Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 10]

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

  “I noticed.”

  “I’m beside the phone booth,” said the Phantom’s voice out of the receiving-unit speaker. “Nobody’s in sight.”

  Everyone waited. Night arrived.

  Nearly an hour later, Kiwanda said, “I don’t like the way they’re doing this. Too much cat and mouse, too sadistic.”

  “They don’t seem all that anxious to get their hands on the money,” observed the chunky sergeant.

  Kiwanda remembered his coffee and drank some of it. It was cold and bitter.

  Later on the door opened. “Call for you in your office, Lieutenant,” announced the freckled sergeant who looked in. “Urgent.”

  Kiwanda jogged down the corridor and into his office. “Kiwanda speaking.”

  A tired sigh came out of the phone. “This is Lumbard. Can you vouch for me with the Ngoma police?” he asked. “I just dragged in here a few minutes ago. But listen, first get word to Walker. I don’t know exactly what’s up, but they’ve set some kind of trap for him. They’ve got Diana Palmer held prisoner up here.”

  “Hold on.” Kiwanda shouted for the freckled sergeant. When the man looked in, he told him, “This is Lumbard of MultiWorld. Take down everything he has to say and then talk to the Ngoma police people. Tell them he’s okay and to cooperate. I’ll be flying up there myself later tonight, I think.” He tossed the phone to the sergeant and ran back to the communications room.

  “We’ve got to stop Walker,” he said. “It’s a trap. Where is he now?”

  “He just got the word while you were out,” said the equipment man. “He’s to take the dough down to a deserted beach house and leave it there.”

  “We’ve got to stop him,” said Kiwanda. “Give me the address, alert the men in that area to circle the place and follow anyone who looks suspicious, just as we originally planned.” He spun on his heel and ran.

  Four and a half minutes later, he was being driven, in a police car with a siren wailing, toward the drop spot Brupp had finally given the Phantom.

  “That should be the one,” said his driver a few moments later. “House on stilts out over the water.”

  Kiwanda had his safety belt off and the door open an instant after the car jerked to a stop.

  He had to cover a hundred yards of sandy beach to reach the house. The Phantom was nowhere in view. “Walker,” he called as he ran. “Come back, it’s a trap! Walker!”

  An angry rumbling started inside the thatch-roofed house. There seemed to be a second of absolute silence. Then a second rumble came, enormously loud. Flame and smoke poured out of all the windows. The roof flew skyward, disintegrating in the air. The whole house followed it.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Good evening,” said Brian Folkestone.

  Diana, holding one hand to her temple, sat up on the purple sofa. For a moment Brian was only a long lean blur. She yawned, rubbed at her eyes, shook her head, and took another look. She saw him a bit more distinctly. “You weren’t really intending to reform,” she said to him, her voice dry and weak.

  “Bit too late for that, old girl.” He was perched on the arm of a matching purple chair.

  She looked, turning her head carefully, around the room. She frowned at the darkness beyond the windows. “What time is it?”

  “A shade short of midnight.”

  “The same day?”

  “Certainly,” he replied with a grin. “It would go against the Folkestone code to slip a maiden anything that would knock her out for more than one day. I’ll wager you have a smashing headache as it is. Care for a spot of coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Can’t offer you much else, since the kitchen facilities here consist at the moment of one dreadfully rusty hotplate.”

  “Where exactly is here?”

  “We’re not in Mawitaan any longer,” said Brian. “Think of yourself simply as being over the hills and far away.”

  “And why am I here?”

  “We’re rather hoping your swain Walker will believe you’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Haven’t I been?”

  “To be sure, fair lady, but not the stereotyped give-us-some-money-or-else fashion that Walker thinks.”

  “What do you—?”

  “Perhaps, comes the dawn, I’ll have time to impart all the hair-raising details to you.” He stood. “For the present, I have to get back outside and lend a hand. Only popped in to see if you were awake. Since you are, I’m going to have to lock you up.”

  “Afraid I’ll escape?”

  ‘We’ve climbed to the height of our profession by always taking precautions. Can you walk by yourself?” “I don’t need your help.” Diana got up carefully. She was hit suddenly by a wave of dizziness. She swayed and shivered. Against her will, she dropped to her knees, grabbing at the sofa.

  “May I suggest you swallow your pride and accept a gentleman’s arm.”

  “All right.”

  Brian helped her up. “Aftereffects should fade within the hour,”'he assured her. “At least, they usually do.” He guided her into the hallway. “This isn’t quite as posh as the Faradiso, and you’ll be sharing your room with two other chappies.”

  Bockman’s voice started up from behind the far door. “Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t bring an extra bag of snacks, too, Lum,” he said.

  There came next what sounded like a mumbled reply.

  “How could we guess we’d need it?” said Bockman. “Mayhap, you know these lads,” said Brian, taking a keyring out of his trousers pocket. “Work for some insurance firm or other. Never believed in insurance myself.” He inserted the key, and opened the door. “Look alive, fellows, I’ve brought . . . why do you have the lights out?”

  “It’s night and we’re trying to sleep,” answered Bockman.

  “This will never do. One can’t make the proper introductions in pitch blackness.” Brian’s hand swept up and flicked the switch. “Where’s the little one?”

  “Huh, that’s funny,” said Bockman, looking around. “He was here when I turned off the lights.”

  Shoving Diana in ahead of him, Brian drew out his .32 revolver. “Where is he?”

  Bockman pointed a thumb toward the window. “What? You must be joking! That’s a sheer drop of well over a hundred feet.”

  “Yeah, I pointed that out, but he figured he could make it anyhow.”

  “You mean the blighter did a swan dive out the window and into the lake?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, no need to worry any further about him,” said Brian. “He’s dead and gone for sure.”

  “He’s gone anyway,” said Bockman.

  The lanky young man took a few steps in the direction of the window, staring up at it. “Suppose he did survive? There’s the rub.” He turned to Bockman. “When did he make this death-defying leap?”

  “Oh, a while ago.”

  After rubbing a thumb knuckle against his cheek, Brian said, “Come along, both of you. I’ll lock you in another room. If either of you tries to go out of a window, you’ll be shot.”

  “What are you figuring to do?” asked Bockman as he headed for the hall.

  “I think I’d better make sure your damn chum didn’t survive his plunge,” said Brian.

  CHAPTER 25

  Dumb, the heavyset man was thinking. His name was Inge and he was one of the two men who’d brought Lumbard and Bockman up here into the hills above Ngoma. Anybody did a brodie out that window ain’t somebody you got to worry about no more. You can’t live through a jump like that.

  He was carrying a rifle now and prowling the underbrush beyond the front of the stockade fence. Brian had ordered him and his partner to stop helping with the moving-out work and get outside. They were to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious.

  The big Inge squatted, holding onto his rifle like a staff. With his other hand, he fingered out his pack of cigarettes, drew one free with his teeth, and lit it with his butane lighter. Inhaling smoke, he watched the darkness which surr
ounded him.

  Nothing to worry about out here.

  Insects hummed and chirped and whirred. Some kind of frogs called croakingly to each other. Inge had

  almost stepped on one of the things the other day. Ugly little devils, brown and warty.

  A hand gripped his neck and yanked him upright. In the same moment, his rifle was chopped from his grip.

  “Who ?” He twisted, getting a glimpse of a tall

  powerfully built man. The man was wearing a tight-fitting costume and a mask.

  A fist drove into his face, slamming at his jaw. Inge gasped and stumbled. One more smashing blow caught him and he fell, unconscious.

  He didn’t know it, but imprinted on his cheek was the image of a tiny death’s head.

  Inge’s partner was at the rear of the layout. Puffing on a dry black cigar, he was looking down at the lake. Hope that wise guy breaks a leg at least going down there, he thought. He could no longer hear Brian as he made his descent, but now and again he’d catch a glimmer of the lanky young man’s flashlight.

  He began a slow patrol of the few yards of rocky ground which hung out beyond the high fence. “Nobody’s going to sneak up on us anyhow,” he muttered.

  In another moment, he began to have an odd, unsettled feeling. He stopped, glanced carefully all around, straining to see in the darkness. He tugged his .38 revolver out of the holster under his armpit.

  He got out his flashlight next, hesitating a few seconds before clicking it on. He swung it first to the right and then the left. “My god!”

  Standing three feet in front of him was the Phantom.

  The guard dropped the flashlight and started to swing his gun up.

  The masked man was too swift for him.

  The gun went spinning out of the thickset man s hand. It spun out over the edge of the land and vanished into darkness.

  Two jabbing blows took the guard in the side of the head. He passed out while still upright and fell to the ground without knowing it.

  The Phantom paused to tie him, as he had done with his partner, then he moved on.

  Two men were still working in the warehouse. A beefy red-haired man, stripped to the waist, and a tall black young man.

  Two lamps hung down from chains attached to points on either side of the skylight.

  “We got us the wrong job,” the red-haired man was saying. “All we been doing is toting and carrying since this morning. Now that English guy, he’s got a soft touch.”

  “He ain’t English,” said the black man as he finished loading a handtruck with cartons. “I lived six months in London once. He’s too English to be English.”

  “Whatever he is, I bet he won’t have a backache tonight.”

  “Yeah, but he’s got a lot of responsibility. Anything hits the fan and it’s him they’re going to chew out right off the bat.”

  “I think I could handle a little more responsibility and a little less backache.”

  The black man rolled the handtruck over to the big open van they were loading. “I had responsibility once'and—hey”

  Across the top of the big van came the Phantom. He dove, flying straight at the young man.

  The red-haired man dropped the crate he’d just

  hefted up. He reached around to the back of his belt for his knife.

  His hand never got there.

  The Phantom had lifted up the other man and hurled him through the air.

  His body hit the red-headed man full in the chest, slamming all the air out of him.

  By the time the beefy red-headed man got his wind again, his hands were tied securely behind his back with his own belt and his fellow worker was trussed up on the warehouse floor beside him.

  Bockman shook his head. “I’ve had the feeling, you know, that Lum was alive and okay,” he said. “That he made it... but now I’m starting to worry.”

  “You told me he was a good swimmer,” Diana reminded him. “Chances are he did survive.”

  “Lum and I have been working together in the Mawitaan office of MultiWorld for over two years. At first, I didn’t much like him. See, I’m married with three kids and he’s still single. A cocky, flippant sort of guy ... I hope he’s still alive.”

  After a moment, Diana asked, “What did they say about Mr. Walker?”

  “Not awfully much. Brian mentioned they’d set up some kind of trap for Walker. He didn’t give away any details.”

  Diana pressed her hands together. “If only we could get out of here and warn him.”

  ‘Turn’ll do that if—somebody’s coming down the hall.”

  Footsteps grew louder and stopped. A second passed. The door suddenly came flying open, kicked in.

  Bockman got one look at the masked man standing on the threshold and exclaimed, “Oh, boy, what next?”

  “It’s all right,” said the girl, laughing. “It’s all right now.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The spotlight from the idling police halftrack cut through the night. It illuminated the two uniformed Ngoma policemen as they worked at carrying the men the Phantom had left tied in the warehouse off to the halftrack.

  Lieutenant Kiwanda crossed the slash of light as he walked toward the house. “We’ve found four men scattered about,” he said, climbing the veranda steps. “All swear they were attacked by some sort of apparition.”

  Lumbard, wearing borrowed clothes and looking slightly battered, was sitting in a wicker chair he’d dragged out onto the wide porch. “Still one missing then.”

  “Brian Folkestone,” said the lieutenant. “As I understand it, our friend Walker is searching for him now down by the lake.”

  Lieutenant Kiwanda, along with Lumbard and three members of the Ngoma police, had entered the fenced-in hideaway area ten minutes earlier. They’d found the guards and the workmen tied as the Phantom had left them, and Diana and Bockman waiting in the house.

  Bockman came out on the veranda. “We found some food in there,” he announced. “And Miss Palmer’s making coffee.” He boosted himself up to sit on the railing. “Was that Walker in the outfit?”

  “I assume so,” replied the lieutenant.

  “Don’t quite get that.”

  “When he and I were flying out here from Mawitaan,” explained Kiwanda, “he asked, me to let him come ahead by fifteen minutes. A somewhat unorthodox request, but since it was Miss Palmer who was being held here, I obliged. We stopped the halftrack a safe distance down the hill and he left us,”

  “I didn’t get a look at this apparition getup of his,” said Lumbard. “But from the way Bock describes it, the whole thing sounds vaguely familiar. Something I’ve heard about, some kind of odd story they tell. What the hell am I trying to remember?”

  “Perhaps it is the legend of the Phantom you are thinking of,” suggested the lieutenant.

  “The Phantom.” Lumbard straightened in his chair.

  “You don’t think Walker could be ?”

  ‘You might ask him when he returns.”

  Bockman rocked on the railing. “The Phantom, huh? Yeah, I’ve heard yarns about him ever since we came to Mawitaan. By the way, how’d Walker, or whoever he is, get out of the trap these pirate guys set for him?”

  “He didn’t,” said Kiwanda. “As far as the goggle-eyed pirates are concerned, that is. They’d rigged a bomb in a house on the beach. It was set to go off a half minute after Walker opened the front door and crossed the threshold. Fortunately, he entered the house by a second-floor window.”

  “So the place didn’t blow up?”

  “It blew up quite impressively,” continued Kiwanda. “After he’d searched the house and found the bomb, Walker rigged it to blow up as soon as he was safely outside. I arrived on the scene as the whole place blew sky-high.”

  “Rough on the neighbors,” said Bockman.

  “There are no other houses near it, which is why Walker risked the explosion.”

  “Now the pirates figure him for dead,” said Lumbard. “Meaning they’ll maybe go
ahead with their plans.”

  “It depends on whether or not we can catch this imitation Englishman,” said Lieutenant Kiwanda. “If we do and can make him talk then we may be able to move at once. Otherwise, we’ll go ahead and lay a trap for them on their next liner raid.”

  “I’m afraid,” said the Phantom, stepping up on the porch, “Brian Folkestone got away.” He was again wearing his trenchcoat and dark glasses.

  “Must have got wind of the fracas up here and never come back from down at the lake,” said Bockman.

  “Apparently so,” said the Phantom.

  “Something I’d like to ask you,” said Lumbard.

  “Sure, go ahead.” The Phantom met the other man s eyes.

  Lumbard looked away. “It can wait, never mind.” The Phantom grinned and went into the house to talk to Diana.

  Devil, the Phantom’s trained wolf, sat on the hearth of the empty fireplace. He was watching the two men who were bending over the big worktable in the room’s center. It was a large apartment suite, which only a few people knew existed within the nondescript warehouse building near Mawitaan Bay. The Phantom was using the apartment as a base. He had been here the past few days, and had kept Devil here since the night the Paradiso docked.

  Lieutenant Kiwanda, wearing civilian clothes, spread another diagram out. “And here’s the layout of the S.S. Hermosa, from the sun deck down to the C deck.”

  “She’s a lot larger than the S.S. Bonita,” observed the Phantom. He tapped a finger against the rim of his dark glasses as he studied the plans of the liner.

  “Which will it be—the Hermosa or the Bonita. They’re the only two cruise ships that’ll be leaving Mawitaan harbor tomorrow.”

  “The Hermosa seems a better bet,” said the Phantom. “A somewhat more expensive ship, more wealthy passengers.”

  “The pirates may expect us to think that way.”

  “As far as we know, they haven’t any suspicion we even know they have a job planned for tomorrow.” “After having four of their men captured and losing a good part of the loot from their last venture,” said the black lieutenant, “they’re no doubt going to be cautious.”