would have killed me even then. That’s why I came into the hall and locked the door.”
NACE frowned shrewdly down at her. “I see it! You’re after the green skull, too. You let Reel loose in hopes he would get it, so you would have a chance of seizing it from him.”
The girl blinked at him—tears were in her eyes. “You are clever!”
“And you and Jimmy Offitt were working together!” Nace suggested.
She suddenly burst into tears. Her shoulders shook convulsively. No acting about this! He held her close with an arm about her shoulders and let her sob.
“Jimmy Offitt was my brother!” she said at last. “My name is Rosa Offitt.”
“Go on,” Nace urged.
She shook her head. “No! I will not tell you any more! And I wish you would go clear away! Forget all this! Report the bodies, if you want to. Tell the police what you know. But go away!”
Nace grinned wolfishly.
He took his Panama from inside his vest, yanked it low and glowered from under the brim.
“Nix, kid!” he snorted.
He led her outdoors, and headed for the Plaza.
“Where are you going?” she wanted to know.
He told her.
“So that’s where Baron von Auster, Moe and Heavy are hanging out!” she gasped. She seemed genuinely surprised at the news.
There was no excitement around the Plaza—no one lurking near. Nace made very sure of that. Then he took the girl in and rode the elevator to the sixth floor.
The corridor was quiet, except that, from down below somewhere, a radio was making a soft mutter.
Nace had brought his canvas bag. He got out his listening apparatus and planted it against the door where he had eavesdropped earlier in the night.
He heard no sound. Gently, he tried the knob. The door was unlocked; it swung open. Lights were on in the apartment. Without crossing the threshold, Nace stared inside.
“So Heavy is the latest guy to take the three-strike!” he murmured grimly.
HEAVY was a pile on the floor. He looked like the victim of some horrible joke, a prank concocted by a twisted mind—a brain with a twirk of utter fiendishness in its makeup.
Nace was tough. But the sight on the floor was too much. It got him. He swung forward with long strides and knocked a hideous green skull away from Heavy’s features.
Some sinister jokester had arranged the skull in a position of biting hungrily. Brownly poisoned pegs, substituted for front teeth had brought death to Heavy. A knot on his skull, however, denoted he had first been knocked out by a blow from behind.
Pivoting from the macabre sight on the floor, Nace got the girl. She had not tried to flee, but possibly that was because he had been keeping an eye on her.
Nace went from room to room of the apartment. He found no one. The stereotyped nature of the fittings told him the place had been rented furnished.
He tried the inner doorknob for fingerprints, using white powder from his carry-all. The knob had been wiped clean.
His attention next went to the green skull. He picked it up between two books he found in a case, and placed it on a table, under a lamp.
An article called the green skull was behind the mess, it seemed. He wondered if this was the skull. He found nothing to bolster that belief.
He frowned at the girl while stemming his pipe. “This wouldn’t be the green skull everybody is after, would it?”
She hesitated—not thinking up a false answer, but debating whether she should tell him the truth or not.
“No,” she said at last. “That—is not it!”
“What does the green skull look like?”
“I do not think I’ll answer that.”
“Now, look here—”
She held up both hands. “Oh, don’t start yelling at me! I’m trying to think it over—trying to decide whether to tell you the whole story or not.”
Nace squinted his eye that had been darkened in the fight on the baseball diamond that afternoon. Then he turned his attention back to the green skull.
The color, use of a few chemicals from an analysis kit in his bag showed, was due to nothing more mysterious than malachite green aniline. The skull had apparently been soaked in the concoction, a form of green dye.
The skull itself was undoubtedly genuine. It was impossible to tell with certainty how long the owner had been dead.
“Do you know where this came from?” he asked the girl.
She took time to debate her answer.
“Hoo Li, the Chinaman, was a devotee of an Oriental cult known as the Hara Sabz Haddi, the cult of the green bones,” she said finally. “Instead of the usual form of image, a green skeleton is used by the Hara Sabz Haddi. Hoo Li carried one around with him. I don’t know where he got it—the Orient probably.”
Nace took another squint at the green skull. “It has got the characteristics of an Oriental skull, all right.”
“It must be part of Hoo Li’s religious rigamarole,” the girl said slowly. “He was a fanatical follower of his cult. He tried to convert all of them to his heathen religion at one time or another. I think Reel was half won over. He had green skulls on the brain. Take that reading lamp, the one with the orange bulb, for instance.”
“You know a lot about them!” Nace said.
“I ought to!” she retorted.
“You were one of the gang, eh?”
“No!” She sounded emphatic, “But my brother and I have followed them and watched them for weeks, both in Europe and America.”
“So that is why you all came into the States on the same liner?”
“Yes!”
NACE felt of his notched ear, felt
of his bruised eye, and scraped blond hair down over his forehead. He felt an urge to grab the woman and shake her. She got under his sunburned hide. She was, he realized, about as clever as they came. She was playing a game—and she was going ahead with it, even though he did have her a prisoner.
She seemed worried.
“Did you find out anything while trailing Baron von Auster, Moe and—” she indicated the body on the floor, “—this man?”
Nace had not told her the details of his evening’s procedure. Coming here, he had merely advised her that he expected to find the three men.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he snorted, trying to exasperate her.
She shrugged. “I don’t blame you for feeling huffy! In your place, I wouldn’t answer, either.”
Nace, contrarily, decided to feed her a little information. It might serve as a bait to attract a statement that would help to clear up the muddle.
“Baron von Auster and the other two were getting ready to go after Reel in hopes of getting the green skull,” he said.
The words got results far beyond his fondest hopes. The young woman’s hands clenched.
“What?” she choked. “They were—didn’t—didn’t Baron von Auster and his two have the green skull?”
“Apparently not,” Nace said dryly.
“I—thought they had it!” she gulped. “I turned—turned Reel loose so that he could get it from them!”
“What made you think they had the thing?”
She hesitated. “Why, because, when Reel took me to the bungalow tonight, some one had already been there—and murdered my brother!”
“And searched the house?”
“No-o-o!” She drew the word out, as if agonized. “The bungalow had not been ransacked. Reel started to do that. But when I got to the phone, he became scared and fled, taking me.”
Nace’s adder scar flushed redly. This was a mixup. Baron von Auster’s men had spoken as though they had not slain Jimmy Offitt. And now the girl was as much as saying Reel had not done it, either.
“Do you think Reel murdered your brother?” he asked bluntly.
She sobbed a little. “No. He did not act like it. He was very surprised when we—found the body!”
Nace went over and shoved his face close to hers. “If none of the others have that green skull thing, hadn’t we better go after it ourselves?”
She said nothing.
He guided her for the door, saying, “We’re going to that bungalow! The thing must be there!”
Chapter V
The Green Prize
THEY had a wide boulevard across town. Nace wheeled his roadster into the center, horn hooting steadily, and made fifty and sixty most of the way. There was not much traffic. Half a dozen cops ran gesturing into the street after he had passed. Some of them got his license number.
“It’ll rain summonses in the morning, I’ll bet!” he growled.
He parked his machine two blocks from the bungalow, after approaching with horn silenced. The girl got out willingly—a bit too willingly.
“You’d better decide to play ball with me!” Nace suggested.
She maintained silence.
“All right, sister,” he told her. “When I settle this thing, it’ll be in my own way. And I don’t want to hear you squawking.”
She began, “You’re not getting paid anything—”
“Like fun I’m not!” he snorted. “I’ve already collected two thousand smackers—off Baron von Auster!”
She jerked back from him. “He paid you, and you double-crossed—”
“Nix! I took the jack away from him!”
“Oh!” She seemed to consider. “I’ll pay you that much more to go away!”
He laughed softly, ironically, said: “I don’t work that way!”
They wended, via backyards, to the vicinity of the bungalow. Stars overhead and a silver half of a moon cast pale light. In the shadow of a rose bush in somebody’s lawn, Nace surveyed the street.
On the corner lot, the boys still played with their baseball. There were only four of them now, and their game had turned onto a makeshift version of two-old-cat.
Nace, surprised that the lads were still out, eyed his watch. It was only ten o’clock—he had thought the time to be much later.
Two cars were parked in the thoroughfare.
Baron von Auster’s new, inexpensive sedan stood near the corner, under a tree that cut off the brilliance of the corner street lamp.
Nearer was a roadster, a black machine. Reel’s car—the one in which he had fled his black coffin of a mansion.
Both vehicles were empty.
Nace glanced upward, saw a cloud approaching the moon, and waited until it flung darkness into the street, then eased himself across. The keys were not in the roadster ignition lock. He opened his pocketknife and wedged it in front of a rear tire so that, should the car roll, there would be a puncture.
He lifted the hood of the little sedan and tore out the ignition wires. It would take at least twenty minutes of work to get the machine going.
The girl watched these preparations in silence.
She said nothing, offered no resistance, as Nace guided her toward the bungalow.
Shrubs, small hedges, furred the lawn and offered concealment. Haunting these shadows, Nace skirted the bungalow with his companion.
Soon the rear door slammed softly.
Staring, Nace heard, rather than saw, a figure glide into the low bushes. It lingered a moment, then returned.
The closing rear door choked off the light. Nace was not quite able to identify the man, due to the creepers that draped portions of the rear porch.
He eased to the bush the skulker from the house had visited. Exploring, his hands encountered a fat, small traveling bag. The container was stuffed to capacity.
Nace opened it, found what felt like a bundle of candles. He lifted these out, brought them close to his eyes to discern what they were.
His grip tightened when he saw the labels. Dynamite!
WITH his fingers, Nace searched further. A box holding what felt not unlike blank .22 cartridges reposed in the bottom of the briefcase. Detonator caps!
A fuse, a cap crimped to the end, extended from one of the dynamite sticks through a knife slit in the handbag side.
Nace carried his find to the roadster. The explosive and the caps, he placed in the rear compartment of the car.
And there, in the rear compartment, he made an ugly discovery.
It was the body of Moe.
The round, greasy little form was still warm. A hideous claw of green bones clung to Moe’s throat, the pointed fingertips hanging like embedded thorns.
Moe had been struck a blow upon the head to produce unconsciousness before the grisly thing of green was applied to bring death. This wound had flowed some scarlet, staining the floorboards of the compartment.
Nace considered, then moved to the new sedan. On the front floorboards, he found scarlet stains.
Moe had been killed in Baron von Auster’s machine and transferred to the rear of Reel’s vehicle, it would seem.
Nace grasped the girl’s trembling arm. “Listen—I want a straight answer to this question! Did Reel get a telephone call just before I arrived? I mean—did you hear the phone ring while you were getting loose in the basement?”
She was slow answering, then said: “The phone rang. But I did not hear what was said. That was not more than five minutes before you came to the black house.”
“That explains it!” Nace breathed fiercely. “Baron von Auster gave Reel a call and they combined forces! They’re both in that bungalow now—hunting the green skull!”
Nace now continued his preparations with the dynamite.
He made a bundle of a screwdriver, a can of tube patch, a couple of wrenches, which he found in the rear of the roadster with Moe’s body. He substituted this for the dynamite. He inserted the fuse in the slit in the bag, leaving the cap in place because he did not care to
risk getting a hand blown off in removing it.
He carried the body of Moe to a patch of shrubs and concealed it there in the murk.
Carrying the bag, which now contained the harmless bundle he had exchanged for the dynamite, and guiding the girl by an arm, he went toward the bungalow.
He replaced the valise beside the bush where he had first found it. Then he glided close to the rear porch.
Voices murmured in the bungalow, apparently in the living room. Nace tried the porch door, and it opened silently.
They entered. Nace kept his grip on the girl. But she moved with a stealth equal to his own. They advanced until the voice murmur became distinguishable words.
“That is too bad,” growled Baron von Auster. “It is possible the green skull is not concealed here after all!”
“That is conceivable,” admitted another voice. “We can only search. And since we have combined forces, our chances of finding it are considerably greater!”
The girl brought her lips close to Nace’s ear, breathed, “Reel!”
Nace nodded. He had guessed the two in the front room were Reel and the baron.
“Joining hands was a wise move for both of us!” Baron von Auster agreed. “It is regrettable that each of us thought the other was using that green skeleton to murder!”
“Yeah,” muttered Reel. “Which one do you think is really the killer—the girl, or that detective, Nace?”
“I do not know. One or the other, it is obvious!”
Nace scowled blackly. It seemed those two had put their heads together and decided he or the girl was the green-skeleton killer. He looked down sidewise at the dark-eyed girl. He could see her face faintly in the dim glow from the front room. Her features were pale, set.
She glanced up at him, shook her head, shrugged, breathed, “I did not do it!”
The door into the front room was about half-open. Nace took a chance and looked through the crack.
The two men were systematically taking the room apart and slicing paper off the walls and digging beneath with knife points. Each had a pistol thrust in his belt, where it could be gotten at handily.