Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 10]

by The Goggle-Eyed Pirates (v0. 9) (epub)

  “Fairly private, yes.”

  Lumbard nodded, poking at his carnation. “You’re pretty good at dodging questions, Mr. Walker.”

  “Tve found that comes in handy in my work,” replied the Phantom. After wiping sea spray from his dark glasses, without taking them off, he turned to watch the S.S. Paradiso. In the jungles of Bangalla, and more especially in the mysterious region known as the Deep Woods, the Phantom was called the Ghost Who Walks. When he moved among relatively civilized people, as he frequently did, a name was needed. He most often used Walker.

  When he’d spotted Lieutenant Kiwanda striding across the pier, the Phantom had approached him and requested permission to travel out to the liner with him. From the news that had come through so far, the Phantom knew that none of the passengers had been seriously injured in the pirate raid. But still, he was anxious to see Diana. More than that, he wanted to get a firsthand look at the ship.

  Centuries ago, the first Phantom had been the sole survivor of a pirate raid in this same harbor. When that first Phantom had adopted the costume and

  mask, he had vowed to war against piracy whenever and wherever it showed up. And through the long years each successive Phantom had taken a similar vow; each had been the nemesis of pirates everywhere. In the present Phantom’s time, pirates might operate on jet planes or ocean liners, but they were still pirates. He was dedicated to wiping them out.

  . a handsome dog,” Lumbard was saying to him. The Phantom smiled. “Actually he’s not a dog,” he said. “He’s a wolf.”

  Bockman choked on the celery he was chewing.

  After slapping him on the back, Lumbard said, “I thought he looked very ... wolflike. Domesticated him, did you?”

  “To some extent,” answered the Phantom.

  Lieutenant Kiwanda came aft and seated himself beside the Phantom. Though he did not know the true identity of Walker, the long, lean police lieutenant was aware that whenever Walker showed interest in a case, no matter what its nature, it got solved. “We’re almost there,” he said.

  “Nothing yet on the helicopter they used?”

  “No,” said Kiwanda. “It hasn’t landed at any known airfield. But then we didn’t expect it would.”

  A moment later, they were beside the huge liner.

  One wall of the ballroom was made up of high, thin mirrors set side by side. Diana saw the Phantom’s reflection there before she saw him directly. Laughing, she went running through the crowd of passengers still in the big room.

  “Eat,” she said as she put her arms around him.

  He took hold of her, kissing her. Then he said, “You seem to have survived the ordeal very well.” He was alone now, having left Devil, the wolf, waiting out 011 the foyer deck.

  “Outwardly, I’m in great shape,” she said, taking hold of his hand. ‘Inside, though, it’s all butterflies and pinwheels.” She watched his face for a few seconds. “I suppose—I suppose you’re going to go after these pirates.”

  “Yes.”

  “One more vacation together that didn’t come off.” “We’ll have some time afterward,” he promised. “What can you tell me about them?”

  Diana lowered her voice. “I can tell you one thing which may be important,” she said. “I don’t know how much you know about the whole operation ... but it’s quite obvious that most, if not all, of the pirates are still on board. They’re either passengers or members of the crew ”

  “Yes, it has to have been worked that way.”

  “Well,” she said, taking a deep breath, ‘1 think I have a pretty good idea who one of the pirates is. Would that be of help to you?”

  “It certainly would,” he told her.

  CHAPTER 7

  Her eyes on the harbor lights of Mawitaan, her hands resting on the ship’s rail, Diana said, “It could simply be coincidence.”

  “Possibly,” said the Phantom. “But you’re a fairly perceptive girl.”

  “Well, I’m certain the pirate who held me up in my cabin was wearing the same shave lotion as Brian Folkestone. He was in the cabin beside mine.” “Anything else to suggest it was the same man?” “Maybe that smell of lemons and sandalwood overly influenced me, but I think he moved the same way as Folkestone. A sort of loping walk some tall, thin men have.”

  “What about his voice?”

  “He talked in a falsetto voice,” she replied, turning to face him. “From what I’ve gathered from my fellow victims, all the pirates affected high, squeaky voices.”

  “A good idea.”

  “I got the impression, from talking with quite a few 40

  of the other passengers, that the pirates were all tall,” said the dark-haired girl.

  ‘1 wonder if they actually are,” said the Phantom, “or if the ones who are short simply wore built-up shoes. Everything tending to give them a uniform appearance.”

  “And making later identification tougher.”

  ‘1 want to take a look around the ship, and then talk to Lieutenant Kiwanda,” said the Phantom. “Point this Brian Folkestone out to me first. It’d be better if he didn’t see me.”

  “You plan to follow him after we dock?”

  “Yes, it might prove interesting.”

  “We can peek in at the ballroom windows and— oops, too late,”

  “I sense,” said Brian Folkestone as he came strolling along the deck, “that this is the significant person you’ve been expecting, Miss Palmer, and that I’m no doubt intruding. However, my curiosity, the famous Folkestone curiosity, got the better of me.”

  “Not an intrusion at all,” said Diana with a smile. “Brian Folkestone, this is Kit Walker.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Walker ” Brian held out his hand, grinning. “I’m curious because Miss Palmer has been anticipating our arrival in Mawitaan with such intensity that I had to get a close look at the cause of it all.”

  “An anticlimax for you probably,” said the Phantom as he shook hands.

  Brian’s grin grew broader. “Not at all,” he said. ‘Tm impressed by anyone who can practice teleportation, Walker, and materialize in the middle of the ballroom. Or did you get aboard by some more prosaic means?”

  “Afraid so. I came out on the police launch.”

  “Ah, so the bobbies have arrived on the scene. What branch of the law are you with?”

  “Let’s say I’m a free lance.”

  Brian’s left eyebrow went up. “You must have some drag with the authorities. Or are they using police launches as excursion boats these days?”

  “Lieutenant Kiwanda is an old friend of mine. When I found out he was coming out to the Paradiso, I more or less, thumbed a ride.”

  “I’ve never been able to buddy up with anyone on the police end of things,” said Brian. “Don’t know why exactly ... my conscience is, relatively speaking, clear as a babe’s.”

  “Speaking of the lieutenant,” put in Diana, “didn’t you say you wanted to find out if he could take me back to the harbor when you leave?”

  “Yes, I’d better see about that or we’ll both be stuck.”

  “You needn’t rush off, Mr. Folkestone,” said Diana, catching the young man’s arm. “Maybe we can have that cocktail we’ve been talking about. Is there a bar functioning anywhere on board?”

  “I believe the captain gave orders to open the cocktail lounge up on the Lido Deck, feeling that a fully operational bar was an absolute necessity under the circumstances.”

  “To the Lido Deck then,” said the girl.

  “Nice meeting you, Walker. I trust you won’t mind my escorting Miss Palmer.”

  “Not at all,” answered the Phantom.

  Seven minutes later he was in Brian Folkestone’s cabin. The Phantom began going over the room. While he was kneeling, looking under a bureau, he felt a slight draft.

  “Where’s that coming from?”

  Standing, frowning, he glanced toward the square porthole. For some reason the porthole was not closed tightly. Nearer to it, he saw the reason
. A small rectangle of cloth was stuck on a rough spot on the sill.

  The Phantom carefully took hold of the bit of material, then tugged the porthole open. He pulled the cloth free and shut the porthole tight.

  What he held in his gloved hand was a label. Printed on it was the name “Napoleon.” The Phantom dropped the label into a concealed pocket of his trenchcoat.

  A careful search of the rest of Folkestone’s cabin produced nothing further.

  The Phantom left the room unobserved and moved off to find Lieutenant Kiwanda.

  CHAPTER 8

  Lieutenant Kiwanda was standing beside the swimming pool on the Lido Deck looking up at the night sky. There was a quivering reflection of the moon in the water of the pool. “No trace of them,” he said.

  “None of the passengers saw anything suspicious?” asked the Phantom.

  “I haven’t had an opportunity to question anyone beyond the captain,” replied the lean black man. “He says several people ha,ve told him they think they know who one or the other of the pirates was. We’ll talk to all those people when we dock, but I expect it will be mostly a lot of fantasy and some spite. We might get something worthwhile, though.”

  “You don’t sound optimistic.”

  “This is the third, at least, of these goggle-eyed pirate raids,” said the lieutenant. “So far as I know— we’ll be getting full reports from the other police forces involved—no substantial clue has been turned up yet.” He watched the moon until a tatter of dark

  cloud drifted in front of it. “These fellows are very efficient.”

  “How many men do you think they had?”

  “It’s difficult to make a guess at this point. They seem to have been all over the ship at once,” said Ki-wanda. “That implies a large group. As I recall from reading accounts of their earlier efforts, they use at least two dozen men. There may have been more involved in tonight’s job.”

  “Let’s say at least twenty-four men,” said the Phantom. “Twenty-four men putting on long robes, masks, goggles . . . then taking them off and apparently throwing everything into the sea. Someone, some outsider, must have seen something.”

  The lieutenant shrugged, spreading out his hands. “I’m hoping we can find out something when the rest of my men come aboard. The trouble is, I can’t detain everyone. I can’t even hold the Paradiso up too long without causing a flap in high places. The man who owns the Paradiso, as you know, is a very powerful man.” He gave another, lesser, shrug. “Well, perhaps we’ll be lucky.”

  “I have a feeling we will be.”

  “You’ve come across something?”

  The Phantom said, “It’s only a hunch.”

  “A hunch about what?” asked Lumbard as he came walking up to them.

  “Have you finished your labors?” the lieutenant asked him.

  “No, I just came up here to inhale a little night air,” he said. “There’s an old broad down there who’s been telling me about a stolen heirloom for the last twenty minutes.” He turned toward the Phantom. “Has your free-lance detection unearthed anything I ought to know?”

  “Not as yet,” answered the Phantom.

  “I saw your dog, your wolf rather, sitting in a deck chair down on another deck,” said Lumbard. “He looked sort of spooky in the moonlight.”

  I'll be down on the foyer deck when you’re ready to go,” the Phantom told Lieutenant Kiwanda. Nodding at Lumbard, he walked away.

  When he was gone, the insurance man said, “I can’t quite figure that guy out.”

  “Don’t try,” advised the lieutenant. “Keep your mind on the pirates.”

  Lumbard remained for nearly a minute looking in the direction the Phantom had gone.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Phantom stood in the shadows on the late-night street, Devil beside him. He was in a recessed warehouse doorway and had a view of the customs shed on the pier a half block away.

  It was past midnight. The passengers who were leaving the S.S. Paradiso were finally being processed. Diana had come ashore in the police launch. She had gone on to her hotel alone. The Phantom was waiting now for Brian Folkestone to emerge.

  The young man had said, according to Diana, that he was going to stay at the Mawitaan-Plaza Hotel a few blocks away. The Phantom wanted to make sure of that and to see where Folkestone went once he was clear of the red tape of landing.

  A bent black man went by pushing a nearly empty flower cart. The sky had been clouding for the last half hour and all at once rain began to fall. Its intensity increased, and the old flower vendor quickened his pace. Soon he was running, the cart wheels screeching over the newly wet cobblestones.

  The Phantom looked once more toward the pier. “There’s our man,” he said to himself.

  Brian, the collar of his tweedy sport coat turned up, ducked out into the rain and went jogging to his left. A single tan suitcase swung in his hand.

  “Let’s go,” the Phantom said to Devil.

  When he reached the pier, he caught sight of the lanky young man turning down a narrow lane.

  “That’s not the way to the Plaza.”

  Carefully, keeping in the shadows, the Phantom began trailing Brian.

  The rain, hot and steamy, was falling straight down, splashing high on the gray cobblestones.

  Brian, at a steady jog, was moving parallel to the shore.

  The Phantom guessed he was heading for one of the saloons or run-down hotels which clustered along the water in this section of Mawitaan.

  Shining through the rain up ahead were the neon names of the various dives and flophouses. Seaman’s Haven, Harpoon Louie’s, Rooms, Maji Hotel, Lance O’Casey’s Bistro, Hotel Takataka.

  Brian sprinted, heading down an alley just beyond the Takataka, which was a narrow, shingled building with dark-green shades masking most of its windows.

  The Phantom silently and cautiously approached the mouth of the alley. He heard a creaky wooden door open softly and then close. Looking into the narrow alley he saw no trace of Brian.

  He entered, with the gray wolf trotting at his heels.

  A thin strip of light showed to his left. Midway down the muddy lane an unpainted wooden door was set in an alcove. The light was coming from beneath it.

  Stopping, the Phantom placed his ear against the door. He heard, somewhere inside, another door open and close. Bending, he looked into the keyhole. He saw this door opened onto a bare corridor with several doors leading off it.

  With a gloved hand, he tried the knob, turning it very slowly. The door was locked. From his belt, the Phantom extracted a tiny lock-picking device. In under a minute, he turned the knob again and pushed the door carefully open a few inches.

  Giving Devil a pat, a pat which meant the wolf was to remain in the alley, the Phantom eased across the threshold.

  He closed the door behind him, then stood listening for several seconds before starting down the hallway.

  Ten seconds later, his jungle-trained senses told him something was wrong.

  But he was too late.

  From straight above him a heavy object fell. Three vicious blows cracked against his skull.

  He took one more lumbering step before pitching over.

  CHAPTER 10

  There was a single light bulb in the ceiling. At one time in the past it had been painted blue, but most of the paint was chipped away and the bulb gave off a speckled light.

  It was the first thing the Phantom saw when he came to.

  “Want your glasses?”

  The Phantom saw Lumbard, down on one knee, beside him. Somewhere along the way the insurance man had lost the carnation out of his dinner-jacket lapel. “Thanks,” said the Phantom, accepting the dark glasses.

  “Found them lying on the floor here beside you.”

  The Phantom sat up tentatively. “And how did you come to find me?”

  Lumbard cleared his throat. “I get hunches, too, Walker,” he said.

  Devil came slowly along the corridor to stand w
atching his master.

  “I seem to be all right, Devil.” Standing, rubbing at

  the back of his head, he noticed that the few items he’d carried in his clothes were scattered over the floor. He bent to retrieve them.

  “Let me give you a hand,” offered Lumbard. “See, I figured you might know more than you were letting on. And when I noticed you were sticking around the pier to wait for the Paradiso to come in . . . well, I decided to hang around myself.”

  The Phantom glanced in the direction of the doorway. Up over it was a narrow wooden ledge. Someone had hidden there and then hurled himself down on him, hitting him with some kind of blackjack. He rubbed his head again. “So you followed me here?”

  “I worked as a private investigator before I got into the insurance game,” said Lumbard. “I’m pretty good at tailing, though in those days it was mostly wayward husbands.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the doorway to the alley. “I waited out there for a good half hour. Then I began to think something might have gone wrong for you in here. Took me another five minutes to persuade your ... wolf I was on your side and get through the door. I guess I give off a basically trustworthy scent.”

  “Did you see anything, anyone?”

  “Only you stretched out on your face. I rolled you over to make sure they hadn’t stuck a knife in you or something.” He reached out and brushed dust from the Phantom’s elbow. “There, that’s better. You were following one of the passengers, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, and he must have either been expecting it or become aware of it,” said the Phantom. “He led me here so I could be removed from his trail.”

  “Lucky they didn’t decide to remove you permanently.”

  “I think these goggle-eyed pirates want to avoid killing unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “But now you know who one of them is. That makes you dangerous to them.”

  “I know the name and the fake persona one of them used this time out,” said the Phantom. “I don’t think Brian Folkestone exists any more.”

  “That’s what he was calling himself, huh? I think I ran into him aboard the Paradiso ... tall kid, slightly British, full of whimsical remarks.”