by Lester Dent
“The blond girl?” the old lady echoed, seeming surprised. “Oh, two men came for her a minute ago, and she left with them.”
Nace turned somewhat pale, the scar on his forehead got proportionally redder. His eyes acquired a frightened look.
“Thank you!” he told the old lady in a thick voice and hung up.
A TAXI carried Nace out Eleventh. The machine travelled between forty and fifty, with the horn open. Eleventh was a mixed street. Scattered along it were small stores, greenhouses, root beer stalls, pig stands. There was an ice cream factory and oil-field tool concerns. They passed the Tulsa U. stadium.
Clarence Oliver’s house was a little brick, very neat. The walk was of red concrete. There was a garage to the side, and a tennis court behind.
Watching both windows, Nace ran up the walk. He tried the door. It was locked. He batted the glass out with his fist, turned the spring lock inside and walked in.
The room was loaded with cheap brown furniture, bridge lamps, card tables, a radio. The rug was flowery. All the stuff looked new.
A faint odor reeked in the air. Nace sniffed. He breathed one word, “Oil.”
Nace crossed the room, almost running. The hallway beyond was square; four doors opening off it gave to bath, kitchen and two bedrooms. Nace tried the bath. Nothing there.
He knocked open the end door and found himself in a kitchen, ornate with a white enamel. The oil smell was stronger here, mingling with cooking odors.
A man-sized bundle reposed on the floor, near one wall. It was swathed in canvas. Nace found as he worked over it that underneath the canvas were layers of oilcloth.
Four Winchester rifles had been tied into the bundle to give it stiffness. No doubt the men who had carried it here had wanted it to look rigid, as if it were a piece of furniture.
It was the body of a man. His color was white, parboiled; his clothing was oil-soaked. Nace looked at the face. It was almost unidentifiable. There was a wad of white hair, which might have been a beard which had slipped. A Santa Claus beard.
“App had that kind of a beard!” Nace muttered.
THEN he fell to straining his ears. He could hear footsteps out in front, coming up the walk. He went silently to a window.
There were three of them, all strangers. They approached suspiciously.
Nace eased backward quietly and sidled into a bedroom. While the three newcomers tramped on the front porch, Nace worked at his sleeves. He wore cuff links which were oversize, long, and narrow. Under his prying fingernails, tiny secret lids opened in the links. He took out small darts.
The darts were but little larger than pins. The tapering rear ends bore tiny metal vanes to make them travel straight when thrown.
The three men entered the house with the noisy abandon of fellows who felt themselves at home.
“Things don’t look natural around here without Chick!” one remarked.
“I’d like to know exactly what happened to Chick!” muttered another. “Did Nace get him? Or did the Robin Hood?”
“We’ll find out from the evening papers!” grunted a third man. “What we’ve got to do now is get rid of old App’s body.”
They filed past the bedroom door.
Nace threw a pair of his darts in one-two succession. He flung them hard. The men jumped, clapped hands to their arms, swore. Then both reeled crazily and crashed full length on the floor.
Eyes popping, the third man stared at the first two.
“What the hell?” he began. “What ails—”
Nace lunged at him, hands outstretched, fingers splayed. A moment later they were entangled, and rolling on the floor. The man got a gun out of his clothing. Grasping the hand which held the weapon, Nace beat it against the floor. Squealing, the fellow lost his gun.
The next instant, the fellow had produced a knife. The suddenness with which he did this smacked of the supernatural. He struck—the blade zinged across the front of Nace’s bullet-proof vest, opening his clothing.
Nace fell on the knife and hand with his chest. The other was strong, and Nace’s weight was not sufficient to pin him down. The man jerked free, sprang up.
There was only one thing Nace could do. He picked open the secret lid in one of his cufflinks, shook out a dart, and flung it. The other ducked wildly. But Nace had calculated on that. The dart thorned into the fellow’s face.
Almost at once, the man crashed down.
Nace scowled at the recumbent form. He had not wanted to use that third dart. He had hoped to question one of the men. But now all three would be unconscious at least two hours. The darts were daubed with a drug which produced a stupor lasting that long. Nothing, as far as Nace knew, could revive the men before the two-hour interval was up.
Nace began searching his victims. He turned up money, keys, soiled handkerchiefs. After the fashion of crooks, they were carrying nothing which would identify them.
A coat pocket disgorged an object which caused Nace to spring erect and swear thickly. He turned the thing in his hand. It had an ugly significance. It could have come into the possession of these men in only one fashion—with the capture of its owner.
It was the girl’s flat pancake compact.
Chapter V
The Hilltop Prowl
NACE ran to the telephone. The number he requested was the one from which the blond had called—the house at the foot of Reservoir Hill. The wait which followed was so long that he began to think he was not going to get his party. But the pleasant-voiced, elderly lady finally answered.
Nace asked for a description of the two men with whom Julia had departed. In return, he received an accurate word picture of two of the trio who lay unconscious in the room in which he stood.
“Thank you!” he said, and hung up.
He bent over the three, shook them angrily, knowing however that it was useless. That they had seized the girl, there was not the slightest doubt. But it would be two hours before anything could be done toward making them tell where they had taken her.
Nace went to the tennis court in the back yard. With his pocket knife he stripped off the thin, strong cords which supported the net. Carrying these back into the house, he bound the three senseless men. He tied efficient gags between their jaws, then plastered these over with adhesive tape which he found in the bathroom.
There was a small basement under part of the house. It held only a gas-burning furnace. He left his prisoners there.
His taxicab was still waiting where he had left it a short distance up the street. He got in, perched tensely on the edge of the cushion, and directed, “Reservoir Hill! And make it snappy!”
Reservoir Hill was a knob at the north of the Tulsa City limit. A zig-zagging drive climbed its abrupt slope. The top offered a birdseye view of Tulsa, and mansions clustered there.
Behind the hill was the Osage—a hilly wilderness of scrub oak, spotted with oil derricks and compression pumping stations and a small refinery or two.
Nace dismissed his cab at the top of the hill and went on afoot. There was the faint sound of oil wells pumping in the distance. The tang of crude hung faintly in the air. Nowhere in Tulsa did it seem possible to escape the odor of oil.
The mansions on top were even more magnificent than they had appeared from below. In architectural style they ranged from Spanish, Irish and old English, to American Colonial. The fact that they were expensive, and the grounds well maintained, kept them from seeming garish.
There were no sidewalks along the wide, smooth, concrete parkways. Nace walked in the road, keeping to the left. Street names were painted, in black and yellow panels, on the raised curbs. His eyes searched these.
When he found the one he wanted, he walked on as if it were of no consequence.
He still carried his canvas zipper bag. Indeed, the valise seemed to be out of his hands only when he was in action. He lugged it along instinctively, much as another man wears his hat.
Sheltered by an ornamental hedge, he lowered the bag, opened it, and
took out a small but powerful telescope. He wielded this until he located the house to which Julia had trailed the Robin Hood.
Somewhere near, a voice purred, “So now you’ve turned peeping Tom!”
NACE’S first reaction was to jump for cover. He did that. Concealed on the other side of the hedge, he scuttled twenty feet, then stopped.
The voice made hateful laughter. “Scared of little old Jaxon, Skipper?”
Nace angled south a few yards, then worked through the hedge. He found Jaxon hunkered down behind a squatty fir tree.
Jaxon returned Nace’s blank look with an unpleasant smile. “So now I’m in your hair again!”
Nace glared. “Hell, but you’re funny.”
“Oh yeah?” Jaxon seemed to consider the insult. “I reckon I don’t rate an explanation of why you’re here.”
Nace wrinkled the serpentine scar on his forehead. “I’m not quite sure what you rate.”
Jaxon leered. “If you’re wondering how I got the tip-off on this place, Skipper, I’ll tell you! It was the phone girl. She listened in when your platinum-haired dame called you. Mighty slick, your sending the blond on ahead! I didn’t give you the credit.”
“Why are you out here?” Nace asked him levelly.
“Didn’t I just tell you? For the Robin Hood and the ten thousand reward on his head.”
“Blood money, eh?”
“Any money is good money, Skipper—”
Nace flung out a hand and shoved. Sputtering angrily, Jaxon upset. Getting atop Jaxon, Nace clutched and got the little derringer from the oil editor’s watch pocket.
Sitting up, Jaxon lashed out with two angry fist blows. Nace dodged the fists, vanishing from their path in a way that seemed uncanny.
“Gimme that owl head!” Jaxon said.
Ignoring the request, Nace told him, “You can either go back to town, or you can behave yourself and go with me.”
Jaxon considered this, straightening his double-breasted gray vest with angry jerks. In getting the derringer, Nace had torn the watch pocket. Jaxon fingered the frayed edges.
“You couldn’t get rid of me!” the oil editor said finally.
“Okay!” Nace told him. “But you make one crack-brained move and I’ll crown you!”
“I’ll get that ten thousand before this is over,” Jaxon said grimly.
Nace opened his zipper bag to return the telescope. While he had the bag open, he removed four of his cigars, and pocketed them.
“I thought you smoked a pipe!” Jaxon grunted.
“What do you care what I smoke?”
They set off along the street, side by side.
The house to which Julia had trailed the Robin Hood was situated on a street a block to the right. They headed for it, cutting across yards and haunting the shelter of shrubbery.
The house was probably the most unattractive on the hill, but at the same time one of the largest. It was gray brick, squarish of line, rambling—not unlike a cluster of big gray boxes jammed together.
The body of the house had a height of two stories. Atop this sat a square room, the sides almost entirely of glass. These windows were not curtained, and Nace kept a close watch on them.
No one stirred. The absence of curtains lent the mansion a deserted aspect.
Jaxon whispered shrilly, “The Robin Hood may not be in there! He may have left!”
“Shut up!” Nace advised.
They crept up to within three-score feet on the house. There, behind a low, vine-covered fence of steel pickets, they reconnoitered. Using the telescope, Nace not only surveyed the house but also the yard and dwellings around them and behind.
To the rear, Nace saw something which caused him to start violently. However, he made an elaborate pretense and continued his survey of the surroundings.
Then he tapped Jaxon on the shoulder. “You’re going back!”
“What the—”
“Don’t argue! Beat it!”
Jaxon made an angry face. “If you think I’m gonna be left out in the cold on that ten thousand—”
Nace showed him a granite-hard fist. “You’re going to be left cold on the ground if you don’t do what I tell you.”
Jaxon considered this; then, mumbling disgustedly, he crawled away.
He had covered no more than two dozen yards when the Robin Hood and his two followers popped out of bushes and seized him.
JAXON put up a violent struggle. He kicked, wielded his fists and tried to use his teeth. He sought to cry out, but a hand over his mouth stopped that.
Nace made no effort to go to his assistance, but merely looked on, as if it were all some drama he had staged. A swipe from a six-gun barrel finally reduced Jaxon to a limp pile.
The Robin Hood approached. His two followers came behind, dragging the oil editor.
Nace and the Robin Hood exchanged sour looks.
“You do the damnedest things!” growled the Oklahoma bandit.
“That’s a matter of opinion!” Nace told him.
Diving out a quick hand, the Robin Hood searched Nace. He found the derringer which the private detective had taken from Jaxon.
“Hell!” he snarled, and tried to give Nace back the weapon.
Nace scowled, knocked at his hand. The derringer flew off in the shrubbery somewhere.
The Robin Hood sat back with a pained expression on his wolfish features.
“If I ever catch you with a gun in your hand, I’m going to kill you dead!” he promised.
Nace replied nothing. In the eastern newspapers he had read of this fellow—and wondered how one man could garner such a reputation. Now that he was in contact with the Robin Hood, the answer was clear. The man had a code of honor and adhered to it. He was a character from the old, two-gun west, transplanted to 1933.
The Robin Hood shoved his wolf jaw out. “We’re going in! There ain’t nobody in there, but we’ll go anyway! I want to talk to you.”
They entered the house through a rear door which was unlocked and gave into a kitchen. The furniture, Nace noted, was swathed in dust covers. The place showed few signs of recent occupancy.
Jaxon was deposited on a divan. One of the Robin Hood’s men went into the kitchen, ran water into his hat, came back, and doused the fluid on the recumbent oil editor.
“That bird’s a neckpain,” Nace said, indicating Jaxon. “Let’s get our talk before he wakes up!”
“An idea!” The Robin Hood jutted his wolf face at Nace. “I want to make a deal with you, feller!”
Nace shrugged. “If the deal is to give you the name of the man behind this hot-oil business, when I find out who it is—nothing doing!”
The Robin Hood’s long jaw lowered almost to his necktie. “How’d you know that was it?”
“What else could it be?” Nace spread his hands. “The man dead in the morgue is your brother. You’re out to pay somebody for getting him.”
“I’ll be damned!” grunted the Robin Hood.
“That’s what you came to the airport to see me about,” Nace continued. “And you arranged the hotel trap in case you couldn’t get to me at the airport. You did fix that hotel business, didn’t you—leaving the note in the newspaper office for Jaxon?”
“Yeah!” the Robin Hood admitted. “Say—you’re pretty sharp!”
Nace eyed him intently. “If you’re not afraid of incriminating yourself, you can tell me some things.”
The Robin Hood laughed harshly. “Say, feller, I ain’t afraid of admittin’ anything! If the law ever puts the shuck on me they’ve already got plenty to hang me! A little bit more won’t hurt!”
Nace grinned. “You know, I’d kinda hate to see ’em get you, at that.”
“To hell with what you think!” the Robin Hood scowled. “I’ll blow your damned head off if I ever catch you with a gun! What do you want to know?”
“Have you been mixed up with this hot-oil ring?”
“Sure, I’ve been doing most of the dirty work.” The wolf face became fiercer
. “And I got it in the neck! The big boss is trying to hog the proceeds! I don’t know who he is. I never have known!”
Nace waved his arm. “What about this house?”
“This is where the boss always met us. That is, he’d come and talk to us from one room, while we stayed in another.”
Chapter VI
The Smoke Trap
NACE squinted at the Oklahoma badman, absently fingering the cigars in his pocket.
“Well, don’t you believe me?” the man scowled.
“What difference does it make?” It was just as well, Nace reflected, to feed the fellow a little sass and keep him guessing. The Robin Hood might have likable qualities, but that did not mean he was a pleasant customer.
Should he get the idea Nace was no longer useful, he would be as likely as not to shove a gun in the private detective’s hand and demand that they shoot it out, wild-west style. He was that kind of a character.
“I’m going to look around!” Nace said, and started for a door.
“I’ve already done that!” The Robin Hood scowled blackly. “You stick here!”
Nace pivoted. “You know that blond girl?”
“Sure! And don’t you go making cracks about her, shamus! She’s a straight little number!”
“Don’t I know it!” Nace said earnestly. “You don’t, by any chance, know where she is?”
The Robin Hood hesitated. “I ain’t seen her since we split up, after leavin’ the Crown Block!”
“I thought so!” Nace’s voice suddenly sounded old, weary. “She has disappeared! The lice working for the big brain back of the hot-oil ring grabbed her!”
The Robin Hood swore softly. “How d’you know that?”
That, Nace reflected, was something else to keep the fellow guessing. No good could come of letting the Robin Hood know that Julia was Nace’s assistant.
Saying nothing, Nace passed through a door. He was cursed at, ordered to come back. He ignored profanity and summons, and began to search.
None of the upstairs rooms yielded anything. The glass-walled box of a room which sat atop the house was entirely bare of furnishings. There was a dust on the floor, a thin film. It was smudged and tracked where men, in the hours or days past, had crouched to watch the surroundings.