Mystery Of The Sea Horse

by Lee Falk

  "That's what we're in the middle of trying to find out." He led the Phantom along to Dave Palmer's bedroom.

  "You had a man guarding this house," said the Phantom.

  "That's him lying on the couch in the living room," said the other man. "Somebody slugged him."

  Diana's uncle was stretched out on top of his brightly covered bed. He pushed aside the bearded young doctor who was bending over him when he saw the Phantom approaching. "I should have been able to stop them," he said in a weak voice.

  "They took Diana?"

  "You ought to stay still, Mr. Palmer," suggested the young doctor as he backed away. "The shock of all this . . ."

  "Yes, came right into the house, one of them any-

  way," went on Diana's uncle. "That was at about —I don't know what time it is now."

  "We figure the girl was kidnapped about an hour ago," said the plainelothesman.

  Sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, the Phantom asked, "Who was it? Somebody from Danton?"

  Uncle Dave closed his eyes. "That's what's sort of funny," he said. "This fellow gave me the impression he was looking for Danton, too. He had the crazy notion Di could tell him where Danton was."

  "That's why they took her?"

  "That's what he said."

  "What did the man look like?" asked the Phantom.

  The policeman offered, "I can give you that."

  Uncle Dave opened his eyes again. "I can do it, Sergeant. He was a very cool customer. I'd estimate he was a bit over forty, a little under six feet and with very light-blond hair. A very . . . kind of bland-looking guy. You'd pass him on the—"

  "Was he wearing dark glasses and a blue sport shirt?" the Phantom said.

  "Yes, he was. Do you know him?"

  The plainclothesman came closer to the bed. "Yeah, do you have some idea about who grabbed your girlfriend, Walker?"

  The Phantom stood up. He was certain Diana, for reasons he couldn't as yet understand^ had been kidnapped by the men he'd encountered at Laura Leverson's cottage. But this was one job of tracking he wasn't going to delegate to anyone else. "No, I'm afraid not, Sergeant."

  "But you . . ." began the sergeant.

  "I'll see you soon again, Uncle Dave."

  "Wait now," said the policeman.

  The Phantom kept on walking out of the room and down the hallway.

  "Hey," said the plainclothesman. "What's he up to?"

  Uncle Dave smiled faintly. "I think he's up to bringing Diana home."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The plump cafe owner poured himself another root beer. After a few slurping swallows, he turned to the Phantom to ask, "Freshen your coffee up a little?"

  The Phantom was sitting sideways at the otherwise empty counter. He was watching the phone booth at the back of the short narrow cafe. "No, thanks."

  "Don't see how you can drink anything hot on a day like this anyway." The cafe owner slurped down the rest of the soft drink. "I guess we've got different metabolisms, like they say. I couldn't go around in an overcoat like yours either with this damn Santa . . ."

  The phone inside the shadowy booth began to ring. The Phantom went in and answered it. "Walker," he said.

  Agent Terry, up in San Francisco, said, "I checked that license number out for you through Motor Vehicles in Sacramento. Don't know if it'll do you much good."

  "Why?" The Phantom had called his friend a few minutes earlier to ask him for a run-down on the license number he'd remembered from the car of the men he was fairly certain had taken Diana.

  "Well, the car is registered to an outfit down your way called Katz's Kwik Karentals." Terry gave him the address.

  "Thanks, I'll follow it up."

  "You're sure you don't want me to give you

  more help on this? I can get you some men to—"

  "Not yet." The Phantom hung up and left the booth.

  The counterman tilted his head in the direction of the phone. "Good news or bad?"

  The Phantom dropped some change on the formica counter. "I'm not sure yet."

  "Of course, if Mr. Katz were here," said the freckled young man behind the battered desk.

  The rental office was at the corner of a small lot. Ten cars sat outside looking toward the distant ocean.

  Decreasing the distance between himself and the young man, the Phantom said, "I want to know who has this car out." He repeated the license number.

  "Anyhow, this is my lunch hour." He indicated the paper plate and a half of a roast-beef sandwich before him.

  "I can let the police come and ask you." The Phantom stopped directly in front of the desk. "But that will take time. And I don't have time to waste."

  "We all got problems, sir. But you can't—"

  The Phantom grabbed the freckled young man out of his swivel chair. "Give me the address, no more wisecracks."

  "Well, I suppose Mr. Katz won't really mind," he decided. "Could you put my feet back on the floor so I can walk over to our rental book, please?"

  Dropping him back on his feet, the Phantom followed him to the small office's other desk.

  While flipping through a thick loose-leaf binder, the young man said casually, "You some kind of private detective?"

  The Phantom made no answer.

  "Yes, sir, this looks like your baby." He pointed a mustard-smudged finger at the book page. "That particular car was rented for a month in advance by a Mr. A. Anderson, and here's the address."

  The Phantom studied the penciled notations on the form. "Been in town almost two weeks at least," he said. "Do you remember what Anderson looked like?"

  Poking at a squiggle at the bottom of the sheet, the young man said, "Mr. Katz handled that transaction, sir. But, like I tried to tell you, he should be back in . . ."

  The Phantom was already outside.

  The desk clerk was apparently a woman, even though she was wearing a coat and tie. "I notice you're admiring my necktie," she said across the curved registration desk at the Phantom. "It was hand-painted for me by my son, Franklin, for my last birthday."

  The Phantom asked the heavyset woman, "Is Mr. Anderson in?"

  She rested four fingers on the topmost palm tree on her tie. "Which Mr. Anderson would that be?"

  "A. Anderson. A tall blond man, about forty."

  "Oh, you mean Andy. I always called him Andy during his all too-brief stays with us," said the lady desk clerk. "We get a lot of people come and go here at the Palma Hotel, but he certainly was one of the nicest. What we used to call, in my day, a real sweet—"

  "He's not staying here now?"

  "Andy?" She shook her head sadly. "No, more's the pity. Andy and his other friend moved out more than a week ago. Yes, a good week or more it was. That day we had all that messy fog. And

  couldn't we use a little moisture in the air today with all those fires burning."

  "Where'd he go?" asked the Phantom. "Andy?" She took a jiggling step back from the counter. "Now he didn't leave me a forwarding address, because he said he just never got much mail to speak of. Funny thing, him such a sweet and friendly man."

  "But you have some idea where he went?" She nodded her head, which caused her chins to ripple. "Andy and that sourpuss friend of his, Mr. Fulmer, got a chance to sublet a cute little place up in the hills. Now where was it?" She suddenly turned toward the half-open door behind her to bellow, "Collin!" Smiling at the Phantom, she explained, "Collin is my other boy."

  Collin was long and thin, wearing a frayed jumpsuit. "Now what?" He gestured with the wrench in his bony right hand. "I can't run no more errands till I fix this faucet I thought you wanted . . ."

  "Where did Andy go?"

  "Not my turn to watch him." He started to return to the back room.

  "It's important," said the Phantom, taking out I his wallet, "that I find him."

  Collin shuffled nearer. "Ten dollars' important?"

  The Phantom took a ten-dollar bill from the wallet.

  Collin said, "They got a place bel
onging to a guy I know. It's kind of isolated, off the end of a deadend road and sort of by itself. But her sweet Andy claims he likes privacy," "Where is it?"

  Collin tore a memo off the pad next to the regis

  ter, and slowly hand-lettered an address. "There

  you go."

  The Phantom exchanged his ten-dollar bill for the slip of paper. "I'd like to surprise Andy. So don't call him."

  "That'll cost another ten bucks," Collin told him. "To keep it a surprise."

  Hearing the fire engines shrieking up behind him, the Phantom pulled his black coupe off to the side of the curving hill road.

  Two scarlet engines roared by, heading in the same direction he was.

  The sky up here was a smoky orange; cinders sparkled in the air. The Phantom was three blocks from the cul-de-sac block where Anderson might be holding Diana. He continued his climb. Pie was able to drive another block and a half.

  Two uniformed men were setting out yellow sawhorses, closing off the street.

  One of them waved him back. "Bad fire up here! Nobody can go in!"

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A little over a half hour earlier, Anderson had told Diana, "I don't believe in torture."

  "I'm glad to hear that," she said.

  "But there are many other ways to get information."

  The dark-haired girl was tied securely to a straight-backed wooden chair. She was sitting in the middle of a round, hooked rug in the center of a narrow living room. The hot winds were buffeting the house, shaking the thin trees, chasing dry leaves and twigs down the street. "I don't know where Chris Danton is," she repeated.

  Fulmer, wearing his suit jacket again, was on a chintz-covered chair near Diana. "If you cooperate, Miss Palmer, nothing bad will happen."

  Diana laughed. "You don't consider being kidnapped and bound and held prisoner in this ramshackle house of yours is bad?"

  "Nothing worse," amended Fulmer. "We wish you no harm. It is Langweil we . . . that is, it's Danton we want."

  "What did you call him?" asked the girl.

  Fulmer turned away, coughing into his hand.

  Anderson smiled one of his calm smiles. "There's no need for concealing facts from you, Miss Palmer," he said. "Since you quite probably know them already."

  "What facts?"

  "Your good friend, who at the moment prefers to

  be known as Chris Danton, is actually Rolf Lang-

  weil."

  The name meant nothing to Diana. Her face showed that.

  Frowning, Anderson said, "Surely, you've heard of Colonel Rolf Langweil?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Langweil had a nickname throughout Europe during World War II," continued Anderson. "They called him Doktor Tod, that is to say, Doctor Death. He ran an experimental laboratory at one of the most notorious concentration camps. Surely, you've heard of him?"

  She shook her head. "That was three: decades ago. I. . .

  "I was a boy then myself," said Anderson. "Yet I remember him. I have personal reasons for remembering Rolf Langweil well."

  "And that's why you're hunting him?"

  "The chief reason," answered Anderson. "My profession is the hunting of men. But this time, I am working mainly for myself."

  'Why? To bring him back to some kind of trial someplace?"

  Anderson chuckled. "We were employed by a militant faction of ... of one of the nations which has good reason to hate Langweil. But they decided my methods were too harsh. So now I hunt him because I remember. Remember what he did to what was once my family."

  Diana couldn't keep from shivering. "But Chris Danton," she said. "He's hardly older than you are. He would have been a little boy during World War II."

  "An illusion, his youth," replied Anderson. "I'm surprised someone who knows him as well as you could, apparently, be deceived. Langweil, or

  Danton, as he's dubbed his more youthful-seeming persona, has had at least two long and complicated rejuvenation treatments since he vanished from Berlin during the fateful summer of 1945."

  "Chris Danton, some kind of ex-Nazi? It's incredible," said Diana. "I thought you two were rivals of his, rivals in the narcotics business."

  "Not at all," said Anderson. "It's interesting, by the way, that Langweil has gone from one filthy business to another over the years. And now—"

  The telephone rang.

  "Who could that be?" Fulmer sat up straight.

  Anderson jerked a large handkerchief from his hip pocket. He spun it into a gag. "Wait till I make sure she's quiet." He tied the gag tightly over the girl's mouth.

  The phone was on a flimsy table against the wall. "Hello, yes?" Fulmer's plump face held a puzzled look. "Mrs. Hugo? Oh, yes, down the street. What? No, we hadn't . . . well, I don't . . . yes, yes, of course. Thank you." He dropped the receiver.

  "Well, what is it?"

  "Woman down the road," explained Fulmer. "She says the word's being passed."

  "Word about what?"

  "Fire." Fulmer jabbed a finger at the window. "The brush fires have jumped down from up that way. We have to get out of here."

  "Right now?"

  "Right now, yes. Orders from the police and fire departments. Take whatever valuables you have and-"

  "Stop parroting that fool woman. We have no valuables," said Anderson, still seemingly calm. "How much time do we have?"

  "Five, ten minutes." Fulmer wiped his face.

  "Listen, I don't want to be cremated here. We have to—"

  "There's still time," said Anderson as he leaned close to the bound-and-gagged Diana, "still time for you to tell us where Danton is."

  Her eyes were wide. She shook her head negatively.

  "Please, don't attempt to stall any further."

  A loud pounding commenced on the front door.

  "Lord, what now?" Fulmer took two steps in the direction of the door, then two back toward his partner.

  "Anybody in there? This is the police!"

  Diana tried to scream behind her gag*

  "They're on to us," said Fulmer. "What shall we—?"

  "Quiet, they're only evacuating houses because of the fire." Anderson gave the other man a shove in the direction of Diana. "Carry her out and leave her in back of the house."

  "But she may—"

  "We can't walk out under the eyes of the police with her. This is the best we can do," said Anderson. "The fires probably won't reach here anyway, and shell be found."

  Fulmer nodded reluctantly. He strained, grunting, and picked up Diana, chair and all.

  "Coming, coming." His bland associate strode to the door. He opened it a fraction.

  "YouH have to get out of here, sir," said the cop on the porch.

  "Yes, Officer, we know all about the fire danger. We're leaving immediately."

  Fulmer's face was speckled with sweat as he lugged Diana and the chair toward the little hallway leading to the back door of the house. Everything was starting to smell like smoke. "I'm sure you'll be all right, miss," he told the struggling girl.

  Suddenly he couldn't move. He struggled but he couldn't continue any further forward. The chair was wedged somehow among the support beams of the ceiling in the narrow hall.

  "Come along, Fulmer," Anderson was calling.

  "I can come in and give you a hand moving out," offered the policeman.

  Fulmer thought he could hear fire crackling quite near, right on the other side of the thin rear door. "My god, I don't want to burn," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Panicking, he let go of Diana's chair and ran away.

  He joined Anderson and the two of them stepped out of the house. There was black smoke swirling all around.

  "No personal property to take along?" asked the cop.

  "We believe in traveling light," said Anderson, smiling.

  The three of them began to hurry away from the little wooden house.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The sound of burning—an enormous dry crackling and a great roar of flame—was
growing louder all around. The Phantom parked the Alia Romeo on a side street and jumped out.

  The sun was hidden by thick smears of smoke. The wind seemed to be carrying tiny tongues of flame with it. All along this narrow street, people were working at keeping their houses wet, hosing down the roofs.

  A plump woman with a perspiring red face shook her head at him. "We're not going to make it, not enough water pressure. And the fire's corning too fast."

  He was running hard uphill. When he neared the yellow barricades, the Phantom left the sidewalk and ran between two houses.

  The patrolmen were too preoccupied to notice him. They were intent on clearing out the area, and it was still too early to worry about looters.

  He jogged across a dry back lawn, vaulted a hurricane fence, and cut across the next palio.

  All at once behind him, the small white house he'd just passed by burst into flame. The shingle roof first, then the whole house. Flame and smoke shot straight up into the hot afternoon sky.

  The Phantom halted for a few seconds. He discarded his covering everyday clothes and then ran on, unencumbered, in his tight-fitting Phantom costume. He could make better time this way.

  He ran by a small portable swimming pool, its surface flecked with black cinders.

  The house Anderson was using should be up ahead now. The masked man was fast approaching the cul-de-sac.

  He moved rapidly back toward the street.

  A uniformed policeman was standing on the porch of the house, his back to the Phantom.

  Then the front door opened wide, letting out two men.

  One of them was the blond man the Phantom had encountered at Laura Leverson's cottage.

  But Diana was not with them.

  Turning, the policeman became aware of the Phantom striding toward the house. "What the hell?" he exclaimed as he reached for his revolver.

  But the Phantom's twin automatics were already unholstered and aimed at the trio. "Where's Diana?" he said.

  Anderson smiled calmly, raising his eyebrows at the cop. "Is this one of your people? I'm afraid I don't recognize the uniform."

  The masked man was close to Anderson now. "Where is she?"

  "Listen, buddy," began the cop.

  The top of the house started to smoke, then flame began to eat at the wood and roofing paper.

  "My god," said Fulmer, "she's—"