The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  “A fine, plump bird,” answered Timuroff. “You can have the beak if you’re nice to me.”

  Pete snorted as the phone was answered, apologized to it, then spent a few minutes explaining matters, first to Traeger’s answering service, then to the man himself.

  “He’s on his way,” he reported finally. “He’s calling three of his best boys, but we won’t have to wait for them. All right, how about that canary?”

  “First,” Timuroff informed him, “I am delighted. Heck didn’t hesitate before he turned the whole thing over to us, the key included. That cleared up my last small doubt where he’s concerned. Next, though I didn’t want to say so near the ladies, I think this house does have its Phantom of the Opera, though I doubt whether he’s actually in residence. We ought to have at least a quarter hour to scout around after Heck takes off, oughtn’t we?”

  “Scout around? You mean looking for your phantom?”

  “For him, or at least for the way he’d been getting in and out.” Timuroff dropped his voice. “He has to be the man who kidnapped Muriel Fawzi, and it probably was he who killed van Zaam. Pete, there must be at least one more passage, leading to a doorway to and from the house. We would’ve had to figure that out even if there hadn’t been a phantom laughing underground.”

  “Do you reckon van Zaam knew about it?”

  “No. If he had, they’d not have brought him in and let him introduce himself. That was insurance in case someone spotted him. Whoever hired him probably had a pat explanation ready for his being there-—that and a solid alibi. The act he put on, saying good-bye before Munrooney left to go upstairs, would’ve been part of it, and I suppose they planned to sneak him out through the side door or out the back after the stabbing. The extra passage would’ve been a secret they couldn’t trust him with.”

  “Tim, do 5rou really think that sharp old coot upstairs has lived here all these years and doesn’t know it’s even there? Boy, some canary!”

  “Pete, Heck got the house from Mrs. Albright after Albright’s death. Now, just suppose there’d been some really shady business going on? What better way to cover up than to have passages all through the house? You’d tell your wife and a few friends about all but one or two of them; then every accidental noise would be explained. Does that make sense? Anyhow, can you imagine Heck keeping something like that all to himself?”

  “Okay,” Pete said grudgingly, “we go down into the catacombs, and hold a phantom hunt. You beat the wash pan, and I’ll hold the sack. And if we catch the character, then what?”

  Timuroff smiled grimly. “Then probably we’ll find we’ve known him for years.”

  Hector Grimwood called to them from the hall. He had his own suitcase and Penny Anne’s. “Can Mr. Traeger come?” he asked.

  “You’re all set up,” Pete told him. “Have you left word with Mrs. Hanson about phone calls and all?”

  “I’ve told her just what Tim suggested.”

  “Good. We’ll help you carry your stuff down to the car.”

  Penny Anne and Liselotte came down the stairs, and somehow everybody managed to squeeze into the little elevator.

  “Floor?” asked Pete.

  “The bargain basement, please,” laughed Penny Anne.

  Down they went, and the elevator door opened into a hall neither Timuroff nor Pete had seen before. It too was paneled, but very plainly, and a stout door led from it directly to the courtyard, now empty of patrol cars and with its iron gates standing open.

  They crossed to the converted stable, and Timuroff made appropriate admiring noises while the doctor brought the gleaming twelve-cylinder Rolls-Royce to life and Pete opened the garage doors. “Remember!” called Liselotte, as the car glided majestically away. “You must come right home!”

  The Rolls turned right and vanished down the hill, and Timuroff and Pete closed the iron gates and bolted them. Then they walked slowly back across the cold stone pavement into the house. In the elevator, Pete was tempted to suggest that they might be embarrassed if they found what they were looking for, a real phantom, armed and grisly, waiting for them. Then he recalled his training, his own .38 Chiefs Special, and the .45 automatic which, in times of stress, Timuroff carried discreetly in his waistband.

  They made their way between the cases containing Dr. Grimwood’s porcelains into the poker parlor. Timuroff opened the doors of the armoire, and unlocked the sliding panel at its rear. They turned the light on, and stood inside the cubicle.

  “You think we’ll find a secret door in that?” Pete said dubiously, pointing at the plain panels separated by narrow verticals.

  “Perhaps,” Timuroff replied. “Usually the keyholes are covered by ornamental detail. You grasp the detail very firmly, pull it out and turn it. And there the keyhole is, quite safe from being found by accident. However, here we’re going to have to look for something else.”

  He was moving from one panel to another, frowning, pressing his ear to each and knocking softly. Finally, at the second from the end, he stopped.

  “I think you’ve got yourself a wild-goose chase,” Pete told him.

  It took him two more minutes to find what he was searching for. He pointed to it—a mere nothing, a tiny hole almost at the top of a divider, as though the wood-stained putty hiding a finishing nail had fallen out. It had been there a long time. Its edges were very slightly beaten down. “What do we have I could push into that?” he asked.

  Pete fumbled in his pockets. “What about a paper clip?”

  Timuroff took it, straightened it out carefully. Reaching up, he inserted it and pushed. It met resistance, but the resistance was not hard. The wire went in an inch, a good inch and a quarter. There was a massive, muted click.

  Timuroff pushed the panel gently. It began to open, against a weight or spring. He moved swiftly to one side, and instantly the .45 was in his hand. He pushed the panel open all the way.

  They looked down on a dark stair. It ended at a door.

  “Have you a flashlight?” whispered Timuroff.

  “All good boy scouts do,” Pete whispered back, gun ready. “But I’m going down ahead of you—that’s my job.”

  “No, Pete,” Timuroff smiled at him. “This is my canary. I’ll find the keyhole; it’s probably not hidden. Then douse the light and follow me. I’ll open up and duck inside, to the left. If nothing happens, follow me but go right. And save the light till we find out if there’s a switch inside.”

  “I don’t like it one little bit,” Pete said.

  Timuroff moved softly down the stairs. He tried the door before he tried the key. It was unlocked. He signaled up to Pete. The fight went out. He waited until Pete was only a foot or two behind him. He threw the door open.

  It opened on dead darkness, on cold air confined, on the smell of stone.

  There was not a sound.

  Timuroff darted through and to the left. He heard Pete follow, to the right. With his free hand, he explored the wall, and found a light switch where it ought to be, an old-fashioned metal and porcelain affair screwed to the doorpost. “Switch,” he whispered, to alert Pete, and twisted it.

  A light glowed, a dusty naked bulb suspended from the ceiling, its ancient wire filaments casting their yellow glow as reliably as they had in Albright’s day. The passage they were in was virtually a chamber, at least six feet wide and fifteen long. Its floor was stone. Hewn stones formed its walls. To his left, Timuroff saw another passage branching off. There was no one there…

  “He heard Pete gasp, and whirled. Seated cross-legged in the other corner, on what appeared to be a hassock or a eymg them coyly over a filmy veil, was a raven-haired, beautifully bare-breasted girl in scarlet silken pantaloons, with a brilliant blood-red jewel gleaming in her delightful navel.

  Long before, Timuroff had learned that the instant of letdown
is when one must especially stay on guard. He resisted the temptation to guffaw, remembered to keep a watchful eye on the passage to his left, and said politely, “Miss Muriel Fawzi, may I present Inspector Cominazzo of the San Francisco Police Department? He is investigating your outrageous kidnapping.”

  Tactfully, Miss Fawzi made no comment.

  Inspector Cominazzo muttered something mildly obscene.

  “Thank you,” Timuroff said graciously. “Do you suppose the villain brought this unfortunate child in from there?” He pointed at a dimly lighted passage near Miss Fawzi. “It probably connects with one leading right up to her bedroom, where there’s not supposed to be any. That could explain the laughter we heard up there.”

  …“Do you have to be so goddamn right all the time?” Pete growled.

  The antique bulb shone cobwebs down on them; and now, for the first time, they really saw the chamber they were in. The long stone wall before them was broken by a door, a door of iron held to the solid stone by a steel hasp almost as heavy as a railroad rail. It, in turn, was secured by a brass padlock weighing several pounds, which Timuroff recognized as one of those unpickable ten-lever locks used in the Far East to protect godowns full of precious goods.

  “Now what the hell’s in there?” Pete asked.

  “Possibly something very valuable,” answered Timuroff. “Or horribly illegal. At any rate, something tremendously intriguing. But I’m afraid we won’t find out tonight. We couldn’t even if we had the key.” He lifted the great padlock an inch or two. “Look at the keyhole. They’ve poured the whole thing full of melted lead.”

  The years had turned the lock a deep, dark greenish brown, the lead so gray that it was almost black.

  Timuroff dropped it. “Well, it’ll keep. Where do we go from here?”

  “We know which way he brought her down. Why don’t we reconnoiter down there to the left and find out where that leads?”

  “To the outside somewhere, I’d guess. The spot where it comes out is probably well screened.”

  “Let’s take a look. This time, I’ll go ahead.”

  Timuroff did not demur, and they set off. They turned a corner and found another set of narrow steps descending, another ancient light bulb.

  “We’re already on the basement level,” said Timuroff, “but back inside the hill. Here we’ll go underground, beneath the courtyard, probably. From the way that passage down there angles off, I’d guess it ends up somewhere round the stable.”

  Pete halted momentarily. “I’m sure glad that angle’s there. Otherwise we’d have no kind of cover going down.” He approached the angle cautiously, hugging the wall, and Timuroff followed him around it. Nobody shot at them. Here again the passage was of stone, and there were two more dusty light bulbs. As they advanced, the interplay of their own shadows peopled the thirty yards ahead of them with spectres. They reached a final flight of steps, and climbed them. The narrow landing was in darkness, and Pete’s small flashlight was required to reveal the door to their right. Here there had been no attempt to hide the keyhole or the iron handle under it.

  “Where are we?” Pete asked.

  “It’s all wood here,” said Timuroff. “Weren’t there a lot of cupboards along the back wall of the garage, with stairs up to the Hansons’ living quarters somewhere near?” He slid the key in, turned it, pulled the handle back. The door opened inward, letting the damp night air in with it. It was a massive slab of oak, with a now-visible false front of thin-cut stones, their edges alternating back and forth to match those against which they had been designed to fit. It moved slowly and very silently. It was not the sort of door that could be banged, even deliberately.

  Pete held it open while Timuroff went out. Two yards off stood the stone wall separating Grimwood’s courtyard from his neighbor’s garden to the east. A few feet to the left, a chimney jutted out a foot or so. Beyond it, shrubs and bushes grew, hiding the area from the service alley running from Kemble Street to Baker—an alley where, under the No Parking At Any Time signs, everybody parked.

  “Well, that’s how he does it,” Timuroff remarked. “Let’s find out where his keyhole is.”

  Pete handed him the light. On the door, and to either side of it, there were a few rusty bolt heads, like untidy architectural afterthoughts. One of them, reluctantly, pulled out and turned, and there the keyhole was.

  Timuroff came in again, and let the door close to. It did so solidly, without a sound.

  “We’d best be getting back,” he said, leading the way. “Traeger may be here by now, wondering what swallowed us.”

  “All right, we’ve got a phantom,” Pete grumbled. “The loudest noise he makes is his electric watch. I still can’t understand how come the Hansons haven’t heard him creeping in and out.”

  “People hear what they think they ought to. Mrs. Hanson probably would tell us that she and Hanson are plagued by heavy-footed mice. As a matter of fact, Albright may have soundproofed that one little stretch, with chopped cork or something primitive like that. He seemed to think of everything.”

  “Okay, what do we do now? Seal up the works?”

  I don’t think so, Pete. Of course, we’ll have to talk to Heck, but what I’d like to do is install a doorbell.”

  “With a little sign saying Please Ring?”

  “No, with a little gizmo that tells us when he’s there. I’d really like to meet the gentleman. From what you say of Traeger, he should be able to cook up something of the sort quite readily.”

  “No sweat. He’s a real wizard on the electronics end. He’ll have the thing in and tweeting in half an hour. I think it’s a hell of a good notion. If Grimwood isn’t happy with it, we can pull it out tomorrow. In the meantime—” Pete sighed wistfully, “maybe we’ll catch Kielty.”

  “That would be nice,” said Timuroff, “but I’m afraid not. It would’ve taken three Kieltys to hang up van Zaam.”

  When they reached the iron door again, he greeted Muriel Fawzi ceremoniously, and promised her that Dr. Grimwood would make mechanical amends for her indignities. “How about going back the way we came?” he said to Pete. “Traeger’ll have to be taken on a tour anyway, and we can check that other passage then.”

  “I’d just as soon come up for air right now,” Pete agreed fervently. “Your creepy-crawly tunnels down here underneath the opera are plain unhealthy. Tim, I never knew! so much could happen in one day. It’s less than twenty-four hours since you found van Zaam.”

  They went back through the armoire, and found Traeger in the library, drinking coffee and listening to Mrs. Hanson’s woes. He was tall and flat and pleasant, a few years older than Pete—just old enough, guessed Timuroff, to have fought for a couple of years in Korea, and solid enough not to be soured by it.

  Pete introduced them; saw that they liked each other. “Bill,” he said to Traeger, “how much do you know about this deal?”

  Traeger grinned. “I read the papers, and there’s been lots of talk. Also I called Jake Harrell after I heard from you, and he sketched in some more of it, mostly about Chiefy and that Kielty bastard. I told him if both of you are sure they’re pulling something dirty, that’s enough for me. He said you’d fill me in.”

  “I’ll whisper it while we pussyfoot along the secret passageways,” Pete told him. “Our first stop will be the sewers of Paris.” He opened the entrance by the fireplace dramatically. “Follow me, mes braves!”

  As they retraced their route, it became obvious that Traeger had already formed a surprisingly accurate picture of what had happened and what was going on. His questions were brief and to the point, and Pete had very little filling in to do except where the comings and goings of the phantom were concerned.

  “Who do we tell about this phantom bit?” asked Traeger. “Nobody?”

  “Nobody,” Pete answered. “If Kielty learns
about the other passages, it’ll just give him another rope to hang the doctor with. Right now, how could we prove there is a phantom, even if they’d give us half a chance? Tim thinks we ought to bug the alley door to let us know when he comes in or out.”

  “And if he does?”

  “For the time being, just make a note of it,” said Timuroff. “He doesn’t seem to be out to do any real damage—he seems to have something else in mind.”

  They stopped in front of the armoire.

  “So that’s where they hung up van Zaam?” Traeger remarked. “He really must’ve been right out from under the flat rock. Every time anyone talks about him, the smell comes through.”

  “Have you run into him before?” asked Timuroff, opening the heavy doors.

  “No, I’d have remembered him.” Traeger frowned. “It was the name that rang a bell. Wasn’t he mixed up with Hanno a couple years back?”

  “You just don’t like Hanno,” Pete said. “Can’t say I blame you.”

  “I pulled the whistle on them once when they were engineering one of their nasty half-threat, half-blackmail jobs. That was when Kielty and his pal—he hadn’t yet made chief—went all out to get my license. They never did forgive me when the state suspended Hanno’s for six months instead.”

  Pete slid aside the rear panel, they went through, and no more was said until the light went on to reveal Miss Fawzi and the padlocked door.

  “All the comforts of home,” Traeger said approvingly. “Well, there’s no point in giving me the rest of the grand tour; I’ll go exploring after my boys get here. I’ll get my junk out of the car, and set the bug up then. I’d like a closed-circuit spy-eye, or maybe a surveillance camera, but they’d take too much carpentry. Maybe we can work one in a little later.”

  “Let’s go back up the way she was brought down.” Pete pointed to the passage on the right. “It’s the only one we haven’t had a chance to check.”